1 50 14 https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/b9484da73d45d64cb32ff9c7e40d289c.pdf 1787c859ddd1b135b89c9e9a5072c68e PDF Text Text �THE APPALACHIAN CONSORTIUM The Appalachian Consortium is a non-profit educational organization comprised of institutions and agencies located in the Southern Highlands. Our members are volunteers who plan and execute projects which serve 156 mountain counties in seven states. Among our goals are: Preserving the cultural heritage of Southern Appalachia Protecting the mountain environment Improving the educational opportunities for area students and teachers Conducting scientific, social and economic research Promoting a positive image of Appalachia Encouraging regional cooperation THE MEMBER INSTITUTIONS OF THE APPALACHIAN CONSORTIUM ARE: Appalachian State University Blue Ridge Parkway East Tennessee State University Gardner-Webb College Great Smoky Mountains Natural History Association John C. Campbell Folk School Lees-McRae College Mars Hill College Mayland Community College North Carolina Division of Archives and History Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy Southern Highlands Handicraft Guild U.S. Forest Service Warren Wilson College Western Carolina University Western North Carolina Historical Society �The Summer People �Winner of the First Appalachian Consortium Fiction Award Other Books by John Foster West up ego! TIME WAS THE BALLAD OF TOM DULA APPALACHIAN DAWN THIS PROUD LAND WRY WINE �THE SUMMER PEOPLE by John Foster West Appalachian Consortium Press Boone, North Carolina 28608 �The Appalachian Consortium was a non-profit educational organization composed of institutions and agencies located in Southern Appalachia. From 1973 to 2004^ its members published pioneering works in Appalachian studies documenting the history and cultural heritage of the region. The Appalachian Consortium Press was the first publisher devoted solely to the region and many of the works it published remain seminal in the field to this day. With funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Humanities Open Book Program, Appalachian State University has published new paperback and open access digital editions of works from the Appalachian Consortium Press. www.collections.library.appstate.edu/appconsortiumbooks This work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. To view a copy of the license^ visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses. Original copyright © 1989 by the Appalachian Consortium Press. ISBN (pbk.: alk. Paper): 978-1-4696-4207-9 ISBN (ebook): 978-1-4696-4209-3 Distributed by the University of North Carolina Press www.uncpress.org �In the beginning there was Lana— And then there was Anna DeVoss �This page intentionally left blank �SUMMER, 1974 �This page intentionally left blank �Chapter I How could two or three weeks with an old woman in a place called Holy Rood Valley cure more than six years of pain and frustration? It was too much to expect or even to hope for. The hell with it! She shook her head and concentrated on the climbing road. After the van ahead had crossed the narrow bridge and crept into the right lane of the four-lane segment of highway, Anna DeVoss shifted to third and stamped down on the accelerator, her long legs working in unison with her arms. The red Porsche shot ahead into the left lane, throwing Anna's head back against the headrest. She glanced toward her mother-in-law to see if she had been inconvenienced. Mrs. DeVoss stared straight ahead, a troubled look narrowing her eyes. Anna knew she was worrying about an older sister in a Jacksonville hospital. Once past the van, she cut back into the right lane and slowed, climbing the eastern slope of the Appalachians at a more leisurely pace. Suddenly there was a tightness in her ears and she swallowed, clearing them. She turned her head occasionally, 1 �2 The Summer People gazing through the huge bug-eyed sun shades at the green knolls and ridges as they swelled skyward to her right or dropped away to her left. Approaching three thousand feet, she could feel a change in the air, an unfamiliar coolness as the backwash swept past her left arm resting on the door. Just before they climbed the final grade, before they ducked beneath the stone bridge of the Parkway and crossed the spine of the Blue Ridge at Deep Gap, Anna looked back to her left. The Appalachians rolled away toward the Piedmont to the south-east, blue and misty, ridge beyond ridge, mountain dome after mountain dome, fading out in haze along the horizon. The farthest range she could discern appeared higher than the Blue Ridge, but she knew it was an illusion. The mountains were actually stepping downward toward the foothills, toward the rolling landscape of the western North Carolina Piedmont and the flatlands beyond. From the highway east of Wilkesboro, the range she now crossed had climbed toward the sky, blue and hazy. But now, spreading around her, the slopes wore the brilliant green of early June. She and Pete had once driven along Skyline Drive, in western Virginia's modest contribution to the Appalachian range, but she had never been in mountains this rugged before. They subdued her. She had an urge to steer onto the right shoulder and hug the bank, away from the dropoff to her left. Yet there was a tranquility in being here that as- �John Foster West 3 suaged ever so slightly the old sadness hovering about the edges of her awareness. Beyond the Blue Ridge, the sensation of being in the mountains diminished, as she drove through rolling hills and farmlands and passed small roadside businesses. The town of Boone, dominated by the highrise dormitories of Appalachian State University, lay along a narrow valley, spilling over hills and ridges to the east and west. They stopped at a huge old building of faded weatherboarding and ate lunch, served from dishes placed on their table, family style. Mrs. DeVoss nibbled at her food, her mind far away, but Anna ate with relish. The vegetables and stewed apples were especially delicious, probably because they had been seasoned with pork. Between bites, Anna would glance occasionally toward the stranger who was her mother-in-law, sympathizing with her, yet feeling inadequate because she knew of nothing she could say that would ease the worry of her companion. Maud DeVoss was a tall, slender woman with a gaunt but handsome face. Her nose was straight as a rifle barrel, the kind of nose her son had had. Anna had discovered in the last four days that the older woman could be talkative and pleasant company occasionally, but not today. They left town, heading southwestward past green slopes with red wounds in them where bulldozers had gouged out bays for tourist shops and apartment houses. The highway was a two-lane �4 The Summer People strip of asphalt which climbed a gradual rise and then dropped steeply for a mile, passing chalets, an asphalt plant, and a campground, as it blacksnaked its way downward into a meandering valley. Anna's gaze kept straying from the road, picking out rock formations, cone-shaped hills, and narrow valleys wandering away to the left and right. The Appalachians here were not blue, a darkling land, as the Cherokees had called them, but flaming green, an overwhelming green which soothed her and shut her away from the rush of the world she had left that morning. She was startled when Mrs. DeVoss spoke. "You turn right just beyond that bridge ahead." But she had already moved her foot to brake. She had known where to turn. Pete had brought her along this route more than once, in their conversations, although they had never found time to come here together. Never would find— She cut the thought short, like slicing a taut cord. They followed the left bank of a swift little river for about two miles, most of the time beneath a dense canopy of trees. The narrow, winding strip of asphalt probably followed an old wagon road, which followed an older Indian trail, which in turn followed an even older buffalo trail. Pete had once told her that many of the mountain roads followed old animal trails, with the original curves and stream crossings still in them. �John Foster West 5 Mrs. DeVoss spoke again after they left the tunnel of trees and approached a huge, two-story building on the right, dark with age. There was a narrow little porch, two rusting gas pumps like two strangers standing close together for companionship, and a dilapidated farm wagon to one side, the mules hitched to it testing the sound of the approaching car with long ears swinging from side to side like hairy antennae. Anna could see faded signs on the side of the building: Peach Snuff, Rumford Baking Powder, B. C. Headache Powders, and Nehi Grape. "That's Sparr's Store," Maud DeVoss said. "That's where the community trade and get their mail." Anna glanced at her. The sadness had left her face briefly and was replaced by a pensive tranquility. She turned her head to study the old building as they moved past it. Anna wondered whether she was remembering the many times she had visited the store with her late husband or if she was recalling some specific occasion that had remained a pleasant memory. Half a mile beyond the store, she veered to the left onto a dirt road, crossed a narrow, low-water bridge spanning the river, an iron grill cattle bridge beyond, and shifted to third, climbing at an angle to the right, the spur of the ridge. A one-strand electric fence ran along the base of the slope, which �6 The Summer People had been stamped into countless parallel terraces by the feet of generations of grazing cattle. "That stream is the Watauga River," Mrs. DeVoss muttered, almost to herself, it seemed. "It empties indirectly into the Gulf of Mexico." Anna glanced toward her again but said nothing. She followed a sharp curve back to the left, then turned to the right, climbing the gently rising slope. To her left, fifty yards away, a forest began in a straight line and stretched away toward the base of the ridge, to rise again in the distance, covering a higher knoll. Up ahead, the black shingled roof of a farmhouse came into view, beyond which she could see the tin roof of a barn and other outbuildings. Several Black Angus and white-faced cattle grazed off to her right, two of them raising their heads to stare indifferently at the approaching car, chewing slowly. "That's the Webber place," Mrs. DeVoss said, pointing. "They own all the land around here." She paused, thoughtful. "Except, of course, the lots for the three summer places back in the woods." A road branched off to the left, straight into the forest, and Anna could see the roof of an A-frame cabin with a glass front, partly concealed by trees. A short distance beyond, she turned left into a second road. She could not see the DeVoss chalet until she had passed a stand of young white pines and was suddenly in the yard, if the place could be said to have a yard. The drive ended in a loop circling �John Foster West 7 tall oaks and poplars near the front door, four short parking bays perpendicular to the house front. Anna pulled into the one nearest the front steps and switched off the engine. For several seconds she and the older woman sat in silence, as Anna studied the building. It was built of hewn logs, black with age, logs, Pete had once told her, that Dr. DeVoss had obtained from an old barn some native had sold him. The architecture was rectangular, the steep roof covered with cedar shakes, the eaves at right angles to the driveway. A stone chimney was built against the near side of the cabin, a door to the right of it and a window to the left. Even the cement chinking between the logs seemed darkened by time, with here and there patches of moss or lichen splotching it like creeping blight. "Well, this is Greenworld." Mrs. DeVoss looked at her and smiled. "How do you like it?" Anna stared straight ahead. She tried to visualize a young Pete DeVoss, barefoot and in shorts, brown as an Indian, shinnying up the trees or scurrying away among them. "It's lovely," she said softly. "It's—it's out of my world. It's wonderful." When Mrs. DeVoss reached for the handle of the door, Anna opened her own. She unfolded from the deep bucket seat and towered above the top of the Porsche. Her knees cracked, loud in the silent forest. There was a catch in her back. She braced her hand against the top of the car, her �8 The Summer People balance awry. The long ride had molded her into one position too long. A moment later, she hurried around the car. She opened the other door and grasped Mrs. DeVoss's hand, helping her out and to her feet. The older woman tottered a moment, but quickly adjusted to standing. Anna followed her up the hewn-log steps onto the deck of the chalet. By the time they had reached the door, Mrs. DeVoss had a bunch of keys in her hand and unlocked the door. Despite the light from several windows, Anna had to peer and blink rapidly, coming from the bright outer light into the gloom. She removed her sunglasses and looked about her. There was a slight taint of mustiness in the air, a closeness resulting from the fact that the cabin had been shut up for several months without ventilation, but the odor was not unpleasant. It gave her a feeling of nostalgia, a sense of old things long unused, which results in a gentle sadness. On her left, dominating the front of the cabin, was a large stone fireplace with raised hearth and a stone mantel. Above it hung a painting framed with wormy chestnut. She studied it briefly. Several little men and women dressed like Pilgrims frolicked in a wood, one of their children riding a reddish-brown squirrel along a rotting log. Comfortable looking leather-padded chairs sat tranquilly in front of the fireplace, four of them, once black but now scarred and faded. They reminded Anna �John Foster West 9 of old men drawn together for a quiet conversation, but momentarily silent. A black bearskin rug sprawled between the chairs and the hearth, the head snarling toward some unseen enemy across the room. The right end of the cabin consisted of two bedrooms, a bathroom separating them. The rest of the interior was cathedral, including the fireplace and living area and the kitchen-dining area. The left end of the building contained a sink beneath double windows. There were an electric stove, a refrigerator, and a lazy-Susan table, with ladderback chairs marshaled around it. Between the living area and the far wall was a reading area, crowded bookcases lining the wall and rearing ceilingward between two windows. There was no radio, no television, not even a telephone that Anna could see. "The master bedroom is the farther one there," Mrs. DeVoss explained, as they crossed the oak floor. "You take it, since you'll probably be here longer than I will. It's larger than the other, and the double bed will give you sprawling room." Anna stopped in front of the bathroom door. "No! No, don't let's do that. I don't want to deprive you of comfort. I can switch rooms if you have to leave earlier." Mrs. DeVoss touched her lightly on the shoulder, smiling tiredly. "Don't argue with me, child. I know what's been going on inside you since we left �10 The Summer People Arlington. At least I think I do. The room is yours. That settles it." Anna hesitated, but could think of no further argument. "All right, then." She turned to the left, toward her bedroom. "You're the boss." Inside, she stared about her. A huge fourposter bed sat in the far corner to her right, a patchwork quilt serving as a spread. Matching the bed, an antique dresser of red cherry stood against the wall close by to her left, and a matching chest of drawers reared upward on her right, beside the door. A Boston rocker with splint-bottom and back waited in the corner farther to her right, a reading lamp peering over the left shoulder of whatever ghost occupied it at the moment. At the right end of the cabin, double windows permitted a view of the gently rising slope of the ridge. A single window beside the bed looked out onto the back deck of the cabin. She crossed the oval hooked rug, placed her right knee on the window seat, and raised the window beside the bed. Immediately, the room was filled with a lulling, liquid murmur from down the slope and to the right. She had known the waterfall would be there, but it caught her by surprise when it asserted itself on the silence. The window opened onto the screened sleeping deck, and beyond it, the slope fell gently through a maze of columns whose green tops reared from sight somewhere above the roof. Below the intrusion of the waterfall, Anna �John Foster West 11 could vaguely hear the flutter of a stream over and around rocks somewhere in the woods farther down the slope. "Besides, you can hear the falls better from this room." Anna whirled. Mrs. DeVoss stood just inside the door, a hand braced against the door facing. "I was already alone in a strange world," Anna laughed. "You startled me." "The waterfall is an added blessing," the older woman said. "It is a balm for sadness, although there's something—something sad about the sound of it. You will go to sleep hearing it, and you will wake up hearing it, and it will be a calm voice assuring you everything will be all right." Mrs. DeVoss was not looking at Anna. She was staring above the bed at a large photograph of a young man and woman in wedding clothing. "We spent every summer in this room for thirty-nine years," she continued, "except part of one in Austria. I have been here forty-one—since the summer of 1933." "It—it's a peaceful room," Anna said, not knowing what else to say. "I'm sure I'll enjoy it." Mrs. DeVoss turned and left the room quickly. Anna heard the bathroom door close, and she was left alone. After Anna had carried their bags in, placing them in the respective bedrooms, Mrs. DeVoss still had not left the bathroom. Once Anna started to knock on the door, hesitated, then let her arm �12 The Summer People drop. Without any clear direction, she went out onto the back deck. She crossed it, thrust open the screen door and descended the steps. The straight boles of yellow pines and poplars towered upward, blotting out the sky, except for a swatch of blue here and there. A path led down the side of the ridge, but away from it the forest was almost clear of undergrowth. She could hear the gush of the waterfall even more clearly outside here, and the cool of the forest settled about her, denying the existence of an afternoon sun. As she descended the meandering path, her sandals made soft swishing sounds now and then to break the silence of the forest. Ferns grew in isolated beds on both sides of the trail. A mossy boulder reared up suddenly in front of her. Rounding it, she reached the banks of the rushing stream ten feet beyond. The path crossed the creek on two stepping-stones and continued onward, but a tributary path traced the left bank, upstream. She followed it, her eyes on the splashing water, and reached the flowers before she knew they were there. When she raised her eyes suddenly, she stopped, her lips parted in surprise. A jungle of Rosebay rhododendron stretched away from the right bank, their long, leathery leaves gleaming like metal in the forest twilight. But they were overshadowed by thousands of pink flowers, round clumps of them, reaching out of sight and covering the surface of the shrubbery like a brilliant froth. �John Foster West 13 Anna had never seen rhododendron in bloom before. She stood there staring, a little-girl look of delight and surprise softening the fatigue about her mouth and eyes. Back of her seeing was a symphony of odors, none of which she could identify other than to suspect that they were a blend of gifts from the forest, just as was the gush of the waterfall, somewhere close by. Anna was startled back to awareness when some kind of bird, perhaps a woodpecker, leaped from a tree behind her, its wings drumming the air as it darted off into the forest, uttering shrill cries. She turned and looked after it, then followed the path farther upstream, the waterfall growing louder with each step. The stream and path looped back to the left around a peninsula of rhododendron. She rounded it and suddenly there it was. The brook leaped over the brim of a low granite escarpment and arched out, then plunged into a deep pool beneath, foaming like champagne. The drop was not more than ten or twelve feet, but the flashing white scimitar of water gave Anna the impression of a greater distance. The pool was surrounded by a flat crescent of granite which on her side slid gradually beneath the pool, climbing to a garden of moss adjacent to the woods. Kicking off her sandals, she waded into the pool, but stopped ankle deep, at the utter coldness of the water. She squatted and ruffled her fingers along the surface, then stopped again to let it calm. �14 The Summer People She studied her reflection, almost as clear as a mirror. Her face in the water was bracketed by her knees. She brought her knees together and tugged at the hem of her short skirt, a mother-induced gesture of modesty. A sudden flicker of motion caught her attention. Three feet away, two fish, probably brook trout, darted away from her, the shadow of one chasing the shadow of the other along the pebbled bottom. Walking backward onto the rock, Anna sat down beside her sandals. The sun-warmed rock added a comfortable glow to her buttocks through her skirt. At that moment she noticed the butterflies—black and gold, yellow, pale blue and orange—hanging close to the falling water, rising and drifting downward on beating wings as though drinking the mist that hovered just above the falls. Butterfly Falls, that was what Pete had called them. Now she could see why. She lay back, her hands clasped beneath her head, and stared upward at the splotches of sky showing through the canopy of pines and spruce towering over her. She relaxed against the warm granite, her breathing long and slow. For the first time that day she was aware of how weary she really was. Day before yesterday at Arlington Cemetery— today, seven long hours from Norfolk to Greenworld in Watauga County. She closed her eyes. Far away, her memory echoed rifle shots in unison and the mournful sound of TAPS. A flag was folded �John Foster West 15 expertly, revealing the utilitarian shape of the vault it had covered. A colorful triangle of fabric was thrust into the hands of the young woman in the dark suit, shattering her brown study. She stared from the flag to the officer as though wondering what to do with it. Then the scene shuttled forward like a silent movie skipping frames, and the couple, the young woman and her older companion, were wading through the forest of white crosses, leaving the metal cubicle behind—the cubicle she was expected to believe held the decayed remains of the young buck she had once held in her arms. She had looked back once and had felt nothing, no rapport with broken bones and fabric. Although the military was sure—the identification was beyond doubt—Anna DeVoss had not felt that the remains of her mate were stored in that metal cubicle. Her mind had known and had accepted the obvious, but her heart could not believe. She herself had not seen the bones of Pete DeVoss. His boyish grin, his muscular body, after six years, were still too real for her to let go. The last notes of TAPS faded, faded, and the two women merged into the green hillside, disappearing. Anna awakened suddenly, shivering. A chilly breeze swept across her, fluffing the hem of her skirt. In the distance she heard the roar of the plane hurtling earthward. She sprang to a seated position, staring about her. It was only the roar of the waterfall. Her heartbeat slowed. She could see �16 The Summer People little flecks of the sun through the pines to the west. She checked her wristwatch. It was after six. Buckling on her sandals, she got to her feet and returned down the stream, along the rocky path. Once, she glimpsed a little man in dark knickers and silver buckles on his shoes and wearing a Pilgrim hat, as he sat on a rock stroking a squirrel almost as large as himself. But when she squinted to get a better look, only the squirrel was visible. Or had it been the ghost that lived in her brain that had seen it, the ghost that sometimes talked to her? Mrs. DeVoss, busy in the kitchen, looked at her curiously when she entered the cabin, but said nothing. Anna entered her room, removed her robe and mules from one of the open bags, and went into the bathroom. She took off her halter, skirt, and half-slip and was ready to shower. She stood for a long time letting the fine jets of water pepper her shoulders, back, and breasts. It felt so soothing, she almost went to sleep, standing with her hands braced against the shower walls. After a while she slid back the shower panel and began to towel herself, rubbing until the flesh of her arms and torso turned a healthy red. She stepped out onto the bath mat to dry her legs and was startled when she caught a sudden movement out of the sides of her eyes. Anna whirled, towel covering her lower body, �John Foster West 17 and had to laugh when she saw the tall young woman staring at her with open mouth, out of the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. She stopped, finishing up first one foot, then the other, as she watched her movements in the mirror. She walked to within a couple of feet of the door and studied her reflection critically. At five feet, nine, she appeared taller than she actually was because she was so slender. But her hips were feminine and the slight dome of her belly did not require a girdle. There was no sign she had ever worn a bathing suit. She did not tan easily and had never been a fanatic about the fad, although she had spent countless sunny days at Virginia Beach over the years. She looked at her breasts, cupping her right hand to lift the right one slightly and feel it for any suspicious lump. They were not overly large and were as white as her belly. Anna studied her face. At twenty-four, it was still young and pretty, except for dark shadows under the light blue eyes—under the gray eyes. At the moment they were gray, reflecting the moroseness that had lived inside her for the last several days. When she smiled suddenly—Pete had always accused her of grinning like a school kid—her eyes turned light blue. Her brown hair, with highlights of gold, was cut in a shag, and her nose was small and neat. She had learned long ago that it was her mouth that men noticed first. Her lips were full �18 The Summer People and sensuous, her lower lip slightly fuller than her upper. Her thick black brows seemed devised to steal the attention from her mouth. Donning the robe and mules, she joined Mrs. DeVoss at the lazy-Susan table where they ate a dinner her mother-in-law had prepared from cans. The meal passed mostly in silence, and Anna washed the dishes afterwards while Mrs. DeVoss bathed. It was still light outside when Anna told her companion good night and entered her bedroom, closing the door. She sat for a while, trying to read a short story from a collection she had taken from the bookcase, but the words kept blurring and running across the page like speckled amoebae under a microscope. Above the muted buzz and tinkle of nocturnal insects, the quiet roar of the waterfall intruded on her awareness. Twilight had just begun to sift down through the canopy of foliage sheltering the cabin when Anna drew back the covers, removed her robe, and stretched out on the bed. She could smell the faint mustiness of the bed covers, unused for a year, and could feel a gentle wave of air enter the open window and sweep across her body, stirring her hair, cooling her. God, but she was weary! She let her muscles relax and collapsed inward into herself, breathing evenly. The firm mattress was comfortable, sustaining her weight with authority. Her chest rose and fell. Her mind was a huge house with many lighted windows. Someone was running �John Foster West 19 through the house from room to room switching off the lights. Finally, only two lights were left, then one. She did not know when that light was turned off. The house remained dark, but some area of her mind was aware that she became chilly during the night, arousing her defenses enough so that she covered herself with a sheet and blanket, leaving the patchwork quilt thrown aside. �Chapter II She was back at UNC, and a neighbor was calling her, waking her for her first class. Bess must be outside the apartment calling me through the window, her mind reasoned, because her voice is muted. No, it could not be Bess. It's a man's voice. It's Pete calling me. He's back from a flight, back from Vietnam, back from—No! Not that word. But it had to be Pete. What other man would call her from her sleep? Anna sat up in bed, her hands leaping to cover her ears, her eyes wide with fear. Then she calmed, orienting herself. She tilted her head to listen. There came another series of loud knocks on the front door, followed by silence. Then a man's voice, muffled by the intervening doors and walls, called again. "Maud! Maud! Hey, Maud, wake up, please ma'am!" Slipping to the floor, Anna seized her robe, flung it around her, tying the sash with fingers still half asleep, and opened her bedroom door. She paused in the doorway, uncertain, then hurried across the cabin on her bare feet toward the front of the house. 20 �John Foster West 21 She opened the front door and stared at Jesus Christ, Superstar, who stood two feet away, fist raised to knock again. The first object to catch her attention was the mop of golden kinky hair and the next was the cropped, kinky beard, parted at the center of the chin like a Spartan warrior's. The surprised eyes stared back at her, a flecked amber. The narrow mask of face between the mustache and hair was peppered with freckles, as were the upraised fist and forearm. Why she should have been surprised at the appearance of a stranger she could not say, but surprise was chiefly what she felt at the moment. "Yes, what could I do for you?" she demanded. For a few seconds longer he stared at her face, then let his eyes shift to include the rest of her. "I need to see Maud," he said. "I have a message for her." "Maud?" Anna stared at him, her mind blank. "Oh, yes, you mean Mrs. DeVoss," she said, suddenly understanding. For a moment the man appeared flustered. "Yes, Mrs. DeVoss." His shallow little laugh might have been a slight apology or a punctuation sound. "I've always called her Maud. Known her since I was a kid." Anna could not have guessed his age with a gun to her head. He wore faded, patched jeans, the kind a beatnik might wear—or a farmer—a faded plaid shirt, and ragged sneakers without socks. �22 The Summer People They eyed each other a moment longer in silence. Then the young man took a step backward, retreating. "I'm Jay Webber," he explained, his solemn frown proof of identification. "We own the farm." He waved his arms to include the surrounding world, then abandoned it, letting it fall. "Oh, yes!" she said. "Maud—Mrs. DeVoss is still asleep. Ill get her." She left him standing on the deck and hurried toward Mrs. DeVoss's bedroom door. But before she reached it, Maud DeVoss appeared, a pink robe about her. Anna stopped. "There's a young man here," she said. "He says his name is Webber. Says he has a message for you." "Yes, that'll be Jay Webber." Mrs. DeVoss was looking beyond her, blinking sleepily. "JaY> do come in!" she called as she approached the front door. "Don't stand out there like you were a stranger." Anna turned to watch Jay Webber enter the cabin and meet Mrs. DeVoss, hug her. "When did you grow that beard?" she asked. "I swear, it's hard to tell what you'll do next. I bet your daddy would have made you shave it off." His laugh was casual. "Just got tired of shaving," he said. "Don't think about it much anymore unless somebody mentions it." �John Foster West 23 He had a slow, folksy drawl, a manner of speaking Pete had sometimes imitated when teasing Anna. "This is my daughter-in-law, Anna, Jay." Mrs. DeVoss nodded toward her. "Jay is our neighbor and handy man—looks after the cabin when we're away and keeps everything working when we're here." "Howdy, ma'am." Jay Webber bowed ever so slightly. Anna had a feeling the gesture was exaggerated. "Good to meet you," she said. "Please excuse me." She returned to her bedroom, closing the door after her. When she re-appeared later, dressed in yellow shorts and a white blouse, she found Mrs. DeVoss seated by the fireplace, sobbing silently. Anna approached her, hesitated, then placed a hand on the other woman's shoulder. "Do you want to talk to me about it?" she asked softly. Mrs. DeVoss sat up straight, wiping at her eyes with her fingers. Without glasses on, her eyes were pits of blue wrinkles. "It was a call from Cousin Dinnah," she said. "Mable is worse—critical. I—I must go to her. Would you please drive me to the Greensboro Airport?" "I'm so sorry," Anna said. "Certainly. We'll get you packed, and I'll have you there in no time." Maud DeVoss was quiet all the way down and �24 The Summer People out of the mountains, staring ahead through her heavy lenses, her mind apparently already in Jacksonville. After they had passed Wilkesboro and were tracing the rolling hills of the Piedmont, she said, "Stay in the cabin as long as you like, Anna. All summer, if it suits you. The mountains will calm you after those long years of—of waiting, not knowing for sure whether Pete—It's strange what a healthy perspective the mountains can give one who is used to living in hellish traffic and hubbub. After a while up there alone, you can see what has happened to you in a different light. You can—can come to accept things as they are." For a moment Anna was embarrassed. Although Maud DeVoss had not turned to look at her, she felt trapped by her scrutiny, as though her companion had been reading her mind for the last three days. She had never discussed how she felt about Pete, missing in action, with her mother-inlaw or anyone else because her feelings were so confused and personal she could not have analyzed them abstractly, let alone put them into words. They had hardly discussed husband and son at all on the way to and from the military funeral, both of them skirting the subject as though it were something obscene and unmentionable. "Thank you, Maud," she said. "I'll stay awhile. It is peaceful at Greenworld." She paused. "I do hope your sister improves." �John Foster West 25 "It's not likely. It's terminal cancer. It's just a matter of enduring it to the end." As they approached Friendship Airport, Anna felt a loss, regret that she had never got to know her mother-in-law any better than she had. The short military life she had spent with Pete had not permitted it, and after his carrier had sailed for Vietnam, after he had gone down on his second mission, she had been too busy losing herself in school to join her in-laws at Greenworld or to visit them in Jacksonville. Once, she and Pete had spent three days with them. Then, when Dr. DeVoss had died, she remained four days with her mother-inlaw, but it was hardly a time to get well acquainted. Now, she felt as though she were losing an old friend—an old friend she never got to know at all, never would know. When they embraced just before Maud DeVoss boarded her plane, the two women wept briefly and quietly, but for different reasons. Maud DeVoss, Anna guessed, for her dying sister, because she had long ago accommodated herself to the loss of her son and husband. But Anna DeVoss wept because she was losing someone she never had, the mother of her husband, a woman she might have grown to love and confide in, but never would know, now. Somehow, she was certain of that. If, or whenever they met again, it would be under different emotional circumstances, a young and an �26 The