Recovery: The First Days at Hazelden (2)

Posted on 17/02/2013 by Bobo

Dear Ole Dad ‘morted out’ (died) on 12 Dec. 1992.  He died in the VA Hospital in San Antonio; during the night, alone, miserable and somewhat pathetic from what I was told.  Mom called first thing the next morning and told me of his passing.  By noon Sue and I were on our way down there…

I didn’t necessarily go down to mourn the passing of Dear Ole Dad: I went down to drink.  After all, I had just lost my Father!  And so I did; I drank a lot!  And everybody understood… (what a ‘crock!’)

On Sunday morning I slipped out into the garage and pulled out one of Dad’s footlockers.  He had several he had kept, a few from his early days in the Army.  I sat there alone, with a beer, and looked through everything once again.

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In one of the footlockers I found this simple poem:

God, grant me the Serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
The Courage to change the things I can,
And the Wisdom to know the difference.

I distinctly remember a “sense of calm” came over me as I sat there that morning, drinking my beer, and wondering, “Dad, this is so peaceful.  Why couldn’t you have lived like this?”  And then my “reality’ kicked me in the ass, and I tossed it back into the footlocker and went back inside.

I virtually forgot all about it, until the morning of 1 August 1994, my first morning on the Unit, at Hazelden.  At the end of meetings, the peers of the Unit would form large circle with our arms interlocked on each other’s shoulders, then recite the Serenity Prayer.  It was in that first circle that it hit me, hard!  And I just stood there, crying.  I couldn’t help myself then, any more than I can this morning.  “Dammit Dad, why couldn’t you have ‘gotten it?'”

Soon after I completed my treatment I made a special trip to San Antonio.  Mom picked me up at the airport, and as soon as we got home, I went straight for that footlocker.  And there it was:

The Serenity Prayer

On the back was a stamp that said: “Fellowship Group of AA, Westover AFB, Mass.”  We had been stationed at Westover AFB from 1960 – 1962.

Today this prayer sits on my dining room buffet, and I pray for my Dad’s soul…

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Recovery: The First Days at Hazelden (1)

Posted on 17/02/2013 by Bobo

Sunday, 31 July 1994 was my first day at Hazelden.  It was spent in the infirmary, as per protocol.  We had to have complete physical workups before entering treatment (for alcoholism).

There were 6 “units” when I went through; 4 for men, and 2 for women.  Each unit had 25 beds.  Some were in “open bay” bedrooms, other beds were in private rooms.  Initially, I was in an open bay bedroom.

Early the next morning I was assigned to the Silkworth Unit.  My physical was “fine.”  Considering the shape of a few of the others, I had dodged a bullet.

The first 5 days in treatment were “assessment.”  This is where I took a lot of interviews with counselors, psychiatrists, psychologists and a few others.  I also had to take a battery of written exams.  As it turned out, this was the ‘scariest’ period of my recovery.  I knew I was a drunk – I didn’t need anyone else to tell me.  If ‘they’ came back and told me I was not “alcoholic,’ that I just tended to drink a little too much – as I had told myself for so many years – where would I go from there?  I knew I would die.

I was bound and determined to answer their questions fully, and truthfully.  It made no sense to me to ask for help, then lie to them.  So I did, to the best of my ability, at the time.  (In sobriety, some of my ‘truths’ have changed.)

I remember one interview with a physical fitness counselor.  She was an attractive woman, maybe 10 years younger than myself.  I remember sitting in her office, answering her questions and talking with her, kind of numbed.  When the interview was over, she just sat there and looked at me – puzzled.  Then she asked if she could have a hug.  I was shocked!  “Why would anyone want to hug me,” I thought to myself.  But I acquiesced, and went on my way.

(Two years later I went back to Hazelden for a 3 day period of “renewal.”  I sought her out, to ask why she wanted that ‘hug.’  I found her, and she told me that day in and day out, she hears stories that are just heartbreaking.  I guess mine wasn’t any different that day.  The day I found her, I gave her a hug…)

After 3 days of interviews I was called in by the administrator, and told they were going to keep me for the entire 28 days.  I was thrilled!  It was now “official;” I had something I could wrap my arms around and begin working on.  From my perspective, there was no going back now.

It is interesting that this was the first thing I ever “made early.”  In the Air Force we had “early promotions,” called “below-the-zone” promotions.  Well, on 3 August 1994 I made “Drunk,” Below-the-Zone!

