STARTING FROM SCRATCH - CHAPTER 2

I graduated from basic training in mid September 1968 with a 20 day leave to go home and travel to my new duty station at Kingsley Field in Klamath Falls Oregon. My recruiter told me that I was required to fly to basic but I could choose my mode of transportation after that. The flight down to San Antonio did nothing to alleviate my fears about flying so I put in a request for a bus ticket to Nashville and it was an arduous two day trip. If I had it to do over again I would have flown. It was my plan to surprise Debbie when I got home but she and Carolyn were walking home from the store and they saw me getting out of the taxi in front of her house. Carolyn hurriedly walked away and Debbie told me later that Carolyn was mad because she had not run to me. I didn't care because I was just glad to be home. I only had a 20 days to make a decision about whether or not Debbie was going out to Oregon with me. One of the first things I noticed about Debbie was her baby bump. My Aunt Didi planned to get her drivers license since she and her long time boyfriend Gigs had broken up recently. Gigs drove her pretty much anywhere she needed to go. She knew that I wanted to take Debbie to Oregon but I was broke and the only way I could take her with me was to sell her my car. That would give me enough money to pay for bus tickets out to Oregon and have enough money left over to rent an apartment.

This would mean that we would not have a car in Oregon, however; until I could afford to buy another one. My other option was to drive my car out to Oregon, leaving Debbie at home until I could save enough money to send for her. This would mean that I would have to live in the barracks for a while but in retrospect the second option was the best one. I just couldn't stand the thought of being away from her that long. Didi and Roy were doing their best to convince me that my car was not going to be able to make the trip out to Oregon. This was crazy because my Chevy II was a very good car and after I sold it to Didi she drove it for years. She would eventually sell it to my Uncle Doug who would also drive it for years. Selling that car was one of the worst mistakes that I ever made. In retrospect I should have driven out to Oregon by myself and lived in the barracks. In 6 months or so I could have had the money to put down on an apartment and to have Debbie flown out to Oregon. Alas, youth is wasted on the young. My immaturity insured that we would have tough path to trod for about a year after we arrived in Oregon. I can also blame it on being madly in love.

I know that there are married couples out there our age that have endured hardships as bad or worse as we did starting out but personally I don't know that many. Everything that we owned, besides the clothes on our back was packed into my duffel bag and the few suitcases that we were allowed to put on the bus. As I said earlier Debbie had a baby bump and she was already wearing maternity clothes. Her mom cried all morning the day we left which made me feel like the bad guy and after an emotional goodbye we set off on a nightmare of a bus trip. We were trapped in a bus for three long days and our only relief was when we would change buses or have a layover for an hour or two in some strange city. At that time most Greyhound bus stations were dilapidated, dingy old buildings in the worst part of town. Because our time was limited we had to eat in the bus station restaurants and we had to make our way through some very sketchy characters hanging around these bus stations. Sometimes the bus would be so crowded when we boarded that we would have to sit in separate seats. Once I sat toward the front of the bus and Debbie sat way in the back. This was before the interstate was completed and many, if not most of the roads that we traveled were two lane highways. The bus followed primarily the historic Route 66 through the southwest which was the most notable.

We traveled through Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona, entering California at Needles. From there we rode over to Los Angeles and after a long layover we rode all the rest of the day and night through California and into Oregon. Klamath Falls is only 25 miles north of the California line. We arrived there early in the morning on a bleak and cloudy Fall day. Oregon is one of the most beautiful states in America but Klamath Falls was, in my opinion, one of the ugliest towns. It was a logging town and it's hills had been stripped bare of trees. They were brown during the warmer months and white for much of the winter. Just outside of Klamath Falls was some of the prettiest scenery that you would ever want to see. The hills were brown when we pulled into the Klamath Falls bus station in October 1968. I called a taxi and asked the driver to take us to a motel that was closest to Kingsley Field. When we arrived at the motel we were absolutely exhausted and fell down on the bed together with our clothes on. Homesickness hit Debbie pretty hard from the minute we arrived and she immediately started crying. I held her tight for a long time trying to comfort her when I noticed that my ankles were twice their normal size. Debbie's ankles were the same way indicating that we had been on that bus for far too long.

