People you meet along the way...
The challenge for Ronnie was to use the things he learned from the wonderful karate instructors he visited. He really didn't want to hurt anyone but he was always dying to try things out. At a drive-in movie snack bar he instigated a confrontation with three rowdy types so he could subdue them using only his feet.
He walked into the tv room where several fellas were watching something, changed the channel and sat in the middle of them....some "chicken claw" thing or other he felt would give him great advantage with multiple attackers.
In the barracks one night, I expressed disbelief in his ability to disable three attackers before one of them reached him. A ten dollar lesson is belief was learned that night...I was the one in the rear and he kicked the guy in front and the one on the side before he kicked me...before the thought "hit him" could be translated into action. He was fast...and good.
He came back from his AWOL in San Francisco jubilant because he had blocked some guy named "Connie"'s back kickl Ronnie said people come from all over the world to get kicked by Connie...actually, to NOT get kicked...but very few could actually block it.
The day he was discharged, he went down to the motor pool and took a jeep up to the barracks, loaded his baggage into it, and drove himself to the bus station. He left the jeep there and boarded a bus back to California. It is called "misappropriation" and could have landed him in jail again...for at least six months this time...but Ronnie was Ronnie and things like that were not a major inconvience.
The story doesn't end there. About twelve years later, I am in Stuttgart watching the Wide World of Sports on AFN TV...the arm wrestling championships from Petaluma, CA. Approaching the table with those stove pipe arms and the loose surfer walk complete with the heart melting grin comes none other than Ronnie...representing Alaska...light heavyweight class. Still one of the most free of the free spirits spawned out of the sixties. But not invincable...he lost in the semifinals.