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Introduction to “Military Brats” – 8

Posted on 17/02/2013 by Bobo

“My mother, the loveliest of Marine wives, always claimed to her seven children that we were in the middle of a wonderful, free-flowing life.  Since it was the only life I’d ever lived, I had no choice but to believe her.  She also provided me with the raw material for the protective shell I built for myself.  As excuse or rationalization, it gave me comfort in the great solitude I was born into as a military brat.  My mother explained that my loneliness was an act of patriotism.   She knew how much the constant moving bothered me, but she convinced me that my country was somehow safer because of my formidable, blue-eyed father practiced his deadly art at air stations around the South.  We moved almost every year preparing for that existential moment (this is no drill, son) when my violent father would take to the air against enemies more fierce than his wife or children.“

I think my mom spent a great deal of time of her ‘younger adult’ life living in fear – ‘walking on eggshells.’  She only had a high school education, having married Dear Ole Dad at 18.  Sound like a way out of the house?

Mom was working in Cincinnati when she met Dear Ole Dad.  She had grown up “on the farm,” from Lebanon, OH.  Dear Ole Dad was a young Army officer, 10 years older than her.  It was “a way out.”  I was born about a 15 months later, when Mom was 19.

At 26 Mom was way out of her element.  Three kids, living in Okinawa (Japan), married to a man who was just coming into his moderate drinking and rage – and she had virtually no skills to cope with it all.

As a side note, in later years, the next day after pounding on Mom, she would receive a nice piece of jewelery.  I could tell the severity of the beating by the quality of the jewelery.  I never got any jewelery…

 

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The ‘Line of Death’

Posted on 16/02/2013 by Bobo

When my grandson Noah comes over, he likes to ride his tricycle in the driveway.  I enjoy watching him go up and back the drive.  Last Fall he was driving out closer and closer to the road.  That is not good.

Now, Noah is very good at ‘following the rules;’ if he knows what they are.  Boundaries.  So, one day Keith and I painted a line across my drive that was his ‘boundary.’  I told him that it was “the Line of Death.”

LoD Noah in turn, tells the nuns at school that he is not allowed to cross “the Line of Death” when he rides his tricycle at Grampa Bob’s house.  Oh, I wish I had thought of something else to call it!

 

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Introduction to “Military Brats” – 7

Posted on 16/02/2013 by Bobo

“I’ve spent my life and my writing career thinking I was southern.  That was only partly true and a tribute to my mother’s fiery sense of belonging to the South.  Because of this book, I know now that I’m something else entirely.  I come from a country that has no name, the one that Mary Edwards Wertsch discovers in this book.  No Carolina, no Georgian, has ever been as close to me and what I am in my blood than those military brats who lived out their childhoods going from base to base.“

It’s ironic as hell with me.  As a child I always told folks I was from Whitehouse, Ohio.  Then, after coming back to Whitehouse for college, I told folks I was from the Air Force.  Then in 1968, when I went on Active Duty, I was once again, ‘from’ Whitehouse, Ohio.  The truth is, I was never sure where I was from, or where I belonged.

It’s interesting; today when I meet someone from here in Ohio, they might mention that they went to Cedar Point, an amusement park in Sandusky, OH, for their Senior Class Trip.  Or perhaps a trip to Washington DC.  I hesitate to tell them that my Senior Class went to Rome, Italy for our Class Trip!  For 6 days!  We were originally scheduled for 5 days, but the Italian train guys went on strike.

Where a lot of them might have ridden the ever frightful “Double Rat’s Ass Twisty” roller coaster, we met with the Pope!  Even though not Catholic, I had my high school class ring blessed.  Thought I could use the help…  Then a few guys rode motor scooters around the Circus Minimums.  (I was not part of that crew.  Would liked to have been…)

The point here is, no matter how close I become to anyone here in Ohio, I am never closer than I am to someone I just meet who I discover is a military brat.  Doesn’t matter what service…

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More PC

Posted on 16/02/2013 by Bobo

At Randolph AFB, the T-37 and T-38 IPs all wore a patch on our left shoulders signifying the fact that we were Instructor Pilots.  It was a rather simple patch, with not very much sex or violence on it; but it was a patch that many of us were proud of.

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Didn’t really think much about it, until the day “they” told us we had to take it off!

PIT (Pilot Instructor Training) came to Randolph sometime in 1972, after I graduated from UPT (pilot training).  So, it had been around for a while…

The reason “they” wanted us to remove this patch was, Navigator (Nav) and Weapons Systems Officer (WSO) Instructor training came to Randolph in 1988 or ’89, and “they” didn’t want them to feel bad.  Well, crap…

An effort was made to appeal the ruling from ‘on high,” but it fell upon deaf ears.  Then an initiative was undertaken to create a patch for ”those guys,’ so they could blend in – so they could ‘feel’ part of ‘the Team.’  I think the initiative came out of the Auger Inn (the bar).  Essentially the idea was to create a similar patch for them, recognizing their positions in Navigator Instructor Training and Weapons Systems Officer Instructor Training.  What we came up with was a patch of the same design, only with the “PIT” replaced with “NIT-WIT.”  That wasn’t well received either…

And so, with the influx of the new instructor programs, 18 years or so of tradition, and pride, was smeared – just like that… Fine, everybody now felt “warm and fuzzy,” except the pilots….

