In answer to MamaCharlie's challenge to tell you how I got to Arizona Hall that April night...I walked...from the Pontiac dealer on Miracle mile, a good 7-8 miles away. But I already covered that in an article almost two years ago, linked above. That will save some time. For me. But the real question, in keeping with her theme of how the stars all aligned to make it possible for us to meet, is how did I get to be in Arizona at all. My brother was in Fort Ord CA, I wanted to be in Fort Ord CA, I made the mistake of asking the Army if I could go to Fort Ord, CA...they said no.

How it happened was this: I returned from Vietnam on the 23rd of December, 1966. I was bused from Travis AFB into Oakland Army Terminal for "processing". They issued us new uniforms and shoes and made the alterations and sewed on the stripes and patches and while all that was going on, they had personnel-type people getting assignments for us and issuing orders and arranging pay and all that. It took hours to do all this processing and the main hang-up was getting assignments for all of us. It became common practice later to just send everyone home and mail them orders later. It wasn't so common in December of '66 but that is what they did to me. After a prolonged wait at the Terminal for orders I was called to come up to the desk and they gave me orders to go home and wait for orders. OKAY. I was still begging for Fort Ord as I got into the taxi heading for the airport.

I was home for three weeks when the letter came with my orders in it. To Fort Huachuca, Arizona. I was underwhelmed. Arizona? "Ain't nothin' there but steers and ...". The running joke was that there was a girl behind every tree...the nearest tree was in Bisbee about fifty miles away. To make matters worse, I allowed the Chief to talk me out of buying a car until I knew what things were like at the new post. So I flew. San Diego to Phoenix wasn't so bad. Phoenix to Tucson wasn't so good. Tucson to Fort Huachuca was serviced by a choice of a five-hour bus ride or flying on Apache Airlines...in a plane just like Sky King used to have...in the fifties. May have been the same plane for all I knew. The door never sealed and whistled like a partly-opened car window the whole trip. I mentioned that to the crew and they assured me that we weren't going to be high enough for that to be a problem. Well, not for them, anyway. For me, it just added to the terror of the situation. Remember, fresh out of Vietnam? Not a fan of low-flying aircraft.

Well, what things were like at the new post was: things were spread out...way out...and everyone else there had their own car. I did a lot of walking the first month or so. I went home on a three-day pass to buy the Chevelle of my dreams...and I guess that decision had something to do with the series of events, too. Instead, I bought a '65 GTO and I couldn't resist jumping on it every chance I got. That caused a problem, a twisted axle that brought me to the Pontiac dealer in Tucson and the chain of events expressed in the link above.

So, an assignment I couldn't have, a car that wouldn't work, a long walk to the college, two blind dates that didn't work out, and there I was, standing next to the green Goat, meeting the young girl who turned out to be the girl of my dreams. That's pretty much how I got there.

I found out later that MamaCharlie had almost cancelled out that night because she wasn't feeling all that well. But Kathy fixed her up a cup of tea in hopes it would help her feel up to the date. It worked. So between the two of us there were many "alternities" that could have happened; call it Karma or Fate, or the alignment of the planets, or just dumb luck but what ever it was, I am grateful for it.