Deer Hunting in Ten Sleep

It was the fall of 1967 and I was staying on Big Jon's farm in Perry Iowa.  His mom and dad had a farm that brought in corn and soybeans.  I learned to drive a tractor and operate a plow and disc in their cornfields.  I also learned that there is nothing colder than a steel tractor seat at 5 a.m. in Iowa.

Perry Iowa is known for its cornfields and deer.  The deer are corn-fed so their meat is delicious.  We had beer.  We had a roof over our heads.  So when the conversation got around to going deer hunting I expressed interest.  My assumption was that it would involve getting up early and driving a short distance to where somebody knew there would be deer.  I obviously didn’t know anything about deer hunting.  This particular conversation took place in a bar near Perry.  A proper deer hunting trip would require clear heads, attention to detail, solid leadership skills and careful planning for all contingencies.  We of course had none of these.   If we had done even one of these things this wouldn't be a good story.  Remember, this was being discussed late at night, in a bar, with alcohol.  What we had was youth, a can-do spirit and the natural stupidity that goes along with all of that.

I quickly learned that, in order to properly hunt deer you have to drive at least 800 miles away from wherever you currently live.  Can you say, “Road-Trip”?  By going west from Perry the requisite 800 miles would put us in Wyoming.  As with any good road trip you need plenty of beer.  We also needed rifles and ammunition.  Nothing says a good time like four drunks in a car with guns.  Like the Blues Brothers, we were on a mission from God.  We left that very night.  Denny was still wearing dress shoes.  We didn't know exactly where we were going but we wanted to get there quickly.  The hunting season was just a day away.

Route from Perry, Iowa "B" to Ten Sleep, Wyoming "A"

We packed a toothbrush and a few changes of underwear.  Just for clarity, we each had our own toothbrushes and our own underwear.  We bought several cases of beer for the trip.  Since there were four of us going that would at least get us beyond the city limits of Perry.  We packed up all of this in my Oldsmobile and headed westbound on US 16.  In the car were Big Jon, Denny and myself.  There was another blonde headed friend of Jon’s whose name escapes me.  For all I know he could have been that world famous hunter, Dick Cheney.

When the odometer indicated we had gone beyond the required 800 miles, we began to look for our spot.  That spot turned out to be Ten Sleep, Wyoming.  This unusual name had two differing stories of origin.  Someone said it was because ten Indians once slept there.  The second story states that it got its name because it took an Indian ten days to travel there from Fort Laramie, or ten sleeps.  Whichever story you pick it involves some sleeping Indians.

Downtown Ten Sleep at Rush Hour

It took four drunks about 16 hours of actual driving time to cover the 866 miles from Perry to Ten Sleep.  It took 20 hours if you count the pee breaks from all of the beer.  To this day if you travel old US 16 along our route you will see large dead patches where nothing will grow.  These are our pee break spots.  They were so numerous in South Dakota that area is now known as The Badlands.

If this sleepy little town hadn’t already been named for its “ten sleep” distance from Fort Laramie we would have called it “Fifty Piss Stops” which is its true distance from Perry, Iowa.  The current population of Ten Sleep is about 260 people.  In 1967 the population was probably about the same.  I can’t see that it would have grown any as the whole town was made up of a bunch of men and an equal number of nervous female sheep.  Even the ugly sheep looked nervous.

We had spotted deer just about everywhere we looked while driving into town.  We could taste the venison.  A quick stop at the Ten Sleep Mercantile allowed us to purchase four fluorescent vests and four deer hunting licenses.  You needed one license for each deer you brought out and had to tie one tag to each deer as proof.  The fluorescent vests were so the deer could always know where you were so they could stay out of range.  Big Jon managed to buy another license using a borrowed driver’s license to get around the one-man one-deer limit.  We checked into a motel that rented by the day or by the hour.  Since the motel allowed pets (sheep?) I assumed that was why they had an hourly rate.  I spotted some hay on the motel floor.

Since we had seen plenty of deer on the open range just outside of town we just knew we would quickly bag our limit.  We woke before dawn of the first day of hunting season.  We drove out of town and waited for the sun to break the horizon to signal the start of our hunt.  In the distance we heard the single crack of a rifle followed by the soft rumble of hoofs taking every deer within a hundred miles off of the open range and on to private property.  Within three minutes of the start of the hunting season all deer were safely ensconced on private land and out of our reach.  All but one.

You know that slow kid in high school.  The one who doesn’t quite figure out what’s going on as quickly as the other kids?  Deer have them too.  One deer ignored the mass exit stage left to the land of safety.  Big Jon found him and shot him from about a mile away.  I couldn’t even see the deer when I was told where it was.  The Remington .220 Swift with a scope was able to send a bullet at 4,300 feet per second to remind the dumb deer, however briefly, that he should have followed his buddies to private property. 

We now had four available deer licenses left and one deer.  Big Jon found a local freezer to store his first deer so we could continue to hunt.  While it was below freezing at night the daylight hours raised the temperatures a bit and meat might not last without proper storage.  We continued to hunt the available open range but not a deer in sight.  Tromping through the snow all we saw were moose tracks.  There were moose tracks everywhere.  Just our luck.  We had $25 deer licenses and couldn’t afford the moose license that went well over $100.   I remember we stumbled all over seeing nothing but moose tracks when we decided to break for lunch.  We wandered into the local café.  The place was crowded with hunters and it looked like we were going to have to wait a long time for a table.

Fine Dining in Ten Sleep

We stood there waiting and began talking amongst ourselves.  Our conversation went on for just a short time when someone in our group muttered the words, “moose tracks”.  All of a sudden you could have heard a plastic fork drop.  The place went quiet except for our conversation.  We stopped talking when we realized everyone else was listening.  One of the hunters asked, “Did you say, moose tracks?”  We said yes, lots of them.  He then asked where we had seen them.  Someone in our group pointed and before we could give much more in the way of directions, the place cleared out.

It seemed the café was full of moose hunters who hadn’t seen a moose track, a moose plop or even a Canadian quarter since they arrived.  (Just for clarity, I know the Canadian quarter has an elk and not a moose)  Their expensive moose licenses were burning the proverbial hole in their pockets.  The only benefit to us was that we didn’t have to wait any longer for a table.  Our waitress looked pissed.

