Hank walked into the Club looking disheveled, like he’d been through something. Dirt on his uniform.

“Oh hi, Boss, what’s up? Where ya been?”

He looked right at me and sorta shouted, “You didn’t tell me about that car.”

I avoided the obvious wise-ass response (You didn’t ask me) and just waited for him to continue.

How did we get here.  Let me back up a few hours…

It’s Friday afternoon at the Air Force Accounting and Finance Center in Denver, Colorado. Circa 1972.

I’m a newly promoted major. I administered the pay accounts of around 300 wives of Air Force POW/MIA during the Vietnam conflict. The most rewarding, entangling job of my 30-year Air Force career.

Col Hank Roth, my boss, came into my office while I was on the phone with one of my clients. He had somewhere to be and didn’t want to interrupt, so he kept it quick. “Don, I need to borrow your car. Mine’s in the shop, and I need to go get something.”

I reached in my pocket and tossed him the keys. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll see you at the Club.” That meant Happy Hour at the Lowry AFB Officers’ Club, around 5PM. The usual camaraderie gathering for about 4-6 of us younger officers with our elder leader. Hell, he was almost 40. We were all 30-ish.

It was about 5:30, and neither Hank nor my car was at the Club yet. We weren’t really watching for him. We were enjoying each other’s company and the cheap Happy Hour booze.

That’s when Hank showed up. Late, dirty, and pissed.

“Why are you dirty, Hank?”

“Well, it was kinda warm, so I turned the AC on.”

Uh oh, I thought. The AC hadn’t worked in months. The compressor was dead.

“It blew dirt on me.”

Of course it did. Flip the switch, and all that fan does is stir up whatever’s been sitting on the floor.

“When I went to park, there’s no ‘Park’ gear and that damn parking brake wouldn’t hold on the hill I was on.  So I had to find a pole and back up to it just to keep the thing from rolling.”

It was a ’61 Plymouth Fury.  Not my typical car.  I was an “Oldsmobile man” for most of my Air Force and family life.  Needed a second car for my longer commute to the new job, and a friend of a friend had one to sell.  I’m about as trusting a shopper as they come, and this car was a “good deal.”  Yeah, the oddities I learned after I already owned it.  The kids loved the car, though.  It was peach and had power windows, which back then was something.  Up and down, up and down.  The kids couldn’t get enough of them.  Now, the manual crank is the novelty, as my granddaughter used to refer to them, “Ooh, your car has those rolly-downy thingies.”

Hank’s epic return continues…

“Then on the way back, I’m at a light, and the car just cuts off.”

Of course it did. That transmission again, I thought.

The Fury had a push-button transmission, a Chrysler novelty already fading out by ’72. If you weren’t around back then, you’ve probably never seen one, and that’s alright.

“I restart it, hit ‘Drive.’ Button just goes in. Doesn’t do a damn thing.”

That’s when he saw the screwdriver and put 2 and 2 together. I kept a Phillips in the compartment between the seats for exactly this.

“So there I am, horns blowing, and I calmly” (yeah, I bet) “unscrew the plate, pop the Drive button back out, and get the thing in gear.”

Then he drove to the Club. Not in a great mood.

By the time he got to the part about the screwdriver, he wasn’t mad anymore. He was laughing. So was I.

Enuf.

This is an “Uh Dad” sequel of sorts. Not the same story, just another one that came to mind.

Phones still rang in those days. No caller ID either. Mid-afternoon, some fall weekend, mid-to-late ’80s. This one’s earlier than the last “Uh, Dad.” Jim was in college, his brother Jeffrey a few years behind him, still in high school.

Phone rang. I answered. “Hello.”

“Uh, Dad—”

Oh s—. Here we go again.

“Uh, Dad. I had a little accident in the car. I’m ok, but I did some damage to the bottom. Jeffrey’s with me. We’re ok, but I need you to come get me. Oh yeah, police are here, and I got a ticket.” (Not sure about that part.)

It was raining. Streets were wet. He’d had to make a turn, going a little too fast for the conditions, and ran the car right over the median.  The car was no longer drivable.

Here’s what I thought. Self-censored a bit. What!! You little #%¥£~%^£. That’s my car. How could you be so careless?

But what I said was, “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Ain’t I cool?

Luckily, the twenty-five-minute drive gave me time to calm down.