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Introduction to “Military Brats” – 6

Posted on 16/02/2013 by Bobo

“By necessity, I made my own private treaty with rootlessness and spent my whole life trying to fake or invent a sense of place.  Home is a foreign word in my vocabulary and always will be.  At each new base and fresh assignment, I suffered through long months of trying to catch up and learning the new steps required of those outsiders condemned to inhabit the airless margins of a child’s world.   None of my classmates would ever remember my name when it was time to rotate out the following summer.  My family drifted in and out of that archipelago of Marine bases that begins with the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and stretches down the coast to Paris Island in the South.  I spent most of my childhood in North Carolina and not a single person in North Carolina knows that salient fact.  I’ve been claimed as native son by more than a few southern states, but not by the one I spent the most time in as a child.“

‘Home’- a word so many of us just take for granted; but always a haunting word for me.  From Ohio to Michigan; Michigan to Okinawa; Okinawa to Tucson; Tucson to Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico to Massachusetts; Massachusetts to France and France to Germany – I lived in so many ‘houses’ in my life – 14 in my childhood alone.  Then  another 11 while on Active Duty in the Air Force.  In 1991 I moved back to Whitehouse, OH and bought another “house;” determined to convert it into a home. 

Since beginning my transition/restoration project, I have literally carried the original house out to the front to be hauled off.  My previously unstated goal with this project was to make this house a “home,” to where anyone can feel welcomed and warmth.  And today, if I want a hole in the wall, I put one there without any concern about passing an inspection before leaving.  I don’t know if I will be leaving…

And yet, as wonderful as my home has become, even now at 66, I still feel more at home anytime I pass through the Main Gate of an Air Force installation.  I don’t know if I will ever overcome this…

JBSA

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The Rebel…

Posted on 15/02/2013 by Bobo

After I had worked with Bev for about a year, she gave this to me…

Is anybody happier today because you passed their way?
Does anyone remember that you spoke to them today?
The day is almost over, and its toiling time is through;
Is there anyone to utter now a kindly word of you?

Can you say tonight, in parting with the day that’s slipping fast,
That you helped a single person of the many you passed.
Is a single heart rejoicing over what you did, or said?
Does the one whose hopes were lading, now with courage look ahead?

Did you waste the day, or lose it?
Was it well or sorely spent?
Did you leave a trail of kindness,
Or a scar of discontent?

As you close your eyes in slumber
Do you think that God will say,
You have earned one more day, of sobriety,
For the work you did today….

                                       The Rebel

I cain’t imagine why…

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“The Gent”

Posted on 14/02/2013 by Bobo

I have always loved Red Skelton.  I loved him for his humor, his humility and his work as an artist.  Red painted clowns and I knew that one of the first things I was going to buy after my first divorce (in 1998) was a print of one of his paintings, “The Gent.”

The Gent

I think in 1998 I saw myself in this print.

Ever the “go-to-hell” pilot, with no apparent cares in the world on ‘the outside,’

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while on ‘the inside,’ a different matter at times…

It’s just the way it is sometimes; and when these occasions come, I find comfort with ‘The Gent.’  I find comfort in looking at that print; in looking in the mirror…

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Introduction to “Military Brats” – 5

Posted on 14/02/2013 by Bobo

“I was drafted into the Marine Corps on October 26, 1945, and I served the Corps faithfully and proudly for twenty-one years.  I moved more than twenty times and I attended eleven schools in twelve years.  My job was to be a stranger, to know no one’s name on the first day of school, to be ignorant of all history and flow and that familial sense of relationship and proportion that makes a town safe for a child.“

I don’t know when I ‘entered military duty,’ maybe in 1950 sometime.  We moved from Whitehouse to Selfridge AFB, MI – just up the road.  From then, until 1964 when I left home, I attended eleven schools twelve years; in 4 states, 3 countries and 1 possession.  The longest we ever lived anywhere was 3 years.

In 7th grade I became great friends with Jay Karp.  He always talked about Tampa, FL.  On and on he would go.  for a couple years we played together day in and day out.  We were on the same Little League team, the Yankees.  I always thought he was a dear friend…

In 1986 I flew into MacDill AFB, FL – just across the bay from Tampa.  After I got to the O’Club that night I settled into a phone booth, and looked him up.  And wouldn’t you know it, there he was!  Oh, how excited I was as he dialed his number.

When he answered, I introduced myself and told him we played together as kids.  He didn’t have a clue who I was.  Then I told him about the cookies his Mom used to make, and I was “spot on” with that, but he still couldn’t remember me.  I became a bit uncomfortable, and after a while just kinda went away… here I had “carried him around with me” all these years, and he couldn’t remember me.  Back into the bar, and soon everything was ‘okay,’ as it always was…

So, I know first hand, what Pat means with, ‘My job was to be a stranger that first day of school.’  There are times today I think I am a stranger to myself…

 

 

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