Canadian Quarter

Since we weren’t having much luck in the deer department we hung out a bit longer in town.  We talked to a couple of locals and mentioned our dilemma with all of the deer now safely on private property.  One of them suggested that we try this sheep ranch outside of town.   He said that the rancher occasionally would take in a few hunters for a fee.

We drove out to the sheep ranch and found the rancher.  He had sheep high up in the mountains that were looked after by his workers.  These would be the guys who made the female sheep nervous.  The rancher offered us the bunkhouse and told us not to expect much.  We said that we were sure it would be fine.  We checked out of our motel and basically paid the rancher what we were spending at the motel for a room.

This bunkhouse was no motel.  I’ve stayed in some cheap creepy motels before but this place beat them all.  It seems that the sheepherders stay up on the mountain with the sheep for the entire summer, without bathing.  When winter comes they bring the sheep down from the mountain to the ranch and they stay in the bunkhouse.  I had assumed the rancher meant that the sheepherders slept in the bunkhouse but, from the smell, it might just have been the sheep.  In certain cases it would have been sheepherders AND their girlfriends.  I’m guessing that the sheepherders and the sheep share similar habits when it comes to personal hygiene.  I asked the rancher if he worried about the sheep getting pregnant and he said, “Naaa-aaah”.

Ten Sleep Call Girl

We brought with us plenty of provisions.  Provisions in those days meant lots of beer and perhaps some “health food in a bag”, otherwise known today as chips and jerky.  We woke up the next morning at oh-my-god-it’s-early.  My bunkmates woke me up.  I didn’t share my bunk with anyone but I was certain that I was not alone.  My bed was alive, and not in a good way.

We all jumped in the back of the rancher’s pickup truck.  He drove slowly up the mountain with all of us keeping an eye out for deer.  We turned a corner and the first deer met his maker.  It was felled by a barrage of 30.06 and 30-30 slugs.  This 150 pound deer now weighed 200 pounds with all of the lead rounds stuck in its carcass.   I think Denny claimed this one.

We continued on toward a canyon.  The rancher dropped us off and mentioned that this would be a good spot.  He would take supplies on up the mountain and meet us later.  We hatched a plan that would have made General Eisenhower proud.  Just like D-Day, it would be a three-pronged attack.  Two people would work one side of the upper canyon ridge, one would work the other side of the canyon ridge and I would go down into the canyon.  The theory here was that either the deer would be spooked up out of the canyon toward the ridges or down toward me.  I stood a good chance to get lucky since Denny would be on one of the upper ridges and he was still wearing his dress shoes.  He was slipping and sliding all over the place.  I fully expected to see him tumbling down the side of the canyon.  I only hoped he would flush out some deer on his way down.

I took my borrowed 30-30 lever action Winchester down into the canyon.  It was good to be hunting alone.  I was hunting Bambi and I wasn’t sure I could actually kill a deer.  I had to learn to hate the deer.  What were the deer really guilty of?  Well, for starters, they were directly responsible for getting me to drive 866 miles across three states.  They were guilty of getting me up at an ungodly hour this morning to sit in the back of an open pickup truck in freezing weather.  I had been forced to share my bed with unseen constantly moving critters.  I was forced to buy a $25 license to even attempt to hunt the mangy bastards.   I was now tripping over rocks descending a canyon without water or food or even beer.  Who could forgive such an affront to my well-being?   Damn those deer.

30-30 Winchester Model 94

I made my way to the bottom of the canyon and saw no deer.  I eventually found a stream and was able to quench my thirst.  It wasn't beer but it worked.  It was good, cold, and most assuredly cleaner than the brown stuff that came from the tap in the bunkhouse that I used to brush my teeth.  I heard deer but never saw them.  I would take two steps and I would hear twenty-four hoof steps.  This had to be either one deer moving fast or three deer keeping just out of range.

Going down into the canyon was difficult.  Climbing out of the canyon involved the same obstacles but now I was meeting them going uphill.  It is good to be young and stupid.  I decided to climb up the side of the canyon instead of walking back the more gradual incline that was my earlier path.  I continually heard the snapping of twigs and the tromping of hooves.  The climb up was grueling.  About halfway up the side of the canyon I had to rest.  I found two trees that had fallen parallel to one another just close enough to allow me to rest between them.

I think I may have dozed off because I really didn’t hear the deer until they were almost on top of me.  The two fallen trees acted as sort of a blind.  At least they hid that damn orange vest that the deer obviously used to their advantage.  I opened my eyes and slowly turned my head.  I saw a large rack.  In Miami that last sentence would have a totally different meaning.  Here in Wyoming it would mean only one thing, walking venison.  There was one large buck and two smaller doe.  One male and two females could mean only one thing; these were polygamous Mormon deer who had wandered into Wyoming from Utah.

I took aim and dropped the buck with my first shot.  Then I watched in horror as my prize rolled down deeper into the canyon.  I shot it a second time just before it came to rest against a tree.  I now had to figure out how a 230-pound human who could barely walk into this canyon alone was going to get a 200-pound mammal back to the road.  So much for careful planning.  I left my spot and began to climb back up out of the canyon.  I fired a couple of shots to see if I could get someone’s attention.  After a while I ran into Big Jon.  Together we went back to get the deer.

We field dressed the deer to make it lighter and I understand some of this process keeps the meat from getting gamy.  I was from Miami so what did I know.  In Miami we only have drug dealers to shoot and they are really hard to clean.  We used our belts around the legs and carried and dragged, mostly dragged, the deer back to the road.  When all was said and done we had more deer than we had tags to make them legal.  We strapped the five legal ones with tags to the top of the Oldsmobile and put the better meat parts of our “overage” in the trunk.  This minor overage amounted to about seven deer.  Twelve deer and four guys in an Oldsmobile with poor shocks and weak springs.  We were so overloaded the drive shaft started wearing through the floor.

Jack, Denny.....(deer on roof)...Big Jon

We then began the drive back to Iowa where we would eventually hoist the deer with block and tackle and butcher the meat for storage.  That Oldsmobile was never the same after this trip.  We had to pop the metal roof back into shape after we unloaded the five legal deer carcasses.  The trunk forever had an unpleasant odor.  I sold it shortly after my return to Miami.  For the rest of my stay in Iowa I ate venison and turkey, usually at different meals but we weren’t picky as long as there was enough beer.  The large quantity of turkey involves another story that I will tell in a later installment.