When I arrived on scene, I saw the mess. And I saw them. The fear in their eyes, and the great news that they were sort of ok, brought the parent instinct right to the front. Their recollection may differ, but I believe I became comforter-in-chief. Rather than chief punisher.

Now, this is what they told me. Can’t remember who said exactly what.  They were both talking, nervously, of course. Jim had been picking Jeffrey up from football practice, bringing him home. Jeffrey still had his uniform on, helmet in his lap.

I asked how the windshield got cracked.

They told me Jeffrey had his seat belt on, helmet in his lap, and when the car hit the island and the bottom scraped, the impact threw the helmet up into the windshield. No visible injury on Jeffrey, so I believed it.

Wrong.

About forty-five years later, Jeffrey told me that was BS. He wasn’t wearing his seat belt. It wasn’t the helmet that cracked that windshield. It was his head.

Can you imagine the “what ifs” of that situation? Scares the hell outta me to think about it. So I won’t.

I dunno the statute of limitations on lying to your old man, but I wasn’t ready to prosecute… then or now.

Rightly or wrongly, it’s all part of parenthood.

How lucky and blessed we were, as parents. Our kids grew up safely and strongly. All three of ’em wonderful adults and parents themselves now, raising great kids of their own, with all the challenges that go along with that particular journey.

We must’ve done something right.

Enuf.

P.S. I’ve got several other “Uh, Dad” stories I could share, involving Christine or Jeffrey. But this one Jim asked for himself. Now that’s enuf.

A note before we start. This one’s a little different.

Jim, my editor/son, gave me some sage advice about my blog posts. He says he, among others, would like to hear what I thought about events, rather than just reporting on events.

Not sure I can do that, but I’ll give it a shot. I won’t be digging into anybody else’s business here.  It’s theirs to tell, not mine. But my own reaction, in the middle of somebody else’s crisis, that’s fair game. And Jim tells me that might be worth knowing, someday, for the grandkids and great-grandkids. What was going on in the old man’s head.

One quiet evening, for Marjorie and me at Scott AFB, our solace was disturbed by a ringing phone.

I answered it. “Hello.”

It was Jim. His response was a bit hesitant.  “Uh Dad.”

That’s a dreaded preface. Some bad news is coming, and I gotta react to it right, because a bad verbal reaction to a crisis could damage our relationship. I’ve gotten that call more than once over the years. This is one of ’em.

So I thought, “Oh s—. Here goes.” 

“Dad, can you come to the Mascoutah jail and bring $200 in cash to bail me out. I got arrested.”

What I thought but did not say was, “You gotta be f—–g kidding me. Arrested? Never.”

What I said was, “Can I use a credit or debit card?” Again thinking but not saying, “Who the hell has $200 in cash in his wallet?”

He answered, tremble in his voice, “No, it’s gotta be cash or I’ll have to spend the weekend in an East St Louis jail.”

If you know anything about the East St Louis crime situation, you don’t want your 19-year-old son to spend a weekend in that jail.

I answered as any decent dad would. “I’ll be there within the hour.” It was about 30 minutes away, but I had a problem. This was the mid 80’s. No ATMs! Where to get $200?

I became a thief.

At the office we had just had a bake sale to raise money for a Christmas party next month, for our department’s kids. There was about $300 in cash in our possession. I was the boss, you see.

I became a freakin’ embezzler for about 18 hours until I could get to the bank the next day.

Yes. I fleetingly thought, and may have voiced it to my wife, that maybe we oughta let him go to jail for a weekend to learn a lesson. Mayberry RFD, maybe. East St Louis. Never. I woulda borrowed from every Air Force friend I had to keep that from happening.

So, I drove to the Mascoutah jail with $200. Walked in and saw how scared my son was. And also noticed his busted lip and bruises.

Fact was, he was charged with underage drinking. Now, if you don’t think 19-year-old college kids drink beer, I got a bridge to sell ya. The police officer told me that rarely do they go after underage drinking on its own. It’s usually connected with some activity that attracts their attention. In this case, a fight.

My lucky Scooler son was trying to verbally break up the fight. He opened his car window to ask them to stop and was punched in the face.  Apparently, he also got out of the car to do more bruising of the perps knuckles with his face

Yay.

