I Had a Plan

When I graduated from high school in May of 1968, I did so kicking and screaming every step of the way. Well not so much kicking screaming...more like weeping and sobbing. The tears flowed through the entire ceremony. Good thing I didn't have to give a speech, as it was I couldn't even sing a single word of the songs we had spent weeks rehearsing. I am really rotten at good byes, and this was a big one. My whole life revolved around that school and those people. Leaving it was like leaving the womb.

I wasn't ready to commit to another school. All my life I had dreamed of a career in nursing, but I wasn't ready to ask my folks to support me in that endeavor until I was absolutely certain it's what I wanted. So the smart thing in my mind, was to work at the hospital for a year as a nurse's aid. Not only would I find out if nursing and I were suited for each other, but I would get the lay of the land so to speak, and have a leg up. If I was familar with the place and the people, and the procedures, then maybe the whole idea of it wouldn't be so daunting. That was my plan.

At least I had a choice. I was lucky...I was born a girl. My male friends weren't so lucky. It was either college, enlist in the service, or wait for Uncle Sam's inevitable call.

My friends were all heading to college with their sights set on the future. My best friend Jean was going to Michigan Tech. Her brother was already there so she kind of knew the place. Her boyfriend Gordon was leaving to join the Navy in August. So no more double dates.

My boyfriend was still in high school. No, he wasn't younger, he just wasn't all that bright. He wasn't the love of my life, just a temporary someone to pass the time with. He would be leaving for the army eventually...or the marines....like I said, he wasn't all that bright.

That summer was a stream of good byes. I saw several of my friends off at the bus station as they left for Milwaukee and the military. We had a dinner with all of my girlfriends...so that we could all be together one last time. And then we had the picnic for Gordon. Just the four us...double dating one more time. Then they were all gone and I was left behind. I was working at the hospital and seeing my boyfriend on my occasional weekends off. I was just biding my time...going along with the plan.

Then the first chink in the plan came about. We got a new orderly. He had just retired from the Navy. He loved the Navy. I loved listening to him talk about the Navy. I had never considered a military career fearing that I would never make it through boot camp. I didn't think I had the discipline for it. But listening to him talk, and wanting to do my part...even though I was a girl...the idea began to take on a life of it's own. I loved working on the Orthopedic ward. I enjoyed the easy banter with the guys.

Maybe that's the kind of nursing that I was meant to do. I knew that I was meant to do something, I just had to figure out what. If I enlisted, did my time, figured stuff out...then I would have the GI bill, and I wouldn't have to ask my parents to support my dream of nursing school. I could do it myself. That very much appealed to me. Now all I had to do was muster up the courage to tell my parents that I was going to leave home and join the Navy. I had a new plan.

My Dad was afternoon shift on that day in October. That meant that we would have a large meal at noon before he went off to the mine. I had the day off so I was enjoying the day spending time with my little brother while our inbetween siblings were in school. My mother decided to go all out that day and fixed a huge turkey dinner with all the trimmings. (One of the few things that even she couldn't mess up). I piled my plate high with white meat and mashed potatoes....added some vegetables and squeezed in the stuffing. All through dinner, I tried to figure out how and when I would tell my parents that I was ready to fly the coop. It wasn't going to be easy...another good bye. Another big one. I was the oldest and would be the first to leave home. I didn't think they were ready for that. I knew they weren't.

After dinner, when the other kids went back to their classes, little brother and I sat down to build something out of Legos. That's when I first felt it. A pain in my side. It was dull at first and I tried to ignore it. I thought that I must have eaten too much and this was the consequence. But it wasn't going away, in fact it was getting worse. I told mom that I wasn't feeling well and that I was going to lay down for a while. She began to get concerned.

Before he headed off to work, my dad came to my room to see how I was doing. He didn't like the looks of things, he didn't say so, but I could see it in his face. He thought it might be best to get this checked out. He told my mother to take me to the clinic to see Doc Williams.

Dad headed to work and mom and I headed to the clinic. I was quite surprised when I was informed that the blood test confirmed that I had appendicitis. It was off to the hospital immediately for surgery...do not pass go...do not collect $200.00. This was not in the plan.