Summer People old woman passing in the daytime, pausing to exchange platitudes. When Anna returned to Holy Rood Valley, around 2:00 P.M., she pulled into the graveled parking area in front of Sparr's Store. She was dying of thirst, but more importantly, she needed to buy a few things. Climbing the steps to the tune of creaks, she opened the rusty screen door and entered a cavernous room as gloomy as a barn loft. Huge windows at either end of the long building were glazed by decades of dust which daylight penetrated grudgingly. Her nose was assailed by many odors, some of them familiar, some of them, but not all, pleasant in a nostalgic way—new leather, ground coffee, raw plug tobacco. She was stopped by the sudden silence. Three old men sat around the huge round stove which dominated the center of the store like a totem, as though they had been left over from last winter, still talking about the old times. They had hushed when she came in, mouths half open, staring at her with friendly curiosity. Anna stood a moment longer, blinking through her huge octagonal sun glasses as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Finally, she removed them and dropped them into her handbag. As she paced forward slowly, stalking her audience, uncertain as to how to break the silence, one of them braced his hands against his knees and got slowly to his feet. Unlike the other two men, he wore khaki pants, �John Foster West 27 with a white shirt and blue polkadot bowtie. He was a little man, hardly as tall as Anna, with a shining, florid face and a wing of graying brown hair combed across his pate. He grinned, showing a gold canine tooth, and nodded rapidly, then shuffled forward with outstretched hand. "You must be Mrs. DeVoss, young Pete's widder," he beamed, pronouncing the Mrs. as Mizeries. "I'm Henry Sparr." Anna stared at him in surprise, then took the cool, dry little hand. "Yes, I'm Anna DeVoss," she said. "But how did you know?" Henry Sparr laughed a cackling laugh. "I'm the local know-it-all," he grinned. "I know everything that goes on in Holy Rood Valley, like my pa and my grandpa before me." He paused to study her reaction, apparently. When she did not respond, he continued, "No, I'll tell you the truth, Annar. Jay Webber come by today and mentioned that you and Maud was at the DeVoss cabin. The way he described you, I couldn't a-missed. That boy's got a sharp eye for things is purty." For a moment Anna felt a surge of resentment toward one Jay Webber, hillbilly Paul Revere, then forgot him. She was a little surprised at how quickly the old man had seized her first name as a familiar tool. But she supposed it was a mountain custom which allowed a young Jay Webber to call her mother-in-law Maud, instead of Mrs. �28 The Summer People "Annar, this here is Grove Miller," Henry Sparr said, as one of the other two men, tall and angular, stood and extended his hand. He wore a blue denim shirt under his overalls and a battered black felt hat. "Proud to make your acquaintance, Annar," Grove Miller said. "Pete DeVoss was a fine young feller, and Dr. DeVoss was a angel." He pronounced it DE-voss. His hand was calloused and rough as torn sandpaper to Anna's touch. "How do you do, Mr. Miller?" she said. "And this here'n is Lem Perkins." The third man reminded Anna a lot of Grove Miller, except for his straw field hat. "Howdy," he nodded and smiled, then sat back down. Anna was aware that he was trying not to look directly at her legs, below her shorts, but he yielded to temptation at the last moment, before tilting his head and staring at the dark rafters. "Would you like to see my store?" the storekeeper asked. "Folks has come here from Canady all the way to Cubie and bought stuff. Been here on this spot for eighty-nine year." Anna looked about her again. It was straight out of the nineteenth century, except for the lights dangling on long, black wires from the rafters and an ancient frigidaire behind the counter, in the far corner. Even the cash register was antique. A glass �John Foster West 29 showcase stretched along one wall close by. Boxes of buttons, spools of thread, pocket knives, and boxes of striped stick candy could be seen through the scratched glass. "This room ain't all of it," Henry Sparr explained, when she hesitated. "This here is jest the main part." "Why—why, I would like to see it, Mr. Sparr," she said. "It's an interesting place." She followed him through a gap between the wooden and glass counters and up some steps into a wing of the huge old building. They passed a stairway on the right leading up higher and entered another room, darker than the main store. Farm tools were scattered about the room, cluttering the floor and leaning against the walls. Anna recognized hoes, shovels, and pitchforks. Three or four kinds of plows were sitting here and there. Henry Sparr grasped the handle of one of them and turned toward her, grinning. "I bet you a purty you don't know what this here is." "It's a—a plow." She wondered if he really thought she was too stupid to know. "Yeah, it's a plow, all right. But what manner of plow?" His grin broadened. "I don't know. I grew up on a dairy farm, but I didn't plow much." "It's a 13 Oliver-Chill. Best two-hoss plow in �30 The Summer People these parts. Made right over the mountains there, in Chattanoogie, Tennessee." Anna hesitated, wondering what the catch was. "Yeah," she nodded finally, "it's a fine looking plow, all right." "I bet you don't know what them things is." He was peering upward. She tilted her head and saw several old horse collars hanging from nails driven into the overhead beams. "They look like horse collars," she said. "They are. They are," he affirmed. "They truly are. I bet you can't guess what I'm doing with used hoss collars." "I can't imagine," she said, hesitating. "Unless you put them on used horses." He laughed, throwing back his head, then slapped her on the back, staggering her. Briefly, she felt a surge of resentment at his familiarity. "That's funny. Used hosses. Nope, they's another reason. Them Floridy tourist folks buy'em and put looking-glasses in'em." "Put what in them?" "Looking-glasses!" He stared at her in puzzlement. "You know, mirrors." "Oh, mirrors. You mean they really put mirrors inside used horse collars?" "That they do." He rubbed his hands together, chuckling. "That makes them antiques. Anything that's a antique, they can hang on their parlor wall, even if it's a used hoss collar with a looking-glass in it." �John Foster West 31 Anna laughed, amused at the old storekeeper's sense of humor. And she was flattered in a way. Obviously, he considered her a flatlander too smart to hang horse collar mirrors on her parlor wall, just as he considered the DeVoss family separate from the typical tourists. "Come on." He took her by the arm and escorted her back toward the door through which they had entered. "You ain't seen everything yet by a long shot. My grandpa built this store back around 1885. Runned it all his life. My pa runned it all his life, post office, too. I've worked it bout all my life, and you want to know somethin'? I got a boy that's a lawyer, and he ain't inter-rested in runnin' it. Reckon I'll jest have to get shet of it, when I run down." They climbed the shadowy steps higher and entered a great sprawling room beneath the eaves. She stifled a cough, assailed by the tight dustiness of the air, air flavored by spicy smells she could not identify. The four small windows about the walls supplied more light than the larger windows downstairs. Around the perimeter of the floor, close to the sloping roof, lay piles of dark roots and what appeared to Anna to be chips of decaying bark. The center of the room was occupied with at least two dozen hand-made, split-bottomed chairs, both ladderback dining chairs and Boston rockers. In the far corner to her left sat a long, dark box that looked like a casket. �32 The Summer People "I bet you a purty you don't know what that stuff is." Henry Sparr pointed to the dark piles along the edge of the room. "It looks to me like roots and bark," she said. He squinted at her. "Now how did a young lady like you figure that out?" "Well," she was puzzled at his surprise, "that's just what it looks like." "And that's precisely what it is. We used to take in roots and herbs. Up here's where we stored'em at. That stuff there was left over after we stopped shipping them out. It's jest laid there year after year not botherin nothin, and I've let it be." "And I suppose," Anna laughed, "you're going to tell me that thing over there—" She pointed, "—is a coffin." "That hit is!" Henry Sparr chuckled. "Grandpa sold everything from baby cradles to coffins. That'un is the only one we got left. Still belongs to old Sandy MacTavish. Belongs to his heirs, I reckon. But they ain't never spoke for it." "Why didn't Mr. MacTavish use it?" "Now that's a long story. He did use it, but not in the usual manner." Henry Sparr studied her solemnly, but there was a twinkle in his eyes. "Old Sandy studied dyin about all his livelong life, nearabouts. He had that coffin made out of black locust planks cause that wood don't never hardly rot in the ground. Black locust trees don't grow too big around, but Sandy had him some little planks �John Foster West 33 sawed out anyways, even if they was narrer. He had Grandpa's coffin maker, Jed Hackett, to make the coffin to Sandy's measure, which was purty big. Sandy used to come up here onct or twict a month and lay back in his coffin and sing 'When the Roll Is Called up Yander.' Folks never knowed was he drunk, crazy, or what. You ask me why he didn't use it finally at last. That's the strangest part of all. Old Sandy was drowned in the 1916 fresh, and his body wasn't never found." Anna's first impulse was to laugh at Sandy MacTavish's frustrated plans for eternity. An image of the pomp and circumstances in Arlington Cemetery crossed her mind, and it was no longer funny. She was suddenly sad for old Sandy. "Let's go back downstairs," she said. "It's spooky up here." Henry Sparr stopped behind the old cash register, stooped, and lifted a small door in the floor under the counter. He looked at Anna and grinned. "I bet you a purty you can't guess what this here door was used for." Anna shook her head. "No. I can't guess. Did you drop trash through, beneath the house?" "Nope, but you're a gettin warm. We used to take chickens in trade from folks hereabouts. Pa built a fence around the store outside and used the underneath space for a chicken lot. One day he decided it would be easier and save time if he cut him a hole in the floor, here, and dropped the �34 The Summer People chickens through instead of totin'em outside and around to the door of the lot." "Sheer genius," Anna laughed. "Your pa was a smart man." She turned to watch Grove Miller behind the wooden counter. He had taken a roll of bologna and a huge wedge of cheese from the refrigerator and was making a sandwich, cutting thick slices of bread from what looked like a homemade loaf. He smeared the bread with mayonnaise and placed a slice of the meat and a slice of the cheese between the bread. Anna's mouth was suddenly full of saliva. Her stomach was a void demanding attention. She remembered she had had neither breakfast nor lunch. As she swallowed, she was convinced that nothing in the world could satisfy her hunger but a sandwich exactly like the one Grove Miller was just biting into. She turned to the storekeeper. "Mr. Sparr, could I please, please make me a sandwich like that?" "Hep yourself. Hep yourself," he grinned. "Jest a quarter. My old womern baked the bread jest yesterdy." Anna sat in a chair by the cold iron stove and ate the best sandwich she had ever put in her mouth, drinking a cold orange drink between bites. Henry Sparr and Grove Miller sat facing her, grinning. Lem Perkins had left while she and the storekeeper were upstairs. �John Foster West 35 "Yep, the DeVosses was the first summer people to build in the valley," Henry Sparr stated. "Summer folks had been comin to Blowing Rock and Linville for years on end. Course, Linville is not in this county. We was let purty much alone out here, raisin our own corn and cabbages and Burley tobacker and stuff. One day Dr. DeVoss and Maud comes through in their Lasalle. That was before young Pete was borned. They stopped here and set in to talkin to J.W. Webber, happened to be at the store. I never seen two grown men take to each other so quick-like. Dr. DeVoss, a rich surgeon from Jacksonville, Floridy, and J.W., a mountain tobacker farmer didn't finish the fifth grade. Before the doctor had left, J.W. had sold him a acre of land for a summer house right up there in the woods nearabouts at Butterfly Falls. Sold it to him for chickenfeed, nearabouts. Dr. DeVoss had the log house built that same fall. Must a been 1931-32." Grove Miller swallowed the bite he was chewing, almost choking on it. "It was 1932, Henry. I recollect it was the year before Roosevelt tuck over." "Yeah. I believe you're right. I believe it was 1932." He looked at Anna. "Say you was brung up on a dairy farm?" Caught between bites, she was not able to answer at once. "Yes, Princess Anne County, in Virginia. Between Norfolk and what was then Virginia �36 The Summer People Beach. It's part of the City of Virginia Beach now. My father kept his farm going after almost all those around him had sold theirs for housing developments." "I can understand that." The storekeeper shook his head. "A feller does the same thing all of his life, he dreads to give it up for new ways." "Never will forget the time Dr. DeVoss operated on J.W. with a straight razor," Grove Miller said, looking at the stove. "Wasn't there my ownself, but everbody heard tell of it. After a thunderstorm the lights was out and the river was up. J.W. picked sech a time to have a pendicitis attack. He might nigh died, it was so sudden. Onliest thing saved him was Dr. DeVoss operated on him with a straight razor on the kitchen table underneath a lamp and a lantern light. Dr. DeVoss and J.W. sucked through the same quill from then on." "Yeah," the storekeeper agreed, "the DeVosses tuck the time to stop and go easy and live slow, like us folks that growed up here. Nowadays, summer folks has got to have two or three big, fancy cars amongst a family and drive from here to yander lookin for entertainment—auctions of junk and tourist show places and eatin at them little old hamburger stands with red roofs scattered along the roads, set back in red clay notches gouged in the green hillsides, so much alike, a big old hen might as well a-laid them all. And lots of them want to buy all the land right out from underneath every- �John Foster West 37 body. They can't take pleasure in lookin at the mountains and the rocks and the trees. They've got to own them. I recollect how well the DeVoss family fitted into the community back yander and how most of the folks hereabouts liked them and never thought about them being big, rich folks from way down there in Flordy." Anna took her last bite, chewing slowly, relishing it while regretting it was all she wanted. She swallowed the remainder from her drink bottle, studying the old men beneath lowered lashes. She wondered if they were telling her all this because they wanted her to know it or if her presence was just an excuse for them to reminisce. "Old J.W. caught on fast," Grove Miller said. "He sold two more lots on each side of the DeVoss place, but them folks never turned out too good. J.W. wouldn't talk about sellin any more land for summer places, after that. And he had it fixed in his will, they say, so's the farm can't be broke up into sections." "Yeah, that's what they say J.W. done," the storekeeper nodded. "He caught on to them other kinds of summer people quicker'n anybody else, and acted accordingly." Anna wondered what had disturbed J.W. Webber about the people who had bought the other lots, but she did not ask. It could have been, she thought, that they could not measure up to the DeVoss family. She bought a pound of fresh but- �38 The Summer People ter, eggs, coffee, and milk and drove back to the cabin. She was surprised to discover how relaxed she was. Even talking to two old men had quelled some of her loneliness. �Chapter III Anna had stopped in Winston-Salem on her way back from the airport long enough to purchase a small portable radio. She hooked it up beside her bed and fiddled with the tuning knobs until she found an f.m. station broadcasting soft music with little chatter, out of Charlotte. She tuned it low enough to create a tranquil background of music which did not drown out the sound of Butterfly Falls. She finished unpacking, placing a towelwrapped photograph of Pete in the bottom of the dresser drawer, under her underclothing. She had not looked at it in more than a year and dreaded experimenting with her reaction to it. When she had finished, she stood near the bed looking about her, wondering what to do with herself next. She felt entirely alone in a world of forest that reached to the farthest edges of the world. But at the moment she was not lonely. She had a feeling of visiting with herself in privacy so that she could think clearly, a time when she could pick her own mind in an effort to determine where she would go from here. Now that she had helped bury Pete, now that she knew beyond doubt that he was really dead— 39 �40 The Summer People gone forever (of course she did not know it at all, inside her flesh, inside her heart)—now that she had confronted the evidence, though circumstantial, the ceremony of a military farewell, had received the folded flag, she could not play her sad waiting game much longer and still be honest with herself. There was really no one to wait for. She had to move forward in some direction or suffocate. She flung herself backward onto the bed and stared at the knotty-pine ceiling. She had not woven a winding sheet by day and unraveled it by night to put off impatient suitors. She was no Penelope. She had gone to school and had made herself useful to herself and to society as a social worker. And she had thwarted her potential suitors by flashing her wedding ring for most of the six years waiting. Even the chauvinist who had brought her news that Pete was missing in action had managed to touch her intimately while she wept briefly in his arms. But he had been dismissed, as were the others who had come after him. She had lain awake many nights alone and lonely aching for Pete. She dismissed thoughts of others. "Anna! Anna! You've got to face the facts, damn it," Joe Suggs, Pete's wingman, had argued. "I saw it. I flew over the spot at five hundred feet three times, with those gooks shooting whole junkyards at me. There was no parachute. His ship did not burn, but it tore all to hell. Pancaked across �John Foster West 41 a paddy and plunged into some woods. He couldn't have survived. No way! He could not! Accept that fact, baby." But why could he not have survived? Miracles happen. Even the remains beneath his cross in Arlington might be, could possibly be someone else. She shook her head, then closed her eyes, relaxing. She listened to the soft rendition of "Star Dust," violins and saxophones predominating. She tried to put everything out of her mind for the moment except the music, and succeeded. Soon she was asleep, fully dressed, her feet on the floor. She awakened an hour later rested and restless. She glanced at her watch. It was a few minutes of four, and the splotches of sunlight amid the trees outside her window seemed to promise a day that would last another week. She went into the kitchen area of the cabin and found the liquor cache in an overhead cabinet. Mixing herself a gin and tonic, she returned to the bedroom and sat down in the rocker, sipping the bittersweet drink. She was thirsty, and the drink tasted good. She rocked a few inches each way while she stared at the photograph of Dr. DeVoss and his wife in their wedding garments, above the bed. Dr. DeVoss appeared to have been in his mid-twenties. He stared straight at her, a solemn grimace warping his wide mouth, but there was a twinkle in his eyes as he tried to present a bearing distinguished enough to suit posterity. If his hair had been crewcut instead of pom- �42 The Summer People padoured, she thought, if he had on a uniform or jumpsuit— A slight alcoholic haze settled across her mind, relaxing her. She stared at the picture, then smiled and winked. She could have sworn the tension around the mouth of the man in the photograph relaxed ever so slightly and that Pete DeVoss's mouth came through. She placed her drink on the floor and crossed the room to the dresser. Opening the bottom drawer, she groped beneath her clothing and found the photograph of Pete, removing it. She unwrapped it slowly, dropped the towel back into the drawer, and with the glass-covered face pressed against her breasts, she returned to the rocker. She sat back down, took a long drink, set her glass back on the floor, then tilted the frame until she was once more face to face with her husband. Pete DeVoss grinned at her, a sandy Clark Gable mustache paralleling his thin upper lip. His chin was square and stubborn, his eyes bluer than a Carolina October sky, and his nose, high and sharp enough to cut a path through a squad of linemen and linebackers. His sandy hair stood straight up, about an inch long. ("Who gives a crap about how it looks? I got to get a helmet on over it.") Pete DeVoss had never known a country filled with his peers wearing long hair, Fu Manchu mustaches, and long sideburns. He had bowed out before the style reached the bank vice-presidents and insur- �John Foster West 43 ance salesmen. Besides, he had been gung ho military—the Spartan, the Roman centurion, specifically, the Navy attack pilot wearing his Skyhawk like a sword and shield. Anna felt a sudden ache in her chest. Her eyes moistened and she inhaled deeply, preparing herself for a sob, but nothing happened. The ache about her heart could not even be absorbed. It remained like a cold, heavy rock while she breathed rapidly. Then it began to conceal its presence, leaving a vacuum. Holding the photograph to her bosom, she lay back, rocking slowly, remembering Pete DeVoss. She had worked that summer at Virginia Beach as a waitress in a family restaurant specializing in seafood. Her parents would not hear of her working at the beach under any other circumstances. Virginia Beach was buzzing with potential evil, and the devil "could trap the soul and virtue of a seventeen-year-old in a split second." Yes, she could go if she roomed with Sally Whitelaw. They had known Sally all her life. Her father was a deacon, she was a good girl, and being older than Anna, Sally could guide her. What Anna's parents did not suspect was that Sally was a "fast" girl. But this did not bother Anna. She liked Sally for herself and had no intentions of following her example. It was inevitable that Sally would choose a job as a waitress in a beer lounge. Anna wondered if it were also inevitable that she agreed to work for Sally one evening out of all time, when Sally was ill. �44 The Summer People It had happened. Anna had not dared work there more than once for fear her parents would learn of it and take her back home. Pete had told her later that it was the first time he had ever visited that place and would probably have been his last. The Jet Pilot Lounge was a busy place, frequented mostly by pilots from nearby Oceana Navy Air Base. At first Anna (wearing a long, sunburned ponytail and a short green uniform) had been shocked by the uninhibited language and brazen propositions the pilots had bombarded her with whenever she served them or passed close to their tables. But after the first hour, she relaxed, realizing that most of them were kidding and did not expect her to take them up on their offers. She was beginning to enjoy her work as her apron pockets filled up with bills, many of them fives and tens, and she envied Sally her lucrative job night after night. Around midnight the crowd had begun to thin out, the next day being a flying day. Anna was standing near an empty booth staring out at Atlantic Avenue, where a sailor was talking to a girl in white shorts, when someone came up behind her, stood close, and kissed her on top of the head. She gasped, went rigid, and whirled, staring up into Pete DeVoss's grinning face. "I've been watching you," he said softly. "I'd love to make out with you." �John Foster West 45 Her mouth dropped open, and she stared at him in embarrassment. While she was still motionless, before she could react further, could even think, could do anything but stare into his laughing blue eyes, he leaned forward and kissed her, barely touching her lips. "Good night, sweet baby," he grinned. "I'll see you later." He had turned and walked casually toward the door, his cap on at a jaunty angle. And as she watched him go, staring at his broad shoulders, narrow waist, and the tight muscular shifting of his buttocks, she felt a warm glow deep inside, a fear and an excitement. The next evening he appeared at the restaurant where she worked and sat alone at a back table. Sally had directed him there, Anna learned later. He could not have been more courteous. In fact, he was almost formal, he was so polite, and gave the impression he had never set eyes on her before in his life. But he could not conceal the merry twinkle in his eyes, indicating how much he enjoyed the little game he played. She was so nervous around him at first, her fingers were all thumbs. She dropped the bread basket into his salad and almost spilled coffee in his lap. But by the time he had drunk his second cup of coffee, he had put her at ease, and she was disappointed when he left without saying more than a casual "Good night," although he did leave a ten dollar tip. �46 The Summer People But when he returned on Thursday evening to eat alone, Anna relaxed. She knew he was playing with her, and she decided to wait him out. Anna had never dated anyone alone other than a schoolmate, mainly because her dates had to pass her parents' approval, and the prospect of going out with a Navy pilot somewhat older than she both terrified her and burned inside her with excitement. That night he walked her back to her apartment, taking a roundabout stroll beneath a fishing pier, and he kissed her. There was nothing passionate about it—a brief, sweet kiss of affection which had thrilled but had hardly aroused her. She wondered as they walked to her apartment, hand in hand as she had walked with her high school dates, if his behavior on Tuesday night might have been a bluff to conceal the modesty and shyness that seemed to be a part of his personality. It was only later that she realized there was nothing shy about him and that his caution had been a well-planned strategy, his moves coordinated to win her trust and affection quickly yet completely. He had learned from Sally who she was, what her background was, and he had courted her accordingly. She understood what he was up to without rationalizing about it, and it put her on guard at first. But realizing the compliment he was paying her, a young seventeen, when he could have swept any of fifty girls off their feet, including Sally, she accepted his old-fashioned courtship without shame. �John Foster West 47 Things happened fast after the walk on the beach. He saw her every night for a week, joining her in passionate embraces yet never going too far. Then he was gone for a week, on a flight to the west coast, and her world became empty and sterile. When he returned, they eloped in Pete's Porsche and were married in Charleston, South Carolina. They honeymooned in the upstairs bedroom of an old mansion owned by Pete's division commander—in the same room his great-grandmother had spent her honeymoon at sixteen, with her groom, a Confederate colonel in his late forties. When Anna was not with Pete, she could see Fort Sumter Island from her bedroom window. Anna had approached the great climax of her life with foreboding. But Pete was so experienced and so considerate, she had no problem at all. He continued to court her, even after two days of marriage, as though they were teenage lovers with the whole world and time before them. But their marriage together was to be brief, although they did not know it at the time. She was amazed when the honeymoon ended, so amazed and so happy that her parents had hardly crossed her mind during their week in Charleston. But when it ended, she began to worry, dreading to return to Virginia Beach and her confrontation with them. Pete found a nice apartment near the beach, and Sally solved her problem by reporting her marriage to her parents. They were �48 The Summer People so shocked and hurt at her betrayal, they would not call her or come about her until after Pete had left for Vietnam. They finally accepted her marriage enough to visit her. Although her mother had never completely forgiven her, she was relieved that God had at least been notified of the union when Anna and Pete were married in a Christian chapel, even if it had been Episcopalian, and a lateral branch of Protestantism. The six months that had followed their honeymoon had been good, a lifetime of marriage, as much of a lifetime as she would ever have with Lieutenant Pete DeVoss. They had flown to Jacksonville and visited for three days with his parents, who were friendly enough in a formal way, as they had tried to adjust to the idea of a seventeen-year-old daughter-in-law. It was at the parties with Pete's fellow officers and their wives that Anna got to know what he was like outside his professional life. Pete was respected as a superior pilot, but he brought none of that to the parties with him. His fellow officers, dressed in sports clothes, looked more like clerks in a shoe store on a holiday than attack pilots, and Anna found that to be a strange contradiction. She had expected to find them all like Pete, who looked the part he lived. Rarely did the pilots talk flying when drinking. Anna decided that was because the parties were their main escape from the threat of in- �John Foster West 49 stant death that hovered over the Navy pilot more than any other combat man when not at war. Pete, thoroughly intoxicated on Martinis made of Beefeater's gin or Oso Negro, was usually the center of what was going on at a party, regardless of where it was taking place. He was boisterous, a bit too loud at times, but always friendly. He loved his comrades, most of them, and he loved parties. Once after he had been unusually loud telling a joke, Anna had found Pete in one of the dark bedrooms staring out a window at the night sky. She had switched on the light before she knew he was there. When he whirled, she saw tears in his eyes. She took him into her arms and he wept softly for a few minutes, then stopped abruptly as though a fuse had blown and was his old, carefree self again. But he told her later in bed that a friend that he had gone through flight training with had creamed into a Colorado mountain the day before, and he had just learned of it that night. There were other times when he would cry out in his sleep or wake up trembling, and she would hold him close, stroking his back until he relaxed, often going back to sleep in that position. The friendship between the military couples was wonderful. The older wives were especially solicitous of Anna because of her age, and the pilots, learning of her squeamishness about obscenity, teased her a great deal at first. But it was the mili- �50 The Summer People tary politics that made her sick. For one thing, the "ring knockers," graduates of Annapolis, were promoted first, assisted by golf games with commanding officers and dutiful wives kowtowing to superiors' wives—(superior in that their husbands were officers of rank and command.) Anna drew the line there, absolutely, refusing to kiss any hausfrau's rear because her husband had position. Pete backed her. He was a graduate of Georgia Tech and resented the unwritten laws of promotion and the pecking order among wives. The wife of the C.O., of course, was the chief hen, who used the under-ranking wives at her whim. Anna and a few other wives resisted and were ostracized for it, but could not have cared less. Once when the squadron had gone on a week of sea maneuvers off Puerto Rico, the commanding officer's wife had thought up the hilarious project of supplying each husband with a D-cup brassiere stuffed with cotton, for a head rest in his plane. Anna had thought the idea was stupid and had refused to cooperate. Soon after the planes had landed at Oceana Naval Base, his skipper had called Pete into his office and started to chew him out because of Anna's behavior. After three sentences, Pete interrupted. "You mean, sir, you ordered me in here to dress me down because my wife refused to supply me with a head rest made from a stuffed brassiere?" Pete asked politely. �John Foster West 51 "Dammit, it's not that simple, Lieutenant DeVoss," the C.O. said. "We are a close organization, and our wives—" "My wife, sir, is not in the Navy," Pete said firmly. "My wife does not do anything she does not want to do, where the Navy is concerned. Your wife outweighs my wife, sir, but she does not outrank her." The officer had reddened. "Are you defying me, Lieutenant?" "No sir! I am a pilot. I'd follow you to hell and you know it—or fly there alone if you ordered me to. But stuffed brassieres for military head rests—" He stopped, feigning a loss for words. "It was just a bit of wifely humor," his C.O. argued. "I resent the fact that you—" "Sir," Pete had said quietly, "I have a family acquaintance in the Pentagon. If you like, I'll call or write and get the Pentagon's opinion concerning the practicality of stuffed brassieres for head rests in Skyhawks and Intruders." The officer turned white, his flexing fingers breaking the pencil in his hands. "Lieutenant, you are dismissed!" he said quietly. Pete had saluted, he had told Anna later, done a smart about-face, and followed his grin out of the skipper's office. Anna laughed hilariously when told of the event. It was this self-respect and individuality he was able to retain in a military world that increased Anna's respect for him, and increased pride in the �52 The Summer People husband she had chosen. She realized early that he had little ambition for rank, as such. It was flying he was interested in, and the salary that went with it. He could live better with a higher rank. He had elaborate plans for buying a farm someday in Watauga County and returning there to raise cattle, horses, and children. He wanted four children, he told her, two boys and two girls. He wanted to become a sturdy old grandfather to sixteen grandchildren and tell them tales of the days when he rode his thundering steed across the sky— always recounted with a grin, but she understood how very serious he was. She remembered now, in a flash, the day she stood on an apron at Oceana Naval Base and held him in her arms, kissing him for the last time. She watched him, heavy with gear, waddle toward the humpbacked little Skyhawk, his orange jumpsuit and helmet giving him the appearance of a creature from outer space. A few minutes later she blinked as she stared at the hole in the sky where his plane had disappeared. And that was the end. Anna sighed, stood up, and carried the photograph back to the dresser, placing it at an angle so she could see it from her bed. Lieutenant Commander Pete DeVoss would never know one child, let alone sixteen grandchildren. Instead of a stuffed brassiere, the spinning earth had become his head rest. �Chapter IV After three days at the cabin, Anna could tell neither the day of the week nor the date, unless she stopped to think about it—that is, the day of the week. As for the date, she knew it