I did a search and couldn't find where I'd posted this here so I spent a little time editing it to make it entirely suitable. It's a little long so you may want to get a cool drink and find a quiet corner.....
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It was mid-summer, 1964. I had just completed my first tour of duty over seas and I was now stationed at Camp Las Pulgas, on Camp Pendleton , California. Camp Pendleton is about 40 miles north of San Diego, up the coast highway. With the town of Oceanside to the south and the city of San Clemente to the north and Miles and miles of beautiful coast highway at hand. Southern California can be a paradise for a young, single fella with a car.
I grew up in the Houston, Texas area and I was delighted at the socially progressive attitude of the inhabitants of Southern California. For example; in Houston, Texas, in 1964, any night club or bar that decent folks would want to go into required coat and tie. No tie, no entry...period. During that same period, in the Mission Beach or Pacific Beach areas of San Diego, you could enter the swankiest joint in the area in a wet bathing suit and flip-flops. The focus was on FUN. No snobbery or social inhibitions, the rule of thumb was, if it felt good, do it. The ladies, especially the college girls, were not stuck-up and it was easy to see why the concept of "free love" was born there. I remember thinking at the time that it was like being a kid in a candy store with a blank check in my pocket. I don't believe that any other 1 year period of my life went by faster than that one. From June, '64 to July, '65. I was in heaven.
Along with the relaxed social structure there were several other changes over where I grew up. Street preachers. Off-the-wall religious groups, even openly homosexual behavior could be encountered on an all too frequent basis. There were lots more convertible cars and almost none of the homes or cars had air conditioning or heating. I think I saw it rain 2 times during that year and neither time was what a Texan would call rain. More like a heavy dew.
You never saw San Augustine grass. In a lot of yards, a succulent we call "ice plant" around here was the ground cover of choice. The weather was quite different. We had all four seasons, every day. The mornings were chilly. Long sleeves and a sweater or light jacket were required. And it was foggy every morning. Mid-morning the sun would come out and burn away the fog. The period between mid morning and mid afternoon were quite pleasant. The jacket was no longer necessary and it was a little warmer. Mid to late afternoon was on the warm side. Shorts and short sleeve shirts or even T-shirts were great. Then as the sun began to fall, you'd be dragging out the sweaters and jackets again.
Summer to Winter saw only a slight drop in the average temperature. I remember, Christmas of '64 my parents came out to spend Christmas with me. Christmas day we went for a ride up the coast highway for some sight seeing. It was 74 degrees at 1:00 PM and the waves were loaded with surfers.
La Jolla (pronounced La Hoy-ya), to the south of the base was a rich man's town for sure. I believe it was '64 that La Jolla was the richest city in the USA, per capita. Didn't see so many Fords and Chevies. Lot of Mercedes, Jags, Porches, etc.
Just off the beach there were some cliffs and caves which we used to explore on weekends. We had one particular cave that we loved a lot. We'd take beer and/or girls in there and party sometimes. We were in there one weekend and got so plastered that we passed out. The tide came in and we awoke from a drunken stupor to discover that we were in 3 feet of water and it was comin' up quick. It must have been quite a spectacle, 5 hung-over guys trying to gather up dozens of floating cans of beer and secure them some how while we climbed out of the cave to safety and dry ground. When we got to the cave entrance, we discovered that we still had to walk about 20 feet in ever-rising water to get to dry sand. I don't recall jut now how many trips it took us to get all the beer out of the cave.
Oceanside, to the south of the base, was an altogether different kind of town. Less affluent, for sure, it was a college town and home of Oceanside Jr. College. It was at a party in Oceanside when I met a lovely young girl named (names changed to protect the innocent) Tina Clark.
Her family lived there in town and she was just graduated from high school with big plans for attending the JC in the fall. We hit it off immediately. She didn't drink or smoke but it didn't bother her a whit that I did. We talked pleasantly, we danced, we did a little light smooching. Nothing serious, you know, just the getting-to-know-you type stuff.
We eventually isolated ourselves from the rest of the party and talked at length of many things. We laughed and talked until it was time for her to leave. She would not let me take her home. She still lived with her family and she had arrived with a girlfriend and felt bound by parental rule to return as she had arrived at the party, with the girlfriend. I asked her, when we were saying our good byes, if she'd go out with me. Her answer and the events that followed are some of the most bizarre events of my life. I'll get to that a little later on.
Before reporting for duty at Pendleton, I'd had a nice 30-day leave. I'd been over seas, stationed on Okinawa (the ROCK to those who've been there) It was sure great to be home and see all my family and friends. One of my plans was to get a car and drive it out to California for my duty there. My half-brother's wife and kids lived in San Diego while he was stationed on a ship that was based there. When she found out I was going to be there my sis-in-law advised me that Southern California was not the place to be with no car. You can have a much more vigorous social life, not to mention legions of "friends" if you have wheels.
The clinic I worked in held Field Day every Thursday. We closed up shop at noon and did a complete cleaning. Stripped and re-waxed the floors, cleaned all X-ray and examination spaces and all the units as well. We would work like beavers and finally passed inspection sometime around 1900 hrs. (7:00 PM) We'd then all pile in to my '62 Chevrolet Corvair Monza and head to the Denny's in Oceanside for coffee and pie. Those were some pretty good days.
Camp Pendleton is hundreds of square miles in size. It has several military installations with in it's fences. On the south side is Mainside Marine depot, then there is Camp Del Mar, Where I went through my FMF training. That is where sailors such as myself and other medical personnel are weaned off navy uniforms and customs and taught to be a Marine. It isn't quite as tough as Navy or Marine boot camp but it doesn't miss it by much.
There is a facility where Marines that have completed boot go to get advanced combat training, can't remember the name of it, ITR or something like that. There is Las Pulgas, which is just over half way across the base from south to north. I was stationed there during my time at Pendleton. I'm thinking that there was one more outpost somewhere to the north but I can't recall the name. Oh, yeah, it was San Mateo.
