A True Story

Today, Massiel and I were driving and listening to a CD that I had made of only Billy Joel songs. Good Night Saigon came on and I got to thinking about the Vietnam War and my brief brush with it. I then told this true story to Massiel:

I quit going to college after 3 years. I was attending NYU, not doing particularly well and hating it. I broke up with my girlfriend and decided that I really needed a change. I moved to Boston.  I previously have written about my time at the Playboy Club in Boston. This happened while I was living there, but before I got the Playboy job. Back in those days there was a draft and everyone of age had to register. The war was immensely unpopular. There were draft resisters moving to Canada, people burning their draft cards as protest, and doing whatever they could to avoid the draft. I had no strong anti-war feelings but I also knew that I did not want to be in a war. As long as you were a student you retained a 2-S classification which made you exempt from call up. However, if you stopped going to school you were reclassified as 1-A and eligible to be called up to serve. Sure enough while in Boston I received notice that I was being called to take my physical at the Mount Vernon (the city where I had registered) Draft Board. I wrote and appealed to have the location changed to Boston. They agreed and I waited for the new notification for my physical. While waiting I decided to go to a psychiatrist. Through a friend I found someone who I was told might be willing to help me with my Army problem. Shortly after mty first visit I received the notice directing me to the Boston Draft Board for my pre-induction physical. I went to the shrink for the second (and last) time and requested a letter confirming that I was undergoing psychiatric therapy/counseling
. At the Draft Board office there were about 25 others who had been called we were directed to a waiting bus that drove us to the nearest army installation, which might have been the Naval base (I'm not sure). We all were put through a battery of tests all of which I passed with flying colors, except for rhe hearing test. They put earphones on over your ears and played a high pitched sound and asked you to tell them at what point you could hear it. I figured this would be an easy test to fail so even though I could hear the noise I kept saying that I couldn't. After three or four attempts the person administering the test turned the volume up so loud that I almost jumped out of my seat. He said, "Oh you heard that. Good, you pass". That was as close as I came to failing anything. All the tests were complete and they brought us into a room and someone, I can't remember who, explained to us that we were all going to be classified 1-A and that our induction notices would we coming to us shortly. He then said the words that didn't change my life (as going into the Army would have). He said, "Do any of you have any reason why you cannot serve?" I whipped out my letter and gave it to him. He excused himself and went to go to show the letter ro someone and when he came back he said something to the effect of, "I'm sorry but you can't serve. We are going to classify you as 1-Y." Not know what that meant I asked him and he replied that they would be calling women and children before they would call me. I was fortunately able to restrain from showing my joy and left with the others.  I still remember the present that I bought myself to celebrate my good fortune. I passed a Men's Clothing store and saw a tie in the window. It was about 5 inches wide, bright pink with large yellow polka dots. I don't know when I lost track of that tie but for years when I would come across it I would remember how lucky I was to be alive.

What My Life Has Become

So I write this beautiful kiss ass post about how wonderful my wife is and we are in bed reading it and she tells me how nice it was that I wrote it and when I say, "OK then, blow me" she blows air on my face.

The Truth

I think that it was either Miss Baldwin, my third grade teacher, or Mrs. Lipton, my fifth grade teacher, who once wrote on my Report Card that, "Joel would be a wonderful student if he would stop trying to be the class clown". I couldn't help myself then and I still can't. If I think of something that I think is funny, I can't help myself. I have to say it, and often the more people I tell it to the better. I am not a mean spirited person and very rarely say anything about someone that is meant to hurt them. This is to set the record straight regarding my June, Graduation Month post.

I have been with a lot of women in my life. I have been married 4 times and had many girlfriends. Of all those women (see, my sense of humor wants to take control right here and add "and the few men") I have only been with one for whom my love and affection has grown every day. My wife Massiel is that person. She has been a good sport about many of the things that I have said and written about her. She is such a great person, bright, intelligent, and funny that I consider myself to be a very lucky man to have someone so wonderful caring about me. And she does care, both about and for me. I always tease her about this, but the truth is that I could not ask for a woman to make me any happier than Massiel makes me. I call her names all the time and she takes it. I tease her all the time and she takes it. Actually, she not only "takes it" she seems to enjoy it.

I am writing this because I want all my thousands of readers to know how lucky I am to have the most wonderful, clever, honest, smart woman in the world loving me.

Thank you, Babe.


Joel

Still Waiting

I have been a fan of Rock and Roll since the early 50's. I remember that when I lived in Mount Vernon I had a radio in my room and at night I could listen to Rock and Roll from Cleveland and Buffalo, two hotbeds of early RnR. When I started to earn money I began to buy records. i started with 45's and graduated to albums. At some point I probably had 5 or 600 albums. Then one day I heard about 8 track tapes. I am all in favor of new technology so I put an 8 track in my car and started buying 8 tracks recordings. Of course, I didn't only by new tapes, I also bought copies of many of the albums that I already owned. Then a couple of years later cassette players came out. These were smaller and more importantly you could advance them to the song that you wanted to hear. They gabe the listener much better control, so of course I started by cassettes and once again I started duplicating records and 8 tracks that I already owned. I had 3 of the same album and probably had 399 titles in triplicate. I felt really stupid buying the same thing over and over again, but if I wanted to listen to the music I liked there was no other choice. And then one day CD's came out. Hey, screw them, they are not going to get me to buy the fourth copy of something. I am smarter than that. I decided to wait for the next "newest, greatest way to listen to music".  That was probably 20 years ago and in that time I have probably bought less than 50 CDs. I am still waiting for the new technology.

P.S. My ex-wife, Bonnie, still has about 300 of my original collection of records and now claims that they are hers.

Words To Live By

Everything happens for a reason but sometimes that reason is that you are stupid and make bad decisions.

I Just Don't Get It

Exactly what is the idea of being tattooed? Is it to desecrate your body as much as possible? Is it to put so much ink on your body, like your arms, for instance so that they look dirty from a distance. My good friend Sal has a couple of tattoos. The first one he got was on his bicep. It says MOM. As he tells it if he hadn't put that there and had come home with a tattoo his mother, or father would have beat the crap out of him. He put "MOM" in the heart for self protection. I met Sal in 1974 and shortly after that he got his second tattoo of a parrot on his forearm. I hate tattoos, but somehow I really liked this one. To this day it looks fresh and clean. Then when tattoos became all the rage he was driven to getting a new one. This time it is on his calve and is of a panther clawing his leg. He thought it was very cool, until I showed him a waitress with the same design. That took a lot of wind out of his sails. Back in the day, the idea of a tattoo was to separate yourself from others. Today the idea is to be like the others.

Hey Where Have You Been and Why Am I Back

A gambler calls his bookie every day for 25 consecutive days to place a bet on a basketball game. He loses all 25. The 26th day he calls the bookmaker, who by this time is starting to feel sorry for the player. The bookie says, "Why not do something to try to change your luck? Why not bet on Hockey?"
"Hockey?" replies the player, "What do I know about Hockey?"