A Not So Boring Life

Now that’s what you could call….uh…perseverance? Toward the end of 1971, I was still pretty young.  And relatively healthy (despite the recreational inclination of those iconic 70s and a two year old cigarette habit that would last for another 40 years).  I was also serving time in the U.S. Army as a clerk/typist running an offset printer in a tiny, windowless room on the first floor of the Army Security building at Fort Meade, Maryland.  I still wonder about that from time to time but heck, we all do things throughout life that don’t necessarily fit in with who we are.  Or aren’t. So, the healthy part:  Three friends and I started getting up early to run laps around an on-base park.  It wasn’t really any kind of physical regimen - more a group activity that wasn’t regulated by any part of our military lives. One day we saw a bulletin board notice about an informal inter-unit track and field competition.  It included all the usual events – sho...

Do you remember 1979?  Do you remember Skylab?  The U.S.’s first space station was disintegrating and due to fall back into earth’s atmosphere, breaking up into small pieces that COULD FALL ANYWHERE!  I remember!  Did I worry, like thousands of people around the world, about suddenly being hit on the head by a piece of the debris?  Did I contemplate the damage that might occurs should a piece fail to disintegrate sufficiently and fall into, say, a nuclear power plant? Hell, no!  I saw a MARKETING potential!

FOKUS MOKUS!  FOKUS MOKUS!  The chant would usually begin at about seven thirty in the morning on Saturday and Sunday.  Anywhere from five to ten children from surrounding apartments in the three-story red-brick complex located on the outskirts of the Kyrgyz city of Osh would gather outside my first floor windows, calling for me to come out and do the same magic tricks that I had unwittingly shared with them shortly after moving in.  FOKUS MOKUS!! – What I surmised was the Russian equivalent (or child’s mispronunciation) of Hocus Pocus or ‘WE WANT MORE MAGIC TRICKS!”

VYZYATKA, HABAR, BAKSHEESH, PAYOLA (or A BRIBE BY ANY OTHER NAME …) “Dokuments, please.    Spaceba.   You are coming from where?  Going to where?” “And how many beers have you had, comrade?” I was ready for the question from the moment that the Kyrgyz policeman first stuck his head through the driver’s side window into the new Russian-made Niva truck.   “Beer?  I have had no beer, Officer...”  It was worth a try, wasn’t it?  But the look on his face immediately told me that it just wasn’t going to work.  “Oh, Okay.  Look, I had one beer with lunch.”  “But comrade, you must know that it is illegal in Kyrgyzstan to drink and drive.  It is the same in your country, da?”  Okay, okay – the bribe was offered, accepted and we were once again our way.  Given that we were stopped within 15 minutes after starting on our 12 hour drive SHOULD have given me an indication that it was not going to be an easy trip....

DID HE SAY NAKED?!? What could be more American than a Fourth of July weekend................ at a nudist camp?  After all, there was a parade, cookouts, volleyball, fireworks – even a skydiving demonstration.  No different than thousands of other holiday celebrations throughout the U.S.A. -just without clothing.  

I would like, someday, to try my hand at fiction.  I started one piece, based on a comment by a friend about another of these writings: he would “like to know what the group of old men in the deli were talking about when my leg broke through the ceiling over their heads”.  It has drawn me into a bit of character development based not on what happened, but on what could have occurred leading up to that moment.  I will see how it goes.  In the meantime, here is another vignette from my “Not so boring life.” ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Get out of the way!  Here comes Kenny!”  Don’t think that I am making this up.  You should have absolutely no hesitation.  Anyone standing in the rectangular hallway of the third floor of the hospital-like building when this cry is heard should quickly glance over their shoulder and seek shelter in the nearest doorway or room.  Listen c...

STEP RIGHT UP, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! In the early 1970s, there was still a pretty vibrant sideshow at the Bloomsburg State Fair.  Not like today, where the most you get is a chance to see some awful smelling South American wild pig that would kind of look like a really big rat if you didn't actually know what a real rat looks like.  My philosophy has always been that if you are going to pay a buck and a half to see a rat, it ought to be a real one.  But then, I guess finding a three foot rat to put in your side show these days is pretty hard.  You can also usually still find some kind of big snake to gawk at so the kids can say “Why ain’t it movin’?” while they try to get it interested in the two dollars’ worth of caramel corn you just bought them and that they are now throwing into the cage.  But there sure isn't anything like the sideshows they had when we were kids.  (You don’t get the hoochie kootchie shows anymore, either.  I guess the inter...