was early June, and that was enough. Twice, she did not bother to put her watch back on after a shower. The hands continued to carry out their appointed function. Blossoms had begun to fade and drop from the rhododendron thicket, but a flame azalea she found near Butterfly Falls lit up the oak and pine thicket around it with orange brilliance. She knew what it was because she had found a paperback book on mountain wildflowers in one of the bookcases in the cabin and carried it with her into the forest when she became restless and felt like taking a hike. It got to be a mild adventure with her, finding plants and flowers she had never seen before and identifying them. She found a clump of lady'sslippers with three wilting blossoms which had lost their pink hue. She picked some brilliant fire-pink, sweet shrub (aromatic as an exotic perfume), and black-eyed Susans and mixed them with the polished green leaves she plucked from a carpet of 53 �54 The Summer People galax, making a centerpiece for the lamp stand in the center of the lazy-Susan table. She was surprised to find black-eyed Susans blooming so early. Another time she came upon a dwarf magnolia tree in full bloom in the middle of the forest and was puzzled until she looked it up and saw that it was a mountain cousin of the "southern-belle" lawn variety, called Eraser Magnolia, named for a botanist, James Eraser, who first discovered the tree in the Appalachians. On Friday—at least she thought it was Friday— she put on her last year's bathing suit, took a blanket from the window box, and headed for Butterfly Falls. She took along the radio. She spread the blanket on a flat area of the rock beside the pool, turned on the radio to a low murmur a bit louder than the gush of the falls, and lay down on her stomach. Ragged splotches of sunshine dappled the trees and the bank across the stream, although she lay in the shade. A morning coolness enveloped her side of the stream, but it was a comfortable cool. She turned onto her back and watched a small heart-shaped cloud as it crossed the patch of sky directly overhead. The sun spilled over the brim of the oak and pine limbs high overhead, washing her in pools of warmth. She tugged at the leg of her trunks, the hem of which was cutting her. She squirmed to a new position, but moments later, in exasperation, �John Foster West 55 she sat up, removed the narrow black bottom, then the halter, and lay back on the blanket nude, enjoying the probing warm sunlight. Several minutes later she began to wonder if the sunshine here, high in the mountains, would burn her as quickly as at the beach. But she felt free and unencumbered, naked in the middle of a forest with nothing but butterflies and birds to see her. But suppose there really were such things as satyrs, and one of them watched from the woods. Or suppose Pan, with his goat rear, was ready to spring at her? Or suppose that there really was a Zeus and he watched her, ready to turn himself into a swan or a bull—She giggled aloud, then rolled her head to one side and stared out into the trees. She could see only the chest, shoulders, and part of his curly head with horns, and she smiled back, then tilted her head back to watch the clouds. Was it the ghost of her imagination? She had just finished drying herself after a long shower when someone knocked with authority on the front door. She knew it was going to be a man as she crossed the cabin, fighting her arms into the faded blue robe. The tableau was repeated. She opened the door just as Jay Webber raised his freckled fist to knock again. So far as she could tell, he even had on the same jeans and shirt he had worn last time. And she certainly had on the same old dilapidated robe. �56 The Summer People He looked her up and down, his face without expression. "Ain't you got no clothes but that, lady?" he asked solemnly. Her first impulse was to burst out laughing. But looking at him more closely, she decided he was serious. If there was one thing she did not need, it was a smartaleck peckerwood. "Yes, what of it?" she demanded, more brusquely than she really intended. "Oh, yes, it just occurred to me that I ought to point out a couple of places you might have trouble." He hesitated, ran his fingers through his kinky hair, looking uncertainly from her towards the woods. "Could—could I come in?" "Surely, Mr. Webber. Do come in." He entered and she closed the door, turned toward him. "Do you mind waiting a few minutes till I get something else on? I do feel out of uniform with nothing on but this old robe. Take a chair there." She motioned toward the chairs by the fireplace. He nodded solemnly and sat down. She returned to her bedroom and dressed in a plaid pantsuit and sandals. When she re-entered the living area, Jay Webber was standing by the sink looking out the window. As she approached, he leaned across and raised the window sash a few inches. Immediately, Anna heard a weird barking sound out in the woods. She could not tell whether it was �John Foster West 57 an animal or a bird, but she had never heard anything like it before. "Come here a minute," he commanded softly, summoning her with a curl of a finger over his shoulder. She approached, stood beside him. "Look there!" He pointed. "See that little reddish lump on that limb there?" She leaned forward across the sink, staring, and her shoulder touched his. She drew back quickly. She was almost sure she could smell an astringent odor about him, not old sweat, but new, as though he had been working hard recently. The nails on his pointing hand needed cleaning. There was what looked like blue dirt beneath them. "What is it?" she asked. "It—it looks like a little squirrel." "It is a kind of squirrel. It's called a boomer. I've not seen one around here in years." "Noisy little beggar," Anna laughed. "What happened to them?" "They're about extinct in this region of the Appalachians." He turned to face her. "Soon they'll join the buffalo, elk, and the passenger pigeons. Used to be so common, they named a post office after them over near Wilkesboro. It's still there, I reckon." "You mean there's a place called Boomer, N.C.?" She smiled. "Doesn't sound too romantic." �58 The Summer People "There was. I reckon it serves the needs of the folks who live there." He turned away. "Dr. DeVoss had the fuse box replaced with circuit breakers about four years ago." He reached up and opened the cabinet door to the right of the sink. On the wall at the back was a metal door. He opened it and revealed double rows of switches. Each switch had a piece of kitchen equipment or an area of the house printed on a piece of tape beside it. Jay Webber placed a finger on the switch marked stove. "If your stove won't turn on, it will be this breaker. It cuts off from time to time. No reason I can find. Just switch it back on." "Well, thank you. That's important to know—I suppose." "One other thing. Your water may stop on you sometime. Would you come with me, please." His voice sounded more like a command than a request or suggestion, and she felt like telling him to bug off, then thought better. If he could save her trouble later on, why not? He had not tried to get familiar with her, and as long as he behaved himself, he might be useful occasionally. She followed him out of the house and walked beside him as he climbed the slope of the ridge above the cabin. The boomer had fled, along with his raucous bark, into the past. There was little undergrowth, making the climb fairly easy, although Anna could feel in her legs a pulling at �John Foster West 59 muscles she did not know she had. They came upon a huge gray rock and circled it. A spring as large as a child's wading pool sparkled in the shadows beneath the edge of the boulder, the spring tail trickling off down the hill toward the brook above Butterfly Falls. "This is the sweetest spring water you'll ever taste," Jay Webber said. Anna detected pride in his voice, as though he had dug the spring with his bare hands. "See that pipe jutting out there, about a foot from the bank, on your left?" She braced her hands on her knees, leaned forward, and peered deep into the clear water. She could make out a section of pipe extending into the spring, about two feet down. Light refraction distorted it, causing it to appear crooked. There was a cap of screen wire over the end of it. "On rare occasions a leaf or two will sink down and be drawn over the end of the pipe. That's your water supply, down there. It's gravity-fed. If your water should happen to stop flowing or slow to a trickle, it'll probably be because of a leaf. Just come out here and uncover the end, and you'll be okay again. But you rarely have any trouble during the summer." "That makes sense," she said. "Yes, I can understand that." She tried to think of something else she could say to the young mountain farmer, something bright and feminine, but she could not. She �60 The Summer People considered saying something about the cattle she had seen in the pasture on the ridge, or asking him what kinds of crops he grew. She certainly knew about cattle and feed. But she rejected the idea. She did not feel like being a hypocrite with him, and she really was not interested in establishing a relationship, even a casual one. As close as he lived to her cabin, he could become a pest, and she needed to be alone for a while. But he was company. They walked back down the ridge, mostly in silence. Once, he stopped to point to a weird little flower growing in a mulchy area beside a white rock. There was a deep bell-like throat with what looked like a single petal looped up and over, to form a canopy above its mouth, out of which projected a tapered pistil. Because of the flower's greenish hue, it was camouflaged against its own leaves. "That's a Jack-in-the-pulpit," he said. "Some folks call it Indian turnip. The roots are edible if you can stand the taste." "Good. If I ever get lost in the woods, I won't starve." He turned his head and looked into her eyes with narrowed amber ones, so intently she had to look away from them, watching his mouth. "You might," he said, the trace of a smile arching his lips �John Foster West 61 between mustache and beard. "They aren't that easy to find, unless you know where to look." When they reached the front steps, he stopped and she climbed to the deck, then turned to look down at him. "Well, thanks a lot. I ought to be pretty secure now." He braced his right hand against the trunk of a small hickory and squinted up at her, a light in his eyes she had not seen there before, something between amusement and resentment. "You're welcome, Mrs. DeVoss." He pronounced the Mrs. the way Henry Sparr had, and it sounded so natural she could not tell whether he was needling her or serious. She turned away, then turned back. "I'm curious about one thing. It's not important. I just wondered." "Yes, ma'am? What can I tell you?" "You called Mrs. DeVoss Maud, and she's much older than I am. I wondered why you did that and call me Mrs." He laughed, looked down and scuffed one battered shoe against the ground, then looked up into her face, his head cocked to one side. "Well, now, I've known Maud since I was a boy. Long time ago we worked out what we'd call each other. You called me Mr. Webber a little while back. I figured that was how you wanted it, ma'am." �62 The Summer People "Oh!" She stared at him. It was true. "Oh, yes. I'd forgotten. Well, thanks again." She entered the cabin. As she was closing the door, he called her again. She thrust her head outside, past the door. "You wanted something else?" "Not really. There is one other thing you might want to hear about." "What is it?" She moved into the doorway, watching him climb the steps to the deck. When he reached her, she backed to one side, allowing him to enter the house. She watched him closely, feeling insecure with him confronting her now. And that annoyed her. She did not like to feel insecure. It weakened her defenses, making her vulnerable. She was not used to that. "Could we go into your bedroom, ma'am. Used to be where the DeVosses slept." A half smile flickered across his mouth. She was startled. She looked from his large, freckled arms below the sleeves of his shirt toward the open bedroom door, then back at him. "Is—is it important?" "Well, not to me, ma'am. Not really." He turned back toward the open door. "I was just thinking of you." "Well—very well." She laughed a strained little laugh. "Let's see what it is." He followed her into the bedroom, and when she stopped near the dresser, he crossed the floor and dropped to one knee beside the window seat. �John Foster West 63 He raised the lid. "Would you please come over here for a moment, ma'am?" She crossed to where she could see into the shadowy interior of the box. On the end panel, nearest the bed, was what looked like an electric button, two small wires leading from it downward toward the floor. "That's an alarm button. It rings a bell in our house. Mrs. DeVoss—Maud had me put it in two years ago, after the doctor died. She never has used it, but she said she always felt better knowing it was there." He closed the lid and stood up. "You mean those wires reach all the way to your house?" she demanded. "Why, that's half a mile." "No, just to the nearest electric fence, back in the woods there, a ways." He moved toward the door, pausing to look at Pete's photograph, on the dresser. Then he crossed the living room in silence, turning at the front door. "If you should get scared—like if a satyr threatens you—you just give me a ring. I'll come a-running." For a few seconds she studied his head, thinking how much he himself looked like the picture of a satyr she had seen somewhere. "Thank you very much. I do feel safer. But don't stay awake for my signal. I'm not your timid kid. My husband taught me to defend myself." He threw her a little wave of his hand that �64 The Summer People could have meant anything and opened the door, started to close it after him. "Hey!" she called. He paused, looked back. "Thanks for the information—Jay." His kinky gold beard and mustache parted in a grin. He nodded and closed the door after him. She heard him chuckle on the deck. Later that same day Anna was rummaging through some papers and letters in the top dresser drawer when she ran across the DeVoss membership card in the Grayhound Lodge and Country Club, "including members of the family and guests." She tossed it back, thinking no more about it until the next afternoon, which was a Saturday. Around five o'clock she became suddenly hungry for a good meal, something like steak or lobster, which she was in no mood to prepare for herself. Besides, she was tired of eating her own piddling meals of easy-fixit hamburger combinations and cold plates. She walked around the living area of the cabin looking for the telephone, intending to call the Grayhound Lodge and find out what was on the menu for the day that she would be interested in. When she remembered there was no telephone, something she had known since arriving, she sat down in a chair in the reading area and stared out the window into the woods. She felt suddenly stupid. Or did that explain her sudden lapse of memory? Was she becoming eccentric so soon, �John Foster West 65 all alone here in an Appalachian forest with no one to talk with? She considered packing and heading back toward Norfolk and civilization, but immediately canceled the idea. A cool breath of mountain air billowed through the window, and she compared it, below the level of conscious consideration, with the humid steam bath of a coastal June. She sat there so long the forest began to darken, and she realized the sun was going down behind Beech Mountain, ushering in the long, tranquil period of mountain twilight—twilight outside the forest. Here beneath the trees, darkness would come swiftly. Her stomach burbled hungrily, the sound startling her in the quiet cabin. Without conscious decision, she got to her feet and crossed to her bedroom, where she began to dress for dinner at the Grayhound Lodge, or elsewhere if she did not like the menu there. She dressed in a white blouse and a pale blue, ankle-length skirt, as usual not bothering with makeup. It was 8:45 when she drove out of the woods and onto the Ridge Road, but there was a sky full of daylight left to spend. She swung down the spur of the ridge, crossed the river, and speeded up on the stretch of asphalt beyond. When she saw a man in coveralls by a gasoline truck parked in front of Sparr's Store, she hit the brakes and swung into the parking area, stopping close to the truck. The man whirled, then grinned at her, touching his cap visor with the tips of his fingers. �66 The Summer People "Yes, ma'am, I know where the Grayhound Lodge is at. You jest drive on down the road there till you come to the main highway, then you turn right, and about a half a mile furder on, you can see a sign on the left and a road leading off beside it. You can:t hardly miss it, less'n you was blind. Yes, ma'am, you shore are most welcome." As she drove away, Anna was smiling to herself, not in derision, but at the music of the man's dialect. She got up to forty at times, swinging around the curves which paralleled the river. She switched on her headlights in the gloom beneath the arch of overlapping trees. Back in daylight on the highway, she found the sign indicating the turnoff to the lodge easily enough. After following another segment of the river for a quarter of a mile, she turned left across a pool-table green of a golf course, toward a mountain which reared up a short distance ahead, or at least what had once been a mountain. It was now the foundation or backdrop for scores of chalets of every shape and size, from A-frame to toadstool construction. They were scattered without pattern across the green mountainside, their order apparently determined by the shape and location of the lot on which each stood. Lights were already on in some of those lower down. Those toward the top of the mountain were washed in a wan yellow glow from the light of overhead clouds still fingered by rays of the sinking sun, below the mountain horizon. �John Foster West 67 The road swung left off the golf course at a small sentinel kiosk, which was empty. A hundred yards farther along the base of the mountain, Grayhound Lodge sprawled along the edge of the golf course, a rambling structure built of native stone and rough, brown-stained timber. A small red flag with a black Grayhound's head on it fluttered from a staff above the cedar shake roof. The receptionist, a comely lady in her forties, sat behind a small service window in the wall, to the right of the entrance hallway, several coat racks in the room behind her. She watched Anna curiously as she entered and approached her. "Good evening," Anna greeted. She presented the DeVoss membership card. The woman glanced at it, then smiled brightly. "Oh, yes, the DeVoss family. And you are—" "I'm the daughter-in-law. I'm—was Pete's wife." The woman's face lost its smile. "Yes, Pete! We were terribly sorry to hear about him. He was well liked." Then the smile returned. "I'm Betty. I'm pleased to meet you, Mrs. DeVoss." She paused. "Were you planning to have dinner?" "I wanted to, if possible," she said. "I'm famished." "Did—did you have a reservation?" "No. You see, there's no phone at the DeVoss cabin, and I decided on the spur of the moment to come." �68 The Summer People "I remember, the DeVoss family never had a telephone." The receptionist looked serious for a moment. "Let me see." She picked up the phone and dialed three numbers, spoke briefly to someone in the dining room. Placing the phone back, she smiled. "No problem tonight, fortunately. There had been a cancellation. You just go into the dining room and George will seat you." "Thank you." Anna smiled and turned quickly away, making her way down the hallway before some special catastrophe could cheat her of the dinner she craved so much. She sat at a table for two in the far corner of the dim-lit dining room. A third of the tables were empty, but they all had RESERVED cards on them. The others were filled with patrons, from two to eight in the party. Several diners had looked at her curiously as she followed the head waiter alone across the floor. Three tables away, to her right, two men and a woman dined, the husband or date of the woman, obviously, with his back to Anna. She caught the extra man watching her two or three times, and once she was sure he had said something about her to the woman, who looked Anna's way. He was a dark executive type, around thirty-five, dressed in a white dinner jacket. She forgot her neighbors when her waiter approached and handed her a wine list. "I'm not in �John Foster West 69 the mood for wine," she told him. "Could I have a cocktail of some kind?" "Do you have a locker, ma'am?" The waiter leaned stiffly toward her. "I mean, in this state, ma'am, they don't have open bars yet. You have to furnish your own liquor." "Yes, I see," Anna nodded. "I had forgotten. I'm on the DeVoss card. I'm sure the DeVosses must have a locker." "I'll check, ma'am." He bowed slightly and turned away, almost performing an about-face, returning to the bar, out of sight beyond the other end of the dining room. In a few minutes he was back. "Yes, there is a DeVoss locker, ma'am." He smiled, extending a small slip of paper with printing on it, along with a pen. "You'll have to sign this. It gives the bartender permission to open the locker, if you don't mind." Then he added, "Of course, if you'd rather do it yourself—" "That's fine." She tried to read the print on the slip, but the candlelight was too dim. She gave up and signed it, handing it back to the waiter. "I'd like something light, please," she said. "Like a whiskey sour." "Very good. A whiskey sour, ma'am." The salad was delicious, the baked potato smothered in sour cream was fattening but worth every calorie, and the prime rib, medium rare, was exactly what she had needed. Anna ate slowly, feel- �70 The Summer People ing her hunger gradually dwindle and disappear. It was 10:30 before she had finished the meal. She suspected without making an issue of it that she was prolonging her visit here among people she could relate to, delaying her return to the lonely cabin. Yet she had no desire to meet any of the members of the lodge—not tonight anyway. Her coffee and dessert—cheese cake two inches thick— lasted another half-hour. When the waiter brought Anna her check, she asked if she might visit the bar for a while and pay for the meal and drink at the same time. He assured her she could and left with the check, heading back toward the bar. She left a tip and followed the waiter. She felt content and was satisfied with the service. The tables in the narrow little lounge were all filled, but the bar stools were empty except for the one at the near end, occupied by a bald man in a dark suit, who looked as though he might be some kind of manager. Anna made her way down the narrow passage among the tables, aware of several curious glances from the summer people, who probably knew each other, and selected the stool on the far end of the bar from the other occupant. The bartender, a heavy, sandy-haired young man in a red livery jacket, came over to where she sat. His white jowls jiggled in rhythm to the shaker in his hands. "Evening, Mrs. Devoss." He smiled, �John Foster West 71 his teeth as broad as white grains of corn. "I'm Tony. What could I serve you?" "I'd like a brandy, Tony, if we have any in the locker." He frowned, his round face going sad. "I'm afraid there's no brandy of any kind in your locker, ma'am. Perhaps I could find a remnant someone left—" "Was—is there any Jack Daniels?" His face brightened like the full moon appearing from behind a cloud. "Yes, ma'am. There's at least half a fifth. Black label." "Then give me Jack Daniels and branch water, Tony. Okay?" "Okay, ma'am. Coming right up." Anna sipped at her drink and studied the bottles on the shelves back of the bar. She tried to see how many labels she could read without squinting. She did not pay any attention to the man who sat down on the second stool away until he spoke to her. "All alone tonight," he said or asked, she could not tell which. She lowered the glass and turned to look at him. It was the same man she had noticed in the dining room. Italian derivative, she thought, or something like that. Maybe central Europe ancestors, not that it mattered in the melting pot that was America. His nose was Romanesque, project- �72 The Summer People ing from between heavy brows as thick as hedge rows. He would have had a cold, commanding face had it not been for his eyes. They were brown and gentle as a beagle pup's, she thought. Anna flashed him a stiff smile. "Just me and Harvey, here." She embraced a huge, invisible figure on the stool to her left. For a moment, he stared quizzically at her. Then he grinned. "It was a rather naive gambit, wasn't it?" "I thought so," Anna replied, and took another sip of her drink. Tony approached, polishing a glass and smiling. "Mrs. DeVoss, this is Mr. Grunwald," he said. Anna cut at the bartender with a narrow look. She could have kicked his legs from beneath him. "How do you do, Mrs. DeVoss," the man said. "As Tony gratuitously stated, I am Mrs. DeVoss." He looked at her in puzzlement. Then he leaned toward her. "I'm a direct man, Mrs. DeVoss. Let me explain. I'm not trying to pick you up. This is not some big city bar. We are a rather close group here. About everyone knows everyone else. I realized you were a stranger and thought I'd drop by the bar and say howdy." Anna set her glass down and turned farther toward him. "I'm sorry. I guess it's my old defense mechanism. I didn't particularly feel like conversation tonight, and I really was trying to discourage you." "I understand how you feel," he nodded. His �John Foster West 73 voice was deep and resonant. Tony brought him a drink and he took it, sipped. "I wondered about the Mrs., though, since you wear no rings." Anna resented the implied question but let it pass. "I'm a widow," she said. "Oh, I'm sorry." He stared into his glass a moment, then said, "You going to be around here long?" "I have no idea." "I'm unattached, myself," Mark Grunwald stated. "Could I call you sometime?" "Would you believe I don't have a telephone where I'm staying?" She smiled an especially sweet smile. He studied her, his brown eyes sadder than ever. "No, I wouldn't." he said. "That would be hard to believe." He got up and left the bar, leaving his drink almost untouched. Anna felt a little bit of a bitch in a way, although she was pleased too. And she had told him the truth about the telephone. Her rejection could not have been more civilized or more effective. Pete would chuckle when she told him—She cut the thought short, startled. She had not thought about Pete in that way in a long time. She wondered whether she was too intoxicated to drive back to the cabin. �Chapter V Around eleven on Sunday morning, Anna left the cabin, intending to cruise around and see a few of the tourist attractions in the area. Thunder clouds sputtered and rumbled around the horizon, especially to the west, although the sky overhead was clear, except for haycock clouds tumbling east and switching the sunlight off and on. She drove west (or was it southwest?) past the turnoff to Grayhound Lodge, climbing the long grade into Avery County. Grandfather Mountain jutted skyward, across the valley to her left, its rocky Scot profile etched against the sky. She could make out the mile-high bridge swinging between what she took to be the lip and chin and decided she would drive up there for a look-see. In the beautiful little vacation village of Linville a man in new overalls leaning against the wall of a closed service station told her she could take U.S. 221 towards Blowing Rock, drive about two and a half miles, and come to the ticket gate and roadway leading to the top of Grandfather, on her left. But by the time she climbed the slope of the Blue Ridge and reached the gate, she had changed 74 �John Foster West 75 her mind and continued along the winding little highway. A short distance beyond, she came to a construction area. Engineers were in the process of building the last link of the Blue Ridge Parkway along the eastern flank of Grandfather, a link which had waited for almost fifty years. But today, Sunday, everything was quiet. On impulse, Anna turned right onto the southern end of the Parkway. For a hundred yards or so she drove cautiously over the rough roadbed, newly constructed, until she came to the old paved road. Then she continued at the posted speed of 45. The cool mountain air stirred her short hair, cooling her face and arms, and the sun was a warm infrared bulb just above her head. Wildflowers flanked the right-of-way in gaudy profusion, oxeye daisies, queen Anne's lace, and clumps of what looked to her like goldenrod. Occasionally, she passed grassy pastures and bordering meadows filled with such a variety of flowers it was hard to distinguish one of them from another. Suddenly, bone-gray rail fences lined the Parkway and funneled off into a side road to the left. A sign indicated that Linville Falls Camp Ground and Linville Falls were in that direction. With no traffic to interfere, she made an impulsive turn to the left on squealing tires. She passed the campground on the right and about a mile farther came to a dead end in a parking area. Several vehicles were already parked there—an orange Volks- �76 The Summer People wagen bug, two camping vans, a pickup camper from Canada, a pickup, several American gas guzzlers, and a ranger's car. A family of six children and their parents was eating lunch out of the back of the green Ford pickup, carefully disposing of their refuse in a large paper bag a little girl had assumed custody of. The vehicle carried an Oregon license plate. Anna parked and walked toward the footbridge which spanned the rush of Linville River at that point. She wondered if the stream was polluted or just murky from recent rains. A young ranger stood on the bridge, his hands braced on the railing, and stared down into the stream. He was so damned good looking in his uniform, so boyishly masculine, Anna felt a sudden response deep inside and was startled by it. She stopped near him. "Hi!" she said. He was already smiling as he turned his head, and she was aware, resenting the fact, that she was probably only the latest of many pretty women who had approached him that day. He was a Boy Scout who had been touched by his fairy godmother's wand and turned into a ranger in a flash. "How far do you have to walk to reach the falls?" she asked. The ranger touched the brim of his hat. "All the way, lady," he said solemnly. Then he laughed. "I'm sorry. I've been asked that five times since I've �John Foster West 77 been standing here on this bridge. I've been saving that answer for someone special." "Why didn't you save it till next season?" Anna smiled, feeling a bit put down and stupid because his answer had bothered her. "I apologize, really. It's a half mile walk, maybe." His eyes flickered toward her legs, below her red, white, and blue striped skirt and back to her face so fast she hardly caught the movement. "You'll enjoy it. Families with small children walk it all the time. It's a beautiful trail. Rough in places, though. Watch your step." "Thank you. You've probably talked me into walking my legs off, but here goes." "Ma'am," he said, "that would be a pity." His voice was so solemn, Anna had to laugh. "Aw, go—catch a crippled fish!" she retorted, and passed him. Somehow, she felt better, not so alone as before. She glanced at the light ring of flesh around her finger where her engagement and wedding rings had been. It was beginning to darken and disappear. It was indeed a pleasant walk, at least the first three-fourths of it, along a trail wide enough for a truck. Most of the trees were of medium height and of such a variety Anna could not begin to identify more than the most common ones, such as oak and pine. But here and there among them, giant oaks, white pines, and poplars towered toward the sky, along with another kind she believed to be hem- �78 The Summer People lock, taller than the cedars, with a mass of branches curving downward and out, supporting green fronds which turned the day into twilight beneath them. Tall enough for a mast on Noah's ark, she thought. They were the remnants of a virgin forest, she guessed, and what a sad remainder. The forest here in pioneer days must have been something to behold. Shaggy carpets of fern grew on either side of the wide trail, nice gardens for the wee folk Pete had told her about. There was a scattering of wildflowers, visited tentatively by a few yellow and black butterflies. About two-thirds of the way to the falls, the trail curled to the right, spreading into a small clearing in which a water fountain and a comfort station were located. Dropping away to the left, almost incidentally, a narrow, damp, and rocky foot trail etched its way along the slope of the ridge, leading gradually downward toward an ever-increasing roar of water. Here, the air was heavy with a cool dampness, as though Anna walked the corridor of a cave. Narrow stone steps led downward to a chaos of stone split asunder by roaring water. Upstream, a segment of Linville Falls spilled over a low stone bluff in twin fans of foaming water, an island of rock between them, and filled a quiet pool some fifty feet across. From there, the stream funneled into a narrow flume cut through bleached, stratified stone—she could see the layers clearly—and circled to the right, falling swiftly in a �John Foster West 79 white skein of foam and water. It made another turn to the left, completing the S-conformation, to disappear beneath the lip of a massive peninsula thrust out above it toward the cliff on her right. From beyond the last turn, Anna could hear a deeper roar as the water churned downward through the trough of Linville Gorge, the right hand cliff of which towered above the 3,000 foot elevation where she stood (a plaque by the stone steps had indicated the altitude). Linville Gorge, Pete had once told her, was the most rugged slice of wilderness left in eastern America. He had backpacked in there once and felt as though he had gone backward two hundred years. Ten or twelve tourists, from an old couple to toddling babes, were working their way about the rocky platform above the rapids like ants on bread crumbs, doing tourist things like taking pictures, talking, and risking their lives by leaning out too far above the water. A young woman in green shorts was telling the old lady that a nine-year-old boy had fallen into the rapids a few months back and his body had not been found for several days. While she was talking, the five-year-old boy, whose hand she had just released, leaned far out over the stream to get a better look. Bracing her hands against the same parapet, Anna leaned out and stared downward into the moiling water. She shuddered. She tried to imagine the terror of the little boy as he shot downward, hurled from rock wall �80 The Summer People to rock wall until he lost consciousness. It was beyond her imagination. A whirling green landscape, seen through a plane's canopy, came rushing at her, and she covered her eyes, wiping it out. When Anna returned to the parking area and was about to get into her car, she saw the ranger she had encountered earlier. He was talking with a big woman with dyed red hair, but excused himself when he saw Anna and hurried toward her, smiling brightly. "How did you like it?" He stood with feet apart, hands clasped behind him, like a soldier at ease. "It really was a beautiful walk," she said. "And the falls are really—terrifying and beautiful." He looked thoughtful. "I've