It Could Have Ended Badly

Herb and the Herb

This story involves a bit of profanity so you are forewarned.  If you have read other stories in this series you know that profanity is not normally used.  While I won’t use it for shock value I will use it when it is important.  I’m not above swearing mind you.  If I hit my finger with a hammer I can make a sailor blush.   I was a Navy man you see.  In Guantanamo I learned to cuss in Jamaican. 

This story involves Herb, the people kind.  It also involves another herb but we will come to that.  I refer to Herb as my cousin-in-law since his father married my aunt.  Herb was a few years older than I and, by most accounts, still is.  I’m guessing the year to be around 1968.  Miami Beach motels in the 50's and 60's generally had two stories.  They were “U” shaped with walkways facing the pool.  Each motel had a central pool and a patio that opened out at the top of the “U” to the beach.  This free access to the beach gave the guests the option of using the pool or the beach and ocean.  It also gave young people who were not motel guests free access from the beach to the motel pools and more importantly their guests.

Typical 1950's Motel on Miami Beach

By strolling down the beach we would go “pool hopping” in search of, drumroll here, girls.  On most occasions we would meet girls who were from out of town and who were staying at the motel.  On this day however we met two local girls who were visiting someone at the motel, or so they told us.  They too could have been pool hopping in search of dates.  In either case we all got lucky.

Herb and I struck up a conversation with the girls and agreed to pick them up later that night for dinner and a movie.  The girls gave us a local address and Herb and I went home to plan our evening.  We got cleaned up and left with plenty of time to spare just to make sure we could find the address.  We drove straight to the girls’ house and discovered that we had about a half an hour to kill.

 I drove the car a couple of blocks away and pulled down a dead end street that backed up to an expressway, I-95.  The spot was fairly isolated so I backed in and turned off the engine.  I put the switch to its first position to play the radio in order to listen to some static filled AM music.  While FM radios were already in new cars I was driving a 1963 Skylark convertible.  It did have an under the dash mounted 8 track player but I only had a few tapes and we would use those to impress the girls.  Nothing like a little Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra to show girls you were mature.  If that didn't work I would break out my Yardbirds tape with Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck and hit them with some Over Under Sideways Down.

8 Track Tape Player

 

I was never what you would call a pothead but unlike President Clinton I did manage to inhale.  Since Clinton was but a year younger than I he may have been doing what I was doing at that very moment.  I pulled out a five dollar “lid” which consisted of a small matchbox with the good sticky green stuff and some Zig-Zag papers.  Not having approached this subject with my cousin-in-law before I had to ask if he would be interested.  He stated that he had tried it once before but nothing had happened.  He was willing however to try it again.

I rolled, with some difficulty, a “fatty”.  I was never good at rolling a joint and envied the cowboys in movies who could roll a cigarette with one hand.  I lit the joint and we passed it between us while listening to the radio.  After about twenty minutes Herb said that this experience was just as before and that perhaps he wasn’t doing it right.  We had no more time to address that issue since we didn’t want to be late for our dates.

I drove around the corner and pulled into the driveway.  We were greeted at the door by the mother of one of the girls.  She seemed pleasant.  She invited us in and explained that the girls were still getting ready.  She offered us a seat on a couch in the living room.  Herb and I sat down.  The mother then turned on the TV set and left the room to check on the girls.  I was sitting in the middle of the couch and Herb sat on the very end.  Herb's end of the couch was no more than three feet from the TV.

TV sets in the 60’s still needed to warm up before showing a picture.  Herb, in anticipation, propped his head on his hand and eagerly awaited the picture that was about to present itself just inches from his face.  As it turned out this new color set didn’t display a nice picture but instead came on with a flipping and rolling of brightly colored bands.

Console Color TV with Vertical Hold Problem

About this time the mother returned to explain that the girls would be right out.  She noticed the problem on the TV, walked over, and adjusted the vertical hold knob.  A clear picture popped on the screen.  Herb slowly turned his head and bellowed, “Aw, you FUCKED IT UP”.

I then knew that the grass we had smoked actually did work.  Mom didn’t know exactly how to react so she quickly left the room.

I guessed that either she was just embarrassed or had to go someplace to laugh.  I always hoped it was the latter.  The girls then emerged and we quickly left the house for our dates.  As I remember the rest of the evening was uneventful.  A situation not wholly unexpected on double dates.

Gas Station Carnival

This story takes place on a trip out of Atlanta, Georgia up to Ashville, North Carolina.  My wife Sue and I had flown into Atlanta to visit family and had rented a car at the airport.  After visiting our Georgia family we headed north to see the Biltmore House.  Since this was a sightseeing vacation we took the infamous “scenic route”. 

We left Atlanta on 85 and eventually picked up 441 northbound through the Blue Ridge mountains.    This route also takes you through some really small towns.  Since we are now off of the major interstate system we have to be careful to keep an eye on the gas gauge.   Our selected rental car was probably getting a whopping 18 miles per gallon which was not unusual in the 1980’s.

Running out of gas in the mountains is not a real good idea.  You can’t always plan to run out while you can still coast into that gas station at the bottom of a hill.  It is also scary for other reasons.  It is a fact that if you roll down the windows and turn off the radio you can faintly hear the dueling banjo music in the distance.  The movie Deliverance was to mountain driving what Jaws was to ocean swimming.  The point of all of this is that while driving in the mountains I treat the half-full mark on the fuel gauge like empty.

On this stretch of the trip however I was enjoying the scenery so much I forgot how I am supposed to drive and looked down to see that I had but a quarter of a tank left.  We checked our paper maps and found that we were not far from a small blip of a town whose name I don’t really remember.

We hoped that we could find a gas station.  When we rounded the two hundred and ninety third curve since discovering our gas predicament we realized that it would have been impossible to miss this gas station.  You see they just opened this brand new gas station/convenience store and it was the biggest event to reach this area since Jesse Helms came through on a campaign tour looking to get re-elected for the fifth time.  They had a bounce house for the kids and a veritable carnival of stuff for everybody else.  There were those brightly colored triangle flags flapping from ropes tied to every vertical support they could find.  The place was packed with the twenty-eight residents of this town, thirty-four residents of other neighboring towns and two tourists from Florida who needed gas.

