insearchofbud

Got a bill for $90 from Barclay Card, for its annual fee.  Whoa, I said.  They said I have until Nov. 9 to pay up.  No! In thunder, I cried.

I didn’t request a Barclay Card account, or the card itself, but they sent one several weeks ago.  I didn’t know it was real!  I nearly threw it away.  I figured it only looked real.

I never dreamed it was real, but you know how you’re supposed to tear up credit card applications?  I thought the card itself would make a dandy scraper to clean my Vitodens boiler for our underfloor heating system, so I scraped off the magnetic stripe and rubbed the card number with a pair of scissors, thinking its activation would be contingent on my application, which I never filled out.  I threw the card in with some tools, so I found it just now.

I don’t want a Barclay Card.  I never wanted one.  I won’t pay their annual fee.  I feel that I’ve been scammed by a huge credit card company.  Why me??

I don’t want a blemish upon my credit report that might make it hard for my children to check me into a nursing home.  Has this happened to anyone else?

Friday, October 14, 2016

In the summer of 1955, when my mother was working on a master’s in Education, Susie Bickle was my daytime babysitter.

I believe her job was relatively easy.  She supervised me as I ate cereal.  Rice Crispies.  You know, “snap crackle pop.”

In those days you got a submarine in the Rice Crispies box, in a cellophane envelope, one with a hat-shaped metal insert in the bottom.

One could add a bit of baking powder to this sub, which was all of 1.5 inches long.  You put the sub into the water and it sunk to the bottom.  Once the water reacted with the baking powder, bubbles caused the sub to rise to the surface.  The bubbles burst at the surface, and the sub sank to the bottom once again.

My brother Tom and I played with the sub in the bathtub, and my friend Mike Kohler and I played with the toy sub in the deep water of his father’s wheelbarrow, a special wheelbarrow with giant wheels and a payload that was probably two feet deep.

June 25, 1945 — Mon. evening

St. Martin, France (Arles staging area)

Dearest Ruth,

I don’t know whether I’m in the right frame of mind to give you the story of my unforgettable Christmas of ’44, but here goes.

December 23rd, after dinner we were told to get ready to move immediately.  And they sure weren’t kidding.  First we started folding our cots, dumping the straw out of our mattresses, same time they started issuing us some more of the essentials of battle, and by eight o’clock we were on our way [to] the train depot, having had packed our duffle bags, eaten, and loaded all the vehicles besides.  None of us G.I.s knew why or where we were going.  The thoughts among us were many for some of them were spoken aloud — what we did last xmas, what we would give to be home.  What our folks were doing, if we were going to the Bulge, how we would have liked to have spent our xmas in Dorchester and wondering what would happen to all the good turkey that came in for us that day for our xmas meal.

In the meantime we were rolling on to Southampton, losing no time.  There we had to walk over 2 miles to the pier from the depot.  And I mean walk, we had no break and carrying our full field pack made it no easy job.  Yes, there was the Leopoldville waiting for us, but we still had time enjoy some coffee and doughnuts which were really appreciated.  Next they called us off by roll — and on the boat we went.  We, 2nd Bn Medics were assigned to G-4 (bottom deck) shared by Co H and F.  I guess it was around 3 a.m. when they finished loading and not long after that we shoved off.  Naturally we were all dead tired for we had been rushed around.  Most of us dozed off and on till chow 9 o’clock I think it was.  What a messy way to feed, listen to this.  The mess tables were right [in] the compartments including the dishes and the pots to go after the chow with.  In fact all the hammocks hung over and about the tables.  The food was lousy.  Stew one time.  I’m [not] sure the other ?  I don’t remember only that I ate very little of anything composing either meal.

During the trip up to around 6 p.m. the time was spent, playing cards, sleeping, and going up on deck at intervals.  You couldn’t stay up too long for it was cold and windy out.  The sea was rough.  Oh I forgot to finish about our chow.  Each table was given a ticket to pick up chow for 12 men at the kitchen.  Two guys got the chow each meal and divided it among the 12 of us.  Upon finishing the NCO in charge of the table had to get two volunteers to take all dirty dishes and utensils up on top deck where they had to wait in line maybe 30 to 40 minutes to wash the dishes in a small sink, cold water only and very little soap.

