The Return

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My time in Germany was wonderful.  But I had become a loner. My siblings were younger, my parents were older, and I never had the chance to establish good friends at school because the school itself was far distant which prevented most after school activities.

But once stateside, things changed.  Friends would gather and listen to my stories abroad and I soon found that I was a cut above them in maturity, and a grade level or two ahead in the California high school that I attended.  And I was the leader of my pack.

Sports, cars, and girls soon became my passion.  But soon, wrestling, baseball, and football gave way to cars, and cars gave way to girls.  Older girls which seemed to be closer to my maturity.  And that seemed to be the case well into my future.

Probably unlike most kids my age, I planned for the future.  Pop was nearing his retirement from the Army and I soon realized that civil service was my ticket, since I could get a blue collar job with minimal education.  And at any given opportunity, I would talk with government workers about their benefits, and such.

At age 16, I realized that I would soon be a father.  What a shocker.  To me, to my parents, to her, to her parents, and everyone else it seemed.  It seemed there was no one who offered any word of encouragement or support for a marriage, not even the gal that was to become my wife.

I always thought Pop was kind of a boozer, kind of ignorant, and kind of distant.  But he reminded me of a talk he once had with me as a child about how important it is make the world a better place, at every opportunity.  Although I never remembered that talk, it was reassuring to me that he supported any decision that I would make that fit his criteria.

So, within a few months, after court ordered emancipation hearings, and clergy counselings,  I found myself married and soon to be a father at age 17.
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Train Rides and Kisses

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It was at the height of the Cold War not long after Russia placed ballistic nuclear missiles in Cuba.   Pop was stationed at a Nike Hercules missile battery atop a mountain outside that Mainbullau town. Often he would often take me to work with him.  The missiles were stored several hundred feet below ground in a bunker.  Several elevator platforms would raise the missiles 4 at a time, to the surface where they could then be launched at Russian bombers invading Europe.  And Pop was in charge of executing the launch after receiving orders from Command.  Drills were conducted frequently and I got to watch.  How proud I was of him.

I attended Junior High and High School in Frankfurt some 70 miles or so from our house in Mainbullau.  The two hour trek each way every morning began when an Army ambulance, which Pop called a "Meat Wagon" would arrive at our house 2 hours before school.  The Meat Wagon made several runs a day down the mountain to Headquarters and back. I'd ride in the back seated on a wooden bench down the winding road 20 miles to a train station where I was dropped off.  I'd then ride the train for about an hour into Frankfurt where another Meat Wagon picked me up and took me to the school on the military base.  The sequence repeated on the return trip.  The routine continued through out the school year making it a 12 hour day for me.

Weekends and summer vacations were special.  When not sightseeing castles with Mom and Pop,  I spent most of the time on the mountain, and most of the time with Inge.  And I liked that.  In time I picked up her lingo and share mine with her.  We laughed and took hikes into the forest.  Inge was a few years older than I and was the daughter of the biggest and most successful farmer in town.

Mom cautioned me about Inge because she was from a higher class than I.  And she was likely wealthy and would soon go off to college in a year or two.  In Those Days, general education in Germany ended at the 8th. grade.  Some kids would then go off to college or a trade school, but most I think, would stay at home and work the farm.

At times while alone I would sing "Down in the Boon Docks," a 60's Billy Joe Royal tune about a poor boy from the other side of the tracks yearning for the rich girl across town, which he knew would never happen.  And I knew that Inge and I could never be.

I kept a diary as I think most kids did back then.  As the time approached that I presumed would be the end of our relationship, we were returning from a walk in the forest, when I asked Inge to make an entry in the book.  Following her short note, she signed it with a kiss leaving a light lipstick smear on the page and closed the book before returning it to me.  Although we never discussed it, I think we both knew our relationship would end, and I knew it just had.

And then I kissed her.
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