never heard them described like that before. But I know what you mean. You're from Virginia, I see." Anna smiled her tight defensive smile. "At least my car is, isn't it?" "Come on, now," the ranger laughed. "I told you I was sorry. After all, I did save my smart comment especially for you." "I was kidding. Yes, I'm from Norfolk." She slammed the door and started the engine. "Where does the name Linville come from?" "A man named Linville and his son were attacked and left for dead by local Indians back around 1776. They survived by eating blackberries and holding onto an old nag the Indians had left behind." �John Foster West 81 Anna frowned and shuddered. "What a way to become immortal!" He laughed. "Where are you staying? Close by?" She looked upward into his tilted face. "Watauga County," she stated. She slipped into reverse. His face became a mask of seriousness. "Well, have a good day, ma'am." He touched the brim of his hat. "You ought to try the Mineral Museum and Crabtree Falls, farther south." "Thank you, but some other day." She backed out and left him staring after her, the rearview mirror catching the puzzled frown on his handsome face. Anna laughed softly, feeling suddenly good. The following Monday night was so cool, Anna built a small fire in the fireplace, from wood she had found piled behind the cabin, and sat on the black bearskin rug before it, with the lights out, sipping brandy and listening to soft music from the radio. She wore only a thin mint-colored shortie gown and her panties, but she was quite comfortable near the fire. She was fascinated by the patterns forming and shifting in the flames and stared at them a long time, her mind in neutral, only her senses of sight, taste, and sound emphasized (her sense of touch, too, of course, her buttocks and feet in contact with the hairy rug)—hearing, because the cabin and the forest around it were abso- �82 The Summer People lutely quiet, except for the soft whisper and crackle of the flames and the music: taste, the bite of her drink; sight, the flames. She might have been on a small island isolated from the planet earth, so far as her senses were concerned. Once she tugged at the hem of her gown, glancing toward the slateblack surface of a window, then forgot the gesture. She thought of the young ranger (had he been a park or a forest ranger?) and laughed in a sudden swell of merriment that stopped abruptly. She was surprised at the loudness of her voice in the almost silent cabin, and it startled her momentarily. But she continued to smile at the flickering flames. She thought of Mark Grunwald, wearing coat and tie— she could not imagine him in work clothes—and in a brief flash she remembered Jay Webber in his country garb leaning with his hand braced against a tree in the yard, squinting up at her on the deck. This memory was followed by a rapid train of men she had known casually and had looked at more than twice in the last two years, their faces flashing by her as their heads rode an invisible assembly belt out of the darkness and back into darkness: a male colleague back in Norfolk, the manager of the club she sometimes frequented, her sister's husband, one of Pete's old friends who dropped by her apartment occasionally, the young druggist who dispensed her pills, a state congressman who lived on her hall—on and on until they dwindled into blank faces like flesh-colored balloons. �John Foster West 83 Her situation was ideal for a romantic interlude here tonight—the sequestered cabin, good brandy, music, a fire in the fireplace, a pretty woman (she knew she was pretty). Then why was she so damned content, so satisfied with herself under those conditions, all alone? She was content. She wore a cloak of tranquility she had not known for a long time. She was completely content to sit there sipping brandy, listening, and watching the fire. At the moment, she did not want to be with anyone else or to be anywhere else. Maybe being alone so much was getting to be an unchangeable routine. Maybe these mountains were working a spell on her. Then she thought of the handsome ranger and of Mark Grunwald, and she swallowed a bitter little lump that formed in her throat. When the fire died down to embers, she returned to her bedroom and switched on the light. For an instant she stared at the face of the strange young man who watched her from the photograph frame on her dresser. Where had she known him before, her groggy mind asked. After preparing to retire, she raised the window beside her bed as high as it would go, removed her gown, and slept in a cocoon of warmth beneath a blanket and the patchwork quilt, with summer colors in its design. Thursday was more like April than June, the sky a Duke University blue, almost violet. The slight stirring of a breeze was refreshingly cool �84 The Summer People when Anna encountered it in the sunshine, almost chilly when it caressed her in the shade. For breakfast, she fried country sausage spiced with red pepper and ate the patties between canned biscuits, drinking coffee so hot it almost scorched her tongue. While she was eating, it occurred to her that she ought to run over and visit Mrs. Webber. The old lady might expect it, and she did not want to seem like a cityfied snob, even if they had never met. Besides, the walk would do her good. She dressed in blue jeans and a khaki sleeveless shirt, then selected a putter from the golf bag she had found in a storage closet. The club was an afterthought. Most country folk, she knew, had one or more dogs, and she did not want to look stupid by backing against a tree with her hands up in surrender while some asinine dog barked at her. She had no use for the putter except as a weapon. Long ago, she had become convinced that no one honestly liked T.S. Eliot, Scotch whiskey, or golf. Pete had once announced that he could not understand how a big, mature man could swing one time at a little white ball and then have to walk or ride a mile before he got to hit it again. Anna strolled along the Ridge Road looking about her. Far to the west and north, a rim of bluegreen hills spanned an arc of Holy Rood Valley. Beyond them were higher, bluer mountains, and somewhere beyond them, she knew, lay Tennessee. The ridge sloped off at first gradually to the north, �John Foster West 85 then more steeply, ending in a hedge of forest she assumed paralleled Watauga River. Farther downstream, the trees puddled into a circular woods, through whose foliage she could discern a cleared space and what looked like the dark roof of a large house. Closer to her, cattle grazed, the cows with udders so small she knew they were for beef. In the near distance, two horses grazed, one red and the other a darker brown. They looked like Tennessee walkers, but they were so far away, she could not be sure. The Webber farmhouse was an elongated structure, one end nestled into the slope with a stone foundation, the other end projecting out over the incline, below which had been built what looked like a stone basement, except most of it was above ground. The uphill section of the farmhouse was two stories high and looked to be decades older than the downhill addition. Beyond the house, Anna could see a barn and several other outbuildings. She gripped the putter a bit more firmly as she approached, but the beautiful Irish setter that appeared from around the house trotted toward her with tongue lolling and tail wagging. He sniffed at Anna's knees, and she stopped to ruffle the hair of his head. When Anna was within fifty feet of the steps, which climbed the slope toward the front door, she stopped. A white hen came into view around the end of the house, clucking and strutting, followed �86 The Summer People by a dozen yellow "biddies." The last chicks were followed immediately by a girl of ten with long red hair, who would squat to inspect them, then leap to her feet and follow them, laughing, when they ran to catch up with the rest of the brood. As Anna walked quickly toward the girl, the mother hen threw up her head to see if she were a hawk, then went on about her business of feeding the chicks. "Good morning," Anna called as she approached. The girl turned and studied Anna without interest for a moment, holding her right hand over her eyes to shade them. She wore a thin print dress and was barefooted. "Is your mother home?" Anna asked. "Whereabouts else would she a-went to?" the girl asked solemnly. At first Anna was offended, thinking the child was being smart with her. Then she realized it was a simple and adequate answer to her question. "Is your mother in the house?" "No'm." The little girl shook her head. "She's in the garden dustin her mater plants." She turned and pointed toward the barn. Anna found the garden on the ridge above the barn, with a weathered white-oak paling fence around it. Mrs. Webber was a large woman in a faded cotton dress, wearing an old-fashioned sun bonnet. She walked from one tomato plant to the next shaking a canister above them. Dust sifted �John Foster West 87 down and settled on the leaves of the plants like gray ashes. Anna could see rows of onions, garden peas, and corn crossing the garden, none of the plants large, here in the mountains, for June 11. Obviously, the growing season ran much later here above 3000 feet than in Princess Anne County, now Virginia Beach, the bedroom of the Norfolk area. Mrs. Webber, glancing up, discovered Anna before she reached the garden. She set her dusting can on the ground, stripped off her work gloves, dropped them beside it, and strode toward the garden gate, smiling. She met Anna with outstretched hand and pumped Anna's as energetically as a man might have. Despite her bonnet and its deep visor, the older woman's face looked like kid leather which had been seasoned and tanned countless summers. Neat brown wrinkles circled her eyes and extended down her cheeks like contour furrows plowed by a careful farmer. Her eyes were dark blue and sparkled with good humor. "Well, howdy!" she said, shaking Anna's hand. "You must be Annar, Pete's widder. We all have mortally loved the DeVosses. They was fine folks, fine neighbors. I regret I didn't get to visit Maud before she had to hurry back to her ailing sis." "It's good to meet you, Mrs. Webber," Anna said. "You—you've got a pretty garden there." "Well, yes, but it's a mite late this year. March and May swapped places, near about. March was a �88 The Summer People pleasure, warm as could be, but May turned out to be cold and frosty. Had to keep my mater plants in the pots the longest time, this year." She looked Anna up and down. "I vow, Jay give you a good description. You are a mighty purty young woman." Anna was suddenly embarrassed, even more than if a strange man had complimented her. "Well, thank you," she stammered, feeling a bit silly for it. "I—I don't work at it very hard." "They's the purtiest kind, them that's naturally purty. Pete was a fine young'un." She paused and looked past Anna at the distant hills. U A fine young man. We grieved to hear about him. Looks like the Good Lord takes the wheat sometimes and leaves the tares." "Yeah," Anna nodded, "Pete was a fine man. He talked about you-all often, with—" (She did not want to sound corny) "—with affection." "Well, you know he practically growed up hereabouts in the summer-time. He's walked and dumb all over these hills and rid our hosses from here to yander. Him and Jay was like brothers." "Yeah, he told me how much he loved Holy Rood Valley." "I ain't being neighborly a-tall," the older woman affirmed. "Won't you come into the house and set a spell? I got some good ice tea in the frigerator." "Thank you, Mrs. Webber, but I'll take a rain �John Foster West 89 check on it. I was out walking and just thought I'd drop by and chat a moment. You finish your work while you're at it, and I'll visit another time." "Well, all right. But you jest wait till my maters are ripe. You still here, I'll let you have a passel." "Thanks, I'll like that." "Annar, do you ride hossback?" "Yes, ma'am," Anna nodded, puzzled. "I grew up on a dairy farm. I had a pony when I was ten." "Well, I told Jay you was lonely most like, over at that cabin by yourself, day in day out. I told him to stop messin around and take you for a hossback ride one of these purty days. He didn't say so, but he lets on that he would like to accommodate you." "That would be nice," Anna said. "I would really enjoy that. Well, it was good to meet you." Mrs. Webber seized her hand again and shook it. "You jest come on back any old time you get lonesome. I know what it's like to lose your man. World's all of a sudden twice as big and emptier'n a martin gourd. You come back, and I'll stop and set with you, even if the house is on fire." (She pronounced it far). "Thank you, Mrs. Webber—" "Lordy, jest call me Marthie. We don't stand on no ceremony up here in these mountains." "Well, bye, Mrs.—Martha." "You come back, now. If Hilder sets out to foller you, don't mind. Jest shoo her on back. She's a accident of my late years. She's a mite liking, some- �90 The Summer People times, but she minds good. Jest telPer I'm a-calling her, and she'll come a-runnin." Anna's brow furrowed. Then she decided that Mrs. Webber had meant lacking when she said liking and that she was talking about the girl Anna had seen playing with the chicks. "All right," Anna agreed. "I'll tell her. Bye, now." When she passed the house, the girl Mrs. Webber had called Hilder —meaning Hilda, probably—stood on the steps watching her pass, her face reflecting wonderment. Anna did not speak to her for fear the girl would follow her, and she would have to go through the ceremony of lying to her. Anna resented having to tell even a little lie for a good reason. When she heard the loud knock on the door Wednesday morning, while she was drinking her second cup of coffee, she knew Jay Webber would be standing there with a freckled fist raised to knock again, as she opened the door. She put down the cup, crossed the floor, and opened the door. The pattern had ended. Jay lounged on the edge of the deck stroking the muzzle of the darker of the two horses that stood in the yard. He looked from her jeans to her face and grinned. "What happened to your granny's bathrobe?" "I slept with my clothes on last night. What're you doing up so bright and early?" �John Foster West 91 "It's 9:30." "I repeat, so bright and early?" "Thought I'd go for a little ride," he said. "A morning horseback ride whets the appetite." "You ride one and take the other along as a spare?" She leaned against the door facing, her ankles crossed. He did not respond to her kidding but looked into the woods beyond the cabin, then at the wall above her head. "I thought maybe you—It occurred to me—Well, hell," he frowned. "Mamma suggested—" "That I was lonely and might like to go riding?" "Yes," he nodded too many times. "That's the gospel truth. She told me to, and no excuses. I just didn't feel like telling you Mamma sent me." "That's great! Don't sweat it. If you have the hay to mow, just show me which horse is mine. We'll get along." "Oh, no! I mean no. You might—What I mean is, I'm free this morning. I'd be glad to go along, show you some places, if you don't mind." "That would be fine, Jay. Wait on me for a few minutes, will you?" Later, she came out of the house and closed the door as he led the horses to the steps. The darker mount had a blaze face and was a gelding. The red one was a mare. "Can I help you—" "No, thanks. I can mount," she said quickly. �92 The Summer People Jay swung into the saddle and watched Anna mount. "Mine is named Donner," he explained. "Yours is Blitzen." Anna laughed. "I'm afraid to ask." He chuckled. "No, we sold Rudolph." He was quiet a moment. "Seriously, Hilda named them, and we didn't have the heart to change them." They turned up the driveway toward the Ridge Road. "They look a little bit like Tennessee walkers," she ventured. "They have Tennessee blood," he agreed. "But don't let them know. I like the way they canter." �Chapter VI They crossed the side of the ridge, well below the Webber house, and came to the bottom of the slope where woods began. Here, the pasture fence consisted of rusty barbed wire, with bars made of rails, allowing an exit into a grassy wagon road beyond. Jay Webber swung down from his saddle, let one end of the bars down, and led his mount through. Anna followed, and the bars were replaced. "This used to be a cornfield years ago." Jay, back on his mount, gestured to indicate the surrounding woods. "When we stopped tending it, trees began to take back the land. Do you notice anything unusual about them—the trees?" Anna looked about her, a puzzled frown on her face. "Yes, most of them are the same kind. I mean, I see a few maples and sassafras, but most of them are those trees with little oval leaves growing on stems. I believe they're called pinnate leaves, in botany." "Give the lady a gold-plated maple leaf," Jay called. "Those are black locusts. Hundreds of fields and pastures have returned to forest in the moun93 �94 The Summer People tain counties. Most of the time you can tell them in this county from the other trees. Black locust trees are hardy and so damned prolific they don't give other trees much of a chance. Sometimes I get aggravated at 'em and saw down a section of them with a chain saw and start oaks and poplars and maples and such like in the clearing." "You sound like a horticulturist," Anna said. "I am. Also a geologist, a bugologist, what have you. You can't grow up on a farm with your eyes open and not know a lot about a lot of things. It's a special education." "Yes, I know." They were riding flank to flank down the wagon road. Now and then one or the other leaned to the side to avoid a limb thrust farther out into the road than the others. "I grew up on a farm. I suppose I've forgotten a great deal of what I learned." "You would." He turned his head and looked at her. "You've got to keep one foot on the land." He was silent a moment, then added, "And be half in love with it." "I remember black locust was what Sandy MacTavish's coffin is made of," Anna said suddenly. Jay Webber laughed. "Did old man Sparr tell you that story? Yeah, farmers make posts out of black locust because a post will stay in the ground for years without rotting." They rode in silence for several minutes. Anna was puzzled. Jay Webber did not talk like his �John Foster West 95 mother and the other mountain farmers she had heard. He was probably a product of television English, but that did not account for the way he thought. She shrugged and let the subject drop, as she reined into a bridle path leading away from the wagon road to the right. They passed from the thickety jungle of black locust trees into an older forest, large oaks, hickories, and poplars towering above the sourwood and dogwood saplings, like adults above children. Sunlight hardly penetrated here at all. There was an almost chilly dampness, as though the forest season did not include a June summer. The horses' hooves were muffled by a carpet of dead leaves. Anna rode behind Jay now, neither of them speaking. She watched his shoulders and erect head as they moved only slightly, in rhythm with his mount's movements, like an appendage of the animal's back. After a quarter of a mile, the trunks of the trees seemed to dwindle in size, and their crests huddled ground ward. The skeleton-white and gray trunks of birches began to assert themselves, with here and there a larger sycamore, none of which were thick or limby with age. The terrain had leveled out, too. Instinctively, Anna had known the river would be close ahead, before she heard the gushing water. Near the river bank, the trail forked, one branch turning left, downstream, the other, upstream. Without comment, Jay Webber turned in that direction, Anna close behind. �96 The Summer People They came out of the woods and into sunlight abruptly. The bridle path bisected a three-acre field, part of which was a garden green with onions, tomato plants, corn, and other vegetables. But Anna hardly noticed the growing things. She stared ahead at the huge two-story mansion standing on a weed-choked lawn. The building had been painted white once, but was now gray. The roof had originally been red tile, but the color had darkened, patches of graygreen lichen and moss scabbing it here and there, a blight of old age. The architecture was box-like and simple here in the rear, enclosed between double chimneys like bookends. Although the house gave the impression of long duration, the windows were unbroken and the shutters hung straight on their hinges. Out to the right, near the forest edge, stood an ancient log barn. Near it, the smaller outbuildings had collapsed into a black mass of rotting timber, vines and weeds growing out of them. Jay Webber rode straight across the field. All Anna could see from her saddle was the horse's rump and Jay's back. Jay projected upward like the fore part of the same animal, the sun making a halo about his golden hair. Near the house, Jay reined toward the barn, Anna following, but he stopped beneath an ancient pear tree, one fork of which was dead, and dismounted. He tied the reins of his mount loosely about a limb. Anna swung from the saddle and �John Foster West 97 collapsed into his arms. Jay reacted swiftly as he caught her. She was on her feet instantly and looked at him defensively. "Damn, I haven't ridden in years," she muttered. "I'm completely out of shape." He took the reins of the mare and tied them about another limb. "That'll happen," he said. "You'll probably be sore tomorrow." Suddenly, the world was filled with music. Anna stepped backward and looked upward. A mockingbird sat on the topmost twig in the green half of the pear tree, his head back, using every bird sound in his repertoire. A cardinal flickered from one branch to another, lower down. Anna lowered her head. It was as though some impulse had turned up the volume of the receiver in her head. The fields and trees around the old house were filled with birds singing. From the apple tree near the farthest edge of the lawn, from the ragged grape arbor toward the river, from the shaggy boxwood clumps arose a variety of bird voices, and below it all, in a miniature bass background, a myriad of honeybees droned about the red clover, brilliant blue chicory blossoms, and dandelions growing wild in last year's dead broomsedge, covering what had once been a landscaped lawn. And the air was filled with a sweet perfume. She knew the honeysuckle vines embracing one of the decaying outbuildings would be there before she turned to look at them. �98 The Summer People The mansion faced upriver, up the wagon road cut through the fallow field between the river and the base of the ridge. Six massive wooden columns reared upward from the narrow front porch to support an extension of the roof, high above. Heavy double doors were set in the middle of the house, windows on either side and above. Even from where she stood, Anna could see the brick steps from the porch to a walk, which disappeared into the jungle of dead and green broomsedge and weeds, halfway across the lawn. Jay Webber had not spoken for several minutes. Anna guessed he was waiting to see what effect the place had on her. She turned, sucking in a gasp of air when a quail leaped from the grass and darted away, its wings drumming the air. "Well, what do you think of Riverglade?" he asked, finally. "I don't think anything," she said. "I might tell you part of what I feel." "Then tell me." "I feel nostalgia for a past I was no part of. I feel sad because it's dead. But I'm also a little annoyed. I resent the owner of this place, whoever he is, leaving it in this condition. Damnit, it's—obscene. It's like leaving a corpse to rot in the sun. Corpses ought to be cremated, or they ought to be buried with loving care." He turned his head to look at her, his eyes nar- �John Foster West 99 rowed thoughtfully. "What would you want him to do—the owner?" "Either burn the place down," she said emphatically, "or fix it the hell up. I know fifty families that would grab the opportunity to live in one or two of its rooms." Jay Webber chuckled. "You have very strong opinions, don't you, ma'am?" "I despise waste," Anna said. "And I abhor wasted beauty." She started to put it in words that he would understand, but he interrupted. "You think the old place is really beautiful?" "Yes," she nodded. "Because of what it used to be and could be again." They reached the house, and she stood on the bottom step facing him. As he stood on the walk, their eyes were almost level. "There could be a good reason for the neglect," he argued. "I can't imagine what." "Suppose, for example, it has been tied up in litigation, between two branches of a family, and neither was allowed to touch it." "That would explain it," Anna agreed. "But what a stupid way to treat it! It's like King Solomon dividing the baby, in a way." Jay opened one of the double doors and let her enter in front of him. She stopped so suddenly, staring about her, that Jay collided with her. They were in a rectangular foyer as neat as the outside �100 The Summer People was ragged. Directly across from the doors, ten feet of wall separated two enclosed stairways, which led upward, directly away from her. A tall grandfather clock, polished but silent, stood against the wall between the stairways. The oak floor had been waxed recently. Arched doorways led from the foyer into the left and right areas of the house. Taking her by the elbow, Jay escorted Anna across the floor, stopping in front of the grandfather clock. "What do you notice about it?" he asked. "It's run by weights," she said. "But it's not running. The weight reached the bottom on the left chain and was never transferred to the right-hand one." She smiled. "I know how the old fellow feels sometime." "Right. Look at his face." "It not only tells time, but the date." "Notice the date?" "It stopped on January 10, 1919, at 4:34 a.m. or p.m. That must have been the precise second the weight touched bottom." "You're a bright little detective." He rested his hand briefly on her shoulder. She turned toward him. "I'm more curious about the inside of the building," she said. "I mean, the condition compared to the lawn. It looks as though someone is still living here, taking care of the interior." "There is." He grinned. "Ghosts!" "Aw, come on!" Anna laughed, then shud- �John Foster West 101 dered. "Ghosts don't wax floors and polish grandfather clocks." With a slight touch of his fingers, he steered her toward the arched entrance to the left of the front door. They entered a large dining room, furnished with an elongated oval dining table in the center of the room, mahogany, she was sure. There was a china cabinet, ladderback chairs, and a huge fireplace, with an iron crane for fireplace cooking. A stack of firewood lay against the wall to one side. The kitchen and pantry were back of the dining room, a large wood-burning range dominating the kitchen. Back in the dining room, Anna noticed two kerosene lamps, one on the hewn log mantel and one in the middle of the dining table. Above the mantel was a weird painting. Anna stared at it. In brilliant colors, birds with small human heads sat in the green half of a tree, a huge black vulture looking down at them from its perch high in the dead half, gnarled human hands clutching its perch. A brilliant sun with teeth like a buzzsaw shot across the dark blue sky, a comet tail behind it. She turned to ask Jay about it, but he had returned to the foyer. When she joined him there, he said, "I'll bet you can't figure out why they built two stairways leading upstairs so close together." "I can't imagine." She shook her head, then turned to him with a smile. "Unless upstairs is a duplex." �102 The Summer People He grimaced. "Damn, you're uncanny. The two halves of the house upstairs are completely separated. You have to come down here from one half to enter the other half. What I mean is, why would a sane human being divide his house like that?" "You've got me." She shrugged. "Unless the right half didn't know what the left half was doing." "My grandfather Lance Webber had five daughters and four sons. He was a hell-and-damnation, self-ordained part-time preacher. Even while his sons and daughters were still children, around 1905, he had the old family house remodeled. The left wing of the upstairs became the boy's quarters and right wing, the girl's quarters. The old bastard didn't trust them sleeping on the same hall. He even tore the story of Lot and his daughters out of the family Bible." "Even my parents were never that evilminded," Anna said, "and I thought they were bad enough." "Well, Grandpappy had got him a spawn of three with neighbors' daughters when he wasn't any more than sixteen. So he knew the temptations of the flesh." "Those poor children!" Anna sighed. "I can't imagine what their lives must have been like." "Come on, let me show you something." She followed him up the right-hand stairway. At the top, it doubled back into a landing, from which a hallway extended, dividing the house from �John Foster West 103 there to an end window. Four closed doors faced each other, two on either side of the hallway. Jay stopped at the first door and tapped it lightly with his knuckles. "This was the master bedroom. The parents slept in this wing with the daughters, Guardians of Virtue." He moved to the next one, on the same side, and opened the door. Anna followed him into a neat bedroom with chintzy curtains, floral wallpaper, and a colorful hooked rug. In the far corner stood a double bed, its gingham canopy trimmed with lacy frills. "I'd say this is—was definitely a room for girls," Anna stated. "A bit gaudy but feminine." "This was the bedroom of Alace and Susan," Jay explained, "the two oldest daughters." "If I ever have children—" she started to say. Turning her head, she could glimpse Jay Webber's face in the gloom. There was an expression on his face she would have recognized, even if she had never seen it on a man's face before. "Remember, you promised to wait until I return," the ghost in her brain whispered. She swallowed. Clinching her fists, she turned away from him and hurried through the doorway and down the hall. Jay followed her, saying nothing. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, he stopped. "About the clock," he said. She turned, touched his arm, then let her hand fall. "Yes, what about the clock?" �104 The Summer People "Grandpa Lance's family was stricken by influenza in January, 1919. There was an epidemic throughout these mountains, few people well enough to help anyone else. The whole Webber family died except for my father, who was sixteen, and one of Lance's daughters, one of those he sired with a neighbor's daughter. I forgot to tell you, when Grandpa admitted his parentage, my greatgrandfather made him rear all three of them." "You mean the woods colts?" "If you like folk terms. Anyway, she and my dad were raised by my grandmother's family, the MacTavishes. The old house remained empty for years, at first haunted, according to local superstition. Later, tied up in litigation between Sarah, the love child, and Dad. Dad finally won." "You mean your family owns Riverglade now?" "I own it!" he stated. "It was all I wanted. Dad willed it and eighty acres across the river to me. I've been working on the house, inside, when I could find time, but I haven't had a chance to clean up outside yet, except for the garden." "Look, Jay, I'm sorry about what I said. I mean about whoever owned the place. I didn't know—" "Oh, that's okay." He laughed and turned toward the front door. "You were right, of course, without the facts." Suddenly he whirled on her, concern on his face. "For God's sake, don't tell my mother—don't tell anyone what I said about grandpa and his daughters. My mother doesn't �John Foster West 105 want it talked about. You know how proud mountain people are. I don't know what made me do it. I know better." "The devil made you do it," Anna said, but he did not seem amused. When they were halfway across the lawn, he stopped and pointed. "See those two flowers there?" She looked at the tall stalks, each topped by a circular pattern of white flowers made up of countless smaller blooms. "Do they look alike to you?" "Yes. They look like Queen Anne's lace to me." "Look again." She studied them. "No, the one on the right has a smoother pattern. It looks like a neat lace doily. The other one is ragged in outline. There's a small black flower—" "Purple," Jay said. "There's a small purple blossom precisely in the center of the nearer one." "Very good, Mrs. DeVoss," he said solemnly. "That's Queen Anne's lace. The other flower is common yarrow. It has a shallow root structure." He stepped forward, stooped, and pulled up the Queen Anne's lace, holding it toward her. The green stem ended in a small, elongated tuber. "Queen Anne's lace is also called wild carrot." "Well, thank you, Professor, for today's lesson in botany." �106 The Summer People "If you ever have to run for it," he said, "you can eat them—the wild carrots." "Thanks, but I'll take along fried chicken." A short distance beyond the lawn, as they rode upriver, Jay reined into a well-worn path that led toward the base of the ridge. Anna followed. The little cemetery, enclosed by a zigzag rail fence black with age, was clean and well kept, although the graves, all except one, were obviously old. Some of the marble tombstones were discolored near their bases by moss. The new grave, perhaps a year or two old, had a double monument with the vital statistics of J.W. Webber on it. The other half contained the name Martha MacTavish Webber b. 1910 d.