Anyway, Camp Pendleton is a huge place. I was on my way into town one day and I noticed that a bus was pulled over, loading passengers to take into town. I'd seen that countless times but for some reason it snapped this time. Ever the entrepreneurial young feller I was, the clouds parted, the fog broke, the skies cleared, and the light came on. I can make me some extra money here.
The next day I'd get off work about 4:30 and run all the bus stops, picking up guys waiting for the bus and take 'em to town for bus fair (25 cents) That was $1.25 per run. In those days gas was about 12 to 15 cents per gallon and my car got about 250 mpg. Well, maybe not THAT good but it was quite economical, to say the least. I did this every week day and when social activities on the weekends would permit. I was making about 5 bucks a day on weekdays and I could make about 20 bucks a day on Sat and Sun. Considering that I was paid $67.47 every two weeks, you can see what a significant boost this little hustle was to my financial picture.
But like most good things in life, it all came to an end when my financial empire came crashing down around my ears one Monday morning. I was running sick call and X-ray at that time and I'd just gotten things set up for the morning rush. Monday was always the worst. The clinic director had a little Schnauser and he and his wife loved that pooch with out limit. His wife had a nervous condition so she could not tolerate the dogs constant barking. As a result, they had taken him to the vet and had his vocal cords clipped. He would run up and down the halls just barking to beat the band...only you couldn't hear a sound.
When I saw the bark-less dog run by my office door, I knew the Captain was in but I thought nothing of it. At least not until Chief Sullivan (Name Change.....) Stuck his head inside the door and said that the Old Man wanted to see me. Still, no alarms went off. I had not a clue what it was about but I wasn't worried and didn't think it would be a disciplinary issue. Sometimes we just don't see the boulder that is about to fall on us.
The Old Man was a brusk, humorless man that was dominated by his wife and dedicated more to the military than to his medical responsibilities. He was an administrator of a military dental clinic and that was that. He wasted no time in getting the blood to flowing. "Just what in the name of creation did I think I was up to anyway?!?" "Didn't I realize that I could be jailed and have my military career (ha, ha, ha) ruined. He caught me so off guard that I didn't snap to what he was talking about.
He misunderstood my silence and perceived it as "attitude". He got up out of his chair and came around the desk and called me to attention. Yelling and blowing spit in my face he told me that I had been seen by one of the bus drivers. He had witnessed me drive in to the bus stop and load my car and pull out headed for town. My license plate was taken down and I was reported. I don't know why he didn't throw the book at me but I didn't get off scot free. I had blood coming out of both ears when I left his office. He said that if I got so much as a traffic ticket for the rest of my time there that I'd be ordered to sell my car and hoof it and move back onto the base and live in barracks like the rest of the lowing herd.
'Nuff said, lesson learned. That put the qui-eetas to my lucrative adventures in public transportation.
San Diego was a great city. Broadway (the main drag) was something to see after dark. With both the Navy base and the Marine base practically with in walking distance the whole place was geared for the young military man, single, away from home for the first time. Some of the business owners tried to discourage patronage by the military, however. There was a particularly hateful sign that would appear in the front door of the occasional place of business now and then. It read, "Sailors, Marines, and dogs not permitted. Civilian clothes were no help here either. The haircuts and sunburned ears and noses were a dead give-away.
One of my favorite spots on Broadway was a place called the Gilded Cage. It was a bowling alley with about 100 lanes. There were numerous pool, billiards, and snooker tables there too. There was one table in the center of the room that was on an elevated platform and surrounded by wrought iron railing. It was covered with leopard skin, real of fake, I don't know. It was reportedly used by visiting dignitaries in town for the occasional exhibition: Willie Mosconi, Minnesota Fats, and the like. I never saw any of them there but it would have been cool.
We never played there because it was too expensive. There was a little area down on lower 5th street, off Broadway that had a decidedly sleazy ambiance about it. It was here that we wiled away many an evening in the low-life pool rooms and card rooms. One thing we discovered is that the game is the same regardless of the seedy environment in which you play.
They had all-night movie theaters that showed old movies, some showed nothing but westerns, some were porno houses. But for 50 cents you could get in the one of your choice and stay all night. Lots of homeless in there of an evening, not a great place to take a girlfriend on a first date that's for sure.
Southern California in general and Oceanside in particular are loaded with street preachers, singers, healers, and preacher/singer/healers types. Once my friend and I let this guy lead us up a flight of stairs to a dingy, stale smelling room where they had a few chairs set up. The deal was that we were suppose to sit and listen to a sermon and then be served cake and coffee.
The preaching on that particular day was in-tense! Too bad the cake a coffee weren't as fresh. We just did it on a lark but I'll never forget it. We were the only ones in the room that weren't homeless. We were also the only ones in the room that were sober and awake through the sermon. We choked down the stale, dry cake and the bitter, tepid coffee and hit the door. I'm not exaggerating one bit when I say that the preacher followed us down the stairs, out onto the sidewalk all the way to the bus stop. He was talking to us till the bus driver closed the bus door and drove away. He probably never had any one stay awake in his sermon before and didn't want to let a couple of live ones get away.
Another fun thing about California in those days was the fact that, although the legal drinking age was 21 years old, they had a product called "Near Beer", it was 3.2 % alcohol and the law said you could buy it and consume it in public if you were 18 years or older. One Saturday, just a couple of days after payday, me and my best pal went down to spend the day and evening on lower 5th Street.
We started of running the pawnshops and then we hit our favorite pool room. We played for several hours and decided to take a break and get a burger and a beer. (3.2 ain't great but it beats the heck out of grape soda) We went into a clip-joint called itself the Port/Starboard Bar and Grille. The name should have been a tip-off I suppose but At 20 years of age I wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, as they say.
The Port/Starboard Bar and Grille was one of those loooong narrow places with a single row of small tables along the left wall the length of the room and the bar on the right side of the room with the obligatory stool every 3 feet or so. The plate glass window that faced the street was super thick and very dark blue. From the street you can't see a thing inside. From inside you can see out fairly well though.