Bottom line. It turned out ok. I bailed him out. Paid some court fees and the charges were dropped.

It was a valuable lesson for a young man and for his dad. I had never actually been in a small-town jailhouse before.

I think my son also knows his dad will pull out all the stops to defend him, as required. Actions speak louder than words, but the wrong words at the wrong time can do irreparable damage.

Enuf.

Every August, I turn into two things I never trained for. A meteorologist and an actuary.

I watch the spaghetti models. I do the math in my head. Is the money and the hassle of evacuating worth the risk of riding it out? Ninety percent of the time, it’s a big nothing burger.

But.

I call it “White Knuckle Season” down here. August and September. Three storms stand out as why.

Cleo. August 29, 1964.

My wedding day.

Hugo. September 21, 1989.

The worst storm Charleston took in my lifetime here.

Floyd. September 16, 1999.

It cost our governor his job, and had me, Marjorie, and our cat Nicole driving to Atlanta for safety. Charleston never even got hit. Didn’t matter. We went anyway.

So why do I stay for this every year?

Because Charleston and I have a history.

September, 1962. The Air Force sent me down to Charleston Air Force Base to navigate C-130s, and later C-141s. Five very full, happy years later, I left the “Holy City” with the love of my life, Marjorie, our daughter Christine, and our son Jim, born March 6, 1967.  Five months later we packed up and moved our young, growing family away from what I’ll forever call my “home town.” 

Thirty years in the Air Force took us all over. But we came home to Charleston for visits and vacations whenever we could, and I got lucky enough to be assigned back to Charleston AFB for my last two years of service. We retired in 1991. Thirty-five years here now.

I don’t plan to ever leave.

Storms and all.

I do stay at the edge of my seat through August and September, though. Real hurricane season, in my book, even though Michael showed up on October 11, 2018, and either proved me wrong or proved the exception to my rule. Rightly or wrongly, I relax a little once October hits, even though the official season doesn’t end until November 30.

The other thing that makes it White Knuckle Season is the news.

The weather people start covering these things while they’re still off the coast of Africa. A week, sometimes more, before they could possibly touch land here. Good news, you get plenty of warning. Bad news, you get to stress out for a week about a storm that, nine times out of ten, never shows up at your door.

Hence. White Knuckles.

So here we are again. August 6. Two months to go.

Four, according to the meteorologists.

Sixty-five years in, and I’d still rather white-knuckle it here than be anywhere else.

Wish us well.

Enuf

Why am I sitting on the grass near the driveway of our rented beach house?

Why is my leg partially, and dangerously, under my grandson’s pickup truck?

Why is he looking for me, like he can’t see me? Why is he not hearing me when I’m shouting, “Don’t move the truck!!!”

Luckily, he didn’t back up over me.

The last time I fell on my butt was about 40 years ago. Marjorie and I were celebrating Christmas in NYC. Nasty, icy weather. I slipped on ice on 49th Street and Sixth Avenue, right in the middle of a busy street. I was back up in almost one motion. My main concern was, “Did anybody see me fall?”

That was then.

Now, falling is extremely dangerous for me. And I don’t move nearly that fast.

So. Back to the driveway.

I was heading to Josh’s truck to go get some Dukes BBQ from my house downtown. Got tangled up with a cement post, 2-3 feet tall, near the truck. Fell on my ass.

(Actually, I just involuntarily sat down.)

That was the first lucky part. I was on grass, not pavement. On my butt, not my face, elbow, hip, or shoulder.

No injury, except a scrape behind my knee, where I tangled with the post.

God only knows what would have happened had Josh quickly backed up that truck. Ouch.

He didn’t move the truck. That was my second stroke of luck.

‘Tis a compelling dilemma we seniors face. We want to stay mobile as long as possible, but that’s not without serious risk.

Safer to stay in the recliner all day?

Really?

Not without a bigger risk of muscle, bone, and brain atrophy.

This old man from the low country attic is gonna stay mobile as long as he can. A cane, or even a rollator/walker, are probably in the near future. Not great. But better than wasting away in a giant comfy recliner.

In the meantime, I’ve etched Rule #1 indelibly into my somewhat weakened brain.

Do Not Fall.

Easier said than done.

Sometimes a post jumps out and bites you.

Enuf.