— "There are many family cemeteries in Watauga County," Jay explained. "West of Boone, along Highway 421, you'll see them crowning beautiful little knolls, with fences around them." "I wonder why," Anna mused aloud. "Perhaps because folks used to die in the home, and it was simpler to bury them nearby." Jay spoke thoughtfully. "Then again, families used to be closer than nowadays. They couldn't let their loved ones go entirely, even after they had died." "I like that explanation better," she said. �Chapter VII Anna DeVoss was reminded of Jay Webber for the next three days because of her sore behind, but she did not see him for the rest of that week. He crossed her mind now and then, usually in relation to the old mansion, River glade. There were some things she was still curious about, some questions unanswered, but they did not stimulate her curiosity enough to goad her to any action. When the escapade of Lance Webber, his grandfather, and the neighbors' girls slipped into her mind from some vague association, she would deliberately shuttle it aside, except for the irony of it, which amused her. But she felt more secure not thinking about it at all. Around noon on Friday, a thunderstorm hove into view from Tennessee, the southern perimeter passing over Holy Rood Valley. There was a great deal of thunder and lightning, but not much rain. When it had passed, sputtering and grumbling like a man splashed by a passing car, Anna drove to Sparr's Store for some sugar, milk, and a small bag of meal. She sat with Henry Sparr and a tobacco farmer named Simon Tull for over an hour listen107 �108 The Summer People ing to them talk about the old days in Watauga County, asking an occasional question. She was fascinated by the story of the narrow-gauge railroad and the little train called Tweetsie, which had once run from east Tennessee to Boone. The 1940 flood had washed away miles of track and much of the roadbed, terminating the train's career. It ended up as a tourist ride on Highway 321 near Blowing Rock. Anna tried to imagine a time when the roads were narrow and muddy and only Model-T Fords were around to use them—a time when a young man from the tobacco factory in Winston-Salem had driven his Ford two miles up the bed of Cove Creek to visit his girl friend because there was no road to her father's house, a time when the main street in Boone was so deep in mud a chicken trying to cross it got mired and had to be rescued. There was an earlier time, Simon Tull told her, when a stagecoach ran from Blowing Rock to Linville, in Avery County, along the old Yonahlossee Trail, now Highway 221, hauling wealthy summer people to their summer places or to the lodges then in existence. As she was leaving the store, a black and chrome Mercedes-Benz, shining like a polished hearse, stopped beside the car. She had looked away from it as she descended the steps, when a man called to her. u Hey, there, Mrs. DeVoss—Anna!" Reaching the ground, she looked up. Mark �John Foster West 109 Grunwald, dressed in white shirt, tie, blue linen coat, and white trousers, stood beside the black car, his hand on top of the open door. Christ on Monday! she thought. I knew he would be driving a twenty thousand dollar Mercedes. "Hi," she said, as she approached her car. "What brings you out into the boondocks?" He closed the door and hurried around the front of his car, meeting her close to her own vehicle. "I want to apologize," he said. "Betty—you know, the receptionist at Gray hound—she told me you really did not have a telephone. I thought you were just—-just cutting me off." And that's how you salved your wounded male ego, she thought. Women just don't cut Mark Grunwald off like that. "No need to apologize," she said. "It's not important." "It's important to me. I was just stopping here to get directions to your chalet." "You mean you drove all the way out here just to apologize for not believing me?" His dark eyes flickered away toward the roof of the old store, then back to her face. "Well, yes, that and—I had another, better reason." "Which is?" "I wanted to invite you to dinner at the lodge Saturday evening, and to the dance afterwards. I realize it's not exactly traditional to wait until Friday to ask for a Saturday evening date, but I talked to Betty just this morning." �110 The Summer People "Who worries about traditions this late in the century?" Anna remarked. She was thoughtful a moment. "I had planned to—" Actually, she had no plan at all. She was not particularly ecstatic about going out with this formal tycoon. On the other hand, a male companion for a change, a safe male companion and an evening out were better than doing nothing. The silent cabin was beginning to depress her just a little. Apparently to influence what he took to be indecision on her part, Mark Grunwald said, "If I said please, if I promised you a good time—" Anna laughed. "Not really, if I had other plans I couldn't break. But I haven't. Okay, I'll go." "How about eight o'clock?" He grasped her left arm eagerly, then released it and thrust his offending hand into his coat pocket. "I mean, could I pick you up around eight?" "That would be fine. I'll expect you at eight tomorrow evening, right?" After she had explained to him how to find the DeVoss cabin, she drove back with diverse emotions troubling her. The fact that she wanted to be alone, did not want to go out with Mark Grunwald, so evenly balanced a need to escape the lonely cabin for an evening that she could not have explained why she agreed to go. In fact, at the moment, she wished she had not agreed, but it was too late to change her mind. She did not see any easy way out of the date. Oh, why not? she thought. It'll �John Foster West 111 be more interesting than listening to stories about Jay Webber and his weird ancestors, even if he decided to come by, and he probably would not. All day Saturday the sky was obliterated by the gray wool of fog, now and then great skeins of it breaking loose, to fall away and be blown northeast as it coiled and writhed like steam from a boiling cauldron. From time to time sunlight would break* through as a bright surprise, before the hole in the sky was quickly plugged. Anna tried to hurry time by reading at Butterfly Falls, but it was cool in the forest, and the weather depressed her. Now, she found herself actually looking forward to the evening out, even if Mark Grunwald did not exactly stimulate her to excitement. He drove into one of the parking bays at precisely eight o'clock, as she had known he would. She had been ready for half an hour, but to prevent the wrong impression, she left him in a chair by the fireplace while she sat on the closed commode lid fiddling with her nails. Finally, she was ready. Mark Grunwald leaped to his feet when she re-entered the living room. He was being very conservative with her this evening, wearing a dark suit rather than a bright jacket, as she had seen him dressed before. "My, but you look pretty tonight, Anna," he said. "You'll turn heads at the lodge." "Thank you." She smiled, glancing down at herself. She had to admit she really did look good, �112 The Summer People dressed for the first date after—after burying the past. The flimsy little cocktail dress with its short skirt revealed as much of her body and legs as good taste allowed—did not so much reveal as presented. The white cleavage swelled into the V-neckline, and her long, round calves were contoured by the silver-flecked stockings. Pete would have loved the way she was dressed tonight. She smiled whimsically. He would have slipped up behind her, embraced her, and waltzed her around the room on her tiptoes, while she tried to slap at him with both hands. They always arrived at a party late. She looked up into the face of her escort, and the memory of Pete DeVoss slowly faded. Their conversation was desultory on the way to the lodge. Mark Grunwald played his cards with tact, taking his stance somewhere between not quite formal and almost familiar. The lobster, flown in to the golf course runway from Maine, was delicious, better than any she had ever eaten in Norfolk. The dining room was almost full. She supposed it was because of the dance after dinner. A woman in her early thirties stopped by their table once, towing her heavy husband like a motorboat pulling a barge. "Oh, Mark, it's so good to run into you again. You're as handsome as ever. When did you come up? Are you—" Mark Grunwald stood, waiting for her to run down before he spoke. "It's good to see you, �John Foster West 113 Beatrice. Hello, George." He shook hands quickly with the husband. "Beatrice and George Wayne, I'd like you to meet Anna DeVoss." "How do you do." Anna's smile flickered on and off. "Oh, Anna, I bet you're Pete's wid—widow. I did so want to meet you. We have the A-frame below the DeVoss cabin. I wanted you over sometime for bridge." "I'm sorry, I play only poker," Anna said. "Pete was a military man." But Beatrice Wayne was not a woman to wait for explanations. "We were so sorry to hear about poor Pete, weren't we, Honey?" She nudged George with her elbow, and he nodded in agreement. "That was such a nasty war. Only the best and bravest, you know. I haven't seen—hadn't seen Pete since we were both quite young, but we were very close. Mom and Dad loved him dearly." Anna's smile had come back and stretched across her teeth like rubber bands. She tried to imagine Pete involved with this woman, even ten or fifteen years earlier, but could not visualize it. Beatrice was just not Pete DeVoss's type. "It was good of you to drop by our table," Mark Grunwald said. "We'll have to get together later and bring things up to date." Beatrice Wayne blinked up at him a moment, then said, "Indeed, we will. Great to have met you, Anna. You'll hear from me later." She hurried �114 The Summer People away, escorting George by the arms as though he were under arrest. Mark sat back down, shaking his head. "God, I'm sorry. Looks like I got you into something." "It wasn't your fault. Besides, I can take care of the world's Beatrice Waynes." "I bet you can," he laughed, and for a moment Anna saw a relaxed side of him she liked. The dance floor was too small and too crowded, the combo was too fast for the clientele, and Mark Grunwald danced as though he wore golf shoes. Anna counteracted her disappointment by drinking too much Jack Daniels and branch water. She was quite tipsy by eleven thirty. She was introduced to several couples who lived in chalets about the mountain side, but she remembered none of the names. She was so miserable trying to follow the big, awkward buckdancer she was actually relieved when he suggested that they go to his place for conversation and a nightcap. By now, she was in a tranquil stupor and ready to do almost anything but try to dance. The Grunwald chalet was only a few hundred yards up the side of the mountain, anchored to the top of a massive rock. While Anna stood on the deck, her hands braced on the railing, and looked down across the dark roofs below her toward the club house and the golf course beyond, her host was busy lighting a fire to wood already laid in the fireplace. He joined her a little later carrying two �John Foster West 115 tall, cool glasses, handing one to her. "This is the Grunwald special," he laughed, "Guaranteed to make you happier." "But I'm always happy," Anna protested. "Can't you tell?" "This'll make you happier than you always are." "Okay, we'll just see about that." She sipped the drink, rolling it about with her tongue. It had a minty flavor and was light and bubbly, like champagne. "Hey! it really is good." She took another longer gulp, savored it a moment, then swallowed it. And then another. They returned to the den and sat on the fluffy rug before the flickering little fire. Mark Grunwald had turned the lights out, and the stereo speakers emitted soft music from somewhere in the darkness on either side of them. It was a very peaceful setting, and Anna felt suddenly secure, although a latent understanding told her to be alert. Alcohol had subdued, for the time being, the old sadness and had rendered her guard impotent. She even forgot what a miserable dancer Mark Grunwald had been because it was so far in the past it no longer mattered. "Feel good, Anna?" he asked softly. "Very good, thank you. Most excellent." "What do you do when you are working? I can usually guess, but you puzzle me." Anna turned her head to look at him, but he was serious. The firelight splashing against his dark �116 The Summer People profile gave him a handsome, exotic appearance, as though he were some Bohemian prince, she thought dreamily, who had escaped to America to become a commoner. "I was a social worker. Am, because I have a leave of absence. I majored in English, though. Specifically, I work with abused children." "That fits." He snapped his fingers. "There's a kind of compassion deep in your eyes. Why didn't I think of that before?" "Because," Anna laughed, "you are a Bohemian prince who escaped to America." "What?" He stared at her. "Oh, now I get it." "Just a peasant joke." She threw back her head and laughed a strangled little laugh, the skin tight across her throat. "I've got a weird sense of humor, Mark, and I don't share it with anyone else. You'll just have to forgive me." She was silent a moment, "And what do you do, Sir Prince, when you're working—IF you work." "I'm manager of a line of knitting mills." He paused, apparently for her reaction, then continued when she did not speak. "And first vice-president." "Well, good." Anna yawned. "I've gone and caught me an executive type." She looked up into his face. He was studying her, his brow furrowed. "Don't you like executive types?" "I like men," she said. "But I like men of action, �John Foster West 117 most. Were you always a tall, dark, and handsome bachelor?" She took three rapid swallows of her drink, emptying the glass. "Do you mean, am I or was I ever married?" He sounded peeved. "The answer is yes. I'm divorced. My ex-wife lives in Alabama with our daughter." "I don't have a daughter," Anna said softly. "All I have is a photograph. My children are still crosswise in my heart and can't ever, ever escape." "What do you like to do most?" he asked quietly. "I love to sit before a fire drinking with a tall, dark, and handsome Bohemian prince," she murmured, "and forget about my children who never got born." He took the empty glass from her hand and set it aside, then placed his own with it. When he put his arms about her and forced her slowly, slowly backward onto the rug, she did not resist. When he kissed her, she responded, though with little passion. "Wait for me until I return" the ghost voice whispered. Her mind came flashing back from outer space, cold and alert. She whirled away from him and was on her hands and knees facing him before he could make a movement to retreat. He was sitting up and staring at her in bewilderment. "What did I do wrong?" he stammered. �118 The Summer People For a moment she was angry, but mostly with herself. Then it left her as she looked into his dark face splotched by firelight and understood him. "Nothing, Mark," she said quietly. "You did everything right—the drinks, the music, the fire. It's me. I'm just not ready yet. I don't know why. It's probably stupid, but I'm not ready." "I wouldn't have offended you for—" She put her hand over his mouth. They stood together. She hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. "It's not you. Don't feel disappointed in yourself. It's me. I'm just—I don't know what's wrong with me. Would you be a good guy and take me home?" "Sure, Anna, anything you say." Her explanation seemed to satisfy him. "I—I think I understand." "If you do, I wish to God you'd explain it to me." They rode back to Holy Rood Valley mostly in silence. The alcohol had fled Anna's brain, leaving it as clear as a winter night. When she turned at the cabin door, he was staring down at her like a lost little boy. "Can I see you again?" he asked. "We'll see," she smiled. "When you think it over, you may not want to see me again." Reaching up, she pulled his head down and kissed him lightly, then turned and entered the cabin, closing the door behind her. Moving over to �John Foster West 119 the window beside the fireplace, she stood in the darkness and watched his taillights disappear through the trees. "Thus endeth the chapter entitled 'Mark Grunwald, Bohemian Prince, who Escaped to America and Became Vice-President of a Chain of Knitting Mills'," she muttered. In her bedroom, she picked up the photograph of Pete and studied it a long time. She felt good because she was almost sure he smiled his approval of her escape and winked. But when she thought it over, in bed alone, she realized that Lieutenant Pete DeVoss did not or would not have thought like that. �Chapter VIII When Anna woke up on Monday morning with a pain in her back and her abdomen seething, she knew what had happened. Her mother had called it "the Condition." Was it just yesterday? Could it have been over six years ago, really? Anna would say, "I'm sorry, Sweet," and she would kiss Pete. "But no trespassing. I'm sorry." And he would say, "Damn that Eric the Red. How I'd love to get him in my bombsight!" By the time she drank her third cup of coffee, her head had begun to ache. She took two aspirins to relieve it, but the nagging pain in her back persisted. She had just cleaned her teeth and washed her hands when Jay Webber knocked on the cabin door. She knew it was Jay from the rhythm and from the number of knocks, which she did not count but tabulated subconsciously. He was standing there in the same faded jeans and shirt (or did he have a wardrobe of them?) holding in his hands, cradled against his side, a large paper bag half full of something she could not see because of the bag's crumpled top. 120 �John Foster West 121 "Well, good morning, Jay," she smiled. "Are you delivering groceries these days?" She was not particularly exuberant to see him or anyone else, with her nagging back pain. For the briefest of moments his eyes narrowed. Then he smiled. "No, I have a surprise for you—if you're willing to be surprised." "I like nice surprises. Come on in." He entered and she closed the door while he carried the bag over to the sink. "You know what this brown thing is I'm totin?" he called over his shoulder. "It's a paper bag of surprises." She followed him and stopped near the lazy-Susan. "No. Hit hain't." He set the bag down on the counter beside the sink and turned, grinning. "Hit's a paper poke, in Holy Rood Valley." "I thought that word went out with Hoover." "Well, smartie, I have to admit it's not used as much as it used to be." He looked a bit crestfallen. She shrugged. "What's the surprise?" "Not till later. Do you have anything planned this morning?" "Not the teeniest. Are we going back to the ancestral manor and hear sad stories of the deaths of Webbers?" He searched her face, his amber eyes wide and vulnerable. When she smiled to prove she was only kidding, his grin filled the space between beard �122 The Summer People and mustache, spilling into the funnels of his eyes. "No, I want to show you something else. But we'll have to go out to Butterfly Falls. Do you mind?" "Not at all. I like it there. It's a last wilderness-like." "Abe MacTavish came into Holy Rood Valley before the Civil War," Jay said, as they followed the path out to the creek. "He bought thousands of acres of land at a dollar or so an acre. He hewed logs with a broadax and built a house. Then he went over into Kentucky to the cabin of Big Bear Bowman, who had ten daughters, and told him and his wife he wanted to pick him a steady wife. He meant sturdy. Said he would pay five hundred dollars for the right one. Big Bear took the money and told Abe to take his pick. In spite of the wife's fussing, Abe MacTavish made the girls strip down to the buff, and he proceeded to select his wife. He squeezed their thighs, measured them from hip to hip, checked their pelvic area—and chose Essie, next to the youngest, who was sixteen. They were married by a circuit preacher under a blooming service berry tree, and Abe brought Essie back to his house. It stood just about where Riverglade stands. Essie had her first child in nine months and two days after marriage and Abe delivered it himself." "She had thirteen more, nine girls and five boys. Abe MacTavish rode a mule when he was eighty-two, crisscrossing his land and divided it up into sections, blazing trees with a hatchet to mark boundaries. He gave one section to each of his chil- �John Foster West 123 dren. The girls married into other families, taking their portion of land with them. Two of the boys were killed in the Civil War, one with the South and one, in Tennessee, with the North. Great Uncle Sandy MacTavish never married. Great-grandmother Selina MacTavish married Great-grandfather Roan Webber. That's where our land came from." Anna stopped abruptly, seizing Jay's arm and dragging him to a halt. "Are you kidding me?" she demanded. He stared at her, on guard. "What do you mean?" "I mean about Abe MacTavish feeling and groping those poor girls like he was buying a mule, to choose a wife. Because if you are kidding, just because I'm from outside, I resent it." "Aw, come on, Anna!" He took her arm and escorted her several steps along the trail. "Why would I do that?" A few strides later, he laughed suddenly. "I figure trying to fool you would be a waste of time. Do I really look stupid enough to try?" "I have no idea what you would try to do," she said. "I hardly know you at all." "Don't blame me for that." He paused. "You're the one who likes to be alone." "Did he, sure enough, though?" she asked, looking up into his face as they walked. "Did Abe really choose his wife like that? Why didn't he just look at their teeth?" �124 The Summer People "Great-grandmother Selina told Grandpa it was like that. Nobody would dispute her word. Besides, it wasn't teeth old Abe was interested in. It was an incubator." "You mean a young woman's child-bearing ability?" "Yes, that's true." "The old chauvinist bastard must have been thirty years older than that poor little girl. That's what happens living in an age when men are supreme and women are only chattel." "She wasn't any weakling," Jay Webber argued. "Fourteen children in twenty-two years." "Sixteen and twenty-two's only thirty-eight. Why did she stop having children? I bet it wasn't old Abe's idea." "I'm afraid to tell you." He grinned. She halted beside the creek, dragging him to a stop. "Why? I've got to know." "You would swear I was pulling your leg, sure enough." "Come on, now. Why? We'll stand here all day." "Old Abe came down with the mumps while he was on a hunting trip." "You mean—" "They fell on him, as the folks say. He became sterile." "You're right about one thing." "What?" "You really are pulling my leg." �John Foster West 125 "I swear by Holy Rood Rock." Anna DeVoss threw back her head, her laughter rushing toward the treetops. "Boy, if that isn't poetic justice! If it hadn't been for the mumps, everyone in this county would have been named MacTavish." She stopped laughing and faced him. "You're not kidding me, Jay Webber? Not really?" Jay held up his hands, palms up. "So help me, John the Baptist!" "Man, you really have a heritage, don't you? Between Great-grandpa Abe MacTavish and Grandpa Lance Webber, I don't see how they can afford to let you run loose." "I'm very normal, Anna," he said quickly. "I live one day at a time, and I have no enemies." She stared at him quizzically, started to say something else, but could think of no response. When they reached the pool beneath the trees, Jay walked over to the edge of the woods and picked up what looked to Anna like two switches. But when he returned and held them out to her, she could see they were small limbs from a thorn bush. They had been trimmed down smooth, except at the base of each, two thorns were left, forming hooks when he held them by their small ends. The bark on the limbs was still green and moist where torn. They had obviously been cut recently and left near the pool that morning. "I know what they are, but what are they for?" she asked. �126 The Summer People "What do you think they are?" "Thorn limbs," she said, "with thorns left on them." "No ma'am. You lose. They are Cherokee fishhooks." "Fishhooks? No smart fish would bite one of those things." "They don't work like that. You just sit here on the rock, be as quiet as a baby quail, and watch Big Chief Webber catch heap big fish, maybe two, for our dinner." "Why don't you just use a hook and fly?" "No sport in that. Besides, after the Big Boom, there won't be any more hooks and flies. Just thorns." She started to needle him further about the thorns, but he had moved away. She sat down on the sloping rock and watched him tiptoe toward the embankment adjacent to the waterfall. Only a foot above the pool, a shelf of rock began and slanted upward away from its surface. Jay Webber lay down on the rock, placing one of the thorn limbs aside and keeping the other. He lay with his chest against the rock, only his head and hand projecting out over the water. With his right hand, he held onto the the small end of the limb and extended it with the thorns on it below the surface of the pool. Then he lay quietly, an extension of the stone on which he reclined. Anna squinted through her sun- �John Foster West 127 glasses trying to see into the water where the thorns waited, but she could discern nothing. Jay Webber waited and Anna waited. She did not know how long. Little numb disks began to form where her backsides flattened against the rock. She squirmed, walking forward a few inches with her buttocks. She gasped suddenly, one hand flying upward to trap the sound inside of her mouth. Jay had moved so fast the action was over before she could focus on him. His right arm rose in the air, and the twin thorns had hooked a trout under its mouth. In one smooth motion, the fish sailed over Jay's shoulder, hurled by the thorn limb, and fell halfway up the rock, where it now lay flopping and beating with a wet fish sound. Jay got up, walked to it, and with the side of his foot, flung the speckled trout farther away from the pool, where it could exhaust its panic with little chance of escaping back into the water. Anna got up and walked over to Jay. "How in the world did you do that? I've never heard of that kind of fishing before." When she met his eyes, Anna glimpsed a boyish pleasure. (Look, little girl, see how far I can jump.) "It's a matter of timing and patience," he explained. "You hold the thorns beneath the surface until a trout swims nearby. Then you ease it into position, yank upward and flip at the same time, and behold! you have part of a meal." �128 The Summer People "Well, I must say, it's a clever idea." She stood with her right hip outthrust, her hand on it. "But I don't know many people who could lie still that long." "There aren't many anymore," Jay said. "There used to be many tribes of them." "Who ever heard of a red-haired, kinky-headed Indian?" Jay grinned. "I'm the last of the Peckerwood Tribe. Now get back over there in your place, squaw woman, so I can catch another." When Jay had caught four trout, weighing over a pound each, he strung three of them on one of the thorn hooks and stored the other in the crotch of a sourwood tree. Then they returned to the cabin with the catch, after Jay had cleaned them on a stump beside the creek, throwing the scraps into the water for other fish to eat. While Anna hovered just out of reach, feeling unnecessary and a little stupid, Jay Webber fried the trout, rolled in corn meal, and made slaw from a cabbage head he had brought in the paper bag. While the fish were frying, he had a small iron skillet on a back burner, baking cornbread. Anna said very little during the meal because she ate ravenously. She had little patience for empty words at mealtime. Part of it was that she was hungry. Part of it was that any meal she did not have to prepare herself was usually good. But this food was special. She had grown up near the �John Foster West 129 beach, where seafood was commonplace. However, there was a special savor about mountain trout caught with primitive skill, fried in corn meal, and served with fresh slaw and cornbread. Jay did not attempt to start a conversation. He was busy eating himself. But she caught him watching her eat, now and then, and there was a pleased look about his eyes. When they were through, Anna served the coffee, which had been perking while they ate. They went outside and sat on the deck, their feet on the log steps, while they drank it. "How'd you like that?" Jay asked, finally, across his cup. "How'd I like what?" "Come on! You know." "You mean the coffee?" "Yeah, the coffee, ma'am. This is my third cup." Anna laughed at him. "If you expect me to compliment you on that meal, forget it. I don't have the words to describe it." "You really liked it, then?" "Come on, Jay! You know how good it was. You watched me making a pig of myself." Jay laughed, a deep, comfortable laugh, setting his cup down with a bang. "You're one hell of a flatland broad. I bet you punched your mother's breast while you were nursing." Anna felt a small flush of resentment at his remark, but let it pass. At the moment she was too content to be bothered by anything very long. Her �130 The Summer People stomach was pleasantly gorged, and she felt a drowsy euphoria despite the coffee. "What gave you the idea I had a mother?" He laughed a scoffing little laugh. "Even Anna DeVoss couldn't bear herself." She looked at him closely, but his face was relaxed, without malice. There was a distant look in his eyes, as though he too were drowsy, and she felt herself doubting that he even realized what he had said. "Jay," she said quietly, "how well did you know Pete?" He stared at her, his face taut, on guard. She had the feeling he was trying to judge how much to say, whether or not she would burst out bawling like some broken-hearted widow. "Pretty well," he said, finally. "He was older than me. We rode horseback together, fished together, once we even—Oh, hell, I can't tell you that." "Can't tell me what? I insist." "Way back when we were kids, Dad and Dr. DeVoss would set up a pot in the woods and cook brunswick stew. Squirrel, rabbit, quail, chicken, beef, pork, vegetables—Lord, it was good! I can taste it now. The DeVosses were the only summer people in the valley then. Some of the neighbors would come over. We would eat until the food ran out our ears. The grown-ups would drink homebrew or white lightning and get happy as chickens on a Junebug farm. No foolishness, though. No �John Foster West 131 one ever got mad. Just good old fashioned drinking and picking and singing. Old hymns and old ballads." He stopped and stared for several moments out through the trees. "Boy, Dad missed those days toward the end. He had a stroke and was bedridden for a while before he died. He used to laugh out of one side of his mouth and talk about the good old days when he and Dr. DeVoss drank together and made brunswick stew and all that. He died fretting because the modern summer people thought of him as just a grit, a peckerwood tobacco farmer not worth talking to." "Did you like Pete?" Anna asked. Jay Webber studied her with a peculiar slanting look. "How could I not like him? How could anyone not like him? There wasn't a malicious bone in his body. Christ, he loved life and living things. He would think up new things to do that would never cross my mind." He paused. "You know, I could never put him and a military plane together, in my mind." "Jay, tell me something." Anna caught his eyes and held them. "Sure thing. What?" "What did you start to say a few minutes ago, then changed the subject? You said, 'Once we even—' then stopped. What were you going to say?" "I'd better not tell you. It might embarrass you." �132 The Summer People "I'm hard to embarrass, Jay. Nothing about my husband would embarrass me." "Damn, you're a tough female to deal with." "Come on, tell me. What do you think I am, a Girl Scout? That man was my first and only lover. He would have been the father of my children, if that asinine brawl in Vietnam hadn't—had not taken him. I want to know everything about him I can find out." Jay lowered his head, scuffing his ragged sneakers against the step. "It wasn't much, really. When we were about fourteen, he gave Beatrice Paulson—she's Beatrice Wayne now—ten dollars to strip in front of him and me at Butterfly Falls. Gad, I feel like a pervert now." "Come on, Jay. You were only children." Jay laughed. "Pete got cheated. It wasn't worth any ten dollars, I'll tell you that." Anna threw back her head and laughed, her voice gushing toward the tree tops, too high on the scale for humor alone. "That's old Pete. That's my man. He always got to the point—wasted no time." She calmed abruptly, her voice lower. "And I agree with you. I'm sure ten dollars was too much. Ninety-eight cents probably was." Jay grinned. "You know Beatrice?" "I met her Saturday night. She doesn't look like much of a catch, even at thirty-three, or whatever she is." "She had enough to catch old George Wayne." �John Foster West 133 "She could have done that with a forked limb." Anna stretched and yawned. "Jay, I hate to do this, but I'm going to have to take a nap." He looked at her covertly, but she caught his eyes. "You don't need company, I don't reckon." She smiled at him, stood up. "You're welcome to the other bedroom." He got to his feet, too. "You wouldn't mind? I mean, me in the next room, sleeping?" "Why should I?" She studied him intently. "I don't mind and the trees don't mind. What could it hurt?" "Very likely, not a damned thing," he said. "I'd just as soon go on back to the house and get to work." "Suit yourself, Jay-boy." Reaching over, she ruffled his kinky hair with her right hand. "I do appreciate the meal, and it was delicious. You're a real neighbor. If the Big Bang ever does come, thanks to you I can catch trout with a Cherokee fishhook." "See you later, neighbor." He threw her a quick salute and descended the steps. She watched him for half a minute, as he headed up the driveway through the woods, never looking back. Then she entered the cabin and closed the door. �Chapter IX Anna had read about the annual "Singing on the Mountain" in the Watauga Democrat, the county newspaper, during the week and thought it might be interesting to attend it. Pete had once told her that it was a descendant of the old camp meetings and singings, a real folk artifact. She awakened around six-thirty on Sunday and dressed rapidly, hoping to beat most of the heavy traffic expected on the fiftieth anniversary of the occasion. A local man had organized the first Singing with the motto: "Whoever would may come." The invitation had been taken literally. Over the years the number attending the Singing, in McRae Meadows, near the western base of Grandfather Mountain, had gradually increased, as governors and other public figures were added to the program, until now thousands made the June pilgrimage each year. Anna's reason for attending was to get a taste of the old fashioned religious folk singing, a way of worshipping—in her imagination—as native to the mountains as the rugged individuals who participated. Her first mistake, she decided later, was attending at all, especially the fiftieth anniversary. 