The place was cool and very dark. We walked in and stood in the doorway a moment to let our eyes adjust to the dark. A deep dark voice, dripping with honey (we still didn't get it) invited us to come in and sit a spell. We made our way to the bar when we could see how to navigate the room without breaking our necks. The guy at the bar took our orders for burgers, fries and near-beers. He checked our Ids and gave us the once over with his eyes.
The food and the beer were very good. Surprisingly so. My friend and I were deep into our plans for the rest of the evening. Mostly whether or not to go to TJ (Tijuana) which is only a few minutes away by cab. We wound up going and there are some great tales from south of the border but this is a story about California. We'll leave Mexico for another time.
So we are sitting at the bar chugging burgers and beers and all of a sudden I sense a presence on the left side of me and at the same moment I feel a hand caress my left thigh, and hear a falsetto female-but-not-female voice say, "Hi (dragged out the word with a lot of "i"s and a very breathy voice) My name is Donna, what's yours?" I looked around and nearly fell off the stool. The thing next to me was grotesque. Had an Adam's apple like Ickabod Crane, Feet like waterskis, and breath like a goat. Bad wig, false eyelashes...you get the picture?
I jumped up and took a wild swing. The thing caught my arm and said that if I didn't like the game that I should not play in the sand box or something to that effect. My friend was laughing so hard he nearly choked on his food. Do I need to say that we left the place in our dust and headed for the border? I should think not.
No discussion of Broadway street in San Diego would be complete with out a good run-down of all the tattoo parlors. They are about as prevalent as used car lots on Spencer Highway in Pasadena. My choice, on the occasion of my first boot camp liberty, was Painless Nell's. Can you spell misnomer? She did have a nice gimmick though. Her breath and b/o were so potent that it seemed to block the brains ability to register pain. Nell was about 5 feet tall, 5 feet wide and she had no neck. Her pudgy round head sat squarely on her pudgy round body. Big flabby arms and she was covered with tattoos.
Our Company commander had cautioned us about going to Tijuana, getting drunk, getting vd, and getting tattoos. I felt that when it came to following orders, 3 out of 4 ain't bad so I went to TJ, I got drunk, and I got a tattoo. My buddies and me all dared each other and one guy said he'd pay so we all got tattoos.
The image on my arm should have been half as indelible as the imprint Nell made on my olfactory senses. Old Nell told me she thought I was having trouble with the pain, I kept holding my breath and nearly passing out. She kept having to break those little cloth covered glass vials of ammonia under my nose to keep me conscious. I decided that it would be imprudent to tell her that I was holding my breath to keep from blowing groceries on her. Especially since he held an electric power-head with about 8 needles in it in one hand and my right arm in the other and she had a good 80 pounds on me.
Okay, let me get back to Tina and the saga that followed. I had asked her if she would go out with me and she said that she would really like to. But that her parents were very religious and the rule in the Clark house was that any boy that wanted to date one of the Clark girls had to go to church with the family first...and before every date. Well, well. I could not suppress a grin here. All the while I was in high school, my social freedom and use of the family car was directly dependent upon my church attendance. Every time Richey Street Baptist Church opened it's doors I was walkin' through 'em.
I asked her what church her family went to and she told me they were Nazarine. I had never heard of it so I shrugged my shoulders and said that I'd meet them at the Oceanside Church of the Nazarine that following Sunday. She assured me that if I did that we could go out the following week end. She had our date all planned out. There was a kind of teen club in San Diego called The Cinnamon Cinder. They held concerts and such for the teeny boppers in the area. Not what I had in mind but it didn't sound too bad so I agreed. Wanted to get off on the right foot, don'tcha know!?
I lived the entire next week in anticipation of seeing Tina again, even if it was at church in the presence of her family and friends. When Sunday came I dressed in my best suit and headed on in to the church. I wouldn't characterize the congregation as poor, more like lower middle class. I was the only man there who's suit came any where near fitting properly and the women wore some of the floppiest and gaudiest hat's and shabbiest dresses I've ever seen.
I sat through the service and once in a while Tina would give my hand a subtle squeeze and we made eye contact now and then. The service didn't seem all that different from what I was used to at home. A little fire, a little brimstone, more than a little talk of money. There were some comments in reference to "healing" services and some other more bizarre aspects of this group but my mind was on the girl sitting next to me and it would have taken a 2 X 4 to the head to get my focus off her.
After Church I was standing out in the parking lot with her and her family and her dad invited me to come to the house for Sunday dinner. Seems that every Sunday, it fell to one family in the congregation to feed the preacher and his wife after church. This Sunday it was the Clark's turn and I was more than welcome.
Tina's face lit up when she heard her dad invite me. I accepted and followed them over to their house. Tina and her sister Cindy (about 13 years old) disappeared into their room to change clothes and I took off my suit jacket and tie and rolled up my sleeves. Tina's dad invited me down to the basement to join in the games; ping pong, pool, shuffle board. I waxed him and a couple of other guys at 8-Ball and then we all kind of drifted back upstairs to the living room. Mrs Clark had the house smelling good and when Tina came out of her room I nearly passed out. She had on some very short shorts and a tee shirt with the sleeves cut off and cut off at the bottom to show about 8 inches of tummy.
We had a nice meal and Tina and I hung out in the back yard until she told me that when the preacher left, that I'd have to leave too. Sunday night was family night and they didn't have any company around for that. So, when the time came I thanked my hosts for having me over and Tina walked me out to my car. She told me that her parents really liked me and that I was definitely "in" and she gave me a wink. I got in the car and she leaned her head in and laid a good one on me. Right there in broad daylight, right in front of the house. At that point I had visions of the two of us having a long and happy relationship. Maybe even get serious and get married some day. Sigh.....
I went home with wings on my heels. If I had imagined that the week BEFORE had gone slowly then I had a real time surviving through the NEXT week, until our date on Saturday. But, as it will, the time passed and Saturday rolled around. I picked Tina up at noon and we headed on down to San Diego. We went to the beach for a couple of hours and then it was time to head on out to the concert.
