When we got to the small airport in Lawton we found it busy. It was the 16th of December now and we were all on leave till the second or third of January. We found our flights and I struck out for my gate. Two or three others from my battery were heading to Dallas on my same flight. We got on the plane, got settled in and soon took off into the dark. It was around seven or so in the evening. The flight to Dallas was short. Once we arrived in Dallas I had a connecting flight to Atlanta leaving around eleven, but I went to the desk in uniform and they told me there were available seats on an Atlanta flight on another airline leaving at nine. One of the guys and myself bolted to that gate and checked through and were soon on the plane heading for Atlanta. When we got to Atlanta we found it just as cold there as the part of the country we left. Circumstance was with us that evening. We got into Atlanta and were able to pull the same thing again and I got the last flight out to Wilmington that evening. I had just enough time to call my family to tell them I’d be coming in around midnight their time. I don’t remember who I talked to, but they passed it on to my dad. So I was at the trailer with my dad on Thursday morning. The family came down to spend the weekend. It was cold at home, but I was so glad to be back, even if for but a couple of weeks. We all sat around Thursday and talked and caught up on my new status and all that had gone on at home while gone. I went to see Eleanor later in the afternoon and when Billy got home from school we got caught up with each other and he gave me the number to Julie’s home.
I called her and asked her if I could come over that evening. With a bit of hesitancy she agreed I could come over that evening around seven. I asked directions and was told 122 S. Kerr Avenue just off Market Street. Billy said he knew where that was, so when the time came we struck out in my car with my brother Danny. We rode down Kerr Ave, but seemed to have a lot of trouble locating this address. We rode all the way down to Wrightsville Ave and turned around and came back to Market, still not seeing the house number. So we decided action needed to be taken. We stopped at a service station on the corner of N. Kerr and Market and we got out and went into the garage bay. There were three guys in there that seemed about my age. I asked if someone could tell me where 122 S. Kerr was. One of the guys asked who I was looking for, so I told him Julie Barnes. He kind of smiled, turned and looked at the other two guys who did the “smile and look down” routine like I was about the most stupid guy to hit town. But the guy told me just across the tracks from Gibson’s Department store on the left at the intersection of Franklin Ave. That was pretty good. We pulled off the road in front of this little run down house next to a barn that looked like it was right off the farm. The yard was fenced in, so we were off the road by the front gate. There was a little fire going. There was smoke coming from out the chimney. There was one tree to the left of the walk. I went up the steps onto the wooden porch and I knocked on the door. Now, in the picture of Julie I surmised she must be at least five six or seven, but when the door opened I was taken by surprise. Julie leaned out from the door frame bending slightly as she did so. This only made her look shorter. She was only about five feet three, maybe. I almost asked was her mom home, because I thought her to be much younger than Julie. You see, the porch light wasn’t on I don’t believe and she was backlit, so I couldn’t see her face all that well. Then she spoke and I realized before saying anything that she was Julie. Billy said hey and then introduced himself directly since he’d not really met her except through his friend. Then he introduced me. Then she invited me in. She was wearing this white sweater top with a red jumper on over it. She was polite, but stood her distance. After all she knew I was fresh from boot camp and school. What did she expect anyway? A horny Army guy who hadn’t seen a female in several months?
Her mom was present and I could tell her mom was at least close to sixty. Julie was seventeen at the time. Billy and Danny decided to leave me there alone and told me they’d come back in about an hour. After pleasantries with her mom she retrieved a coat and dismissed herself to a friend’s home down Franklin Ave leaving Julie alone with me. We sat on the couch with room to spare and talked about one thing and another. I don’t remember if this was brought up, but somewhere in getting to know her I found out she was the youngest of seven. She had three sisters and three brothers. With me being the oldest of five boys the math came down to her oldest sister being older than my parents. What an interesting conversation that could start when talking about family.
One thing I must mention here. I did get off on the wrong foot that evening. I never smoked in my life, but for some reason I felt to puff on a cigar that evening before the visit and it was very apparent that the lingering smell of it was on me when I went in for my visit. She easily detected it. And I wasn’t trying to, but it was pretty evident that I was a bit forward. After all, I’d been with another intimately for some time prior and for whatever reason I let myself tilt my hand too far. You see, when Billy and Danny finally came back to pick me up I asked could I come see her again, she said to call first. That to me meant, “I won’t be available”. And also to let you know when I left I more or less insisted on a kiss. Nothing frenchy or passionate. Just a simple kiss. She resisted at first but gave in knowing if she did so I would leave. So, the first visit was over. I went home not so confident, but I felt I must see her again and if I was to do so I must just show up. Calling would not get me anywhere.
I gave the morning some time to progress. It was perhaps ten or so when I got into my car and drove over to her house. There she sat on the front porch in curlers with her niece and a friend from up Franklin Ave. She jumped up and ran into the house, but she was too late. She knew she’d already been seen. She came back out and I walked inside the gate. Her friend, Marlene, stayed and we talked a while. Julie reminded me I was supposed to call, but I gaffed it off and said I was just in town and decided to stop by and see if she was home or something.