I spent six weeks recovering. My whole life was put on hold what seemed to me like forever. But with all that time to think, I had made up my mind. I for sure wanted to join the Navy. It was time for me to stretch my wings. I was needed. I liked to be needed. I couldn't think of anything more rewarding than to serve those who served. The plan was put on hold for a while longer...but it was still very much a plan.

Then the letter arrived. It was in a textured blue envelope on matching blue stationary. It was short, only one page, and so innocent. It was from Gordon, who had written from Navy boot camp. My friend Jean had written and told him about my appendectomy. She suggested that he write a get well message. Gordon's handwriting was so awful, that it took me 20 minutes, with help from my mother to read it. It probably took me as much time to read it as it did for him to write it. Still it was a nice thought. And perhaps I had found an ally. Someone to share my Navy secret.

My mother had different ideas however. She hated my boyfriend...and saw this as an opportunity of a different sort. "He likes you," she said. "And when he comes home on leave, he is going to ask you out....and darn you....you'd better go!"

I laughed at the very idea of it. Gordon and I had always had an advesarial relationship of sorts. We were always bickering about one thing or another. He loved to push my buttons...and my buttons were easily pushed. If she only knew how we used to drive Jean crazy with our back and forth jabs.

Then a couple of weeks later on a Wednesday night, I got the call. "Hi, I'm home on leave, and I'd like to come over to see you if I could. I went up to Tech to see Jean yesterday, and we've decided to go our separate ways. I'd like to talk. Can I come over?" He sounded different.

"Sure," I said. "No problem, I have tomorrow off. Come on over."

We talked. We went out "for a coke"....which also involved a pizza. Then the late movie, and a drive in his 1956 two tone green Ford. Then we parked at the foot of the ski hill...and talked until 4:00 am. Somewhere in there he kissed me. Somewhere in there I forgot all about the plan.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day has never been a day of celebration for me. It's always been a day of rememberance. Maybe it's because I lived in a small town in the midwest where we took Memorial Day seriously. We always had a parade where the flag was flown and the veterans marched to the cemetary. The graves were marked with new flags and speeches were given. When I was in high school and a member of the band, I marched too...all the way out to the cemetary on the outskirts of town. I stayed to hear the speeches. I deliberately made myself aware of the sacrifices others who were called to serve. That's the way it was in the years following the second World War and before the quagmire of Vietnam.

I was a good kid, a pretty good student, and oh so terribly naive. I lived a pretty sheltered life in the north woods. So sheltered that current events all seemed to happen somewhere else...in some far away place like California, or New York, or Washington D.C. Nothing ever happened in our isolated corner of the country. Our lives pretty much revolved around the iron ore that was mined by our fathers...that is until the young folks in our neck of the woods started getting draft notices or were bussed to Milwaukee to enlist.

Still things didn't change much. Folks pretty much believed the government knew what they were doing and trusted them to be smarter than the average Yooper. We accepted them at their word. If it was on the Channel 6 news, then it must be true.

Even when the Ishpeming High School class of 1968 graduated, we still believed that the war was necessary to hold back the tide of communism. Our yearbook attests to that. Such innocents we were. Things didn't really start to change until the fall of 1968, when Bobby Polkinghorne died, then Earl Seablom..on his first day in country (Can you believe that!)

But on July 9 1969, everything changed. Pete Ulrickson was killed by a sniper. We the class of 1968 had lost one of our own...our star quarterback. No more would the black and white 1957 Chevy "buzz the gut" around town. Pete was the third and thankfully last that our small town would give to that unholy war.

A month later we watched the news reports of Woodstock. They weren't the long haired freaks our parents talked about. They were kids...like us. We were the same. They were us. And we joined them in their frustration. Dissent which before had been simply unthinkable became inevitable. We joined the tide sweeping the nation.

Every Memorial Day, I visit the virtual wall, and pay my respects to Bobby, and Earl, and especially to Pete. This day though, I happened to tune into a program on PBS based on a book titled "They Marched into Sunlight". It was informing and moving...and all just so sad. I haven't been able to get past the sadness. Two days in 1967. Two days...before Bobby , before Earl, before Pete. If we had only known then what we knew later.

How can this happen twice in one lifetime? What didn't we learn.? We should have known better. What good is remembering if we don't learn? It's all just so heartbreakinly sad.