I'd asked Tina earlier who we were going to see but she had forgotten who it was. We made it to the ticket window and I saw a poster of the act that would be performing inside. Some guy with a long Beetle type hair cut and wearing a buffalo robe and a girl with long, dark, straight hair and a big nose with a severely deviated septum. In the poster it looked like the guy was an inch or so shorter than the girl.
It was theater style seating. We went in and found our seats, middle section in the front 1/3 of the auditorium. The couple wasn't very good. The guy couldn't sing at all and the girl could sing better but she sounded like her nose was so plugged up that she couldn't breath. Years and years passed before it dawned on me who I had seen on that summer day in 1964. Years later I was watching the Sonny and Cher TV show and they showed some early clips of them singing together. I jumped up in the middle of the living room that night and shouted for all the world to hear that I had seen Sonny and Cher in person. Then I remembered the performance and how un-entertaining it was and sat back down.
After the lack-luster concert we went for a drive up the coast and I showed her some of my old hang outs in San Clemente and we had a nice dinner at Sir George's Smorgasboard, Where I worked Part time as a buss boy and 'tater peeler. When we got back to Oceanside we pulled down on the beach and just talked for a while. I was really getting fond of Tina and I had the sense that she like me a lot, too.
I dropped her off at her house about 10 minutes before curfew and told her I'd see her tomorrow and church . She filled my eyes and my heart with her sweet smile and then she was gone. I drove back home in a trance.
The next morning I was standing out on the front porch of the church waiting for the Clark family to arrive, completely unaware of the next boulder that was about to fall on me. They finally arrived and we all went in together and sat down and waited for the service to begin. Tina looked wonderful. She smelled even better. And she held my hand and never took her eyes off me until the service started. Hoooo Boy!! My heart was about to jump right out of my chest.
I need to take a moment here and get y'all caught up on the Nazarine church. I know several people here that are Nazarines and they tell me that they are not at all like the Nazarines in California. Those out there are what is called "charismatic" The Nazarines around here are like the more conventional protestant type churches. The Charismatic folks ,on the other hand, are quite different. They are not the kind that handle snakes and such but they are just a step below that as far as a bizarre way of worshiping goes. I got off light the week before but this week was to prove vastly different. There was a sign on the front wall of the church announcing a "healing service" that day. I looked right at that sign and didn't take the warning that it so subtly offered. It was screaming silently for me to RUN don't walk to the nearest exit. It's called looking with out seeing.
The service began and it was going along with out incident and I was being over whelmed by Tina's perfume and the touch of her hand in mine. Mean while that bolder is falling faster and faster. Now the preacher sits down and he has just introduced some guy but I missed it. This guy comes up and raises both hands upward and outward toward the congregation. I felt a slight tensing from Tina's hand but didn't understand the significance of the new tension.
His right hand is open and the fingers are fully extended. The left hand is holding a jar of Vaseline. It is not a special jar or anything with Vaseline in it, it is a jar of Vaseline just as it comes off the shelf, the label plainly visible. He is jabbering about how he is only a conduit for God's power. That the healing comes from God and His mercy and wisdom. Now there is a woman hobbling up the aisle. She is having a lot of trouble because both legs appear to be deformed and she is in pain and crying and just having an awful time trying to walk. When she makes it up to the guy with the Vaseline she gets down on her knees and now the guy is crying too.
He digs 3 fingers into the jar and comes out with a lemon sized glob of Vaseline. Did he place it gently and lovingly on her forehead? Not at all! He smacked her on the forehead and rubbed it all over her face and in her hair. Now the woman is wailing and so is the guy. Some of the congregation is now getting cranked up. Still, I don't sense any of the impending danger. When she stood up and turned to face the congregation she was standing straight as a board. She walked back to her seat pretty much normally. Screaming and crying all the while. Now I'm starting to feel a thing that I am only moments away from calling fear.
This is a small church. About 35 to 40 feet from one side of the auditorium to the other. There was a narrow aisle on either side and one right up the middle. There were about 6 rows of pews and from there on back it was the folding metal chairs, un-padded.
Okay, now there is a growing number of folks that have their eyes rolled back in their heads and are speaking tongues. We were on the right side of the church and somewhere from the left side I heard a crash and looked over and saw that someone had just thrown a chair and it had hit the third row of pews and fell to the floor. No one was hit. I was starting to get it now. I had always felt like there was a hitch...some little thing to spoil my new found happiness.
Well there was a hitch alright and it had just sailed passed Tina's dad's head...yet another chair. The room was going crazy. People were rolling, trance like, on the floor and in spite of all my recent combat training, I felt un-prepared. In times like this there are only 3 responses, Stand and fight, drop and cover, or cut and run.
Since I was in the pews I couldn't get my hands on a chair to defend myself with so fighting was not an option, to drop and cover would have been risky. Incoming were now falling all around me. It seemed to me that my best chance to get out alive was to cut and run. I grabbed both of Tina's hands and we ducked down as far as we could. I looked in her eyes and told her that I thought she was a sweet girl, I asked her if her parents would let me take her out if I left this service before it was over. She said "no" that I had to stay for all of it. I gave her hands a final squeeze and said good bye.
I then rolled out of the pew, on to the floor where I did a belly crawl to the door. This was much like the training I'd just had where we crawl along the ground while instructors fire live .30 machine guns just over our heads. When I got there an usher asked me as he opened the door for me, "Ya be comin' back in, sir?" I said that he should just stand there and hold his breath. Once off the stoop, I got up and ran for my car, got in and went back home. I never looked back.
I thought about calling Tina later but I couldn't see the point. No way I could endure that crowd, not even for a great girl like Tina Clark. I still think I made the right decision but sometimes I just wonder..........
I eventually met the woman that was my first wife there in Oceanside. After I started going with her that pretty much took me out of the social scene I had been making. No more cave parties, no more wild weekends in the little duplex at 515 Grant Street in Oceanside. Pretty much had me headed down "Domestic Lane" by the time I went back over seas. I have some great memories of Southern California. It was a good place and a good time for me and I'll remember it always.