134 �John Foster West 135 Her second was not leaving the cabin an hour earlier than she did. She was caught in a traffic jam a mile long and ended up parking in the Town of Linville, near the highway which led to the Singing. Cars were lined up bumper to bumper in three directions, reaching out of sight. As it was, she had to walk about two miles to McRae Meadows, but fortunately had worn a pair of sneakers. It was worse than Saturday afternoon at a Carolina football game, she decided. But she was not alone. She was swept along in a river of pilgrims, from the ancient to babes in arms, and all ages between, from all levels of society. They moved with one purpose, laughing, joking, singing, bitching about the long hike, but none of them with the remotest intention of turning back. The young redheaded teenager in front of her sang in a sweet soprano: Who will shoe your little feet, and who will glove your hand; who will kiss your rosy red cheek when I'm in a far-off land? The storms blow over the ocean, the heavenly peace would be; the world would lose its motion, dear, if I prove false to thee. The leaders of the Singing occupied two platforms on two huge rocks uphill from where the �136 The Summer People audience (or congregation) stood, sat, or sprawled in lawn chairs or on blankets, coats, or pieces of newspapers. Anna sat on the corner of a patchwork quilt occupied by a young couple and their little boy. She stared curiously about her, her ears attuned to the patterns of speech, from mountain dialect to sophisticated Yankee English. There were two other giant boulders, one beside those holding the platforms and one behind them. God had prepared a convenient stage for the service, at the beginning of the world, Anna mused. A zigzag rail fence surrounded most of the tilted meadow. Over to her left was an open shed with a sign which read: AVERY COUNTY RESCUE SQUAD. Looking back to her right, she studied Grandfather, or what was seen as Grandfather Mountain from other perspectives. The old man of the mountains had disappeared. Here, close below his chin, he had become three massive peaks, chin, nose, and forehead, without pattern, jutting up into the swollen bellies of passing clouds. Because of the size of the congregation and the traffic problem, the program did not get underway until around noon. Earlier, the sky had been clear, although the persistent breeze was cool. But by eleven, clouds were tumbling out of the west, each rank larger and darker than the last, so that the sky was cloudy by twelve. Anna kept glancing upward distrustfully. It would just be her luck to get her tail soaked while caught in a stampede of human �John Foster West 137 buffalos as far as she could see, over forty thousand, she heard one old timer estimate. She sat through the performance of a string band from Charlotte, the short speech of General Westmoreland (candidate for governor of South Carolina), and the cliches of Bob—"Singing on the Mountain"—Hope. By the time the governor of North Carolina began to preach his sermonette condemning "mere Sunday Christians," she had made up her mind to get the hell out before the rain started. She already knew more than enough about folk singing on the mountain. Johnny Cash settled it, although she could see from the rapt faces of those around her that he was what they had come to see and hear—not folk hymns nor ex-generals nor governors nor perennial comedians, but Johnny Cash. She thanked the couple, got to her feet, and walked a crooked path among the spectators, the flat tones of "Will the Circle be Unbroken," magnified many times and rolling across the throng, to collide with Grandfather's rugged chin, now wrapped in a wreath of torn clouds. Anna was disgusted with herself and disappointed with the whole day. Somewhere over the years, the "Singing on the Mountains" had lost its native purpose, she sensed, and had gone tourist. She could see with a sweep of her eyes as she walked among them that most of the spectators (not congregation) here were either summer people or city folk who had driven �138 The Summer People into the mountains for this special occasion, all of them famished for any publicized entertainment. The backdrop of Grandfather and the green forests of the Blue Ridge, for the throng, could as easily have been painted on a piece of canvas stretched across a stage as a background for Johnny Cash, the center of "worship." She had almost reached the outer fringes of the massed audience when Anna felt a strange flutter at the base of her throat. Off to her left, with a pretty redhead, Jay Webber sat on a blanket, his eyes on the distant platform and the high priest in a black smock. Anna had not recognized him at first, although her eyes had, because he was dressed in a white shirt and dark trousers. She would have known him without a second glance, in his usual farm clothing. Her first impulse was to go over and talk to him for a few minutes. But a second look at his companion, who clutched his arm as though she thought he would escape, changed her mind. She continued to wade through sprawling bodies and outflung legs. It was almost two-thirty when she reached her car. She had just moved out onto the highway, heading toward Boone, when the sky unzipped to baptize the green world and her vehicle in a shower of cold rain. Jehovah, on his day, had not dealt kindly with the outdoor singing. The world Dr. DeVoss had loved, that Pete had hurried through as a child, was dying. She found herself wondering �John Foster West 139 how long it would take for the old folkways of this region to become plastic imitations for the summer people. On the following Wednesday, Anna was rummaging beneath some blankets and quilts in the window seat and found a photo album wrapped in an old newspaper. She took it out and carried it over to the rocker, where she sat down, opening it. The first three pages were filled with black and white photographs of Dr. and Mrs. DeVoss as young people, with a Florida background, alternating with other scenery, some of it apparently in the Alps. On page five a child appeared, first held by a nurse, its hands closed into fists. It had to be Pete. She wondered why this album had been kept here at Greenworld and was suddenly surprised, realizing she had never before seen photographs of Pete as a young boy growing up. Of course six months of marriage together is not very long. Only a limited number of things could be done. And with Pete flying most of the time, the bed was the most important furniture when he was home. Still, it seemed a bit strange, in retrospect. She turned the two-dimensional time machine and studied Pete taking his first steps, Pete on his first tricycle, Pete going off to school, and Pete on a bicycle, always grinning—always looking into the camera, that half serious, half teasing look in his eyes as though he knew some joke on the world no one else was aware of. The photographs ran out �140 The Summer People when he was around fourteen. In the last one, he was wearing lederhosen, his arm in a sling. Some of the muscles she had felt against her softer flesh could already be seen. His blond hair spilled over the edge of his eyebrows, and he looked directly into the camera, directly into her eyes with a persistent stare, the old grin gone, as though the broken arm, the fall from an Austrian mountain side, had somehow revealed to him the fact that he had only eighteen more years to walk the green earth. Anna turned the last page and stared curiously at the large photograph which had been taped faced-down to the inside surface of the album cover. Several small pieces of Scotch tape held it in place. She wondered what could possibly be in the photo. Whatever it was, Mrs. DeVoss had not wanted it seen by a casual observer, yet had not wished to destroy it. Using her fingernails, she peeled very slowly at the tape until it came loose without tearing the surface to which it adhered. Then she stopped, feeling guilty. But she knew that was not going to discourage her, and she knew that soon, in the next few minutes or half hour, she would have overcome it. Oh, hell, she thought, why put it off? She worked more rapidly with the strips of tape, still succeeding in removing them intact. She turned the photograph over and stared at it. It was a color print of Maud DeVoss as a young woman—Maud DeVoss gloriously naked. And she was beautiful. Long auburn hair �John Foster West 141 flowed down across her shoulders and down her back, out of sight, to her waist. Her face was without blemish, the wrinkles of age concealed far below the surface of the creamy white skin. There was a provocative, daring look about her halfclosed eyes and open lips, as though she invited all the men in the world to visit her. Anna thought she had seen that expression on the face of Jean Harlow, in an old movie magazine she had thumbed through somewhere. But the love goddess in this photograph did not recline. She stood with her back to Butterfly Falls, her right knee crooked, her arms hanging loosely. In the background, Butterfly Falls was suspended in time, silent forever, holding still with the eternal state of the beautiful woman. Anna tried to visualize Dr. DeVoss holding the camera and imagine what he was thinking as he laughed at his seductive wife. She wondered if perhaps in a glimmer of perception, he had looked beneath that white skin and that flowing hair to glimpse the wrinkles shining against the bones beneath. Suddenly she was very sad. She looked down at her own white arm and shuddered. Carefully, she taped the photograph back in place, rewrapped the album, and returned it to its place beneath the blankets. Afterwards, she took off her clothes and entered the bathroom, closing the door. She posed before the full-length mirror. Her body was as it had been the last time she looked. The fine �142 The Summer People flesh, all of her was the same. She really was pretty! She could see no shadow lines of age, no ugly shadows against her white bones. She leaned closer and examined her face, stretching the skin with her fingertips. It was still young and unblemished. She inhabited the same world as the photograph of Maud DeVoss, but her world was ticking toward the world Mrs. DeVoss now occupied. She suddenly felt time pressing on her like a stream of invisible sand pouring down on her from above. She sighed and returned to her bedroom, dressing again. The next Saturday was cold and cloudy, a cold breeze tousling the leaves outside the cabin. During the morning, dressed in a cardigan sweater and slacks, Anna drove to Boone to shop at a supermarket. It was not good weather for mountain tourism. Nevertheless, the narrow roads were as busy as a line of ants with lowlanders coming up for the weekend. Most of the license plates were local, although there were a few from adjacent states and an occasional one from farther away. Few of them were from Florida, she noted. Most of the Florida summer citizens had already begun their seasonal sojourn, and it was a bit early in the morning and much too cool for them to be abroad. On the way home, Anna stopped at Sparr's Store for some needles and thread, which took only a few minutes. While she was waiting for the storekeeper to get the purchase from the ancient show- �John Foster West 143 case, she listened to the two old-timers who were huddled close to the cold stove. "Yep, hit's snowed in this county in ever month but July," one of them stated. "Yeah," the other agreed, "we's bound to have a frost this year in August. You mark my word and set it down. The signs is right." "Hit wouldn't s'prise me a-tall," the first agreed. As Anna drove away from the store, she tried to conceive of snow in June and frost in August. It taxed her imagination. She shivered and laughed, wondering whether she could endure one cold winter up here above three thousand feet, when the chill factor was sometimes twenty below. Winter was not for her. Summer was beautiful here, but winter at some lower, warmer altitude was her idea of living sanely. In the early afternoon there was a knock at the cabin door. Anna crossed the floor, a bit relieved because she expected it to be Jay Webber. She had seen him only once since her quick look at him at the Singing. He had come by briefly on Tuesday to deliver a letter from Maud DeVoss. (Her sister was resting easier, but she had decided not to return to the mountains just now.) The truth was, Anna was a little lonely and eager to see Jay. Perhaps they could go on a short horseback ride or something. The trouble was that it was Saturday, and she knew it. She had always been loneliest on Saturdays during her six years alone because it had �144 The Summer People been on the weekends that she was able to spend the most time with Pete, and they usually went out on Saturday nights. She opened the door, smiling, but felt the elastic of her facial tissue slip back into neutral, which must have registered her disappointment. Anyway, the bright smile on Beatrice Wayne's face faded. "Hi!" she said brightly. "Remember me?" "Sure. Mrs. Wayne—Beatrice. Do come in." Beatrice Wayne entered, and Anna closed the door. "It's a bit chilly today," her visitor said. "Yes. If it keeps on with this rain and cold, they'll probably have frost here in August." Beatrice laughed. "You're kidding. It's not possible." "Oh, its quite possible," Anna argued. "Have a seat." She took one of the stuffed chairs near the fireplace and Beatrice Wayne sat in another. "I'll tell you one thing," Beatrice asserted, hugging herself and pretending to shiver, "it frosts up here two nights in a row, and the Wayne family is heading back for sunny Florida." "Could I get you a drink?" Anna asked. "Or perhaps some hot tea?" "Hot tea would hit the spot, thanks." Anna got up and went over to put water on a burner, then prepared tea cups. Beatrice Wayne told her she had walked all the way from her house through the woods, and she complained about the distance. "If you just had a telephone, I could have �John Foster West 145 called you," she continued. "I just could not live without a telephone. Of course, I've been planning to visit you. I would have driven over if I had remembered how darn far it was." "Didn't you ever walk over when the DeVosses were here?" "Oh, many times. But I was a kid then, mostly. I had good wind. Besides—" She stopped there. Anna wondered if the besides had anything to do with Pete. She carried the cups of tea back to her guest, who took one of them. Anna sat back down, then sipped the hot, lemony brew. "Well, now, how did you like Mark Grunwald?" Beatrice asked, looking into her tea. Anna stopped, her cup halfway to her mouth. She would have bet her old pantyhose that was the reason for the visit. For a moment she resented it, then thought, who cares? It was not that important. "Oh, okay, I guess. He's a real gentleman of the world." "He's considered quite a catch by the summer people." Beatrice caught her eyes briefly, then looked away. "For whom?" "For whom!" Anna's guest laughed. "For any single woman that can get him." She hesitated. "Or any woman, for that matter. It's not a complicated matter anymore to become single." "No," Anna agreed. "All a woman has to do is to have a husband who gets killed." �146 The Summer People "Oh, honey, I'm sorry." She reached over and patted Anna's arm, spilling some of her tea. "I didn't intend to bring back memories. I was just kidding, naturally." "No offense. I just stated it as a fact." "Did—did you get along with Mark all right? He wouldn't talk about it to me." "Why should he?" Anna had not meant to sound so firm. "Oh, don't misunderstand me." She reached out to pat Anna's arm again, but she moved it before Beatrice could slop any of her tea onto her knees. "I was talking with him, and he brought the subject up himself. He just said how very pretty you are and how he wished he could see more of you. I mean be with you more." "That was sweet of him." "Did you-all have fun?" Beatrice Wayne hesitated. "I mean—" "Do you mean, did we go to bed?" Anna asked politely. "If so, the answer is no, we didn't." "Oh, Anna, you know I didn't mean that, really," she protested. "You know I wouldn't ask you anything like that." "Well, just in case you are curious, we didn't." "Oh, I could have guessed that." Beatrice reached out to touch her again, then withdrew her hand. "What I really came over here for—I mean aside from a neighborly visit—was to ask you over to play bridge tonight. My husband's brother is up �John Foster West 147 from Orlando for a week, and we—George and I—thought it might be good for both of you to socialize a little. I mean you and Phil, my brotherin-law." "I would be glad to come over. But bridge— don't you remember when I met you at the lodge, I told you I don't play bridge?" "Oh, dear!" Beatrice Wayne looked incredulous. "Don't play bridge! Well, I declare. Well, what do you play?" Anna managed a narrow little smile. "I'm a fairly good poker player." "Poker! I mean poker?" Anna's guest nodded, her face twisted in puzzlement. "My husband was a Navy jet pilot. He thought bridge was a game to keep the hands busy while women gossiped." "Yes. Well, I suppose we could play a little poker. That would be fun, I suppose." "It's settled then. What time should I come over?" "Oh, I'll send Phil after you. We're invited to a little reception at the lodge earlier in the evening. How would eight-thirtyish be?" "Eight-thirtyish will suit me fine," Anna said. "But I insist, I'll just come on over. I can't stay late, though. This mountain air gets to me. I usually retire early." "That'll be fine, then." Beatrice Wayne stood up. "We'll be expecting you around eight-thirty." �148 The Summer People Anna started to offer her a ride back to her cabin, but changed her mind. "See you then," she said, as she moved to open the door. Some little niggling quirk at the back of her mind insisted that Anna walk to the Wayne cabin rather than drive. Although twilight beneath the forest roof preceded the setting of the sun, the old path between the summer homes was easy to follow. Anna wondered how many times young Pete DeVoss had walked this way to play with prissy little Beatrice Paulson, and felt a sharp little pingl of jealousy explode somewhere in the uncharted regions of her mind. Once, she stopped to watch five or six wee folk doing a square dance circle in the gloom beneath a holly tree, but when she blinked, they had vanished. She frowned in disappointment and continued her walk, her red pantsuit a shadow among shadows. Fireflies began exploding among the trees like the birth and death of distant stars. "Oh, you walked!" Beatrice Wayne commented, when she opened the door. "Yes," Anna said. "It was not all that far. Only a few hundred yards." Phil Wayne was a big, blond man, perhaps twenty-five. Within two minutes after the game had started, Anna was made aware of the fact that he was a vice-president of one of the five Wayne banks in central and north Florida. Anna did not ask, but she was certain the banks were family enterprises, probably established by Father or Grand- �John Foster West 149 father Wayne. How else could a man not long out of college become the vice-president of a bank? He wore a white sport shirt open almost to his navel, displaying his deeply tanned,, almost hairless chest. He wore a smile as white as his shirt, and his hair, almost to his collar, any female would have envied. He was not feminine, though. He was quick to let her know he had been a linebacker at Florida State and a letterman in tennis. Did she play tennis? Did she play golf? He had another week's vacation. He would have to try her out next week if her calendar was not too full. Perhaps they could borrow the Webbers' horses and go for a ride. He knew some bridle paths leading to beautiful scenery—like Holy Rood Rock—since he had ridden with that local fellow (What was his name? Oh, yes, Jay—Jay Webber) last summer. A peckerwood, but a darn considerate chap. Anna felt her nape bristling and started to retort, then dropped it. After all, who was this Florida cracker? Jay did not need her to defend him. Although her drinks had relaxed her and subdued her impatience, Anna was restless. The game, draw poker, was mostly slipshod and quiet except for the occasional chatter from Beatrice or the recreational autobiography of Phil, who drove a Corvette, flew the bank's Beechcraft, owned a twinengine cabin cruiser, water skied, snow skied, piloted a racing boat, and was taking lessons to fly the company helicopter. Anna found herself wonder- �150 The Summer People ing when in hell he found the time to play vicepresident of a bank. She wondered how he and silent George could have come from the same tree, unless their mother had only one tongue to go around and Phil inherited it. Beatrice had to interpret George's silence and occasional grunts for Anna. Phil apparently knew the language. "Summer is nothing up here for sports," Phil was saying. "You ought to come up here in the winter. They've got six or seven ski resorts around here. A couple of them have runs that are fairly challenging. Have you ever skied, Anna?" Anna nodded, studying her hand. "On the Chesapeake Bay." "No! I mean real skiing—snow skiing." He leaned toward her, smiling. "The deepest snow I ever saw was about three inches," she said. "It closed Norfolk down for three days." "Well, you ought to come back up here in January and February." Phil leaned forward against the table, plunging down a slope into the cold wind. "You'd love to ski. I could teach you in no time. I belong to the Ski Patrol." "I just knew you did," Anna nodded solemnly. "I would have bet you were a Ski Patrolman." "Draw, again," Beatrice announced. It was dealer's choice. "Deuces and one-eyed Jacks are wild." �John Foster West 151 "Jesus, Sis," Phil complained, "why don't you just make the whole deck wild?" "Are you kidding?" Beatrice argued. "That would take all chance out of the game." Anna had to admit that Phil Wayne was a bright kid, even when talking. As the evening progressed, more and more of the coins accumulated in front of him. By eleven, Anna was out of chips, including two dollars extra she had brought along, a total of five dollars and twenty cents. But of more importance to her, she was weary of the game, weary of the Waynes, and under the influence of the cool mountain air, was too sleepy to pretend any longer. She wanted to be alone. The second after she excused herself for the evening, Anna realized where she had made her mistake—by walking to the Wayne cabin instead of driving. Phil Wayne had the answer. "Oh, I'll drive you home. It's too far to walk in the dark. I must. I insist." Anna knew he would. She was a bit tipsy from the drinks, and anyway, she did not feel like arguing. Anna was afraid for a moment he would insist on carrying her to his car. He almost lifted her into the bucket seat of the low-swung vehicle, then vaulted the hood toward the driver's side. In a moment they were out of the yard and heading up the Ridge Road, Phil Wayne talking, talking, talking. What a way to spend a Saturday evening, she thought. Way ahead, the �152 The Summer People Webber farmhouse was a dark, rectangular mass against a lighter sky. She wondered if Jay were asleep or somewhere with the redhead she had seen him with at the Singing. She felt a little lurch of regret at the possibility, but it passed quickly. Phil Wayne did not touch her except to help her out of the car. When she stumbled on the front steps, he grabbed her left arm, steadying her, then let her go. Damn, but she was tight, tighter than she realized or had intended, probably because she had eaten very little all day. She groped for the keyhole, found it, inserted the key, and the door swung inward. It was at that moment Phil Wayne touched her. He seized her in his arms, drew her to him, and found her mouth with his. Anna started to shove him away, then thought better. Perhaps a quick kiss would satisfy him and send him home more quickly. But he had other ideas. For a moment Anna's mind whirled away toward alcoholic indiscretion. He removed his mouth from hers. "I just knew you would be like this," he panted. "Yes. Yes. I knew you would." Promise you'll wait till I return. Anna went tense. "Like what?" "Warm," he whispered. "Exciting!" "I'm not like that at all," she stated, pushing at him. "Knock it off! That's enough, buster." But she could not budge his bulk. She braced a �John Foster West 153 forearm against his chest and shoved, but it only moved her backward tighter against the wall, where he trapped her. All of a sudden his closeness repelled her. She did not want him close to her. The cracker called Jay a peckerwood. Wish he were here. Let him go back to the Sunshine State and brag to his friends at the bank— "Come on, beautiful," he crooned in her ear. "You know you don't want to fight me." With her right hand, Anna tried to reach his face with her fingernails, but he caught her wrist with his left hand. Her left hand was trapped behind her against the wall. Relax a moment, the ghost voice whispered deep in her brain. Remember what I taught you. Relax, then when he relaxes, you know what to do. The short hair bristled on the nape of her neck. She could feel the blood draining from her face, but briefly she felt more secure with the living flesh of Phil Wayne close to her. But for only a moment. Then she relaxed and Phil Wayne placed his arms back around her. She pushed him gently, and he moved backward just enough. Abruptly, her right knee flashed upward and caught him in the crotch. He bellowed a hoarse, coughing groan and doubled over, clutching himself with both hands. She slipped from between him and the wall, darted through the doorway, and shoved the cabin door closed. She stood there in the dark panting, terrified that he would be intoxi- �154 The Summer People cated enough and stupid enough to break into the cabin and attack her again. She remembered Pete's advice clearly now. "Women have no pain equivalent," he had laughed. Her breathing had slowed to normal, and her heart had quieted when she heard the engine of the Corvette come to life. She smiled a tight smile of relief and crossed the cabin to her bedroom, turning on the light. Afterwards, she stood under a hot shower for half an hour, almost scalding herself clean. �Chapter X She sat on a mossy rock somewhere in the forest watching the wee folk square-dancing. She did not see any musicians, but the little people, in their white and black pilgrim clothes, danced wildly, like Breughel's peasants, their heads thrown back, silent laughter ringing toward the sky. Suddenly the dancing stopped and the wee folk whirled to face her, looking beyond her, their faces warped by fear. Only a moment they stood frozen in their tracks. Then they whirled and fled beneath some healalls. Anna started to turn and look behind her, but she was too late. A powerful hand seized her right arm, whirled her onto her back. She felt a hairy chest flatten her and coarse hair cutting into her skin like steel wool. Both her wrists were grasped now. She tried to rear up, but was pressed back. She could think of no defense that Pete had taught her. She was half terrified and half fascinated. She opened her eyes and stared upward. The face was indistinct, but the kinky hair and beard were in vague silhouette against the starry sky and seemed familiar. The thick neck which came down to press 155 �156 The Summer People against her face had a familiar smell, one remembered from a long time ago. She opened her mouth to plead, but could not speak. Her eyes were open now, and she was staring at the shadowy ceiling above the bed. The weight was gone from her chest, but she thought she could still smell a faint musk in the room. She tossed her head to the side. The window was open, but the screen was closed and latched. She heard a noise at the window. Tilting her head again, she stared in that direction. She thought she saw a shadowy silhouette against the outer darkness. She whirled to the edge of the bed, lifting the lid of the window seat and groping downward inside it. She found the button that rang the bell in the Webber house. Her hand relaxed and she stared back at the window, squinting. There was nothing there. Of course there was not. She started to withdraw her hand, hesitated. All she had to do was press the button. Her finger stiffened on it. In ten minutes or less, perhaps only five, Jay would be there inside the house. Why had she not been tempted before? Was it because fantasies seemed more possible, more acceptable in the middle of the night, when she usually slept? Anyway, she was unafraid for the present. She removed her hand from inside the box and let the lid fall. Suddenly she was chilly. Reaching down, she pulled the sheet and blanket over her- �John Foster West 157 self, curled into a tight spiral, and smiled in comfort. She felt good through and through. Gad, but the bed was comfortable. She went back to sleep, still smiling. Anna DeVoss sat at the large oval table in the Webber combination kitchen-dining room, a room large enough to hold a dance in, she thought. Around ten o'clock that morning she had heard the roar of Jay's Scout outside the cabin. He had come with the invitation from his mother to a Fourth of July dinner (a noon meal to Mrs. Webber), and Anna had been happy to accept. Independence Day was warm and hazy, but not muggy here in the mountains. Jay had shown her about the farm, the granary, the small greenhouse, the smokehouse, and the stone basement beneath the kitchen area, where Burley tobacco was cured. Now, the four of them ate—Jay, Anna, Hilda, and Mrs. Webber, who did most of the talking. It was as though she had saved her word-hoard during the quiet days of the working week, Anna thought, and spent it on whoever there was to listen on weekends and holidays. Her reddish graystreaked hair was combed back and wound into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Wearing her navy-blue Sunday dress, Mrs. Webber did not appear to Anna to be a hard working farm woman until she looked at the older woman's hands, �158 The Summer People cracked and calloused as any man's who has spent a lifetime in the fields. Anna's glance flickered to Hilda, beside her mother. She sat in her chair as prim as a first-year student in a boarding school. Her red dress, patterned with white daisies, was neatly laundered, and her long hair swept down her back, held in order behind, Anna had noticed earlier, by a silver barrette. Her whole attention was on her food and the ritual of eating it, lifting each forkful slowly and placing it in her mouth as carefully as though she expected it to burn her. She glanced at Anna now and then, but mostly, she practiced a pantomime she had been carefully rehearsed in for a long time. Wearing what seemed to be the same faded jeans and sleeveless blue sports shirt, Jay sat across from Anna. Now and then their eyes would meet, like a tentative fingertip-to-fingertip touch by two people in a dark room. At those times, a ripple of laugh wrinkles would appear about his eyes, hedged in by hairline and beard, but Anna could not tell whether they were from amusement or pleasure. He ate methodically as though counting the calories, pausing now and then to stare through the window beyond Anna, his mind apparently far away. "I got seven younguns," Mrs. Webber was saying. "There's Hilder and Jay, my youngst'uns. Then there's Goldie and Ruth and Maybell, living �John Foster West 159 here and yander." She grinned. "Already fetched me eight grandchildrens. Then I got two older boys, Abe and Sandy. They's both off yander in Dee-troit and Denver. Couldn't neither of 'em abide working on the farm. That's why Jay's got to manage things—" "Mamma!" Jay protested. Martha Webber laughed. "Jay don't take to me talkin about him to nobody. He's my youngun that's most inside hisself. He's my brightest 'un, too." She chuckled. "Although he don't behave like it most of the time." Jay Webber grinned and caught Anna's eye. "Mamma thinks I'm bright because I get things done without killing myself working at it." "No, I don't think no sech a thing," his mother argued. "That's the part I think is lazy. Hard work is good for soul and body." "Mamma, may I be excused to go to the bathroom, please?" Hilda Webber asked. "Sure, honey. Be careful to flush the toilet, now, and wash your hands before you come back to the table." "Yes, Mamma." The girl left, disappearing through the doorway to Anna's left, leading to the main part of the house. The food was delicious. The main dish was fried chicken, but the vegetables appealed to Anna's taste the most. There were string beans sea- �160 The Summer People soned with pork, and mashed potatoes. There was also a dish she had never tasted before, leaf lettuce covered with sliced spring onions, wilted by pouring some hot bacon grease over them. This early in the summer, leaf lettuce and spring onions were about the only vegetables the garden produced here in the mountains, Mrs. Webber had told her earlier, especially if the season is late. There were sliced tomatoes, tasty and tart, not like the plastic* blobs she was able to buy in the supermarket, picked and shipped green. Anna loved homegrown, vine-ripened tomatoes. "I didn't think tomatoes were ripe up here in the mountains yet," she said. "They are delicious." "That's one of the reasons I think Jay's smart," Martha Webber grinned. "He tuck over one of my greenhouses I use for flowers (she pronounced it flairs) and growed some early tomatoes in there. Uses jest manure and woods mulch to feed'em. They are good, aint't they?" "It was a simple job," Jay said. "That's the way I'm raising everything in the garden down at Riverglade." "Now, honey, you know better'n that," Mrs. Webber said firmly. "Get back to your room and get your dress back on." Anna turned her head. Hilda stood in the doorway, naked except for her panties. "But, Mamma, I wet my dress." �John Foster West 161 Anna's eyes shifted to Jay, as he turned to look at his sister. "Hilda, baby, we have company," he said. "Please! Go back and put a dress on." "Get you another clean frock out of your dresser drawer," Martha Webber said. "Now you know you mustn't come in here like that." "All right, Mamma." The girl turned around and disappeared back through the doorway. Anna studied Martha Webber covertly and envied her children their mother. "Jay will excuse me if I tell you he don't like running the farm much," Mrs. Webber said. "After J.W. passed on, they wasn't nobody else to manage. I couldn't. We let the backer allotment out to a tenant farmer, but we got a share. Mack Jones is honest enough, but Burley backer needs to be tuck care of like a sick baby. Jay knows how it's got to be done, and so he manages it. If he had his druthers, he'd druther not do much of anything but raise a garden and a few acres of other stuff." "After a man has worked himself to death," Jay protested, "all he's got to show for it is a hole in the ground and property left for his kin to fight over." "They won't be no fightin over this here farm," his mother argued. "That's because Dad was smarter than most farmers. He made plans for his land." "Mountain lands is breakin up," Martha Webber explained to Anna. "This generation cares �162 The Summer People but little or nothin about real farmin. Most of 'em are leaving home for factories and professions, them that ain't already left. They was a time when everbody that could manage it, around here, sent their girls to Appalachian State Teachers College— it's a university now, but it was a fine teachers college for year upon year. Then the girls would marry some local boy, and they'd farm and have a good income from her a-teachin in a nearby school and her man a-runnin the farm. But things has changed. Boys and girls both are a-goin to the university, here and way off yander, some'ers, and the land is gettin broke apart into sections and lots for them rich lowlanders to invest in or so's they can spend the summers up here where it's cool at. And they ain't no more plan to the developin and buildin than a house on fire. Big old mansions and scabby trailers are a settin next door to one another like a frog in a flower garden." "Yet there's no other place worth living, at least for me," Jay said. "You couldn't pay me to leave these mountains anymore." "But don't you get bored up here sometimes?" Anna was arguing with him. She felt it was a point she needed to make. "I mean, this summer so far has been wonderful for me, different. But isn't that because it's a new experience? Deep down, I feel restless, quite often, as though—" She was thoughtful for a few seconds—"as though I wanted to go home and couldn't remember where home is." �John Foster West 163 "You're becoming one of us," Jay laughed. "If you weren't, you'd remember where your home is." Anna opened her mouth to deny what he had said, then thought better. After all, there was nothing to protest against, even though she was sure what he had said was untrue. �Chapter XI Jay Webber had invited Anna to attend the nineteenth annual Highland Games and Gathering of the Scottish Clans, on Saturday, July 13, at McRae Meadows, under Grandfather Mountain, where she had attended alone the "Singing on the Mountain." The event was to last two days, Saturday and Sunday, but Jay was chiefly interested in the track and field competition, which took place on Saturday. He asked her to be ready by 6:00 A.M. so they could escape the frustrating traffic, and Anna, remembering her experience at the Singing, agreed. It was already daylight as they sped along the winding highway toward Linville in Jay's Scout, but a sky full of woolly fog hung a few hundred feet above the treetops, canceling out sunrise or any other means of telling direction. Grandfather Mountain was buried from below his chin upward, including Galloway Peak, his nose, the highest elevation in the Blue Ridge Chain. Jay's concession to family tradition and the MacTavish Clan (actually a family of the Campbell Clan) was a pair of trousers made of MacTavish tartan—a plaid with a red background, lines of 164 �John Foster West 165 light blue and black running through it. His shirt was a non-symbolic light blue pullover. Anna wore a Campbell tartan scarf about her head, which Mrs. Webber had supplied. Jay had