Well, how ’bout a freakin’ garbage disposal that clogs up and backs water up in the adjacent sink. Ergo. Can’t use the dishwasher. Sheeit.

Beach week is over. Time to recover from a relaxing week with the family. Funny how that works.

Last story, it was the elevator breaking on the way out the door. Fixed while we were away. Home now, and it’s the disposal’s turn.

Josh, Cierra, and the great-grans back in Illinois with lotsa my stuff, given with my blessing. Christine back to work as usual. Works too hard. Mary Louise with me til Monday mornin, then back to Virginia via Amtrak. Hopefully a comfortable, on time trip.

With me til Monday. What other mischief could possibly happen?

Turns out, plenty. That clogged disposal was still backing up into the sink, and I’ve learned my lesson. No sink, no dishwasher, til this thing’s sorted. Don’t need a call from downstairs about the rain I caused.

Today, Sunday, we’ll try unclogging with baking soda, vinegar, and boiling water. Think that’ll work? Tomorrow I’ll probably call the plumber. Yay.

Well. Maybe not. It appears after about four tries with baking soda/vinegar and/or Dawn detergent and boiling water, I have opened up the garbage disposal. Maybe I fixed something. I’ll check Monday after Mary Louise is on the train.

Oops. Still acting clogged. Still no dishwasher.

Plumber came. Diagnosed it. Vowed to be back in two days with the right parts. Still no dishwasher.

Plumber’s back.  Yay. Garbage disposal unclogged. Dishwasher works. I’m $600 poorer.

AND. Now I can’t get email to work. No ins or outs.

What else is gonna break? What other mischief could possibly happen?

Enuf.

For close to an hour we drove through horizontal, heavy rain, thunder, lightning, and roads we could barely see. White knuckling it on the way back from Orangeburg.

Is there such a thing as a restful visit with Don? Well, let’s see.

Mary Louise, Marjorie’s sister, and saving grace for me these past few months, came to visit me this week. She came for a restful visit and to help me prepare for a wonderfully anticipated week at Folly Beach with family.

Duke’s

First we had a short car trip to Orangeburg (about 1 ½ hours) to pick up some BBQ, the only BBQ worth the drive, Duke’s. We had a bit of a taste while waiting for our big take-out order, of course.  

With bags of Duke’s pork BBQ and some warm hushpuppies in hand, time to head back to Charleston.

Little did we know, a gigantic squall line had developed between Summerville and Charleston that we were gonna encounter on our restful drive home.

Mary Louise and I, what a pair!! Two octogenarians (wait, based on the b-day card we keep recycling, she’s in her 40’s) with maybe one good eye between us.  Blind leading blind comes to mind.

With God’s good graces, we made it through the storm and home.

The Elevator

A good night’s rest at my house. Now let’s head to the beach after loading up my car. We were about to start the car loading process. The elevator is a key part of the process.

We get on elevator. Close the door and the gate. Press the button labeled 1.

Elevator says, “Uh” and moved down about 6 inches.

Uh oh.

I recycled gate and tried again. “1.” “Uh” and maybe another 4 inches.

Big decision. Do I try again and maybe get elevator to move, only to entrap us in between floors? Or do we get hell out of the elevator while we still could?

No brainer. Out we got. Quickly. Escaped catastrophe again!!

Ahead. A week at the beach with Don and several of his family members. Nothing else could possibly go wrong. Could it?

Stay tuned.

Enuf.

I met a couple from Connecticut. He was dressed as something resembling a Scottish Viking (if there is such a person) wearing a helmet, kilt, among other things.

His companion was dressed all in silver and reminded me immediately of the Chrysler Building, my favorite skyscraper.

I smiled. “Are you folks in a show, by any chance?”

“No,” they said. “We just came from a wedding.”

OMG. Can you imagine that wedding party?

Only in New York.

Here, at Rockefeller Center, is considered my happy place.

Marjorie and I always found our way here, on every trip up to the Big Apple. The Today Show at 6:15 AM, if we were ambitious. St. Patrick’s Cathedral, just across Fifth Avenue. Saks. FAO Schwarz. And always, eventually, a bench in the Plaza, looking out at the golden statue of Prometheus and the skating rink, with 30 Rock straight above.

Getting here this trip, with Christine, was its own adventure.