I can't remember how long that were in that motel but we walked everywhere that we went during our first few months in Klamath Falls. There was a movie theater nearby and we would go to a movie once and a while to break the monotony. Theaters featured one movie at a time back then because they only had one screen. You could see the same movie over and over or wait until a new one came out. Klamath Fall's had one television station that went off the air about 11:00 PM. I had to walk the five or six miles to the base to process in and begin my tour of duty at Kingsley. I didn't like to hitchhike but occasionally a local rancher or Airman would take pity and offer me a ride. Eventually I arranged for rides to and from work but every now and then I still had to walk when my rides schedule didn't jive with mine. I learned about Shasta View Apartments from other Airmen who were renting there. Shasta View had formerly been Navy barracks during WW2 that were eventually converted into apartments. They were aptly named because California's Mount Shasta could be seen from just about anywhere in Klamath Falls. Shasta View reminded me of a wooden version of the projects back home in Nashville. There was an apartment shortage in Klamath Falls and many Airmen and their families were living there right along with the dregs of society. There were many good civilian families living there but as in any low income housing you also have to deal with the more undesirable element.

Kingsley had a nice housing complex on base called Falcon Heights but there was no chance for an Airman of my rank to live there. There just wasn't enough room. SSgt's and below generally lived at Shasta View because there was only room for officers and enlisted men of higher rank at Falcon Heights. Rank has it's privileges. I paid 65.00 dollars a month to live at 1417 Nimitz Avenue. Debbie received an allotment of 100.00 dollars a month and as an Airman with only one stripe I was paid 100.00 dollars a month bi-weekly. In the few days before payday we were down to eating spaghetti or peanut butter and crackers. I have found that the greatest motivator is an empty refrigerator and living in a dumpy apartment was also a great motivator to move up in the world. Our apartment had no curtains with only the brown shades that you might see in school portables. We had stick furniture and hardwood floors.

I started going to an ice house in Klamath Falls for day work when we ran low on money and on my off days I would arrive early in the morning and stand in a group of men hoping that the foreman would pick me. Sometimes I would wait in vain because I wouldn't be picked. I competed against other Airmen for work and men who were wino's and derelicts. There were several Airmen like myself with empty refrigerators. I remember one wino was so yellow from liver damage that he almost glowed. Whenever I see the movie (Cinderella Man) I am reminded of this time in my life. In a couple of scenes boxer Jim Braddock, played by Russell Crowe, is waiting to be picked for work on the docks in New York. Whenever I was chosen for the ice house I would have to squeeze into a large freezer that was packed with frozen food boxes. The temperature was about five degrees below zero and you worked on your hands and knees because there was not enough room to stand up. The men would form a chain, passing the boxes up to a small window where men working outside would place the boxes on a conveyor where they would slide them down be loaded on a refrigerated truck. Occasionally I lucked up and was chosen for the outside work loading the trucks. At the end of the day you were paid in cash. I did this for the entire year and a half that I was in Oregon. I also found day work with a local moving company and I worked one day on a potato farm. We also sold a ton of soft drink bottles whenever we could to get by.

At some point I managed to buy a 1955 Pontiac that was built like a tank and was basically a piece of junk. It was broke down most of the time but when it was running, however; it gave us some mobility. There was a mall within walking distance of our apartments and a Safeway grocery store. Debbie cried almost everyday from the day we got there because she couldn't get over her homesickness and she was begging to go home. We didn't know anybody yet and she was very lonely. I was working nine day cycles which didn't help. The first three days were swing shifts from 3:00 PM until 11:00 PM and after a 24 hour break I would work three midnight shifts from 11:00 PM until 7:00 AM. After another 24 hour break I would work three day shifts from 7:00 AM until 3:00 PM. Then I would be off for 72 hours and at the end of this break I would start the cycle all over again. Almost everyday I would find her crying when I came home. It was rough on her because she was pregnant and so far away from home.

I bought a cheap GE black and white TV that had about a 12 inch screen but before it was over I had to replace this TV three times because it kept going out. To this day I refuse to buy anything made by General Electric. It was hard to get a good picture because it had an antenna. Cable was available in Oregon but I was unable to pay the 5.00 dollar a month payment. At least my job was a diversion for me and I could interact with people but all she had was me when I wasn't working and a defective TV. It was rough working midnight shifts because Debbie was so bored during the day she was constantly waking me up. Debbie was going through a phase in her pregnancy where she was craving banana splits and her mom was sending her a dollar bill every week just to buy her banana splits. There was a Dairy Queen about a mile from our apartment and I would walk there to buy her a banana split but by the time I got home the ice cream was pretty much melted but that didn't matter, she ate them anyway.