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It was mid-summer, 1964. I had just completed my first tour of duty over seas and I was now stationed at Camp Las Pulgas, on Camp Pendleton , California. Camp Pendleton is about 40 miles north of San Diego, up the coast highway. With the town of Oceanside to the south and the city of San Clemente to the north and Miles and miles of beautiful coast highway at hand. Southern California can be a paradise for a young, single fella with a car.
I grew up in the Houston, Texas area and I was delighted at the socially progressive attitude of the inhabitants of Southern California. For example; in Houston, Texas, in 1964, any night club or bar that decent folks would want to go into required coat and tie. No tie, no entry...period. During that same period, in the Mission Beach or Pacific Beach areas of San Diego, you could enter the swankiest joint in the area in a wet bathing suit and flip-flops. The focus was on FUN. No snobbery or social inhibitions, the rule of thumb was, if it felt good, do it. The ladies, especially the college girls, were not stuck-up and it was easy to see why the concept of "free love" was born there. I remember thinking at the time that it was like being a kid in a candy store with a blank check in my pocket. I don't believe that any other 1 year period of my life went by faster than that one. From June, '64 to July, '65. I was in heaven.
Along with the relaxed social structure there were several other changes over where I grew up. Street preachers. Off-the-wall religious groups, even openly homosexual behavior could be encountered on an all too frequent basis. There were lots more convertible cars and almost none of the homes or cars had air conditioning or heating. I think I saw it rain 2 times during that year and neither time was what a Texan would call rain. More like a heavy dew.
You never saw San Augustine grass. In a lot of yards, a succulent we call "ice plant" around here was the ground cover of choice. The weather was quite different. We had all four seasons, every day. The mornings were chilly. Long sleeves and a sweater or light jacket were required. And it was foggy every morning. Mid-morning the sun would come out and burn away the fog. The period between mid morning and mid afternoon were quite pleasant. The jacket was no longer necessary and it was a little warmer. Mid to late afternoon was on the warm side. Shorts and short sleeve shirts or even T-shirts were great. Then as the sun began to fall, you'd be dragging out the sweaters and jackets again.
Summer to Winter saw only a slight drop in the average temperature. I remember, Christmas of '64 my parents came out to spend Christmas with me. Christmas day we went for a ride up the coast highway for some sight seeing. It was 74 degrees at 1:00 PM and the waves were loaded with surfers.
La Jolla (pronounced La Hoy-ya), to the south of the base was a rich man's town for sure. I believe it was '64 that La Jolla was the richest city in the USA, per capita. Didn't see so many Fords and Chevies. Lot of Mercedes, Jags, Porches, etc.
Just off the beach there were some cliffs and caves which we used to explore on weekends. We had one particular cave that we loved a lot. We'd take beer and/or girls in there and party sometimes. We were in there one weekend and got so plastered that we passed out. The tide came in and we awoke from a drunken stupor to discover that we were in 3 feet of water and it was comin' up quick. It must have been quite a spectacle, 5 hung-over guys trying to gather up dozens of floating cans of beer and secure them some how while we climbed out of the cave to safety and dry ground. When we got to the cave entrance, we discovered that we still had to walk about 20 feet in ever-rising water to get to dry sand. I don't recall jut now how many trips it took us to get all the beer out of the cave.
Oceanside, to the south of the base, was an altogether different kind of town. Less affluent, for sure, it was a college town and home of Oceanside Jr. College. It was at a party in Oceanside when I met a lovely young girl named (names changed to protect the innocent) Tina Clark.
Her family lived there in town and she was just graduated from high school with big plans for attending the JC in the fall. We hit it off immediately. She didn't drink or smoke but it didn't bother her a whit that I did. We talked pleasantly, we danced, we did a little light smooching. Nothing serious, you know, just the getting-to-know-you type stuff.
We eventually isolated ourselves from the rest of the party and talked at length of many things. We laughed and talked until it was time for her to leave. She would not let me take her home. She still lived with her family and she had arrived with a girlfriend and felt bound by parental rule to return as she had arrived at the party, with the girlfriend. I asked her, when we were saying our good byes, if she'd go out with me. Her answer and the events that followed are some of the most bizarre events of my life. I'll get to that a little later on.
Before reporting for duty at Pendleton, I'd had a nice 30-day leave. I'd been over seas, stationed on Okinawa (the ROCK to those who've been there) It was sure great to be home and see all my family and friends. One of my plans was to get a car and drive it out to California for my duty there. My half-brother's wife and kids lived in San Diego while he was stationed on a ship that was based there. When she found out I was going to be there my sis-in-law advised me that Southern California was not the place to be with no car. You can have a much more vigorous social life, not to mention legions of "friends" if you have wheels.
The clinic I worked in held Field Day every Thursday. We closed up shop at noon and did a complete cleaning. Stripped and re-waxed the floors, cleaned all X-ray and examination spaces and all the units as well. We would work like beavers and finally passed inspection sometime around 1900 hrs. (7:00 PM) We'd then all pile in to my '62 Chevrolet Corvair Monza and head to the Denny's in Oceanside for coffee and pie. Those were some pretty good days.
Camp Pendleton is hundreds of square miles in size. It has several military installations with in it's fences. On the south side is Mainside Marine depot, then there is Camp Del Mar, Where I went through my FMF training. That is where sailors such as myself and other medical personnel are weaned off navy uniforms and customs and taught to be a Marine. It isn't quite as tough as Navy or Marine boot camp but it doesn't miss it by much.
There is a facility where Marines that have completed boot go to get advanced combat training, can't remember the name of it, ITR or something like that. There is Las Pulgas, which is just over half way across the base from south to north. I was stationed there during my time at Pendleton. I'm thinking that there was one more outpost somewhere to the north but I can't recall the name. Oh, yeah, it was San Mateo.
Anyway, Camp Pendleton is a huge place. I was on my way into town one day and I noticed that a bus was pulled over, loading passengers to take into town. I'd seen that countless times but for some reason it snapped this time. Ever the entrepreneurial young feller I was, the clouds parted, the fog broke, the skies cleared, and the light came on. I can make me some extra money here.
