Memories and ...
I was a young man then, assigned to my first duty station after the U.S.Navy had sent me to a school in Norfolk, Virginia. Guam. I went to the USNAVCOMSTA Guam... one of those military abbreviations that stood for the communications station where all messages came thru and were sent out for the ships in the area. After about a month or so a fellow worker approached me for an offer - TDY at AFRS Guam. He was two pay-grades over me, and explained he wanted to go up for rate and if he went TDY (temporary duty) he would lose his chance of taking the tests for that period. I quickly agreed. Sounded good to me.
We went to see our CO (Commanding Officer) about switching out this TDY. The first question the CO asked me was if I knew anything about radio and broadcasting. I had to answer that I knew nothing about it but I did love music. After a few moments of silent thought the CO said "You got it." Very easy. I was going to Armed Forces Radio and be a disc jockey for 90 days.
I reported to the station at the appointed time where I met a few others that were picked. We were given some talks about our new jobs and what was expected of us. I was given the midnight shift. My first job that night without a clue as to how to operate the turntables much less any of the multiple buttons and switches that were spread out over the board that lay in front of the disc jockey.
I showed up nervous at 11:00p.m. about as ready as I'd ever be. I had one hour to learn the basics. One hour to learn how to cue a record (this was in 1966, the days of 12" vinyl records) how to use the proper volume for speaking over the microphone, what buttons and switches were for what, etc..
Minutes before midnight the fellow I replaced for the shift got out of the chair and I sat down and waited for the song to end so I could announce the time and give the station identification, "The time is 12 midnight and you're listening to Armed Forces Radio..." pause... "My name is Cecil or Cec' as cease fire" immediately followed by a gun shot from the beginning of the song "Shotgun" by Junior Walker and the All Stars, and the song continued. My show had begun.
I sat at that chair alone and scared shitless but determined to keep the music going. I did. I segued song after song after song, never speaking a word until 30 minutes had passed - "You're listening to Armed Forces Radio" then a rapid return to music. Being the midnight shift had it's benefits. The DJ could pick whatever music they wanted to play. No restrictions (within boundaries, of course). I played rock.. early to mid 60's rock, plus an occasional oldie from the AFRS library which was where all the music came from. I gave my station identification as required every 30 minutes without fail and seamlessly played song after song segued (one after the other) perfectly. I quickly became an adept at DJ'ing. I only had to become my own personality... that's what DJ's do, you know. It took time but eventually I became relaxed enough to become a radio voice distinguished from the other radio voices. The collective crew of 6 did such a great job that when our 90 days were about to end, the fellow in charge of us was called to visit the commander of our small base. We were all bummed out knowing our days were limited. When he returned he said: "Got some bad news for you guys..." voice trailing off, eyes focused toward the blank wall..."We've all been extended indefinitely!" We went from morose to glee in a split second. Fantastic! The Commander himself thought we were all doing a great job and wanted us to keep on doing what we'd been doing for three months.
For myself, I spent about 17 months of my 18 month tour as an Armed Forces Radio disc jockey and it was truly a memorable time. I love music and to be able to do that for a living at the time was wonderful. I expanded my love of music as out shifts changed as we all had to play various types of music. AFRS had to run the gamut for the variety of listeners the service had. From rock to country and classic to middle-of-the-road (back then that was Barbra Streisand and Frank Sinatra-types of music).
Back then the classical music show went for 3-4 hours on Sunday morning. Usually a shift that was undertaken with a hangover from drinking Satruday night at the base club. Not much was ever said over the air except for the station id's. My own trip was to find the longest cuts on the classical vinyls so I could relax. Classical music has some very long compositions. The real problem with that show was staying awake listening to the music. I got around that often by muting the studio speaker system and keeping an eye open to the spinning record making sure it didn't end prematurely. I often wondered if it did would anyone really notice..?
When my tour on Guam was over I got my orders for a new duty station. This is something that was always of some great concern during those days of the Viet Nam war... where would I get sent? When I received my orders they read "U.S.S. Coral Sea, CVA 43, home port Oakland, California." I had one month off before I had to report to a real honest-to-goodness aircraft carrier. My slack duty days of DJ'ing were over. Now was the time to become a sailor.
This was the early summer of 1967, a time that later became know as "the Summer of Love" in San Francisco... right across the bay from Oakland and the U.S.S. Coral Sea. That is a completely different story... actually two or three stories.
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That short story was a memory of mine. A memory of a time that was powerful enough to remember quite clearly, although names and exact dates are long lost. But memories seem to become more important as we get older. I personally don't like that. Not 'getting older', mind you, but admitting to old age, even though I should have several years left before I pass on. But none of us really knows that, do we? If we did we'd all live far different lives than we do, in all likelihood, given what we know after we lived that life. But it ain't gonna happen, as they say.In that age of memories there is the opposite - memory loss. Crazy thing that memory loss. I've concluded that we only lose those certain memories because we really don't need them anymore. They take up space like objects in our homes that only collect dust and serve no real purpose anymore - the old set of drinking glasses that are incomplete, that old worn-out chair in the back bedroom that is no longer used, that old picture on the wall that we can't even remember why we have it or that faded and thread-bare carpet that we walked on for the past 37 years that went from one house to another and maybe even another. All these things we collected in our lifetimes, so many of them now are just space-wasters. Things that are no longer necessary just like some of our memories. It's not important who the bass player of that group, (who was that group?) that was written up in Rolling Stone back in 1972... or was it '73? Just wasted mental space.
But so many of us, especially the really old folks in their 80's and more, they are somehow made to feel like their forgetfulness is a negative. They grew up and were formed by so many of those memories in their past that to not remember them is somehow a sin against those times that were so important for years and years of conditioning. SO what, I ask myself. As long as I know it's Sunday the21st of September, 2008 and I had a good bowel movement and a warm soapy shower after fixing a breakfast of home-made corncakes who really cares what happend to me in that mental cloud that shrouds the brief moment of time in 1958? I have no reason to hold on to that.
Cleaning out our homes, our closets and attics, those basements that have accumulated years of the past... all that stuff... it's no different from all those accumulated memories, so many of them goe in a flash. Why? Because they really aren't important anymore. That's all.
We're not losing our minds, we're emptying our minds. Age has a reason for that. It's preparation for leaving this body of ours that we've inhabited for X amount of years. I haven't called it death in years only because I know 'we', the ego 'I', is what achieves this thing called death... not our Self. I've used the analogy of an electric bulb going out - the bulb dies but the electricity is still around. Body and spirit... the spirit being the electricity that never changes, never ends, always 'there' in the here and now. That's the life I'm talking about - the afterlife of wondrous mystery that is always there - the eternal infinite that goes by so many names. Like humans... each of us has our own name, but we are all one humanity - we have common needs for survival regardless of our names, name of our cultures, religions, nationalities, philosophies, we all are otherwise common creatures with a common spirit.
never worry needlessly. it's wasteful.
cecil
9.21.08
Picture of the Week:
Safari Estates
photo: cecil