Back to six p.m.  It was then that a torpedo hit our compartment.  Myself and about 5 others were lying [on] the floor on top of duffle bags, because they were short on hammocks and personally I didn’t like them which may have helped saved my life.  I was asleep.  I heard the powerful explosion, felt the water and timber hit me and heard screams all at the same time.  Believe me it all happen so quick I don’t remember everything.  The following minutes I was under water, just how long I don’t know I did get some water in me and thought of a million and one things while under.  Strongest in my mind was that everything was taking place so fast and I wasn’t even having a chance to escape.  Just then I came to the surface.  As Grace of God would have it I came up right in the center of the hatch which was about 3 yards square.

Incidentally I didn’t have my life preserver on at any time during the episode.  The pressure of the incoming water was making the water go up through the hatch as a fountain.  Had I not kept my senses and grabbed a hold of a partly dismantled metal ladder I would have been washed by the water back from the hold where I would have drown as many did when the water reached the ceiling of that deck, Deck F, I think it was.  I held on to that ladder with all my might and caught my wind.  By that time the water was up to the floor of the next deck.  I pulled myself out of the water.  I started with a large group who were all trying to get out on deck.  I knew I would never get out before the time that water would have that deck flooded for I was among the last of the group.  I looked behind me and behold I saw a light out on the open deck on the other side.  Keeping my eye on the light as a guide through most total darkness I crawled over timbers and bodies to open deck.  It wasn’t so crowded on that side so before long I was on top deck.  Their I about froze to death.  Boy was that wind cold blowing through those wet clothes.  I don’t know what I would have done had I not been able to get a blanket.  I no sooner had reechoved that when I spied that dear ole destroyer pulling up beside us on the side I was on.  I can’t express in words how good that ship looked.  They kept loading from my side but started from the front as that was where the two ships were tied together.  I really sweated that time out till it was my turn to shed my blanket grab a vertical rope and swing over to the destroyer.  You had to let loose at a certain time or you would miss the destroyer, landing between the two boats which mean most certain death for the following reason.  The sea was so rough the boats were always banging together, besides tossing up and down.  The fellow that I followed let loose of the rope just as the boats were pushed apart by a wave landing into the water.  You aren’t kidding I was scared but I made the jump okay.

I was directed in a large room which was already crowded.  There a member of the British Navy gave me a complete suit of dry Navy clothes, besides a towel to dry myself.  I quickly changed clothes and sat down for many guys were seasick and had to go to a sink near me quite often to throw up.  The sailors also gave us food.  I’ll never forget those boys they were swell.  I still have the underwear he gave me.

Fortunately the 10 mile trip to port was uneventful.  We were all on ground no time and did it feel good.  Then [we] started to feel bad for of our 25 aboard we could only locate 4 EM and one officer (Lt. Weber).  Soon as we formed in company groups we built some fires in bombed out warehouses.  In about 1/2 hour along came some tractor-trailer jobs which took us to large hotel where troops were living.  Again you wouldn’t have asked for any better treatment.  The Red Cross served coffee and doughnuts, and I brought in K rations which tasted darn good then, and in came beaucoup blankets.  We, who were wet, were ushered down to the boiler room where we dried our wet clothes and tried to warm up.  Well after midnight (December 25 Christmas Day then) I was escorted to a house where some replacements were living.  Some of the group was on night patrol for German paratroops, who had been seen in and around the city, so 5 of us occupied the empty beds.  It took me some time to go to sleep but when I did I slept have [?] 9 a.m. While still at the hotel when most of the fellows stayed all night, there was lots of high rank asking us all kinds of questions, but were very considerate about everything.  The Red Cross girls did a good job, too.

Christmas morning I went down to the hotel had breakfast (K-rations).  Right after that, we started receiving wool k[n]it caps, overcoats, gloves, long underwear, shirts, trousers, also cots.  That noon we had a hot meal right at the hotel.  We borrowed mess gears.  In the afternoon we just laid around discussed our experiences and wondered and hoped for the return of our buddies.  Through we knew the chances were slim.  First because many were asleep in their hammocks, including Cronk, and unless they came up through the hatch were I did they were trapped for good.  Being in their hammocks didn’t give them a chance to even work toward the hatch for the water filled the first (bottom) deck in no time.  As I told Dot she could console herself to one fact that was that Rally didn’t suffer long if any for many were killed instantly from the explosion and falling timber.  Another thing that raised the death toll was that the destroyer had to pull away from the sinking ship before everyone was transferred.  Consequently, some of those who had to jump overboard were drown by the big waves before the small boats picking men up could reach them.  On the other hand the fact that there wasn’t any panic for which we were commended, saved many lives.  It was like the old saying “there’s nothing as bad it couldn’t have been worse.”