The next day I'd get off work about 4:30 and run all the bus stops, picking up guys waiting for the bus and take 'em to town for bus fair (25 cents) That was $1.25 per run. In those days gas was about 12 to 15 cents per gallon and my car got about 250 mpg. Well, maybe not THAT good but it was quite economical, to say the least. I did this every week day and when social activities on the weekends would permit. I was making about 5 bucks a day on weekdays and I could make about 20 bucks a day on Sat and Sun. Considering that I was paid $67.47 every two weeks, you can see what a significant boost this little hustle was to my financial picture.
But like most good things in life, it all came to an end when my financial empire came crashing down around my ears one Monday morning. I was running sick call and X-ray at that time and I'd just gotten things set up for the morning rush. Monday was always the worst. The clinic director had a little Schnauser and he and his wife loved that pooch with out limit. His wife had a nervous condition so she could not tolerate the dogs constant barking. As a result, they had taken him to the vet and had his vocal cords clipped. He would run up and down the halls just barking to beat the band...only you couldn't hear a sound.
When I saw the bark-less dog run by my office door, I knew the Captain was in but I thought nothing of it. At least not until Chief Sullivan (Name Change.....) Stuck his head inside the door and said that the Old Man wanted to see me. Still, no alarms went off. I had not a clue what it was about but I wasn't worried and didn't think it would be a disciplinary issue. Sometimes we just don't see the boulder that is about to fall on us.
The Old Man was a brusk, humorless man that was dominated by his wife and dedicated more to the military than to his medical responsibilities. He was an administrator of a military dental clinic and that was that. He wasted no time in getting the blood to flowing. "Just what in the name of creation did I think I was up to anyway?!?" "Didn't I realize that I could be jailed and have my military career (ha, ha, ha) ruined. He caught me so off guard that I didn't snap to what he was talking about.
He misunderstood my silence and perceived it as "attitude". He got up out of his chair and came around the desk and called me to attention. Yelling and blowing spit in my face he told me that I had been seen by one of the bus drivers. He had witnessed me drive in to the bus stop and load my car and pull out headed for town. My license plate was taken down and I was reported. I don't know why he didn't throw the book at me but I didn't get off scot free. I had blood coming out of both ears when I left his office. He said that if I got so much as a traffic ticket for the rest of my time there that I'd be ordered to sell my car and hoof it and move back onto the base and live in barracks like the rest of the lowing herd.
'Nuff said, lesson learned. That put the qui-eetas to my lucrative adventures in public transportation.
San Diego was a great city. Broadway (the main drag) was something to see after dark. With both the Navy base and the Marine base practically with in walking distance the whole place was geared for the young military man, single, away from home for the first time. Some of the business owners tried to discourage patronage by the military, however. There was a particularly hateful sign that would appear in the front door of the occasional place of business now and then. It read, "Sailors, Marines, and dogs not permitted. Civilian clothes were no help here either. The haircuts and sunburned ears and noses were a dead give-away.
One of my favorite spots on Broadway was a place called the Gilded Cage. It was a bowling alley with about 100 lanes. There were numerous pool, billiards, and snooker tables there too. There was one table in the center of the room that was on an elevated platform and surrounded by wrought iron railing. It was covered with leopard skin, real of fake, I don't know. It was reportedly used by visiting dignitaries in town for the occasional exhibition: Willie Mosconi, Minnesota Fats, and the like. I never saw any of them there but it would have been cool.
We never played there because it was too expensive. There was a little area down on lower 5th street, off Broadway that had a decidedly sleazy ambiance about it. It was here that we wiled away many an evening in the low-life pool rooms and card rooms. One thing we discovered is that the game is the same regardless of the seedy environment in which you play.
They had all-night movie theaters that showed old movies, some showed nothing but westerns, some were porno houses. But for 50 cents you could get in the one of your choice and stay all night. Lots of homeless in there of an evening, not a great place to take a girlfriend on a first date that's for sure.
Southern California in general and Oceanside in particular are loaded with street preachers, singers, healers, and preacher/singer/healers types. Once my friend and I let this guy lead us up a flight of stairs to a dingy, stale smelling room where they had a few chairs set up. The deal was that we were suppose to sit and listen to a sermon and then be served cake and coffee.
The preaching on that particular day was in-tense! Too bad the cake a coffee weren't as fresh. We just did it on a lark but I'll never forget it. We were the only ones in the room that weren't homeless. We were also the only ones in the room that were sober and awake through the sermon. We choked down the stale, dry cake and the bitter, tepid coffee and hit the door. I'm not exaggerating one bit when I say that the preacher followed us down the stairs, out onto the sidewalk all the way to the bus stop. He was talking to us till the bus driver closed the bus door and drove away. He probably never had any one stay awake in his sermon before and didn't want to let a couple of live ones get away.
Another fun thing about California in those days was the fact that, although the legal drinking age was 21 years old, they had a product called "Near Beer", it was 3.2 % alcohol and the law said you could buy it and consume it in public if you were 18 years or older. One Saturday, just a couple of days after payday, me and my best pal went down to spend the day and evening on lower 5th Street.
We started of running the pawnshops and then we hit our favorite pool room. We played for several hours and decided to take a break and get a burger and a beer. (3.2 ain't great but it beats the heck out of grape soda) We went into a clip-joint called itself the Port/Starboard Bar and Grille. The name should have been a tip-off I suppose but At 20 years of age I wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, as they say.
The Port/Starboard Bar and Grille was one of those loooong narrow places with a single row of small tables along the left wall the length of the room and the bar on the right side of the room with the obligatory stool every 3 feet or so. The plate glass window that faced the street was super thick and very dark blue. From the street you can't see a thing inside. From inside you can see out fairly well though.
The place was cool and very dark. We walked in and stood in the doorway a moment to let our eyes adjust to the dark. A deep dark voice, dripping with honey (we still didn't get it) invited us to come in and sit a spell. We made our way to the bar when we could see how to navigate the room without breaking our necks. The guy at the bar took our orders for burgers, fries and near-beers. He checked our Ids and gave us the once over with his eyes.
