There have been a few times in my life when things just sort of came together and it became clear what I should do. One of those times was in a pancake house on El Cajon Boulevard near the San Diego State Campus. I treated myself to an early lunch, late breakfast...brunch, I guess. Sirloin and eggs. It was pretty tasty as pancake house breakfasts go. I had left work early, feigning illness. I had driven around a little, settled on a surface street return to El Cajon as opposed to the freeway, just because. I saw the pancake house and realized I was hungry and that's how I came to be sitting there looking at my steak and eggs and realizing I couldn't go on another day in that existence.

I was not very good at job hunting. I still have that problem. I found a job for Walker-Scott department store in College Grove shopping center. Two days a week in the stockroom, three days a week driving inter-store transfers in a box truck. It didn't pay much, but then it wasn't much of a job. I still wasn't 21 years old and in those days, 21 was the magic number if you wanted to drive a real truck. Bonding and the like. Actually, 25 was what most companies required. The best part of the job was that it started at 5:00am and if I put off lunch 'til the end of the day, I got off at 1:00pm. I hated it.

My supervisor was an older fella named Pickering. He was the only person in the store I liked. I hated everyone else. When I worked the stockroom I sometimes had to move things up to the sales floor. I would stick around and help put things on the shelves or display. Even the sales people acted like I was SUPPOSED to do that (I wasn't) and got snooty if I didn't. When I was in the truck, the shipping and receiving people would sit on their butts smoking and joking and watch me unload the truck, or load the truck, and never lift a finger to help...in fact...rarely spoke to me at all unless it was to tell me I was doing something wrong. I hated them, too.

The only person I had contact with on a regular basis who had any military experience was a guy in the shipping room. He grew up in Logan Heights (San Diego), joined the Navy and went to boot camp (in San Diego), got trained in admin (in San Diego) then graduated to be stationed in San Diego. Four years in the Navy and never left his home town. I hated him, too. He considered himself an expert on everything that was wrong with the military. I knew more about the Navy from being a dependant for 17 years than he did by being IN it for 4.

So there I was eating my steak and eggs because I couldn't face another minute in that damn stockroom looking at all those people I hated. I hadn't lied. I really was sick...of working there. In fact, I was sick of the whole thing. I hated civilians. I asked myself, "How can I fix this?" I was stumped. I just knew that something had to change. I had been getting bluer and bluer for weeks now. I remembered the Chief's old boxer shipmate, Rich. I had told him I needed a better job. He scowled and pronounced rather sourly, "You HAD a better job." Rich never made a secret of the fact that he felt I should have stayed in the Army. But sitting there remembering what he had said started a whole new chain of thought. I HAD had a better job. At twenty years old I had more responsibility and authority than Mr Pickering had at age 50 or so. I had better pay, more freedom and more free time. Most importantly, I had enjoyed the job. The little light slowly grew brighter inside my thinker...part of my problem was that I was fighting the truth. That truth was that I missed the Army and I was not about to admit it...I was suppressing it and that was causing some of the funk.

So, as I allowed this line of thought to develop, I realized what the biggest problem was. I missed MamaCharlie...a lot. Once that thought matured, I knew what I had to do about that. There was still one thing that had to be fixed. I wanted to go back to Germany. So by the time the steak and eggs were gone, the toast and jam devoured, four cups of coffee downed, and all the teeth thoroughly picked. I had made up my mind. I went back to Walker-Scott and told Mr Pickering I wouldn't be back. He smiled and said, "I saw that coming, you weren't happy here...going back to the Army?" I nodded and he wished me the best and we parted still friends. I don't think the Walker-Scott organization even noticed I had left...or cared.

I motored home and got on the phone. I asked MamaCharlie if she could come out to San Diego for a while. She was on the next plane out. I said, "Let's get married" and she said, "Okay" . When we got to the Chief's house I told her I was going back into the Army and going to go to Germany. She said, "Okay". That was Tuesday...we were married on Saturday. I went back into the Army on Wednesday. But there is more to the story than that.