We filled our tank and I decided to pick up a few goodies for the remainder of our trip to Ashville.  I’m sure back then it involved Good ‘n Plenty’s.  It is just about as hard to travel without gas as it is to travel without Good ‘n Plenty’s.  I moved the car to the front of the convenience store part of the gas station and joined the crowd inside.  Sue elected to wait in the car so I left the engine running to provide her with AC.

I found the shelf with Good ‘n Plenty’s and grabbed an extra-large box.  I then began to peruse the rest of the snack offerings when I was shocked to turn and see someone I knew.  It was my wife, Sue.  She had decided to see if the snack shelves held any of her favorites.  We both made our selections and meandered our way to the cash register.  I paid the bill and we both returned to the car.  All was well until I saw Sue’s face after asking her to hand me the car keys.  It wasn’t that reassuring look of, wait a minute I think they are here in my purse.  It was that look that says, what the Hell are you talking about?

I looked around and quickly found the keys.  They were hanging where they belonged in the ignition.  The engine was running and the windows were rolled up and the AC was keeping the car at a cool 72 degrees.  The problem came with a special feature of the car in that it assumes under those conditions that you want all of the doors locked.  I didn’t want this feature, didn’t ask for this feature but the car manufacturer thought I needed it.

We are standing outside our locked idling rental car, with a full tank of gas, many miles from what I like to call civilization, with our comfort food snacks in paper sacks and now feeling like we were quickly becoming the center of attention.  I looked up to see that this latter feeling was in fact reality and not just a feeling.  Something new had been added to the carnival atmosphere in that two bumpkins from Florida had locked themselves outside their rental car.  Luckily most of them hadn’t realized that the car was also running, as this would have been almost too much for them to contain without laughter.

A few bystanders offered suggestions about how to get into the car.  I quickly found out that the nearest coat hanger was probably back in Atlanta.  The most common question was, why did you lock your car?

I headed to a phone booth and found a new phone book for the town and surrounding area.  It was at least fifteen pages in length.  I tried to find a locksmith but since nobody locks their doors up here locksmiths tend to starve to death.  I called information and had them connect me with the rental car company’s help line.  As usual they were no help.

I then went into the convenience store and asked the cashier for advice.  She suggested that I call the Sheriff.  I gave her that look dogs sometimes give when their masters make a funny sound.  She assured me that he could probably help.  In my head I could just hear Andy Taylor telling Barney Fife about the two stupid stranded motorists from Florida.  As I was completely out of options I made the call to the sheriff’s office.  They said he would be by shortly.

About fifteen minutes later a patrol car pulled up and parked behind my car.  A rather professional patrolman exited.  He seemed to relish my explanation about what had happened.  It was somewhat amusing, if you weren’t me.  He then went to his trunk and pulled out a “Slim Jim”.  They had these in the gas station convenience store snack shelf but theirs were made of flavored rawhide.  His was the metal kind used to open car doors when idiots from Florida lock themselves out.

It took several attempts.  He first tried the driver’s door then the passenger side.  Both times the car won the battle.  He looked like he might abandon the whole approach when he decided to try the driver’s side door again.  The door opened after a couple of tugs.

It was here that I wasn’t sure of what to do.  In Miami you would just fold up a twenty-dollar bill and slip it to the patrolman with your thanks.  Here in the mountains things were obviously different.  I decided to open my wallet and ask to make a contribution to the local police fund.  I got the puzzled look and then a polite refusal.  So, either they don’t take “donations” in North Carolina or there were too many people watching.  In either case I couldn’t offer him anything for his assistance.

I then just did the polite thing and extended my hand in thanks.  He reached up to shake my hand and once our hands were shaking I went berserk.  I hollered, jerked, and looked like a mental case from Florida.  Now there were some really puzzled onlookers including one cop and my wife.  What nobody but me knew was that at the very moment he went to shake my hand a yellow jacket wasp flew in to our just clasping hands and proceeded to sting the bejesus out of me.  

After I finally extricated my hand from our “friendly” shake and stopped yelling I tried to offer an explanation.  It wasn’t until I finally spotted a slightly crumpled yellow jacket on the ground that I was able to make anyone understand.  I pointed to the soon to be stomped on insect lying on the ground.  I then held out my hand to show the stinger still protruding from my palm.  He said I ought to put something on the sting but, more painful than the sting was the humiliation and embarrassment I felt.

The patrol car was eventually moved and I put as much distance as possible between myself and the gas station carnival.  I can imagine one of the onlookers today sitting on a porch overlooking a North Carolina mountain saying to a family member, “Do you remember that idiot from Georgia who locked himself out of his car and went nuts when he shook that cop’s hand?”  By way of explanation, the rental car had Georgia tags.  There are already enough embarrassing Florida stories to go around.

If you look up yellow jacket wasps you will find that only the females will sting so I had a 50-50 chance of this story ending about four paragraphs ago.  You will also find that yellow jackets are known by one peculiarity in that they have a side-to-side flight pattern just before landing. They also typically sting multiple times to maximize the agony.  I think I was touring the second floor of The Biltmore when the throbbing stopped.

Hambrick's Quarter Pound

This story takes place in the summer of 1964 in Hayward, California.  I had cooked hamburgers in Miami for Royal Castle all through high school.  They had cheap fifteen-cent hamburgers, five-cent birch beer served in frozen mugs and a thirty-five cent breakfast of eggs, grits and toast.  They hired young school kids and old alcoholics with questionable backgrounds.  Anyone willing to work for less than minimum wage as a “trainee” for three months.  They would then bump you to minimum wage and called it a raise.  Actually it was the bare minimum required by law.  The “trainee” dodge was just a money saver.  Tipping was not allowed.  You could however eat all the burgers you wanted.  Minimum wage in the early 60’s was $1.15 an hour.