The food and the beer were very good. Surprisingly so. My friend and I were deep into our plans for the rest of the evening. Mostly whether or not to go to TJ (Tijuana) which is only a few minutes away by cab. We wound up going and there are some great tales from south of the border but this is a story about California. We'll leave Mexico for another time.
So we are sitting at the bar chugging burgers and beers and all of a sudden I sense a presence on the left side of me and at the same moment I feel a hand caress my left thigh, and hear a falsetto female-but-not-female voice say, "Hi (dragged out the word with a lot of "i"s and a very breathy voice) My name is Donna, what's yours?" I looked around and nearly fell off the stool. The thing next to me was grotesque. Had an Adam's apple like Ickabod Crane, Feet like waterskis, and breath like a goat. Bad wig, false eyelashes...you get the picture?
I jumped up and took a wild swing. The thing caught my arm and said that if I didn't like the game that I should not play in the sand box or something to that effect. My friend was laughing so hard he nearly choked on his food. Do I need to say that we left the place in our dust and headed for the border? I should think not.
No discussion of Broadway street in San Diego would be complete with out a good run-down of all the tattoo parlors. They are about as prevalent as used car lots on Spencer Highway in Pasadena. My choice, on the occasion of my first boot camp liberty, was Painless Nell's. Can you spell misnomer? She did have a nice gimmick though. Her breath and b/o were so potent that it seemed to block the brains ability to register pain. Nell was about 5 feet tall, 5 feet wide and she had no neck. Her pudgy round head sat squarely on her pudgy round body. Big flabby arms and she was covered with tattoos.
Our Company commander had cautioned us about going to Tijuana, getting drunk, getting vd, and getting tattoos. I felt that when it came to following orders, 3 out of 4 ain't bad so I went to TJ, I got drunk, and I got a tattoo. My buddies and me all dared each other and one guy said he'd pay so we all got tattoos.
The image on my arm should have been half as indelible as the imprint Nell made on my olfactory senses. Old Nell told me she thought I was having trouble with the pain, I kept holding my breath and nearly passing out. She kept having to break those little cloth covered glass vials of ammonia under my nose to keep me conscious. I decided that it would be imprudent to tell her that I was holding my breath to keep from blowing groceries on her. Especially since he held an electric power-head with about 8 needles in it in one hand and my right arm in the other and she had a good 80 pounds on me.
Okay, let me get back to Tina and the saga that followed. I had asked her if she would go out with me and she said that she would really like to. But that her parents were very religious and the rule in the Clark house was that any boy that wanted to date one of the Clark girls had to go to church with the family first...and before every date. Well, well. I could not suppress a grin here. All the while I was in high school, my social freedom and use of the family car was directly dependent upon my church attendance. Every time Richey Street Baptist Church opened it's doors I was walkin' through 'em.
I asked her what church her family went to and she told me they were Nazarine. I had never heard of it so I shrugged my shoulders and said that I'd meet them at the Oceanside Church of the Nazarine that following Sunday. She assured me that if I did that we could go out the following week end. She had our date all planned out. There was a kind of teen club in San Diego called The Cinnamon Cinder. They held concerts and such for the teeny boppers in the area. Not what I had in mind but it didn't sound too bad so I agreed. Wanted to get off on the right foot, don'tcha know!?
I lived the entire next week in anticipation of seeing Tina again, even if it was at church in the presence of her family and friends. When Sunday came I dressed in my best suit and headed on in to the church. I wouldn't characterize the congregation as poor, more like lower middle class. I was the only man there who's suit came any where near fitting properly and the women wore some of the floppiest and gaudiest hat's and shabbiest dresses I've ever seen.
I sat through the service and once in a while Tina would give my hand a subtle squeeze and we made eye contact now and then. The service didn't seem all that different from what I was used to at home. A little fire, a little brimstone, more than a little talk of money. There were some comments in reference to "healing" services and some other more bizarre aspects of this group but my mind was on the girl sitting next to me and it would have taken a 2 X 4 to the head to get my focus off her.
After Church I was standing out in the parking lot with her and her family and her dad invited me to come to the house for Sunday dinner. Seems that every Sunday, it fell to one family in the congregation to feed the preacher and his wife after church. This Sunday it was the Clark's turn and I was more than welcome.
Tina's face lit up when she heard her dad invite me. I accepted and followed them over to their house. Tina and her sister Cindy (about 13 years old) disappeared into their room to change clothes and I took off my suit jacket and tie and rolled up my sleeves. Tina's dad invited me down to the basement to join in the games; ping pong, pool, shuffle board. I waxed him and a couple of other guys at 8-Ball and then we all kind of drifted back upstairs to the living room. Mrs Clark had the house smelling good and when Tina came out of her room I nearly passed out. She had on some very short shorts and a tee shirt with the sleeves cut off and cut off at the bottom to show about 8 inches of tummy.
We had a nice meal and Tina and I hung out in the back yard until she told me that when the preacher left, that I'd have to leave too. Sunday night was family night and they didn't have any company around for that. So, when the time came I thanked my hosts for having me over and Tina walked me out to my car. She told me that her parents really liked me and that I was definitely "in" and she gave me a wink. I got in the car and she leaned her head in and laid a good one on me. Right there in broad daylight, right in front of the house. At that point I had visions of the two of us having a long and happy relationship. Maybe even get serious and get married some day. Sigh.....
I went home with wings on my heels. If I had imagined that the week BEFORE had gone slowly then I had a real time surviving through the NEXT week, until our date on Saturday. But, as it will, the time passed and Saturday rolled around. I picked Tina up at noon and we headed on down to San Diego. We went to the beach for a couple of hours and then it was time to head on out to the concert.
I'd asked Tina earlier who we were going to see but she had forgotten who it was. We made it to the ticket window and I saw a poster of the act that would be performing inside. Some guy with a long Beetle type hair cut and wearing a buffalo robe and a girl with long, dark, straight hair and a big nose with a severely deviated septum. In the poster it looked like the guy was an inch or so shorter than the girl.