“Walking distance,” they’ll tell you. Six blocks from the Edison Hotel — 47th to 50th (that’s the easy part), then Seventh Avenue to Fifth. What they neglect to mention is that avenues are three times longer than streets in Manhattan. So-called “walking distance” is a relative term. Different for this octogenarian than for me in my 50’s.

Six blocks/26.2 miles. 

Same thing.

We arrived around eleven. Lovely morning. Christine went off to Saks and FAO Schwarz to shop for her grans. I found my bench.

I sat. I watched people.

Within a few minutes, I’d met a couple from Little Rock and a woman from Honduras. Then came the couple from Connecticut.

You already know how that went.

Christine returned a while later carrying an FAO Schwarz bag. Grandma had been busy. We sat a spell, then noticed the taco stand nearby. A fine choice for a light lunch.

Then came the trudge back to the Edison.

Six blocks.

Yes. Rockefeller Center is still my happy place.

Enuf.

The Circle in the Square didn’t feel like most Broadway theaters. The stage sat in the middle, the audience wrapped around it, and that night it felt like the old Copacabana.

Christine and I were there for “Just in Time,” the Bobby Darin musical biography, with Jeremy Jordan exceptional at playing Bobby. Great music and dancing. The whole room was in it.

I remembered Bobby Darin’s music well. He was a great entertainer. His recordings were part of my young adult life, from 1959 all the way to 1973. I knew he died young.

But I would have guessed he was in his fifties.

He was 37.

I didn’t know that until that night.

I also didn’t know how he died. He almost died as a child from rheumatic fever.  He survived, but the fever left him with a faulty heart valve. That valve is what finally took him.

Alone in my room at the Edison Hotel after the show, it hit me.  

My dad, Jerome C. Scooler, had rheumatic fever as a child. It left him with a faulty heart valve. He survived one heart attack.

But a few months later, he succumbed to a second.

He was 39 when he died in 1943.

I was four.

Yes, that was way too close to home.

Enuf.

58,000.

That’s the population of the cities like Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Bozeman, Montana. Sanford, Florida.

It’s also the number of names carved into the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.

58,000 Americans who didn’t come home.

This is Memorial Day. Time to honor those fallen service members and all who have fallen while serving to protect and defend the freedom of those of us lucky enough to call ourselves citizens of the greatest nation on earth.

Nha Trang, Circa 1966

Vietnam was a primary focus of about 10 of my 30 years in the Air Force. 1963 to 1973.

In 1966 I witnessed something that made me fervently wish that conflict would end. Quickly.

I was the navigator on a C-130 aircrew, grounded in Nha Trang, waiting on some maintenance. I walked out to the flight line.

Another C-130 was loading body bags for transport home.

The stench was terrible.

As I approached, I saw the tags. These are not the real names but names like these:

Sgt. Charles Smith, 23, St. Louis, MO

Pvt. Joey Jones, 18, Charlotte, NC

Cpl. Sammy Cohen, 22, Newark, NJ

The ages.

The ages struck me to the core.

What the hell were we doing?

When will this war end?

It Did Not End There

Not for me.

I flew several more airlift missions. Then I served a full year in-country, summer 1969 to summer 1970. Over 100 recon missions as navigator on the venerable C-47 “Gooney Bird.” The oldest aircraft in the USAF inventory.

I followed that with four years at the Air Force Accounting and Finance Center in Denver, administering pay accounts and helping the families of our POWs and MIAs.

The most rewarding and entangling assignment of my 30-year career.

The Price

58,000 lives was only part of the story.

Over 300,000 service members were wounded. More than 150,000 needed hospitalization. About 75,000 were permanently disabled. And Lord only knows how many of us came home carrying some form of PTSD.

We also burned billions of our national wealth on a lost cause.

Then came 1973. The end of hostilities. The return of our POWs.

A highlight of my career.

The war itself didn’t end until 1975. Hardly any of our MIAs have ever been found.

Korea

As brutal and tragic as Vietnam was, there is another war, nearly forgotten now, that was even more deadly.

Korea. About three years. Over 36,000 American lives lost.

The 58,000 we lost in Vietnam came over fifteen years.

Korea took 36,000 in three.

Let that sink in.

May God bless and protect all of our fallen military brothers and sisters, our first responders, and their loved ones and families on this Memorial Day.

In our great nation.

Amen.