I heard that California had higher wages so I drove out to Hayward in 1964 with a friend to seek my fortune.  I was eighteen so employment opportunities were limited.  I got a job at the Hambrick’s Quarter Pound Giant Burger on the night shift.  This shop is located just next to the Hayward Plunge, the public pool.  The job paid $3.45 an hour but you had to join the Culinary Workers and Bartenders Local.  I made a down payment of $20 and agreed to pay the balance of $300 at the end of three months.  Since I would be back at school in three months I wasn’t worried.

I got trained by the outgoing night shift employee.  Since it was not busy at night the job mostly entailed cleaning the machines, sweeping and mopping the floor and scraping the grill.  The old night shift guy looked really old.  Hell, he was probably in his 30’s.  This is of course no longer funny.  I think his name was Bill.  He had dirty blonde hair, was slightly built, stood about five foot six and had a black eye.  On the last day of my training Bill explained the black eye, which was now a really pretty shade of purple.  Bill said that a local motorcycle gang had jumped him and given him his shiner.  That gang was now banned from the Quarter Pound.  I was instructed that if they came in I was to run into the back office, lock the door and call the Hayward Police.

Hambrick's Giant Burgers, 24134 Mission Blvd, Hayward, Calif.

I had known motorcycle clubs in Miami.  The Little River Rats were teenagers who rode around on Cushman’s, old BSA’s and Triumphs.  If they were really bad they owned a zip gun and shot holes in trashcans for amusement.  I thought Bill overreacted.  Bill then rounded out my education by pointing out the small all-night restaurant across the street that fronted as a brothel.  Big rigs would pull in, drivers would order a cup of coffee, chat up a waitress and the two of them would exit a side door and walk across an alley to the nearby hotel.  On slow nights you could watch the whole transaction.

Current Picture Hambrick's, Motorcycle Parking around back.

I began my night shift without incident.  I could get all of my cleaning done in a couple of hours and just had to wait on a few kids after dates and the occasional drunk.  At Royal Castle one of the old timers had taught me how to short out the jukebox.  The counter had a chrome box with a music menu and push button controller.  A patron would put in a nickel for one song or six plays for a quarter.  The actual jukebox with the 45-RPM records was in the back.  The two boxes were connected with a multi strand wire.  All you needed to do was to cut through the wire insulation and short out a couple of wires.  This wouldn’t give you any selection but would play music all night.

Jukebox Controller Mounted on counter

I picked a slow night for my assault on the jukebox.  The ten counter stools were empty and I had just served a couple at the walk-up take out window.  There were no other cars in the lot.  I used my pocketknife to slice the wire under the counter.  I sat on the floor as I stripped off the insulation.  I would then use a fine piece of bare wire to act as my temporary short.  This was the delicate part where I needed to place the short wire so that it could be activated by a mere squeeze of the outer insulation.  I heard the door open and the shuffling of feet.  I announced from under the counter that I would be right with them.

When I finished my “excellent-if-I-do-say-so-myself” job I saw the folks who had entered.  There, standing not more than four feet from me, were about twelve to fifteen Hells Angles.  This was 1964 so I had never heard of the Hells Angels but I could see the difference.  These were not teenagers on Cushman’s these were adults on Harley’s.  Not just ordinary adults but adults who had last bathed during the Eisenhower administration.  As an eighteen year old the whole scene was frightening.  I looked back at the twenty feet that stood between me and the back office door.  It might as well have been twenty miles.  No way would I make it before something bad happened.  I didn’t know what bad that might be but common sense told me I needed to think of something.

I asked if there was a leader of this group.  All eyes moved in the direction of the alpha male who identified himself as Dirty Ed.  Now his name may or may not have been Ed but the dirty handle fit him like a glove if it referred to his personal hygiene.   I moved in Ed’s direction and explained my dilemma.  I told him that I would be fired if I served his group and the boss happened to drive by and see them sitting at the counter.  The tribe began to grumble so this was not a good sign.  I then explained that I had a solution.  Ed listened.

Hell's Angles

My offer was that I would serve all of them if they would move their bikes to the back area of the shop where they wouldn’t be visible from the street.  They could then send one or two to the take out window where I would take their orders.  Since I had heard that they were banned at all of nearby all night establishments this would help them too.  I further explained that if I was fired they would just be going through this all over again with the next guy.

Ed thought for a moment and then gave a quick hand signal.  Everyone left through the front door.  Their bikes were cranked and they move behind the shop.  Two members came to the take out window and placed several orders.  They paid their bill, ate on their bikes in the back and eventually left.  It was a good night.  I had music and just enough time left to air out the place.  They had left a peculiar odor and I think my underwear needed changing.

Roughly What I Saw From Behind the Counter

About once or twice a week motorcycles would roar into the rear parking area and the whole sequence would be repeated.  On slow nights I would go out back and talk to them when there were just a few in the group.  It seems I had arrived at a time when the old local gang was being brought into the Hells Angels.  The old gang was the Hayward Question Marks.  They all sported a question mark tattoo on their forearms.  They decided to join the larger Hells Angels.

After I left Hayward and returned to Miami I remember seeing a Life Magazine article on the now famous Hells Angels.  In the list of colorful names included in the article I recognized one.  The names mentioned were:  Little Jesus, the Gimp, Chocolate George, Buzzard, Zorro, Hambone, Clean Cut, Tiny, Terry the Tramp, Frenchy, Mouldy Marvin, Mother Miles, Dirty Ed, Chuck the Duck, Fat Freddy, Filthy Phil, Charger Charley the Child Molester, Crazy Cross, Puff, Magoo, and Animal. In the pictures thought I recognized a few faces behind the dirt, but who knows. 

My Golf Story

The sport of golf is the source of many amusing stories but, since I don’t play golf, I only have one.  I never got around to playing golf, as I didn’t see the point.  I had an uncle who called it “cow pasture pool”.  I will however admit that golf is almost essential to get ahead in the corporate world.

This story takes place in the early 70’s when I had a brief stint with the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors.  I was hired into a branch zone office located in Miami.  My title was Sales Relations Representative.  I was a go-fer not a golfer.  My job description said that I was to mediate disputes between customers and dealerships which were related to the actual sale of the vehicle and not the vehicle warranty.  This latter duty had a whole team of people in the zone office.  My job, I would learn later, had only one other contemporary stationed in California.