It was theater style seating. We went in and found our seats, middle section in the front 1/3 of the auditorium. The couple wasn't very good. The guy couldn't sing at all and the girl could sing better but she sounded like her nose was so plugged up that she couldn't breath. Years and years passed before it dawned on me who I had seen on that summer day in 1964. Years later I was watching the Sonny and Cher TV show and they showed some early clips of them singing together. I jumped up in the middle of the living room that night and shouted for all the world to hear that I had seen Sonny and Cher in person. Then I remembered the performance and how un-entertaining it was and sat back down.
After the lack-luster concert we went for a drive up the coast and I showed her some of my old hang outs in San Clemente and we had a nice dinner at Sir George's Smorgasboard, Where I worked Part time as a buss boy and 'tater peeler. When we got back to Oceanside we pulled down on the beach and just talked for a while. I was really getting fond of Tina and I had the sense that she like me a lot, too.
I dropped her off at her house about 10 minutes before curfew and told her I'd see her tomorrow and church . She filled my eyes and my heart with her sweet smile and then she was gone. I drove back home in a trance.
The next morning I was standing out on the front porch of the church waiting for the Clark family to arrive, completely unaware of the next boulder that was about to fall on me. They finally arrived and we all went in together and sat down and waited for the service to begin. Tina looked wonderful. She smelled even better. And she held my hand and never took her eyes off me until the service started. Hoooo Boy!! My heart was about to jump right out of my chest.
I need to take a moment here and get y'all caught up on the Nazarine church. I know several people here that are Nazarines and they tell me that they are not at all like the Nazarines in California. Those out there are what is called "charismatic" The Nazarines around here are like the more conventional protestant type churches. The Charismatic folks ,on the other hand, are quite different. They are not the kind that handle snakes and such but they are just a step below that as far as a bizarre way of worshiping goes. I got off light the week before but this week was to prove vastly different. There was a sign on the front wall of the church announcing a "healing service" that day. I looked right at that sign and didn't take the warning that it so subtly offered. It was screaming silently for me to RUN don't walk to the nearest exit. It's called looking with out seeing.
The service began and it was going along with out incident and I was being over whelmed by Tina's perfume and the touch of her hand in mine. Mean while that bolder is falling faster and faster. Now the preacher sits down and he has just introduced some guy but I missed it. This guy comes up and raises both hands upward and outward toward the congregation. I felt a slight tensing from Tina's hand but didn't understand the significance of the new tension.
His right hand is open and the fingers are fully extended. The left hand is holding a jar of Vaseline. It is not a special jar or anything with Vaseline in it, it is a jar of Vaseline just as it comes off the shelf, the label plainly visible. He is jabbering about how he is only a conduit for God's power. That the healing comes from God and His mercy and wisdom. Now there is a woman hobbling up the aisle. She is having a lot of trouble because both legs appear to be deformed and she is in pain and crying and just having an awful time trying to walk. When she makes it up to the guy with the Vaseline she gets down on her knees and now the guy is crying too.
He digs 3 fingers into the jar and comes out with a lemon sized glob of Vaseline. Did he place it gently and lovingly on her forehead? Not at all! He smacked her on the forehead and rubbed it all over her face and in her hair. Now the woman is wailing and so is the guy. Some of the congregation is now getting cranked up. Still, I don't sense any of the impending danger. When she stood up and turned to face the congregation she was standing straight as a board. She walked back to her seat pretty much normally. Screaming and crying all the while. Now I'm starting to feel a thing that I am only moments away from calling fear.
This is a small church. About 35 to 40 feet from one side of the auditorium to the other. There was a narrow aisle on either side and one right up the middle. There were about 6 rows of pews and from there on back it was the folding metal chairs, un-padded.
Okay, now there is a growing number of folks that have their eyes rolled back in their heads and are speaking tongues. We were on the right side of the church and somewhere from the left side I heard a crash and looked over and saw that someone had just thrown a chair and it had hit the third row of pews and fell to the floor. No one was hit. I was starting to get it now. I had always felt like there was a hitch...some little thing to spoil my new found happiness.
Well there was a hitch alright and it had just sailed passed Tina's dad's head...yet another chair. The room was going crazy. People were rolling, trance like, on the floor and in spite of all my recent combat training, I felt un-prepared. In times like this there are only 3 responses, Stand and fight, drop and cover, or cut and run.
Since I was in the pews I couldn't get my hands on a chair to defend myself with so fighting was not an option, to drop and cover would have been risky. Incoming were now falling all around me. It seemed to me that my best chance to get out alive was to cut and run. I grabbed both of Tina's hands and we ducked down as far as we could. I looked in her eyes and told her that I thought she was a sweet girl, I asked her if her parents would let me take her out if I left this service before it was over. She said "no" that I had to stay for all of it. I gave her hands a final squeeze and said good bye.
I then rolled out of the pew, on to the floor where I did a belly crawl to the door. This was much like the training I'd just had where we crawl along the ground while instructors fire live .30 machine guns just over our heads. When I got there an usher asked me as he opened the door for me, "Ya be comin' back in, sir?" I said that he should just stand there and hold his breath. Once off the stoop, I got up and ran for my car, got in and went back home. I never looked back.
I thought about calling Tina later but I couldn't see the point. No way I could endure that crowd, not even for a great girl like Tina Clark. I still think I made the right decision but sometimes I just wonder..........
I eventually met the woman that was my first wife there in Oceanside. After I started going with her that pretty much took me out of the social scene I had been making. No more cave parties, no more wild weekends in the little duplex at 515 Grant Street in Oceanside. Pretty much had me headed down "Domestic Lane" by the time I went back over seas. I have some great memories of Southern California. It was a good place and a good time for me and I'll remember it always.
I had never seen anything like that in my life. I too like to sit on the back row with my friends but my dad sang in the choir and made me sit where he could see me at all times. 