Now back to xmas night, about 6 p.m. we were loaded on some tractor trailers and were delivered to a colored port Bn.  They had just finished their Christmas meal so gave us their mess gears, and then [to] the chow line we went.  Of course it all had been pre-arranged and we had plenty of everything.  As usual we receiveed the best of hospitality.  We had turkey and all the trimmings, cooked very well for army too.  It was there that their colored chaplain delivered such a heart-rending sermon.  I think I wrote about that part before.  He spoke the words we were feeling but couldn’t express.

We stayed at the hotel xmas night.  The next day we moved to a small tent camp set up for us especially where we lived for over New Years.  It was right on the edge of Cherbourg near the port.  There we received our new equipment.  And about Jan 10 or 12 we moved  by 40 & 8, and it was darn cold, to Rennes where we lived in a large tent city on a[n] air strip.

Now for a few comments I forgot.  First there were some real heroic work done during the boat “accident” and I was glad to see the men awarded the proper medals.  One example a company commander, just before the boat went down took his preserver off and gave it to one of his men.  They were both saved by a small boat picking them up.  Another commander lost his life going down the hole, where we came up, in attempt to save some of his men.  His company, Co. F., was in our compartment as I believe I already have mentioned.  Cards and I were the only ones of the five laying on the floor, who made it to safety.

Well Ruth, I think that completes my experience crossing the channel.  I think you will agree I’m more than lucky to be alive.  I give my thanks to the Man above, too. for my being alive today.

I will try and give you the story of our move in to St. Nazaire in the near future, Ruth.

It is now the 25th, I only got around 5 pages completed last night when it was time to go to the movies.  The first I attended and the only I went [to] was that “Meet Me in St. Louis” was playing.  Enjoyed it very much though since it was a musical its being shown outside killed some of the good music.  Their living as closely made me think of our courtship, honey.  To be truthful, I though of you quite often during the picture.

Received your swell letters of 18, 19, and 20th today and will try and answer them tomorrow.  We were quite busy today sick call of 82 men evacuated 28, beaucoup venereal disease among colored troops, all right.  We have all colored troops at present.

In closing will send you my fondest love. You are such a good wife and I miss you so much.

Ever and always,

Your Cloyd

 

Remainder of Bill Loughborough’s letter to his wife, regarding the sinking of the SS Leopoldville:

…Drew and McFall were in the compartment at the time of the catastrophe.  Both were sleeping, and when they awoke they were completely submerged.  “Mac” was on his way thru the hole made by the torpedo in the starboard side by the time he awoke.  The force of the water which had rushed in and back-watered from the opposite side must have carried him out.  He can’t swim a lick.  He came to the surface along side the disabled ship and was pulled back aboard by someone on deck.  Drew surfaced within the compartment as soon as he awoke.  There was still about a foot of breathing space between the water and the ceiling so he worked his way across beams to the hatchway.  A ladder, a steel one, which came down the length of the hatchway was still intact, so he climbed to the deck on that.  Drew is 38 years old, is about 5’1”, weighs about 110, and can’t swim a stroke!  He heard some one in the compartment call out before he left, but there was nothing he could do.  Whoever it was was probably pinned in by a table or something.  He didn’t see a soul.

They said the ship began listing terribly about 9, and most of those still on deck slid down her tipped side and into the water.  Only one other destroyer was able to tie onto the “Leopoldville and remove some boys.  Even this one had to leave when only half full because the big ship was leaning already.  So, I was lucky in getting in on the only full destroyer load taken off.

No order to abandon ship was ever given!  I guess all in authority saved their own necks first.  They say when the big ship slipped beneath the waves there were still boys on deck.  Some of these probably joined in with the others who had jumped and slid off sooner, and fought to get on tugs, rafts, lifeboats, destroyers, and everything that was floating.  Many drowned in the the mad rushes for boats and because of not wearing their life-preservers correctly.