The sales disputes were few and far between and did not represent any real need for a full time employee.  My actual job involved a more social function.  You see, whenever two or more executives in Detroit needed to have a meeting they would jump on the corporate jet and fly to Miami.  Even if their offices were next door to each other it would be destination Miami.  Anything to get out of Detroit.  Having since been to Detroit I now see why they would want to be in Miami.  It would then be my job to see that the corporate jet was met at the executive airport and that transportation was provided to their hotel.  I would also see that their rooms were stocked with enough booze to open up a retail chain of liquor stores.  Any excess you see would be loaded back to Detroit to stock home bars.

I would drive executives, and their wives on occasion, to go shopping, look for real estate for their retirements, to special meetings, etc.  On one weekend I had the privilege to drive Ed Cole and his wife around to do many of these things.  At this time Ed was the president of General Motors having worked his way up through the ranks as one of its top engineers.  He had worked on the Corvette, the Vega and the Corvair.  He was a down to earth individual and a refreshing change from the stuffed shirts I normally had to deal with at GM.

Chevrolet Corvair

Chevrolet would also host campaign payoffs for top dealerships across the nation.  One such campaign was held in Boca Raton, Florida at the Boca Raton Resort and Club.  It was just a coincidence that I had parked cars at this very same hotel when I went to college at Florida Atlantic University.  I took pleasure upon my arrival with tossing my keys to my old boss and telling him to take good care of my new Caprice.

Boca Raton Hotel

These campaign payoffs, in order to be eligible for a corporate tax write-off, had to involve some measure of business so no recreation was planned before noon.  At 12:01 however the bar was open, the tennis court pros were giving lessons, the charter boats would be pulling away from the docks and the tee off times would begin.  I had to make sure all of these events went off without a hitch.  I didn’t have to worry about the bar opening on time as the corporate guests were generally two deep by noon.  My biggest problem was the flow of the golf tee off times.  I therefore spent most of my time in and around the pro shop making sure things went well.  It was here I finally saw the real purpose of golf.  This was the part of golf that they didn’t teach me during my golf/tennis course in junior college.  I now saw the benefit in knocking a little white ball all over a large green field.  That benefit came in the large cooler mounted on the back of the electric golf carts.

Some of these coolers would hold beer and some would hold wine.  But one cart in particular didn’t play the game with the same “fuel”.  It was Harry’s cart.  Harry being one Harry Heathman, the vice president of marketing for Chevrolet.  Harry was a particularly unpleasant fellow who was exceptionally demanding.  Harry had to have stone crabs everywhere he went.  When he arrived in Miami he would be driven to Joe’s Stone Crab restaurant on Miami Beach for stone crabs.  When he fished he would have stone crabs on the boat.  When he ate dinner he would have stone crabs for an appetizer and would then substitute stone crabs for his main dish.  When he returned to Detroit he took two coolers of stone crabs with him.  At Joe’s one particular afternoon Harry was busy filling  his little round face with stone crabs.  He had his mouth literally stuffed full of crab meat, then his eyes closed and with butter dripping from his chin and down his neck he began making low moaning sounds.  My boss, also named Jack, remarked that it was the first time he had ever seen a man have a gastronomic orgasm.

Florida Stone Crab

So, as you might have already guessed, Harry had stone crabs in his golf cart cooler.  To wash it all down however Harry had discovered “cocktails in a can”.  These were alcoholic mixed drinks in an easy open can.  Harry had enough of these in his cooler to leave one empty can on each of the eighteen holes.

On this day an emergency call was transferred to the pro shop for Harry.  Harry was to have made a major decision before he left Detroit but in his haste to get to his beloved stone crabs he forgot this minor detail.  The deadline for the decision was fast approaching and they needed him on the phone immediately.  It fell to me to go find Harry somewhere out on the back nine and bring him to the pro shop.

I grabbed a golf cart and made my way out on the course.  I found Harry on the fairway approaching the fourteenth hole.  How he was able to stand up let alone play golf was beyond my comprehension. It defied several laws of physics and the law of gravity.  I literally poured him into my cart and drove him back to the pro shop.  I didn’t want him to try to walk into the shop so I went in and had them transfer the call to an outside line.  I then drove the cart close to the building so the cord would reach.  I handed the phone to Harry.

Harry listened to the problem as it was explained to him from Detroit.  He then turned to me and asked, “What is the World Football League?”  I quickly explained that it was scheduled to be a third football league with all new teams.  I told him that they were recruiting players from the existing leagues and hoped to form about ten new teams.  Harry then went back to his phone conversation, listening more than talking.  He then turned to me and said, “Should Chevrolet commit to sponsor this new league?”  I told him that the stability of this new league was in question and that while the initial ratings would probably be high the whole thing could quickly fall apart.  I told him that if he were to sponsor the league he should insist on a clause that would allow Chevrolet to pull the plug at any time.  Harry then returned to the phone and slurred that Chevrolet would initially sponsor the WFL but that he would insist on a clause that would get them out from under should the league start to have problems.  Now that’s how big corporate decisions are made, especially at GM. 

WFL Brought to you by Chevrolet

I hung up the phone and drove Harry back to his golf game.  He had missed a few holes so he probably had the best score of his life.

The Arab oil embargo hit, Chevrolet and all of GM had to tighten their belts.  They still flew to Miami for their meetings but jobs were being cut.  Mine was among them.  I was offered a job in Detroit but declined.  Probably one of my better decisions.  I got a job with Miami Dade County and eventually retired from there.  I wonder how those other employees faired with their retirements from GM.

I did however enjoy watching a few World Football League games that were brought to me by Chevrolet.  The WFL enjoyed a wide popularity at the beginning of the first year and then ratings began to sag.  The second year was their last.  The WFL also did damage to my Miami Dolphins when Csonka and Warfield left.  Chevrolet eventually pulled their sponsorship and I’m sure Harry congratulated himself on his foresight.  He probably had some stone crabs shipped up to Detroit.  Or better yet, he flew to Miami and went to Joe’s.  Austerity programs you see are only for the peons.

My last GM car was a 1981 Pontiac Grand Prix whose plastic parts all disintegrated and turned to dust in the Florida heat.  Someone at GM probably saved enough money buying inferior plastic to pay for all of the corporate booze and stone crabs they would ever need.  I now buy only Hondas and Toyotas.  As I write this GM stock is selling for about $20 a share.

