January 20, 2012 5:09 AM PST
At times I have difficulty remembering exact dates. The Walter Reed thing was Christmas of 1968 and not 1969. Sorry about that.
When I got out of Nam in June of 1968 I was medical section leader at an Army missile site; part of the 28th artillery group and the Army Air Defense Command (ARADCOM) just outside of Detroit. After “rescuing” George from Walter Reed over the Xmas holidays we didn’t see much of one another. He spent nearly another year in the hospital.
After my discharge in 1970 I made my way to Chicago. I wasn’t there long when I got a call from George. “I thought we were going to get a place together when you got out of the service”, he said.
My reply, “That would be great but I’m stuck here in Chicago with only about 37 cents to my name.”(I had totaled my VW).
George just scoffed and told me I’d find a plane ticket waiting for me at the airport, he had a place for us to stay just outside of Syracuse in Camillus. I voiced my concern about being unemployed and of course that didn’t matter to him. “You’ll find a job. I’m not worried about that”.
So I land in Syracuse and wait for 3 hours for George to show up. When he does he’s got some great news; he’d met a girl and he was moving in with her. HUH? He met a girl and moving in less than 6 hours, the last time we spoke. What’s up with that? For God’s sake!!!
“So, what am I to do now”? I asked.
“I still have the apartment and I can afford to pay the rent until you get a job”.
“So now I’m alone? I thought we were going share a place.”
He said, “My brother needs guidance and you’re perfect for the job. You and he can share the apartment”.
Well, Doug was only a couple years younger and he did hang around with us growing up so I thought, “What the hell, Why not?” And man did we get into a lot trouble together in Syracuse; another story altogether.
George went through some tough times. He was still a great friend but mad at the world. He was always a big fella. Even with one leg and using a walker he could whoop ass, and he did a good deal of that as he searched for his inner peace I guess you could say. Me? I was of the same mindset, everybody pissed me off. But I got my ass whipped more often than not unfortunately. During that time George also tried to do himself in a couple of times. The last time he lay in the middle of the road, drunk and hoping to get run over. In the morning a dude found him on the side of road, dragged him into his place of business, cleaned him up and gave him a job. It was up hill after that for George. Almost overnight George was successful and amassed a pretty good fortune. Over the ensuing years he literally gave most of it away; paying for a young girl’s college in Europe, later paying for her wedding, buying his parents a new home, helping his family and strangers, etc.
On one occasion George was approached on the streets of St. Louis by a homeless man panhandling for money. What George did was amazing. He told the man that he wouldn’t give him any money but that he would feed him; which he did. George then went to a homeless shelter and arranged to feed everyone who was registered with the shelter. George rented a hall at a hotel in St. Louis for the homeless and paid for the catering of meals over the week-end.
At some point George decided to spend his winters in California and his summers in Cohocton, N.Y. on top of his little mountain top in a rustic old shack. Every March on his way back to N.Y. he would stop and visit me; always on my birthday. I remember the first time; one particularly cold and snowy March (I was living in Ohio then) morning I saw this Mustang convertible (top down) sitting in my driveway. A wheel chair and just about everything else George owned was strapped to the trunk lid. George was bundled up and covered with snow. Naturally I was concerned that the dude was frozen. I rushed outside, saw that it was George and said, “What the hell are you doing?” To which he replied, “You sure do sleep late.”
“O.K. but what’s going on?”
“What’s the matter? Don’t you know that it’s your birthday?”
Nearly every year after that George would track me down on my birthday and stay for a couple of days. And then in the early fall he would stop in again on his way back to California. He had replaced the Mustang with a van, living somewhere, anywhere on the beach. During his travels he would play the lottery in every state. He did so not because he needed the money but because he wanted to give any winnings to his brother so he’d stop bitching about how tough life was.
Once a month or so George would go to Vegas and blow half of his VA benefits. He loved to gamble, knew the evils of gambling, so he put his van in his sister’s name. That way he wouldn’t be able to sell it to gamble and he’d be able to get back to his beach.
I once asked George why he just didn’t move his family to California since he loved it so much. He said, “If my family stays in N.Y. I can have a funeral on the east coast AND the west coast." If you think that’s kind of selfish you’re probably right. If so, it was the only selfish act George ever performed in his entire life.
Chapter 3: The Hotdog Run