Well, there it is!  If you have any questions, I’ll answer ‘em.    Bill

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Duck had more than fourteen inches, and this wasn’t counting the comic book-size plywood the stack rested on, beside his pallet in the basement apartment that was so far from Mount Sentinel that the whole mountain was less than one finger length long, if you held the finger at arms length.

Less than two years later he would abandon the stack of Marvels in the farming community of Richfield, Idaho, where he and the members of a hippie blues band lived in an abandoned hotel.  They left because they smoked away all of their weed and boredom was consuming their lives.  I thought Duck and his brother were in heaven, a place too steep in the sky to visit, although Tim Rogers and I tried on foot.

Tim and I spent the night in a city park in Boise, roughly across the street from the Rescue Mission.  We arrived too late to check in for a bed, so we unrolled our bags under some bushes.  The next day we panhandled for breakfast, faking a British accent.  Hell anything would have brought results better than my plain Montana way of speaking.  Tim said buckwheat pancakes filled you up better, but you had to have at least a couple dollars for breakfast.  Didn’t take long when we were desperate.

The rain had stopped and I still had one tab of acid, so as we hitched out of town I dropped it.  Didn’t occur to me that we were not likely to find a ride to the remote village of about 400, but a car dropped Tim and me close enough to see the water tower and grain elevator in the distance, across the smooth-looking grassy lava bed.  The roadmap called it the “great Idaho lava bed.”  It didn’t seem so great once we tried walking across, cutting the distance to less than twenty miles.  The buildings looked close enough to almost touch them.

Turns out we just needed to walk down into a ravine and up the other side in order to once again see the water tower and grain elevator of Richfield.  I marveled at how like the ocean during  a storm the land seemed, undulating where you couldn’t see anything but the side of the next swell until you crested the top.  We struggled thus for several hours before I began to fatigue, the distant water tower and grain elevator not seeming to get any closer.

We stopped for a smoke.  We had used up all of the good Balkan Sobranie and now smoked the Prince Albert, chunks of coarse sawdust, poking holes in the Zigzag papers.  I suggested that we were on a fools errand.  Twenty miles wasn’t an abstraction anymore.  More like an impossibility.  I was wearing some spaced-out hippie riding boots that were blistering a hole in my ankle where the leather buckled with each step on the rocky lava surface.

Years later, in human physiology, I would see the resemblance between the lining of the small bowel, with it’s several degrees of folding of vili and microvilli, to the surface of the great Idaho lava bed with its undulations.  Not more than a hands-breadth underfoot, but developing to degrees of undulations as large as houses.  This freaked me out.

Scared, I ran the five or six hundred meters to a road that ran parallel to our trek toward Richfield, a name that now inspired horror.  I was especially horrified by the extreme visage of two women in cars that flashed past headed toward Boise.  I clearly saw they were zombies with open faces and mouths contorted into the grins of death.  The next car that came along I flapped my arms like a great bird.

The car stopped the way one does when one flags it down.  I was too terrified to speak, out of my mind on acid, but Tim calmly told the woman that I had made a mistake.  She was going away from Richfield, our destination.

Richfield turned into the destination in a comic, drawn with a radiograph pen, months later, just prior to my joining the Marines to go to Vietnam.

Only I did not go to Vietnam, only Memphis, Tennessee.

P. and I did political canvassing for Steve Bullock and Denise Juneau on the Southside of Billings yesterday.  I said “did political canvassing” because I don’t know many other ways of saying it.  We visited houses on a list, knocked on the door, waited an appropriate time, knocked again, or pushed the doorbell button, then rolled up the two fliers and pushed them into the screen door handle.  One guy came out after I had put the literature into his screen door handle, reached around, pulled them out, and tossed them onto his yard all the while making an angry face at us.

Most of the people we met were kind to us, though.  I was impressed that they were mostly passionately in favor of the Democrats.  Several young people said they didn’t vote.  P. said to one that he looked familiar.  Turns out she was his Head Start teacher when he was four.  He got a little flustered, then said he would register to vote “just for you” to her.

Yesterday Kim Thompson Irons took P. and me for a lobster supper along with her mother, Betty.  She is in her 90s and, well, at sea, as they say in crossword puzzles.   The supper was right there at the assisted living place, Bonaventure.