The Inventory

The setting is Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  I worked at the commissary during this, my last year in the Navy.  The commissary was a big operation.  There was the main store, the attached warehouse, cool dry storage spaces and the "refer" plant.  The refrigeration plant was dockside with two giant chill boxes and two giant freezers.  The freezers and chill boxes were large enough for forklifts to stack pallet loads of merchandise.  It was here that we stocked cold storage eggs coated with parafin that could supposedly be used a year or more after they last saw a hen.  They wouldn't kill you but they did taste funny and had a strange green tinge when scrambled.

Regular milk on the base was made at a plant from instant cows.  They would add water from the desalination plant to powdered milk and put it in containers.  This way you could get the "real milk" experience without having to add your own water. 

I stocked shelves, operated a forklift, drove a truck, worked as a cashier, took inventory and basically did as I was told, most of the time.  The commissary was run by a certain Lieutenant who didn’t like me.  His second in command was a first class petty officer.  I don’t remember either of their names now.  The Lieutenant had dark blonde hair and the first class petty officer was a freckle-faced redhead.  If either of you two ever gets to read this you will know who you are.  If all went well you already know who did the evil deed.  For the rest of you, here is the story.

I was married and had a wife living in Miami.  The Lieutenant and the petty officer were also married but had their wives stationed on the base.  I was trying to get to see my wife and they were trying to get as far away from theirs as possible.  The solution to their problem, and mine for that matter, lay in the monthly produce flights to Miami.  Except for the Miami flights the only fresh produce came from Jamaica.  The Jamaican produce consisted of furry tubers and weird vegetables most Americans never heard of.   We also had refrigerator ships that docked in Gitmo but after the two to three months trip from Norfolk via other stops, the produce they carried could hardly be considered fresh.   

The produce flights also brought “cargo” out of Gitmo in the form of Cuban fence jumpers.  These were individuals who managed to sneak on to the base without getting blown up in the minefields.  The clever brain-trust that was the military kept this secret cargo separated from us on the boat ride to the west side of the bay near the airstrip.  We were kept below deck while the "cargo" was kept topside.  We weren't supposed to know they existed.  It was then however impossible to separate us in the hold of the open cargo plane that we were all flying to the Opa Locka base in Miami.  I was never an aviation buff so the actual aircraft type can only be described as a large propeller driven cargo plane with a nose wheel and that it loaded from a side door.  I've looked at pictures of military cargo planes and it was similar to a C-130.

These "C-130's" weren't in good condition and were prone to oil leaks.  They had two of them at Gitmo and could never get both of them in the air at the same time.  They were always stealing parts from one to get the other one running.  When we got close to Miami they would open the side door and two of the air crew would be stationed there with fire extinguishers to put out any oil fires after landing.  We would have a day off and then we would be back to load the plane with local produce, fresh eggs, dairy products and fresh milk. On one occasion the loadmaster was late and we loaded the plane without his guidance.  The heavy milk ended up in the back of the plane and by the time the loadmaster arrived the "C-130" was sitting back on its tailpost.  We had to shuffle the milk forward and then everyone had to move to the cockpit area and jump up and down to bring the plane back down to rest on the nose wheel.

In order to get the heavily laden plane to clear the fence at the end of the Opa Locka airstrip we had to start our take off at one end of the runway in the grass.  We would make the fence next to 27th avenue with a good three or four feet of clearance.  It would be two feet if anyone had eaten a big meal beforehand.

In the nine months I served in Gitmo I was only allowed to make the trip to Miami on two occasions.  My selection was never a priority as the Lieutenant and the petty officer chose those individuals who would party with them.  I just wanted to see my wife.  Needless to say these two were not my favorite people.  They regularly went out of their way to give me crappy jobs.

This would just be a sad story if what you have read was the end of it all.  That story would have no place here.  This is a happy place.  I'm here to tell you of a chain of events that came together that provided me my opportunity for revenge.

The first thing that happened was that I put in for an early discharge.  The Lieutenant signed the early discharge application only because a denial would mean even more paperwork for him.  Besides, as he said to me, “These things never get approved.”  He promptly forgot about the application and things went back to normal.

The second thing in our chain of events was that both a general inspection and a mandatory inventory came due at a most inopportune time.  The inspection was to be one week after the scheduled inventory.  You see, in order to simplify any large-scale inventory, you need to let your on-shelf display stock run down before the inventory.  This allows you to count by case and pallet instead of individual items.  This would all be well and good if it weren’t for the fact that the general inspection would be calling for fully stocked shelves.

The third thing in our whirlpool of Karma would be that unbeknownst to the Lieutenant, my early discharge was approved and I had a date of departure that would yank me out from under his control at the worst possible time.  We were all assembled two weeks before the scheduled inventory and given our assignments.  There would be twelve-hour days and no time off during the inventory and inspection periods.  I had been assigned the crappiest of jobs doing inventory at the "refer" plant.  I raised my hand and told them that I was planning to spend that time on the beach in Key West.  Everyone laughed except my roommate Matt.  You see he knew that my discharge had been approved; that I had a flight scheduled out to Jacksonville, Florida, and that my discharge station was to be the naval base at Key West.  I was required to tell my supervisor of my upcoming departure so I counted this announcement as my official two week notice. I couldn't help it that they didn't believe me.

The duty roster showed that I had the night watch two days before the inventory was scheduled.  On the night watch you locked yourself in the commissary and patrolled the premises.  You mostly had to keep an eye on the temperature gauges on the coolers and freezers and record your findings.  You wandered around most of the time just snacking on whatever you wanted.   It was a boring job, except on this night.

I already knew how they conducted inventory.  It was a truly asinine system designed by the Lieutenant whereby the accounting office would print up two complete sets of IBM punch cards with one stock item on each card.  The stacks were identical and would be used by two inventory teams.  This, on the surface, would seem like a good plan.  Actually it would be a good plan if one second class storekeeper (me), didn’t have a grudge against the person who had the most to lose if things went wrong.