not attended the gathering in more than five years, he told her. In his late teens and early twenties he had worn the whole regalia: kilt, sporran, tarn, everything; but he had lost interest in any kind of group identity, Anna gathered from what he did not say. She also sensed that his main reason for attending today was that he thought she might find it interesting. "The guest of honor this year is from Clan Malcolm, Argyll, Scotland," Jay explained, as he made the last turn at the Linville traffic light and headed toward Grandfather Mountain on 221. "The chief of a clan is invited from Scotland each year to renew the kinship between American and native clansmen. Some of the games are traditional Scottish contests, and some, like the track and jumping events, are universal. It was a good idea to start with, a real celebration of tradition, but I'm afraid it's getting too polluted by tourists." "Why is the gathering here?" Anna asked. "I mean, why not somewhere else?" "The Carolina mountains are full of descendants of Scottish immigrants." They were climbing now under a canopy of green foliage, swinging from curve to curve with the rhythm of a roller coaster, up the west side of the Blue Ridge. "Many refugees of the Jacobean troubles ended up here, �166 The Summer People because it was so much like the highlands, I'm sure. Some of the most common names are McRae, McNeal, McGee, McLeod, MacTavish, Scott, Ross, MacLeon, Davidson, Hay, Witherspoon (originally Wotherspoon), and so on. It's ironic that many of them are really humble farmers or low-income families who ignore their heritage and would never consider going to the trouble of coming to one of these gatherings, up here. Yet most of them I'm talking about have a greater family right to wear the tartan than most of those who will be here today, pretenders who are only indirectly connected to a Scottish clan." "I suppose it's like you said earlier: some people feel a need to belong somewhere special. Perhaps they are ordinary, which I don't mean to be a criticism, and any kind of relationship to a proud heritage like the Scots have gives them a feeling of importance." Jay nodded his head thoughtfully, but Anna was not sure whether he actually heard what she had said. He was once again off in his own little universe, leaving his flesh beside her. They encountered no other vehicle on the climb to McRae Meadows, but when they arrived, they discovered a small city had preceded them. The grassy area on the right side of the highway was filled with campers, trailers, and cars around its margin, people who had arrived the day before. On the left side of the road, campers and cars �John Foster West 167 stretched from sight in the cleared areas beneath the trees and in the grass along the edge of the vast upland meadow. Jay pulled into the entrance to the grounds, backed around, and parked on the grassy shoulder of the highway, with a light pole a few feet behind him, giving him enough space to back up and escape if someone should park too close to his front bumper. They sat in the car for a while drinking coffee from a thermos bottle Jay had brought, listening to a radio station in Morganton, hardly hearing it and saying very little. Shortly after they parked, other vehicles began to arrive but they were infrequent, this early, and had little trouble finding a parking place. Most of them drove directly up the lane, directed by an attendant with a walkie-talkie, and into the lower area of McRae Meadows, where they would be stuck without escape until the day's activities were over and they had to creep in line out of the area. At eight o'clock, Anna and Jay left the Scout. Jay bought tickets at three dollars each for the first day, and they walked up the forest lane towards the meadow. Anna noted as they passed them, cars and campers from many states, several from as far away as Michigan and Canada. Already, tourists and fourth and fifth-generation American Scotsmen were beginning to wander about the huge field. A stocky couple in kilts, hose, and tarns waddled past Anna and Jay, holding hands. Both had long hair and both had a sturdy �168 The Summer People walk, making it difficult to tell which was the male and which the female. Jay argued that the man was on the right because the rear of the other one rotated a bit farther with each step. They got scrambled eggs, ham, biscuits and coffee in cardboard containers at a stand and sat down on a rock to eat. Anna's eyelids were heavy and grainy. She felt like stretching out on the grass and going back to sleep. At nine, the sun broke through the rising fog as though a clock had been set for that moment. Tourists were beginning to pour into the lower half of the meadow now, streaming down the lanes between parked vehicles. Canvas kiosks were opening up, stretched along the middle of the meadow, offering everything for sale Scottish and a great deal that was not. They moved from stand to stand, examining the goods and their prices. Clan tartan kilts, little more than wraparounds, sold for $45 to $60. Tartan ties were $5 to $10, depending on their width. There was a variety of caps, tarns, scarfs, sporrans, belts, socks, and other clothing. There was bolt upon bolt of tartan fabric. One could buy clan books, clan maps, family crests, ashtrays, cups, plates, banners, and badges which read "Kiss me, I'm Scottish" or "Scotland Forever." There were also expensive jewelry and junk jewelry—the sort that tourists revel in. One kiosk specialized in Scottish food, including short bread and haggis—lamb, seasoning, and oatmeal stuffed into a lamb's stomach. They stopped to watch an old white-haired �John Foster West 169 gentleman hobble by dressed in expensive Scottish attire, sporran hair dangling far down between his bowed legs. He walked painfully by using one of those S-curved, knotty "hoot mon" canes Anna had seen in pictures. "Old Great-grandpa Abe MacTavish would kick these stands down, if he could see them," Jay muttered. "Money changers in the temple of tradition." "But the goods are authentic, aren't they?" "Yes, a hell of a lot more authentic than the Cherokee tomahawks and headdresses made in Formosia you'll find in the southwestern part of the state, around Cherokee. At least it was like that a few years ago." He stopped suddenly and turned, waving with the back of his hand toward the milling, elbowing throng around them, as if attempting to part the Red Sea with a gesture. "But these people, eighty percent of them, are descendants of immigrants from everywhere but Scotland. There's something phony about selling ancestral symbols to aliens, if I can use that word. And even I've got to go back three generations to find pure Scot blood." "It's the publicity," Anna said. "I bet you could have a gathering of orangutangs and write it up in papers or put it on TV, and you would have thousands of summer tourists who would come, claiming a distant ancestor was an orangutang chief." Jay Webber stared at her, a strange look in his �170 The Summer People eyes, his mouth grim. Suddenly he burst out laughing and whacked her on her arm, stinging her. "You know, I think there's hope for you yet." Anna resented the pain briefly, but let it pass. She remembered Pete had said once that if you had a brown-nosing contest, and advertised it, you would get a stadium full of long noses from everywhere. She started to tell Jay, but thought better. That was something that belonged to her and her husband. Jay escorted her through the gate between the lines of kiosks and out into the upper half of the meadow, the center of which was dominated by an official quarter-mile oval track around a grassy field, where high-jump, broad-jump, pole vault, and shot-put areas could be seen. The hillside to the left was terraced and offered tiers on which spectators had already gathered, sitting in folding chairs or on spread blankets. Jay and Anna sat in the grass on the upper tier to the right of the reviewing stand, a platform with a canvas roof, the microphone already manned by someone who called himself the Field Marshal. "Traffic is backed up all the way to Linville, two miles," the Field Marshal announced. Anna looked at her watch. It was 9:45. He had said it as though it were some kind of record, perhaps better than last season, when the traffic did not reach that mark until later in the day. She started to call Jay's attention to the time, �John Foster West 171 when the microphone came alive again. "Will the owner of the Buick station wagon blocking the driveway into the field please move it?" the voice requested. "Otherwise, it will be towed away at your expense." "I be damned! Would you believe that?" Jay commented. "He wanted to park close," Anna replied. "The driveway was obviously the only space in three miles of here he could get his little old Buick wagon in. He's a citizen. He's got rights." Jay laughed. "You wouldn't believe that anyone, I mean anyone, would be that stupid, would you? Now he, or she, is going to lose twice as much time moving as he would have lost parking sensibly in the first place." "That's democracy, Jay. You are free to be bright, mediocre, or stupid. Everyone can't be bright." On two platforms down on the athletic field, children were doing the Highland Fling. They appeared to be all girls, but a boy would have been hard to spot from that distance, in a kilt and wearing long hair. The strident skirl of a bagpipe filled the air like the protest of a giant insect caught in a web, as bonnie lassies, from four feet to five feet, ten inches tall did their Scottish ballet, most of the motion vertical. Although there was a monotony to the repetition of the steps, Anna could see a wild grace in the dance and felt her nape prickle at the �172 The Summer People music. For a brief few seconds, she understood how warriors in kilts, their bottoms bare, could follow that music into battle, called by the enemy the Ladies from Hell. "Did you know," Jay asked, "that the typical mountain fiddle music was originally an attempt to imitate the sound of the bagpipe?" "No, I didn't know that," Anna said. "Did you know it?" Jay chuckled. "You blase smarty! No, I didn't know it, but I have been told that the Scottish immigrants to these mountains invented mountain fiddling because they missed bagpipe music. I was not told why they didn't bring bagpipes with them." "You anticipated my question." "I'm getting to know you," he sang off key. They ate a production-line lunch and watched athletic competition in the afternoon. By one o'clock the grounds surrounding the field were so thick with spectators it was difficult to walk in any direction. The huge boulders along the upper edge of the meadows were so crowded, Anna was reminded of sunning seals on a rocky shore. The track and field events were sanctioned by the AAU, Jay explained, and any record set would be an official one. But as it turned out, only local track records were broken. Anna was not impressed, nor was Jay. Had it not been for the atmosphere and the setting, she would just as soon have been back at the cabin reading a book. The mile and two-mile �John Foster West 173 runs were very slow, compared to world records. The hundred-yard dash was exciting only because it was explosive. Anna found the caber toss the most interesting event because it was the most alien to her experience. The caber was a twenty-foot log which weighed from a hundred to a hundred forty pounds. The contestant picked it up from the ground, keeping it as vertical as possible, lifting it with both hands beneath the small end, rushed forward and hurled it top end first. The point was to toss it end over end so that it fell in line with the run, and not the distance thrown. The sport originated from a method of building bridges in a hurry, Jay told her. The sheaf toss and the toss of the clach—stone strength—a large, smooth stone which weighed about fourteen pounds, were also interesting. They missed the most unusual happening of the day when a man with a hang glider sailed from the chin of Grandfather Mountain, fifteen hundred feet to a golf course at the foot of the mountain. Someone told them about it later. Anna tried to relate the glider flight to the Highland Games, but somewhere there was a contradiction. Late in the afternoon, before the masses of tourists got the same idea, Anna and Jay walked among the sprawling, standing, milling spectators, returning to the highway and Jay's Scout. As they drove back toward Linville, traffic was no problem, �174 The Summer People but the shoulder of the road on the right was a continuous line of parked vehicles. "Can you imagine what it will be like when all those cars and campers start leaving McRae Meadows?" Anna asked, out of a long silence. "Yes, I can." He looked at her, then back at the road. "That's why we're leaving now. These roads are not capable of handling this kind of traffic. Only four-lane roads could do it." Imagine what four lanes would do to these mountains." "That's our dilemma," he nodded. �Chapter XII The week following the Highland Games, Jay Webber started coming by Anna's cabin almost every day, suggesting some activity. On Monday he drove her several miles the other side of Boone, to the old Winebarger mill. His stated reason for making the trip was to buy some fresh-ground buckwheat flour, but she was sure the real reason was to show her the old water mill. A faded, dark structure of weatherboarding and shingles, it towered beside a small stream whose water ran eternally down the flume and overshot the rusty waterwheel, turning it, unless a trap was opened, allowing the water to fall short, splashing on the rocks below. The mill was over eighty years old and now run by the grandson of the first miller. Inside, the building was close and filled with a "mealy fragrance of the past," Anna thought. Always, with the wheel turning, the floor vibrated beneath her feet and the low rumble, along with the grating of meshing steel cogs, reminded her of an approaching avalanche of stones. All over the walls and beams, the names and addresses of customers from as far away as California and Maine 175 �176 The Summer People were written in square script, along with the amount of meal or buckwheat flour to be mailed and the intervals at which orders were to be sent. Some of them were dated 1887, 1900, and 1906. Anna had the weird feeling that she would walk back out through the door she used earlier, when she entered the old mill, step up into a buggy, and ride off at a fast trot. And to her surprise she almost wished she could. That night, Jay drove Anna out to Wisemans View, off Highway 181, and they sat for four hours staring at the dark bulk of Brown Mountain, trying to catch a glimmer of the ghostly Brown Mountain Lights, but all they saw were fireflies. On Tuesday, Jay came by her cabin with the horses and a picnic lunch his mother had packed, suggesting that they ride up to Holy Rood Rock. They passed by the dark green lake of growing tobacco, through which a man, a woman, and several teenagers waded slowly, at work. Jay told her about Burley 21, suckering, cutworms, and aphids, but she did not follow it too well. Raising tobacco seemed like more trouble than running a dairy. "That weed is a royal pain in the ankle," Jay swore. "And I'm getting fed up with it. It's like bottle-feeding a rattlesnake. It doesn't contribute a damn thing to mankind but trouble. I sometimes try to imagine the kind of vegetables you could grow with the same pampering." Anna looked at him curiously. "What's the oc- �John Foster West 177 casion for this sermon? I don't smoke, and I haven't seen you smoking." Jay laughed brusquely. "I'm sorry. One of my sore points. As far as I personally am concerned, raising tobacco is immoral. Yet I'm trapped, at least for this year. I have to manage it for Mamma and Hilda. But Mom doesn't really need the money anymore." They climbed halfway up Golgotha Mountain, following a winding bridle trail beneath tall oaks and poplars. Holy Rood Rock was far from symmetrical, but it was massive and intimidating. Anna stood beside her mount and stared up at it, subdued to silence, momentarily. Both vertical shaft and cross bar were of sedimentary rock, with strata easily visible in different shades of limestone and large fragments of quartz. The shaft, more than sixty feet tall, listed to the left. The right arm of the horizontal beam was shorter than the left, and the whole formation was tilted slightly from horizontal. Sometime in the dark geological past, Anna surmised, the two layers of rock had collided during earthquakes, had become fused, and millions of years of erosion had done the rest. It was the kind of cross a blind giant might have chiseled out, and for a moment a dark stone Christ three stories tall shimmered against it, before disappearing. A spring bubbled from the base of the cliff behind the cross and rushed down to the stone foundation, sweeping around both sides of the vertical shaft. �178 The Summer People "Whoever drinks of that spring," Jay said quietly, "will live in extremely good health." The spell was broken. Anna turned on him. "Aw, come on," she scoffed. "You don't really believe that crap!" "That's the tradition," he said. "The Indians believed it. There's a Cherokee myth that de Soto worshipped here on his way through the Appalachians to the Mississippi and that he took some of the water with him.' "If he did, the water didn't save him, did it?" She was thoughtful a moment. "Old Cortez would have crucified an Indian or two on it." "The Cherokees called it Equa-nvya-asgaya, Big Rock Man." He hesitated. "There's a better tradition than the one about the water, though." "Whoever eats a rock from beneath it will never have diarrhea?" Anna asked, smiling. "No, smarty. Whoever is married beneath Holy Rood Rock will never separate." Anna turned to look at him, another smart remark on the tip of her tongue. But Jay Webber was staring upward at the cross. And she did not want to change the expression on his face. "Are many couples married here?" she asked quietly. "Not any more." He lowered his head and stared back across Holy Rood Valley, which lay below in haze like a land beneath a translucent lake. A generation ago they did. My parents were married here. Our generation doesn't believe in such �John Foster West 179 magic. Besides, you can't get up here unless you walk or ride horseback. And I don't think many of the backpackers from outside even know about it." "You know what's going to happen, don't you?" "What?" He studied her face, eyes narrowed. "One day soon, they'll build a road up here. Hamburger stands will spring up. There'll be a picnic ground. The tourists will come with their candy wrappers, paper plates, cans, and bottles, and there will be mass weddings under the cross, televised. And little plastic Holy Rood Rocks will sell at five dollars each. And the bride and groom who kiss the longest will get a gold-filled dishwasher." Jay Webber laughed a scoffing little laugh. "You're a sardonic broad." "I'm not a broad, Jay. I'm Anna. Remember?" Reaching out, he took hold of her left arm, squeezing it, then let it go. "I'm sorry, Anna. I was kidding. But you're wrong about one thing—the tourists coming like that. This is one natural wonder that will never be corrupted." "Why not? Have you ever seen the mess left behind in the stadium, after the lions have eaten the Christians?" "Because of two unique men, Anna. My father and Dr. DeVoss bought over three hundred acres around the rock back when land was cheap. It belongs to Holy Rood Rock in perpetuity. No road can be built up here, not ever, unless America becomes a dictatorship." �180 The Summer People "Well I'll be—I'll be—damned." "Surprising, isn't it?" He took her by the arm and turned her to face him. "But don't be damned. Live in good health, my friend. Come on, let's drink." On the way back from the rock, Jay took her over a three-mile loop, far to the southeast of the Webber farmhouse, through woods and fallow fields rich with wildflowers. Wherever it was possible, especially in fallow fields, he rode beside her and pointed out numerous flowers, describing them to her, especially those medicinal or edible. Some of them she had already looked up in the book back at the cabin, but she did not tell him. He explained that the purple-tufted healall, a mint, was once used in folk medicine for throat ailments. He pointed to the scarlet flame of oswego tea, or bee-balm, which lit up the corner of an old rail fence like a flame. Horse mint, he told her, was important for its leaves and not for its purple flowers. The leaves were used as a medicine for colic, and the mint oil was distilled from them for flavoring. There was something quietly frantic about Jay Webber's instructions. He reminded Anna of a professor trying to cover the last chapter of a textbook on the last day of the semester. She kept studying him covertly, but he hardly looked away from the plants he was describing. The woolly-leaved mullen, or flannel-leaf, topped by a long, flowering stem, was used to make �John Foster West 181 cough medicine, he told her. In a fallow meadow he said his father had once mowed for its wild hay, he pointed to a tall, leafy cluster of plants with frosty-pink crown flowers. "That's queen-of-themeadow," he told Anna. "It's also called Joe-pye weed. People used to make a tonic of its roots for diarrhea." In a dark glade, they came upon an old stone chimney, a monument to some long-gone family, but grass and wildflowers and briars had covered any other signs that sorrow and laughter had once sat before the open fireplace. Nearby were several tall, thin plants with flowers so brilliantly blue they seemed to glow in the shadows of the briars and ragweeds. "Have you ever seen packages of coffee with chicory added printed on them?" Jay asked. "I used to have a girl friend whose parents used it," she replied. "That coffee was cheaper than most, she told me." "That's chicory." He pointed to the blue flowers. "That plant has a deep taproot, and it's dried up and ground, then mixed with coffee. It's supposed to make the coffee flavor better." He pointed out to her Turk's cap, which reminded her of tiger lilies with a strong wind blowing the petals back; yellow clustered primrose; and acres of asters, whose blue or white blossoms reminded her of tiny daisies. Once, as they rode beside a mass of granite beneath bush-topped field pines, Jay dismounted and pulled a handful of �182 The Summer People glossy leaves from a mass of herbs growing along the edges of the rock. Small urn-shaped pinkish flowers dotted the bed of leaves. Jay thrust some of the leaves into his mouth and began to chew them, handing a cluster up to her. She hesitated, then followed his example. The flavor was strong and unmistakably wintergreen, like her favorite mint. "That was teaberry plants," he said. "They're also called wintergreen by outsiders, for obvious reasons." When they finally reached the DeVoss cabin, Anna dismounted and leaned for a moment against Blitzen. She was exhausted. Jay Webber was slumped in his saddle staring at his hands, which held the reins loosely. Anna walked in front of the mare and handed her reins up to him. He glanced down at her, took them, then stared across the top of Anna's head, out into the woods. "Thanks for a nice day," she said. "I really enjoyed it." Looking back down at her, he smiled. She had the impression he had talked so much about plants, he was too tired to respond. She started to turn away, then turned back, squinting up at him through her huge sunglasses. "And thanks for the informative botany lecture, Professor." As he looked down at her, his mouth became narrow and straight between mustache and beard. His eyes narrowed. "I'd hoped you would get more �John Foster West 183 out of it than information," he stated. He did not wait for her to answer but wheeled his mount and rode off up the driveway through the woods, leading Blitzen. "Well, darn my hide!" Anna muttered, using a nicer version of an old Pete DeVoss expression. "I didn't aim to go and step on your bottom lip, neighbor." Jay did not come by on Wednesday. When he drove up in his scout around 10:00 A.M. on Thursday, he gave no explanation of his activities the day before. And, as a matter of fact, there was no reason he should have, Anna reasoned. Hearing the engine, she hurried out onto the front deck as he parked in the bay beside her car. He got out, stretched, and grinned. "Got any plans for today, tenderfoot?" "I had intended to write a book and a couple of songs," Anna said. "But I can do that any time. What did you have in mind, big, white hunter?" "I thought I'd take you up on the highest mountain in the promised land and show you all the kingdoms of the world." "Your cluttered metaphor eludes me. Specifically, what is your proposition, expressed in basic English?" "Would you, Anna DeVoss, like to go for a ride?" "Let's go." She slammed the cabin door and ran down the steps, vaulting into the passenger side of the front seat. �184 The Summer People Leaving the Holy Rood Valley, Jay turned left at the highway and headed toward Boone. He did not say much at first, but he glanced occasionally at her as though he wanted her to start a conversation. When he braked to a stop at the traffic light in Boone, at the intersection with U.S. 321, he leaned back and prodded her shoulder with an index finger. "Five or six years ago," he said, "this was still a peaceful little mountain town, an ideal spot for the university here. Now, it's getting to be a tourist Mecca, in the worst sense of the term, at least from my viewpoint. The traffic problem is atrocious in the summer, and every ski season it's getting worse in the winter. Would you believe that people by the score come up here to ski without either snow tires or chains? You can see their cars strung out along the shoulders and in the ditches when they get caught by a sudden snowstorm. They even try to climb the mountain on worn tires in falling snow." "Yes, I'd believe that," she said carefully. "It sounds like about par to me." She wondered if this was going to be another anti-tourist lecture and hoped there would be more to the ride than that. With no traffic interfering, Jay turned right on the red light and headed south on 321. They were on a four-lane stretch, paralleled by shopping centers and both old and new businesses. "Not long ago, say four years," Jay continued, "a long, grassy ridge lay to the left there, tapering �John Foster West 185 to end at Boone Creek—see the bank growth? Look how flat it is now, from that clay bluff to the creek. Perfect terrain for that shopping center. In an amazingly short time bulldozers and backhoes dug that ridge away, rocks and all, and trucks hauled it across the highway and dumped it into the low area on our right. Now we have a flat plain bisected by the creek, which will soon be going into a culvert, underground. One of these days they're going to have the damndest flood here you ever saw. "I miss the green ridge, but that doesn't bother me as much as the other digging still going on. What really bothers me is digging back into hillsides and ridges along the streets and roads, carving out notches to build in, leaving the clay banks and blasted rocks to distort the landscape. Many of those little old chain diners and dinky gift shops are built like that." "If there's demand for such food and such dowdy doodads, what do you object to?" Anna asked. She understood what he was getting at, but thought a devil's advocate might create a dialogue instead of a monologue of just bitching. "I object mostly because it's brash, two-bit, chrome-and-neon Americana. I simply object to that at its face value. If such building is permitted, then the builders should be forced to landscape the excavations—slant the banks and plant grass and shrubbery. The ticky-tacky tourist traps wouldn't look so atrocious with a bit of green around them." �186 The Summer People "Whoa, man!" Anna held up her hand. "You're getting emotional. Keep it rational or I can't follow you." Jay Webber laughed and dug her lightly in the side with his elbow. "You're my audience, baby. Ain't nobody else ever going to listen to me." The four lanes ran out, between tourist courts, and they followed the meandering course of U.S. 321 southward as it cut across ridges and traced a stream valley—past a bucolic meadow filled with trailers, past craft shops, past a summertime carnival, past another trailer court, past service stations and a package store. Once they met a long line of traffic backed up behind a gold Cadillac traveling at thirty miles an hour, the elderly passengers staring at the passing scenery. But they were lucky. The south lane remained empty in front of them, and they made good time. Passing the Town of Blowing Rock on the bypass, Jay maneuvered along the right shoulder of the Blue Ridge, following sharp curves along a sheer drop into a valley far below. Just as they started down the other side of the Blue Ridge, Jay cut suddenly into a little side street which shunted them off to the right. A short distance beyond, they reached a dead end in a large parking circle adjacent to a building that looked to Anna like just another craft shop. She could see they had stopped on the south slope of a steep section of the Blue Ridge because nothing but �John Foster West 187 space could be seen through the small trees and shrubbery at the ends of the building. Jay turned to her. "I'm going to show you one of nature's curiosities, Blowing Rock," he said. "It's been a landmark and a scenic attraction for generations. Back decades ago, it was free. Couples would drive up here from the Piedmont on Sundays in the '20's and '30's, even earlier in buggies. They would bring picnic lunches and spend a good part of the day courting. Now, of course, it's fenced in or fenced out, and a fee charged to visit the rock." "What makes it so special? I mean for couples to make an all-day excursion up here. The roads must have been rather difficult back then." "Wait until we get out on it. I mean the rock. I can show-and-tell at the same time." They entered the gift and craft shop. Jay paid for their admission, fifty cents each, and they exited through the west end of the building. She could see immediately that the formation was not an isolated rock at all but a rock cliff, with one long spear of stone projecting at an angle higher than the bluff line and creating a center of interest. As they walked southward along the rim, she could see that the cliff face dropped only a short distance, ending on the slope of the mountain, dense with small trees and undergrowth. But the mountain itself dropped off so precipitously into the misty valley, it gave the impression of standing on the edge of a perpendicular cliff. �188 The Summer People Just below the lip of stone was a narrow path with a railing paralleling it, making a walk along it as safe as a stroll through a meadow. At the south end of the formation a gazebo had been built on stilts out past the bluff and towered high above the tree tops on the mountain slope. A narrow walkway curved out to it. As she stood on this observation tower and gazed almost straight down into the distant valley, then far away, along the deep gorge and across the rolling blue mountains to the west and southwest, Anna was amazed at her lack of fear. Three months ago she would have clutched the railing and closed her eyes or, more probably, would have refused to get within ten feet of the bluff rim. An almost continuous breeze swept up from below, ruffling her hair. Now and then a stronger zephyr would tug playfully at her clothes and cool her upper legs. "That's Johns River Gorge down yonder." Jay pointed down the long valley. "Our elevation up here is a bit over four thousand feet, a good deal higher than the river. You notice the gorge bends to the right at the base of this promontory. It acts as a flume. A wind blows down it almost continuously. When it reaches the base of this mountain, instead of veering to the right, much of it is deflected upward past the rocks here. You can throw an object off, like a paper plate, and then it will be wafted back to you. Dad told me that fellows used �John Foster West 189 to throw their Panama hats off and they would come back. You can stand here in the winter and watch the snow falling upward, out of the valley. That's why it's called THE Blowing Rock." "It's fascinating," Anna said softly. "And you want to know what I wish?" "What? I can allow you only one wish today." He turned to face her, leaning back against the railing. "I wish I could come up here in a Model-A Ford like they did in the '30's, before the craft shop was built, and have a picnic with someone I cared for and we could throw paper plates off the rock and catch them when they blew back to us." "Someone you cared for, Anna?" "Yeah, like Pete." He turned his back to her. "Way off yonder is Table Rock. You see it? Looks like a typical western mesa. Jules Verne used it in a science fiction novel, I think. That point beyond it is called Hawksbill. Of course that's Grandfather Mountain there to your right. You'll notice his profile is more symmetrical from an eastern view. And way, way yonder in the hazy distance—do you see that mountain peak a bit higher than the others along the skyline?" Anna squinted. "Where? I'm not sure." Jay placed his right arm around her neck, his forearm across her right shoulder, and pointed. "Look down my wrist and finger. See it?" �190 The Summer People "Oh, yes. I see it now." She moved from beneath his arm. "That's Mount Mitchell. It's the highest peak in eastern America." "You know, I never realized that mountains this high and as numerous as these existed so close to Norfolk," she said. "I mean I knew hardly anything about the Appalachians. I never visualized so much wilderness, so much unsettled forest rolling on and on to the edge of the world. It used to surprise me when flying, to look down and see so many trees and so much empty land, after three hundred years of civilization in this country. But I never even dreamed of forests and mountains like these." "Give us a little more time," Jay scoffed. "We the people will use it up soon enough." Leaving the Town of Blowing Rock, they drove west on U.S. 221, following kinky curves around spurs, over ridges, and around the heads of hollows, much of the time through a tunnel of trees. Frequently, they passed jerrybuilt stands with apple or cherry cider for sale, along with honey, mountain sorghums, and other local products. "I don't know whether it has been recorded or not," Jay Webber said out of a long silence, "but I would bet this is the crookedest highway, not just in the U.S., but on the planet earth. If follows an old Indian trail, the Yonahlossee. I've often wondered why the hell the Indians didn't take a few short cuts." �John Foster West 191 Anna laughed. "They were in no hurry, I suppose. They knew that wherever they were going would still be there unchanged, a week or a year later." Jay shook his head. "I don't know! Somehow that doesn't explain a road this crooked to my satisfaction. Dad said the Indians followed old buffalo trails." He was so solemn, Anna burst out laughing and laid her head against his shoulder. When he reached up with his right hand and ran his fingers through her shaggy hair, she sat up higher in her seat. They traced a blacksnake course along the eastern base of Grandfather Mountain. At one place a sheer cliff of ancient stone reared above them. "I don't know if you are interested or not, but Grandfather and Table Rock are two of the oldest rock formations on the surface of the earth. They are quartzite, close to a billion years old. About three hundred million years ago, the day before yesterday earth time, a fantastic geological