Neither P. nor I had ever eaten lobster.  Once Kim had Betty all fixed up with her walker, which she trudged behind like a grenadier on the way to battle, we walked into the dining room via the back door.  On the patio were several cooking pots on portable propane burners.  Several cooks worked rapidly, sweating in the heat of the pots.  We saw great piles of cooked lobsters on trays, looking quite red and black.  A cook was crushing some of the lobsters with a mallet, presumably to facilitate digging out the meat.

Sure enough, once seated we all got white bibs with caricatures of lobsters thereon.  Seemed like a lot of trouble to go to to dig out a modest amount of lobster meat, but it seemed to be worth it.  Also there was corn, potato salad, coleslaw, and desert was chocolate pie.  I guess fate will dictate if we get to partake of lobster in the future.  I didn’t know so many lobsters existed.  Must have been several hundred in various stages of processing.

Betty proved to be a delightful co-host with her daughter, although she didn’t say much because her hearing is poor.  Kim said Betty will get hearing aids next week.  I didn’t say much either because I didn’t have much to say, other than to thank them.

Friday, September 30, 2016

Gunther will not poop in our back yard, so I needed to walk him around the block, same as I have done 3-4 times a day, every day we’ve had him, since January.  Raising a puppy is a holy task, but I think he is worth it.  He has many, er, advantages.  He barks at the mailman, poops on the other end of the block, and sneaks upstairs to pee on the carpet.  I don’t live upstairs.  However, tomorrow we will mitigate the stains.  Anyway, I digress.

G. and I were nearly home from his pooping when I spied a gentleman, whom I learned a little later is named Dave, and his mastiff, Maximillion.  Or Maxi, for short.  We did the usual dog owner things:  clucked about each other’s handsome dog, noticed how much they like each other, as judged by the motion of the wagging tails, and generally acted agreeable.  I noticed the plastic poop bag tied to Maxi’s leash.  I couldn’t help noticing Maxi’s stout body and large, bone-crushing-jaws and head.

We didn’t spend a lot of time, Gunther and I, and soon we went our way.  Dave and Maxi went theirs.

The cemetery near Dillon where Kim Archer is buried used to be a destination for all of us on the track team to run.  Including Kim for the first two years of his high school.  I remember trying to get a go-cart I invented to run on that road.

Little Belt Mountains

P. and Gunther and I just returned from a hastily planned and executed camping trip on the South Fork of the Judith River.  I had no idea the Little Belt Mountains would knock off my stockings with beauty.

We drove to Buffalo, Montana, then took back roads west, then north, then west, then north — about seven such stair steps — to Utica.  Then we drove south just past the village of Sapphire, then followed the river on a dirt road about ten miles, or so.

Eventually we saw a campground with a pickup with a door open so an old guy could listen to a recording blare.  An old Simon and Garfunkel tape told us about a bridge over troubled water.  While P. got busy with Gunther, I walked over to the (turned out to be) U.S. Forest Service gent eating his lunch, smoking a cigarette, drinking some coffee.

He was a good enough guy.  Assured me the whole area was good for camping, except he was refinishing some picnic tables in the blare of S & Garfunkel that was sitting in a railway station got a ticket for my destination hmmmm hmm hmm on a tour of one night stands…”

P. and I set up the tent and fixed bagel sandwiches for lunch.  And coffee. “I have my poetry books to protect me…”  “I have no need for friendship.  Friendship causes pain. It’s dum de dum and laughter I disdain…”  crooned the S&G duo.

Then we hiked about a mile and a half uphill.  I got tired.  Then we returned.  Yada yada yada.  Made a campfire.  Yada yada yada.  Ate canned chili.  We had trouble making the fire go.  Sparse, damp wood.  Ultimately crawled into our sleeping bags.

Looked for aurora borealis during the three times I had to get up to pee.  No dice.  Saw the big dipper, so I know we were looking in the right spot.

Gunther slept through the night.

New Thermorest mattress was outstanding.

We followed the South Fork of the Judith River until we crossed the divide and ultimately joined Highway 12 near the city of Checkerboard.  Then home via Two Dot, Harlowtown, Ryegate, and Broadview.