The next step in the inventory process was the weak link.  This clever system had each inventory team take a stack of cards.  The large teams were then divided into two man teams, each with a small portion of the full stack.  The two man groups would write down the shelf item count on the individual card.  This involved running all over the store to find the next item in the stack.  The inventory process never involved walking down each aisle and counting each shelf in order.  That would have been the normal way.  My dad always said there were three ways to do things, the right way, the wrong way and the Navy way.  In this case the Navy way was interpreted by a not so clever Lieutenant until it more closely resembled the wrong way.

 The next step in the inventory process would have the teams use the same stack of cards back in the warehouse to record the case lot quantities.  The cards would then be given to a keypunch operator who keyed in the recorded quantities from each card.  The computer would then print out a list of any discrepancies and the recording teams would recount and verify.  After the counts matched on each set of cards, the inventory would be assigned a dollar value that needed to balance with the accounting records.  Sounds good doesn’t it.

It might have been good but you see I spent the better part of my last eight hour duty shift going through the two stacks of cards back in the accounting office and I removed identical cards from each stack.  I picked relatively expensive items that wouldn’t likely be missed.  Spices like saffron and vanilla were expensive but did not have a high turnover.  I also pulled cards of certain frozen meat items or obscure expensive canned meat or seafood.  I pulled enough cards out to make a serious dent in the outcome of the inventory if those items weren’t counted.

The day of my departure coincided with the first day of the inventory process.  I got all of my checkout signatures except the one from the Lieutenant.  I didn’t want him standing in my way so I scribbled something next to his name and nobody checked.  I did manage to get both the Lieutenant and the first class petty officer an appropriate Get Well card that they would receive in the inter office mail while my commercial jet was out over the Atlantic.  I told them that I knew they were sick and hoped they would be feeling better soon.  A p.s. at the bottom wished them luck with the inventory.

I flew to Jacksonville and drove to Miami.  I had a few days off before I checked in at the Key West Naval Station.  It took a couple of weeks to finalize my discharge. Then I was a civilian once more.

A couple of months later I met my old roommate Matt for drinks while he was in Miami on a produce run.  Since I knew Matt was involved in the inventory I hesitated to even bring it up but I had to know.  I had never told anyone what I had done.

I casually asked, “Well, how did the big inventory go?”  I innocently listened as Matt proceeded to tell me of the chaos I left behind.  The inventory had been hurried because of the general inspection but the books didn’t balance.  There was a tremendous shortage.  Matt and I knew that everyone who worked at the commissary stole the occasional case of rib eye steaks but it really looked like things had gotten out of hand.  They could only explain away so much to "shrinkage" before things looked really bad.  They counted, recounted, and counted again.  They used that same double stack of inventory cards over and over.  Days went by, tempers flared, accusations were made.  It seemed like all was lost when it was finally decided that they had almost worn out the IBM cards with all of the notations and such.  They re-ran the double stacks and the inventory came in close enough as they say for “government work”.  There was no time to properly stock the store and organize the warehouse in time for the inspection.  Matt was sure that we (they) got a low score.

I then knew that Matt would enjoy knowing what I had done more than be mad at me for all of the extra work I had caused him.  He didn’t like the Lieutenant any more than I did and he hated that first class petty officer.  I told Matt what I had done with the IBM cards.  Matt’s eyes had a natural bulge to them but when I told my tale I thought they would fall out of his head.  It took a few minutes but I saw a smile come over his face that was the result of more than just the alcohol he had been consuming.  I knew he was good with it all when he said the next round was on him.

I made Matt promise that he would tell the two SOB’s what had happened to their inventory and who was responsible.  He readily agreed.  He never got to go on another Miami run but I got one final letter from him.  In it he said he told my story to both the Lieutenant and the PO and both were thoroughly pissed.  The PO had said he would hunt me down the next time he was in Miami.  Since I was now a civilian and had a significant height and weight advantage over the little redhead I told Matt to give him my phone number in Miami.  I never heard from Howdy Doody.

The Dental Chair

This story takes place in Orlando while I was stationed there pre-Disney.  If you read The Flag story you already have the basic setting.  The Naval Training Center in Orlando was situated on an old Air Force base.  There was a main gate and a back gate.  Just beyond the back gate were the base dental offices.

Since free dental care was one of the “bennies” that came with my “voluntary” service, I took advantage of that care whenever needed.  This particular story was at a time when I needed to have some work done on two lower teeth.  It was also a time when the Navy was remodeling their dental offices.

The old barbershop style dental chairs were being replaced with the ultra-modern curved lounges that you still find today.  I have to say that the old patient chairs seemed to be a holdover from the days when barbers and dentists were the same guy.  At least that was what one learned from old westerns.  The barber could also be the town surgeon.

Old Style Dentist Chair

The Navy never did anything suddenly.  They phased in the new dental lounge chairs long before they replaced the other furniture in the office.  This meant that while I was this day reclining at a low height in the new contour lounge, the dentist and his assistant were perched on tall stools.  Even at their lowest setting the stools were still too tall for the low position of my lounge patient chair.

New Style Dentist Chair

The procedure this day involved two cavities and two fillings on two adjoining lower front teeth.  The dentist told me that he would be using a new technique with a new filling material.  He would do both fillings at the same time.  He drilled, buffed, sanded, and sprayed the way dentists still do today.  Then he came to the double front filling procedure he would be doing.  All went well and when he came to the part where the new filling material needed to set up he announced that he wanted to show off his handiwork to the other dentists in the office.  He left the room to gather some admirers. 

I was left behind in my reclining position.  Left with me was his female dental assistant.  Not just any female dental assistant, but the type of dental assistant that a dentist would have if he could design her himself using the best components from the Miss World competition.  His top-heavy and very attractive assistant was left beside me on her tall perch.  She wore a tight skirt and tight blouse.  It was her job to use a probe to test how the new filling material was setting.

My Dental Assistant, Sketched from Memory

She would twist and lean over from her high perch and had to virtually lie across my body in order to get in a proper position to inspect the new fillings.  It was during one of these thoroughly enjoyable probes that the dentist walked in with his entourage.  As everyone filed into the room the dentist asked, “Is it hard yet?” Whereupon I quickly answered, “You bet it is.”  The technician’s face flushed and four dentists broke out in hysterical laughter.  One dentist left the room.  I think he wet himself.