It seems her mom was on my side and had talked to her the evening before I believe, or at least at some point. I convinced her with her mom’s help to go out with me that evening. We didn’t do anything special. We rode around town and looked at the Christmas trees in people’s windows and may have gone by to what Wilmington touts as the world’s largest Christmas tree. We also rode down to Wrightsville Beach, but this night we didn’t get out. I tried to prove I wasn’t a threat, but she didn’t seem to be biting. But overall, with her mom’s encouragement she agreed to go out again later. It was Christmas holiday now so there was no reason we couldn’t go out on a weeknight. Her mom did give us a curfew, which I was happy to oblige. I didn’t want to step too heavily on a delicate situation. That I had detected. Billy had told me she’d been going steady with a guy and had not long broken up with him and he lived only a block down from her house. I didn’t know the situation. I knew Julie was to be my wife after knowing her for just a few days. I just couldn’t be too open about that just yet. Have you ever had such premonitions of what is to be before? Well, I did and I had to play this out as long as I could within the time I had allotted. Now I had to deal with the remains of a failed relationship with Vickie. This was going to be more difficult than I had thought, since now I had to deal with hit first hand.
The following week we went out again and rode some more. We didn’t do much more than ride around and talk. I do remember the old 1960 Falcon had a generator problem and the battery would discharge, so I had it one evening, but we didn’t go far. We did ride to the beach again, but this time we got out and walked along the shore in the cold sand. The wind was whipping up pretty good, because it made some pretty big waves. At one point I do remember picking her up and running towards the water like I was going to get her wet and she was screaming to put her down. Really after all these weeks of physical training and her weighing only ninety five pounds it was nothing to it to carry her around. I wouldn’t dare to have done anything to hurt her. By now, I was beginning to see there was a turn in her opinion of me, but I wasn’t going to push anything, because when we got back into the car to head back home I asked to to slide over and sit beside me on the old car’s bench seat and her replied that she was quite comfortable right where she was. I just knew I had a small window to let her know where I was headed and still had some ground to cover.
Her mother was a good Pentecostal woman. She practiced her faith. That I could tell. The thing I found out about how she was struck by me was my short hair. The seventies were known for long hair and I wasn’t a member of that crowd. Little did she know was I would be a long-hair if it had not been for the military. There was also something she was hiding from me that I would learn of later, but for now let’s not spoil the build-up of a new relationship.
Just before Christmas day, dad said work was over for the holiday and we were heading home. I said my good-bye to Julie and her mom and took off for home. It was good to see Grandma Elsie and Jamie, all my brothers, Dwight and the other guys from the gang. They couldn’t believe how different I looked. I didn’t really know I looked that different. Just more toned was all. The BCGs were in my luggage and I had my regular glasses. BCGs for the unlearned is military issue glasses we called birth control glasses, hence BCGs. They were so ugly a girl would immediately mark you off their “to do” list.
My car wouldn’t really run all that well. The battery was continually running down and I’d have to get it charged. So, I did a lot of walking the neighborhood or Dwight would come over and pick me up in his F85 Olds his mom bought him. It was a pretty hot little car. We went to a basketball game in Bath one night with Danny coming along. We had some girls eyeing us, so we took them for a ride, but nothing ever happened from that. I believe they saw the car and just wanted to ride in it. So it seems that the rest of the time I was home Dwight and I run the roads together what time I wasn’t at Vickie’s trying to sort through the mess that was left of our relationship. I was still a bit torn about it all, yet I knew what was going to happen. Dwight and I went to New Bern one night to the Charburger we frequented before I went into the Army. There I saw Vickie and her sister Sue with their brother from Virginia. There was another girl there by the name of Sylvia Barber. She was a skanky girl, but for some reason she hooked up with Dwight and he asked me to drive. Vickie got into the car with me and we rode to Glenburnie Park and did as the name implied. Parked. I left Dwight and Sylvia to themselves in the backseat and Vickie and I did nothing but talk. I believe that to be the first and only time we only talked. She gave me promises I only felt to be hollow, yet I listened and ended with agreement so as not to create any emotional situation. Dwight was my comedy relief that night, so that lessened the idea of any decisions being made. I just let things hang for now.
I went back to Wilmington with dad after the weekend and went back to Julie and we dated a couple of more times or we just sat at her house. I just know at some point we walked on the beach again one evening and I told her I loved her. She was very cautious with me. She looked at me when I said that and replied “You better know what you’re saying.” Hum, I must have taken that to heart, yet I knew the outcome of it all and revealed nothing of my intentions.
There was one more weekend and I had to go back. So I made the best of this week to convince Julie I was for real and not the cigar smoking redneck I impressed her as on our first meeting. I had done and was doing some tall talking to make my case with her. She was very resistant, but still I knew I had her mother on my side. Moms do have a way with their daughter’s in some cases and I was betting my life Cinnie was winning her point. I suspected the two of them were very much alike.
I remember one morning that week I had time to reflect. It was cold and I donned my civies and my field jacket and got out and walked in the crisp morning air. The back road along behind the trailer park where dad lived and Billy’s house was more of a dirt path that came out at the post office on one end, so I walked to the post office and back. During my reflections I realized I was at a turning point in my life and these last few months had proven to be the hinge. I now knew I was going to be in Germany for nineteen months. I was in love with a new girl. My friends were going different directions as I evidenced while home. Life was moving on before my eyes. Merely a year and a half had passed since graduation from high school and I had experienced three jobs and several months of military with much more left to go. I just had to finish two more weeks of my schooling at Fort Sill and I’d be back for two more weeks of leave before flying over the Atlantic for what at that time seemed like an eternity. But I was ready to do now. I was in the flow of experiencing adventure.
New Year’s was enjoyable with family. Then leave time was over. I said my good byes and told Julie I’d been back in about two or three weeks and I wanted to see her again if she would let me and she said she’d write me. I was content to believe she would. And then I was gone. Heading back to Fort Sill, Oklahoma where the hawkish winds blew.
