The Corp paid my way there on a Greyhound bus and put a group of us up at the YMCA. The next day we were taken to the AFES where the test and physicals were to be done. This was a really new experience for me. It reminded me of the Arlo Gutherie song Alice’s Restaurant. Inspected, injected and probed. I remember standing in formation with about thirty other men naked. the next orders were ones I’d always remember. Bend over and spread your cheeks. I was glad I was in the last row. Next thing you know a doctor sticks his finger up my butt! To this day I tell people about that experience by kidding about it. I tell them I was so naive that I bent over while grabbing my cheeks on my face and pulling to the sides.
I passed the physical with flying colors. When I got back home I told my sister, Cathy about the experience. I knew when I would be leaving to go to boot camp, August 8th. I would be 18 in June. This meant that I’d be quitting school before I graduated. So I would finish my junior year of high school. I’d have most of the summer for screwing around, then I would be headed for San Diego, California. I had never been there before. I was given my choice of San Diego and Paris Island, South Carolina. I had heard stories about Paris Island. I was told that there was a drill instructor there that had marched his platoon into the Atlantic as punishment and several drowned.
I sold my motor cycle so I would have some money to run around with for the summer. I few months earlier my uncle John gave me a car. He said that he was my God Father and he had never given me anything and he wanted me to have it. He also knew about how my father had reacted about me having a car, and I think he did it to piss him off a little. It was a 1962 Buick Special convertible. When he gave it to me it had snow tiers on the back and it was a three speed on the column. It had a 283 with a Holley four barrel. Very quick! I thought I was a big shot driving the car. That winter not realizing that the snow tiers were meant for snow I decided to peel out, burn rubber, and bam! I blew the rear end out. I got the car to the back yard at my parents house.
My uncle John happened to have an extra rear end for the car. He had that kind of stuff around as he worked on cars a lot. The catch was that I had to do the work myself. I spent a lot of spare time that winter working on the car. I remembered telling something I’ll never forget, my father on a very cold day when he was working on his car, he had demanded that I help him. He had gotten so frustrated with me for not paying attention and handing him the wrong tool. He was very upset and we got into another argument. I told him that one day I’d make enough money that I would be able to pay someone to do the work for me. I told him that someday I’d be a great salesman and I’d be driving new cars that wouldn’t break down. But now I was on my own and didn’t have that kind of money.
By the time I had left for my physical for the Marines I had most of the work done. I had switched out the rear ends with no help. I should have finished the job instead of screwing off. Instead of taking my trip.
I thought that I would have a car while I was in the Marines. I’d get it finished when I came home from boot camp. But right now I was concentrating on planning what I was going to do that summer.