upheaval thrust them through the overlying Appalachian strata. Today, they are windows into an older, deeper layer of earth than their surface we tread upon. And, my pretty student, it is your pleasure to become acquainted with them on this bright day." "And to pay a nominal fee for the pleasure?" Anna asked. �192 The Summer People "Yes, inevitably, to pay a nominal fee for the pleasure." The climb up Grandfather Mountain did not bother Anna at first. When they made the last turn to the left and started up the steepest ascent, with no trees to soften the view of the drop-off behind them, she had a terrifying feeling the the Scout was going to tip over backwards and go tumbling end over end down the slope and into the valley far below. Then she had the more plausible thought: what if the brakes should fail and the driveshaft should break. They would go careening backward, faster and faster, until Jay lost steering control and they started tumbling. She closed her eyes and clutched her hands between her knees, hoping Jay would not see her concern. "You know, I always think, what if the brakes should give way and the driveshaft break, while climbing this slope," Jay Webber said casually. "It doesn't make any difference how often I make this climb up here—" He glanced at her. "But I ought not to scare you with your phobias." "What? What did you say?" She stared straight ahead. "I must have been thinking of something else." "Nothing," Jay said. "Just jabbering." The recreational area of Grandfather lay around the "mouth and chin" area. The nose still towered high above and could be reached by climbing a ladder by those who dared the climb. There �John Foster West 193 was a large parking area. Included at the visitors center was a gift shop, snack bar, museum exhibit, and an assembly hall. They walked across the "mile-high" bridge swinging above a crevasse and stood on Grandfather's chin. Jay pointed out landmarks far below. The whole world as far as Anna could see (over a hundred miles on a clear day, Jay told her) appeared to be forest-covered mountains. The more distant villages and towns and highways looked to her like grains of sand clinging to cobwebs. Only the closest places like Linville and the condominiums along the western base of the mountain were conspicuously man-made and civilized territory. From her viewpoint, the world was almost a wilderness. Anna was sure that a myopic Indian from the eighteenth century could stand there and never realize what the Paleface had done to his land only a few miles below. Jay pointed out peaks in the great Smoky Mountains far, far to the west, on the tilting rim of the world. He showed her the Black Mountains and the Craggies. Closer by, he pointed out Brown Mountain from a different perspective. And he showed her the approximate location of some of the Piedmont cities and towns, lost in blue haze. On the way home, they stopped at a little mountain restaurant in Linville and had a sandwich and coffee. Both were quiet. Anna had been somewhat subdued by the views from Blowing Rock and Grandfather and by height and size and �194 The Summer People concept of millennia. For some reason it made her sad. But it was not a personal sadness. It was more like the feeling she got when looking at pictures of ancient ruins and knowing that young men and women had once laughed and sung and made love there and were now nobody, nothing, particles of the elements—as though they had never been. �Chapter XIII After the trip to Blowing Rock and Grandfather Mountain, Anna hardly saw Jay Webber for several days. He came by twice late in the afternoon, sweaty and dirty, and had a gin and tonic with her, but he did not talk much. He said something about helping out in the tobacco and if it were up to him, he would plow the damned stuff under and grow tomatoes. Anna did not question him and said little herself. She was beginning to resonate to his moods and felt she was not completely alone in the world when he was present, even if silent. Apparently, she filled some need of his at such times, she reasoned. Then one day he showed up before lunch with Donner and Blitzen. She did not ask where they were going but rode beside him, down the spur of the ridge toward the Watauga River, speaking only occasionally. At the foot of the ridge, they cut back to the left, following the old road downriver toward Riverglade. A mass of clouds was boiling upward above the Blue Ridge, to the east behind them, and already towered from horizon to horizon almost to the zenith. It stood above the mountains like a 195 �196 The Summer People dark, stratified Alpine cliff above the narrow valley through which they rode, threatening to tumble forward and bury them and all of Holy Rood Valley. A firey stitchwork of lightning appeared against the blackness and disappeared, followed by thunder. Anna kept glancing back over her shoulder, feeling threatened. "Shouldn't we go back?" she asked. "I mean that storm looks ferocious." Jay turned in his saddle and squinted skyward. "We have very few storms here from that direction. Most of ours are out of the west." He was silent a moment. "The cloud is so immense now, I can't tell what direction it's going. But if it comes this way, we can put the horses in the old barn and duck in at River glade." She studied the cloud again, dubiously. "Okay, you're the weatherman. But it looks scary to me." A short distance from the lawn at Riverglade, Jay reined his mount to the right, toward a gap in the elders, sycamores, and birch trees bordering each side of the river. Anna followed him down an old farm road to the shallows. Here, the river spread out over a wide bed of gravel and sand, forming a ford no more than two inches deep. They crossed the river, climbed the incline beyond, and left the bank growth, entering a vast alluvial bottomland, which stretched away to the foot of distant hills. Some of it was tilled, and the rest was a shimmering lake of wildflowers riding the surface �John Foster West 197 of grass and weeds. The corn in a field a hundred yards away, to her left, was rich green and as tall as Anna's shoulders. Far off, to her right, a rectangular field of grain—wheat, she thought—was beginning to turn the color of Jay Webber's beard. As she looked, the tops of the grain suddenly bowed toward her as though in greeting. The next moment, a fist of wind struck her, swaying her in the saddle. Jay's mount danced sideways before the pressure. In ten seconds the wind had passed, plowing huge furrows through the wildflowers and nearby corn. Jay looked uneasily toward the cloud, then at Anna. "There are over four hundred acres in this meadow," he said. "Eighty acres are already mine. An old lady, my father's first cousin, owns the rest. She's close to ninety now, and said I could buy her section at very reasonable terms." They were still headed straight across the fallow field, their mounts wading through Queen Anne's lace, daisies, wild asters, and ragweed. "If I could just get this land, or even half of it, I would be satisfied for life. I could raise all I would ever need for me or a family." "Are you sure?" He pivoted in his saddle to look at her. "What do you mean?" "Did you ever read the Tolstoy story about the man who was promised all the land he could walk around in a day? He made his circle so wide, he ran �198 The Summer People himself to death trying to get back to his starting point before sunset." He studied her curiously. "Do you think I'm like that, Anna?" "Aw, silly," she laughed. "I was just teasing you." "All I want, Anna, is enough land to grow a living on. No more. I want to live at Riverglade, marry, have a couple of kids, and live comfortably with as little work as possible for the rest of my life. Someday, I'd like to play with my grandchildren on the lawn there." "You aren't very ambitious, are you?" He glanced back toward the storm as another burst of wind struck them, ruffling his hair and beard. "I'm ambitious for peace and quiet and time to do the things I want to do and to spend with the ones I will love," he stated. "To me, that's the greatest of ambitions. Few millionaires are ever able to buy it." "And you would really be content to stay in this valley and live in that old house from now on?" "I'd prefer to live with someone I—I cared for—loved." He looked toward her again, then ahead. "And you remember this: that old house was built with loving care by those who came before me. It's comfortable and it will last." Suddenly the sun went out as though a switch had been flipped. Jay tugged his horse to a halt and headed him toward the storm. Anna did likewise. �John Foster West 199 Overhead, the edge of the cloud had rolled past the sun, consuming it. Lightning thrust in three directions as a clap of thunder shook the world. Another wall of wind collided with them, and they were absorbed by it. Half a mile away, upstream, forest-crowned hills suddenly disappeared as a curtain of rain fell between Jay and Anna and where they sat their mounts. "We'd better ride for it!" Jay yelled, above the wind. He wheeled his horse back toward the river and dug his heels into its sides. Anna followed him. "I didn't think about it!" he called back over his shoulder. "The way it's raining up beyond the valley, the river'll be rising right away. We'd better hurry." Jay's horse broke into a gallop. Anna had no trouble getting Blitzen to follow. As they dashed across the field, the rising wind swept about them, tousling her hair and billowing her blouse. They plunged down the incline and into the river, already muddy and two feet deep. Although the horses were slowed by the water, they churned across, spray flying from their hooves, which beat against the gravel and rock. They climbed the grade beyond and charged into the wall of rain, as thunder bellowed close overhead. One moment Anna was dry. The next, she was wet, as though she had ridden through a waterfall. She could see little farther than Jay and his horse, directly in front of her, and he apparently �200 The Summer People was guided by instinct. The rain gushed about her as they slowed to a trot, then to a walk. They rode out of it and beneath the shelter of the barn, before she knew they had reached its safety. Jay swung from his saddle. "We'll turn the horses into the stables and get to the house where it's more comfortable," he called, his voice louder than necessary, now that they were out of the rain. He opened the door to a stable and turned Donner into it, closing the door. Anna dismounted. Her wet yellow blouse clung to her body, almost transparent. Her jeans clung to her legs and were wet and sloppy, inhibiting her movement. Jay took the reins and turned Blitzen into another stall. Holding Anna by the hand, he towed her back into the storm, as they ran almost blindly toward the old mansion. Then huge hailstones were bombarding them, bounding from Anna's head and back. She covered her head with a hand in a gesture of protection. They dashed up the steps and beneath the porch roof just as a bolt of lightning struck a tree down by the river. Anna was looking that way when a long squiggle of fire traced a path from the invisible cloud down through the rain, groping for a target. The bellow of thunder was almost deafening, rattling windows nearby. Jay opened the door, shoved her inside, and followed her. He slammed it, isolating them in a quieter refuge. Beyond the doors and walls of the house, the storm sounded �John Foster West 201 farther away. Anna looked down. A puddle was forming about her feet. "I have an idea," Jay said. "You go up to the bedroom I showed you and look in the closet. There are dresses there. Take off those wet clothes and put on a dress. I'll build a fire and dry your jeans and blouse. Now hurry up. You'll catch cold, if you don't." "Okay, Abe MacTavish. You're the boss of River glade." He smacked her on her shoulder with a loud, wet smack. "Cut the crap. It's not all that funny." Anna hurried up the stairway and into the bedroom which once belonged to Alice and Susan Webber. Only five dresses were hanging in the huge closet. Either the wardrobe belonging to the girls had been taken after their deaths or it had been pitifully small to start with. She selected a green and red checked gingham dress and carried it over to the bed. Then she removed her wet clothes. Water traced rivulets down her naked body, especially her back, as her hair released its stored rain. She hung her panties and bra on a clothes hanger and left them in the closet. She found a terrytowel robe in the closet and used it to dry herself thoroughly. Her hair was a raggedyann mop, but by squeezing and toweling she managed to get most of the water out of it. When she came back downstairs, Jay had a fire blazing in the dining room fireplace. His shoes and �202 The Summer People socks and shirt were off, but he still wore his wet trousers. He had hung the shirt over the back of a chair, near the fire, and his socks were draped across the soggy sneakers, set to one side. Steam was already curling upward from the wet socks. Anna had never seen any of his body unclothed before. His torso was as white as hers except for the constellation of russet freckles covering him and the sparse field of kinky gold hair reaching from neck to belt. When he looked at her in the ankle-length dress, Anna saw his face soften and a pleased expression about his eyes. "You'd have made a lovely old-fashioned girl," he said. "You'd have looked even prettier in a hoopskirt." "You just remember I've got a late twentieth century body under this old-fashioned dress," she laughed. "And I don't even have an old-fashioned brain in my head." His face was suddenly serious. "I'll try to remember." He approached her and took her wet clothes. "Let me take these out on the porch and wring them out. They'll dry faster." Anna was standing inside the warm radiance near the fire when Jay returned. He placed two more chairs near the fire and spread her jeans over the back of one, her blouse over the other. She noticed his trousers. They were still soaking wet, clinging to his legs. "Can't you take your pants off and dry them �John Foster West 203 too?" she asked. "They look awfully uncomfortable on you." He looked at her, then down at himself. "Well, no. I guess not. They're not all that wet, anyway." "They're wet as water," she argued. "Look, Jay, when I—Don't worry about me. If you need to take your pants off and dry them, then do it." He frowned at her. "Anna, why don't you just let me be miserable if I want to be a stupid martyr for the sake of modesty?" She laughed and turned her back to the fire, holding her hands backward to the warmth. "It's your rear that's drowned," she retorted. "I'm warm and dry." She heard him sigh, perhaps in exasperation, and move away toward the kitchen. Turning back, she began to watch the flames, her mind vacant. After a few minutes, she turned her back to the fire again, lifted the long skirt, and exposed the backs of her legs to the warmth the way Pete had once told her mountain women did. It felt good. She stared toward the window to her right, beyond which she could see only the white baptism of the cleansing rain as it swept past the house. She dropped her dress hem when Jay returned, carrying a tray holding cheese, crackers, two wine glasses, and a bottle of red wine. "I thought a little snack would be in order while the storm wears itself thin," he said, his voice as cheerful as any perfect host's. �204 The Summer People "Hey, that's splendid. When did you stash it here?" Anna seated herself on the floor, the fire on her left. She drew her heels in close to her body, and spread the long dress over her knees. Jay sat facing her and placed the tray on the floor in front of him. He poured both glasses full of wine and handed Anna the cheese knife. She sliced off a piece of the cheese, placed it on a cracker, and nibbled at it. It was cheddar, as sharp as a tack, the way she loved it. The wine was dry and room temperature. She frowned but took another sip. She preferred her wine chilled just a mite, regardless of superficial rules. She glanced at Jay, but his eyes were on the cheese, which he was cutting. She moved her left leg because it was threatening to cramp, then realized she had exposed too much of her thigh. If Jay noticed he did not reflect it by motion or change of expression. She ignored him after that, eating in silence and sipping the wine, her mind turning to Norfolk and her job. She was accomplishing nothing here in the mountains now and found herself becoming lazy and satisfied with the slow pace of daily life. Then she suddenly became alert. A strange sound had intruded on her thoughts. She listened. No, it was not a sound, but lack of one. The rain outside the house, the pelting against the windows and walls, had stopped as abruptly as though the faucet that controlled it had been turned off. She looked at Jay. His head was poised in a listening attitude. �John Foster West 205 "The storm's passed us," he said. "We got only the end of it, and it's moved on." "Boy, that was quick." "Yeah. If it had gone over us more directly, it would have dwindled out." She listened as thunder rumbled and roared in the direction of the Blue Ridge, to the northeast. Then she became aware of another sound, a steady, muted roar much closer than the thunder. She looked at Jay. "The river's out," he explained. "Most of the storm hit upriver, and we'll probably have a real flood." He hushed, listening. "But it probably won't last too long. After short, heavy storms like that, the water usually runs off rather quick." "Let's go look at the river," Anna suggested. "I bet horses and cows and things will be floating down it." Jay laughed. "Not likely. Sometimes a dead pig or chicken comes along, unless it's as bad as the one back in 1940. Mostly, it will be dead trees and brush and junk someone has left behind at a picnic." Anna got to her feet and started toward the door. "Boy, it sounds like the Niagara Falls." "It's still wet out there," Jay said. "I wouldn't want to interfere with your project. But if your clothes are dry, I'd put them back on if I were you." Anna resented the suggestion for a moment, then realized the good sense in what he had said. She returned to the fireplace and checked her �206 The Summer People clothes. They were dry except for the heavy seams of her jeans. Gathering them in a bundle, she crossed the foyer to the right hand stairway and climbed the steps, returning to the room upstairs where she had found the dress. She removed it and put her clothes back on. She replaced the dress in the closet, then returned to the floor below. Jay had dressed and waited for her in the foyer. His jeans were mottled with patches of dry and wet fabric. When he opened the front door, Anna could hear the muffled roar of the river, out of its banks, over a hundred yards away. They stepped out onto the porch. Water still ran in streams from the edge of the roof and a larger stream from each gutter where porch and house roof merged. She could glimpse swatches of muddy water at a distance through the bank growth, but the river had not risen enough to reach outside the trees. She walked beside Jay down the steps and out the brick walk, beneath a damp blue sky. A scarf of clouds was whisked from over the sun, like a magician's trick, and the whole wet world was suddenly washed by sunlight. Millions of water drops sparkled like jewels, decorating wildflowers, weeds, and boxwood. What little hail had fallen was uncut diamonds refracting sunshine as far as Anna could see. In the northeast, the storm cloud still towered toward the dome of the sky, a genie loose from its bottle, patterns of lightning flickering across its face, followed by thunder overlapping thunder. A �John Foster West 207 barely discernible rainbow glimmered against the storm, the nearer end disappearing in the trees along the river. The air she breathed and walked through was cool and humid, giving the sensation of having been cleansed and freshened—purified especially for her. The storm cloud ahead, the bright blue sky, and the blazing sun above and behind her lent a supernatural aspect to the world of Holy Rood Valley, as though Anna had gone for a walk at midnight and the sun had appeared suddenly in the sky. She looked about her in wonder and started to mention the eerie atmosphere to Jay, then thought better. "God," Jay murmured, "it's like rising from death and finding a new world made over just for you." "That's a weird way to put it," she said, "but it is strange—beautiful and scary." As they came to the edge of the lawn, the roar of the river grew louder. They walked through the grass and weeds, their shoes and trouser legs saturated again almost immediately. Jay led her toward the break in the bank growth through which they had forded the stream earlier on horseback. Already, Anna could see the edge of the muddy river as it created a bay, extending an inlet up the slope past the trees and into the sunshine. The leaves of trees above the water sparkled when she moved as though made of glass. They reached the edge of the water. Anna �208 The Summer People could see through the tunnel of trees the crest of the main stream as the water rushed past. Logs, trash, and pieces of timber flashed by her circle of vision like frames of a film past a projector lens. The muddy water boiled and seethed, its deep liquid roar as much a part of the total atmosphere here as the sunshine itself. Poles, trash, and scraps of paper, bobbing and turning slowly, approached Anna and Jay, moved almost imperceptibly by some hidden relationship of rushing water to the still bay beneath the tunnel of trees. During the several minutes they had stood there, Anna's attention had shifted from the flotsam to the distant stream. "What's that?" Jay Webber asked suddenly, his voice strangely tense. The instant Anna set eyes on the object, she knew what it was, and some part of her was aware that Jay also knew. A hundred feet away, a brown oval object bobbed slowly shoreward at right angles to the rush of the river beyond. The back of the wet khaki shirt was formed into a bubble by the air trapped inside. It and the brown, saturated hair and the khaki trousers served to camouflage the corpse, floating face down toward them as though seeking their company. "Damn!" Anna murmured. And that was all that was said for several minutes as they stood side by side, watching the inexorable approach of the corpse. Anna's mind was �John Foster West 209 blank except for one thought that kept circling round and round: how did it find me here? "I wonder," Jay said quietly, "how it happened to wash ashore here where we are." She looked at him but did not answer. When he started wading into the water, abruptly, without comment, she went with him. The cold water climbed past her knees as they approached the body. Jay reached down, hesitated, then grasped the upper right arm, which floated loosely. Anna took hold of the left arm. The feel of the fabric and soft, relaxed muscle beneath caused her to shudder, but she did not relax her hold. Turning as Jay turned, she walked slowly back through the chilly brown water, towing the floating corpse toward shore. When the body began to drag against the bottom, without discussion they grasped the arms more firmly and dragged it from the water, up onto the grassy slope. It was not an easy task because the corpse weighed more than a hundred eighty pounds, exactly Pete's size, she thought fleetingly. They released the arms simultaneously and stood erect. Anna stared down at the broad shoulders and long brown hair, now lying in wet ropy strands and covering the exposed side of the face, the left side pillowed on the wet sod. Although the man had been tall, at least six feet, there was a massiveness about his legs and arms that was not concealed by sleeves and trouser legs, a sugges- �210 The Summer People tion of great strength. The long, delicate fingers were a stark contrast to that power. Anna watched Jay bend slowly as though moving under water, watched him grasp the right arm of the prone figure and brace his legs, heave slowly, and turn the corpse slowly, slowly onto its left side, then suddenly onto its back. The hair fell away from the face, the handsome, ruddy face of a man who had reached the age of perhaps twenty-four. The blue eyes were the same color as the stormwashed sky, and as empty. Anna studied the thin nose and full lips, the narrow forehead. There was something weirdly familiar about the face. Her brow furrowed in puzzlement. "Those hiking shoes are new and expensive," Jay said. "Poor fool, he was probably an amateur backpacker. His hands are as soft as yours." "What do you suppose happened, Jay?" "He probably got caught in the storm and slipped from a bluff or some bank, into the river. He could have gone over Dutch Creek Falls. That's happened before. He might have hit his head on a rock, but there's no sign of it." "Poor kid," Anna sighed. "Poor young man. Somewhere, someone thinks he's alive and well." "We've got to call the sheriff," Jay said. "He'll bring an ambulance, or call one—and the coroner, of course." "We shouldn't leave him alone," Anna protested. "It would be a pity to leave him alone." �John Foster West 211 "Then you go. I'll stay here. The river should go down in a couple of hours, and they can cross the low-water bridge." "No, Jay!" Anna stated emphatically. "No, you go. I want to stay with him." She felt an overpowering duty to remain with the corpse, to protect it and give it company. It was a need without reason, a duty without logic. Jay studied her in puzzlement. "Are you sure, Anna? Do you want to be left alone with—" Her laugh was hesitant. "This is the twentieth century, Jay. I'm not afraid of a corpse, for God's sake." "No offense. I was just concerned for you." "I'm sorry. I'll be fine. You go on." He left her then and headed back toward the house. Anna turned her back on the body, staring through the trees toward the rushing river. Looking down, she noticed a muddy little beach a foot wide, between where the water had been and where it was now and realized the river had begun to drop. The rise had been fast during the storm, at the river's head, and she supposed the fall would be even faster, with the rain over. "You'll be okay now?" Anna turned. Jay Webber sat on Donner twenty feet away. The horse's hooves had been muffled on the wet sod. "Thank you, Jay. I'll be fine. Really!" �212 The Summer People "All right. But I don't like leaving you alone here." She smiled at him briefly, feeling a softness at the base of her throat. "You're sweet." His eyes narrowed. He threw her a little wave of the hand, then kneed his mount forward. Donner broke into a trot, then a gallop, heading upstream. Anna turned back, facing the inlet and the river ford, watching the water ebb and flow, swirl and eddy, carrying leaves and twigs in what looked like aimless meanderings but always, inexorably from sight among the trees, downstream, toward the far, far away Gulf of Mexico. She picked out a green sycamore leaf, called it Anna DeVoss, and watched it move first one way, then another. It looked as though it would stay in the eddy where it swirled, nothing happening to it but the same old turning and turning. But suddenly some force below the surface grasped it and whirled it away, out of sight behind a birch tree. She was so curious about what had happened to the leaf, where it was going, she almost waded back into the water in an attempt to catch sight of it. It was at the moment she gave the leaf up to its fate that she felt the uncontrollable need to turn. She had to turn, look at the corpse. There was no escaping the command. But when she did and looked at the sprawled body, nothing had changed. It was in precisely the same position as before, the �John Foster West 213 blue eyes staring back at the empty sky. Or had something changed? Something about it seemed different, as though an arm had moved slightly, or a leg, or the head had tilted a bit one way or the other. She walked slowly to the body. Slowly, she sank to her knees in the wet grass. She studied the tranquil face, the face that would never grow older. The blue eyes were not looking at the sky, but at her. She saw far beneath the surface, within the narrow, dark wells of the pupils, a being, an entity receding into vast distances of space and time. She felt an urge to dive into those deep pupils, to stop the being, to call it back, to plead that it return. At that moment something inside Anna DeVoss gave way. A dam broke. Great black waves of grief and frustration came pouring into her mind, into the void around her heart. Despair, locked so long behind stoic walls of routine, followed. All reason fled, leaving her a creature solely of emotion. She flung herself onto the wet chest of the dead stranger. Her arms like calipers of flesh and bone forced her hands beneath his head, forced themselves around the neck. And Anna wept. Anna wept great racking sobs which shook her body as her grief spent itself and exhausted her. She rolled her face in the curve between the jawline and neck, and her voice was the only sound on the stormcleansed earth except for the liquid rush of the river toward the distant Gulf. �214 The Summer People She could measure the length of her weeping only by her exhaustion. She sobbed slowly and methodically now, a quiet, controlled release of what residual grief remained in dark corners or her being. Already, the weight was missing from about her heart, which beat with a steady, normal rhythm. When she felt the arms of the corpse embrace her, she hugged the neck more firmly in return, holding her breath, her eyes tightly closed. She should have been terrified, but instead found she was at peace. But the hand on her arm was no corpse's. It was alive and firm. It was strong. It drew her upward away from the dead body. Two hands drew her close, in an upright position. Two arms were embracing her, as Jay Webber held her close. "Weep, my Anna," he whispered. "Get rid of it. Let it all out. It's the only way you can be free." But her grief was mostly spent. She clung to him, not out of need, but to accommodate his kindness, and sobbed intermittently while he stroked her hair. When she thought she had cried enough to appease his concern, she withdrew from him and stepped back. Jay watched her, his eyes narrow and moist. "Are you okay now, Anna?" "Fine, thanks. I'm fine." She sniffled, wiped at her eyes with her fingertips. "I'll be fine now, thanks." "I called the sheriffs office," he said. "They'll �John Foster West 215 be out here as soon as the river drops. I'll go up to the house and get a sheet to cover him—it." "No!" Anna shook her head emphatically. "No, Jay, don't. Let the sun shine on him as long as possible. He will be in darkness long enough." "All right, Anna." He studied her for a moment. "If that's what you want." The sun stood just above Beech Mountain when a deputy sheriff arrived, driving down the old wagon road beside the river, followed by a rescue-squad ambulance. Anna did not feel like talking and so stood to one side, letting Jay explain to the lanky official what had happened. She watched the deputy go through the corpse's pockets and find nothing. She watched the attendants from the ambulance place it on a stretcher, carry it to the ambulance, and wheel it into the rear of the orange vehicle. She stood with Jay, quiet, watching the car and the ambulance disappear up the grassy lane. "Let's go home," Jay said. She let him take her by the hand and lead her back to the old barn. They mounted in silence and rode in silence up the lane and up the ridge to the DeVoss cabin. Anna dismounted and handed Blitzen's reins up to him. "Thanks, Jay," she said. "I enjoyed the ride." "What?" She turned to look up at him. He was staring at her in puzzlement. "I said thanks—" She was blank for a moment, trying to think. She was sud- �216 The Summer People denly exhausted. Her mind was blank. Drained. "I—I'll see you tomorrow." "Okay, Anna. If you need me—" "I'll ring the bell," she said. �Chapter XIV "They sent his—the body to the pathologist at the University of North Carolina," Jay explained. "The autopsy revealed a blow to the head, but death was from drowning." Anna stood on the deck, leaning her shoulder against a post, talking with Jay Webber, who sat on Donner in the yard. "What'll happen to—to the body now? But of course, it goes to the relatives." "That's the strangest thing, Anna. There was no identification in his clothing. And there were no records of his fingerprints. Not even the military had records of them." "But how could that be?" She stared at him. "He was about the right age for the tail end of the Vietnam War. He must have been subject to the draft, at least." Jay shook his head. "Maybe he ran away to Canada and came back. Maybe he had a physical defect, a bad heart. Maybe—Who knows? There could be all kinds of reasons why there is no fingerprint record of him." "But he looked well-to-do. Those expensive 217 �218 The Summer People shoes. He must have had a family of some means. They wouldn't just lose him." "I don't understand it either," Jay said. "He could have been reared by some relatives who died. Or he could have grown up in some small orphanage, as far away as the West Coast. In a country this big, anything is possible. The facts are that he is dead and he is unidentified." "Jay, what will happen to him—the body? Will they turn it over to the medical school at U.N.C.? Use it in a laboratory? I wouldn't want that. I wish we could—" "I started to tell you," he broke in. "The damndest thing happened. The medical examiner returned the body to the sheriffs custody here. It's at the mortuary and has been embalmed. I just talked to the director this morning. He wanted me to tell him what to do with the corpse." "That's a bit unorthodox, isn't it?" She searched his bearded face, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "I mean, why would they do that, return it here?" "Search me." He shrugged, staring through the trees. "Anna, I think we ought to—" "Jay!" she interrupted eagerly, "let's give him a decent funeral. Would your mother object if we buried him in your family cemetery?" "I'll be darned," he chuckled. "I was just going to suggest the same thing to you. No, I'm sure Mom would not mind. She's not like that." "That's wonderful," Anna felt suddenly clean �John Foster West 219 inside. She felt the release of a pressure she did not know she had had a moment before. "What do we do first?" "It's simple. I'll tell the director at the mortuary. There will be some cost. I could take care of that—casket, embalming, transportation to the cemetery." "Jay, I want to pay half of it." She watched him eagerly for an expression of consent. "May I please?" "Sure, Anna. That would be good of you. No problem. Together we'll give the stranger a nice funeral and a grave in the mountains where he came to die. He must have loved the mountains, to hike them alone, though probably without experience." "I'm sure he did. How could he not love them? Jay! Jay, I have another idea. It may sound crazy to you." "No, it won't sound crazy, Anna," he said quietly. "Nothing you say sounds crazy to me. It's a good idea. We'll bury him in Sandy MacTavish's casket. I think it's waited long enough." She stared at him in surprise, then accepted their rapport without question. "Yes, that's what I was going to suggest. And I think old Sandy would approve, if he could." "I think so too," Jay nodded. "We'll have a simple service. We'll keep it as quiet as possible so a bunch of morbid gapers don't come cluttering up �220 The Summer People the scene, out of curiosity. Mom will insist on her minister, but I'll make him keep it brief, cut out most of the hereafter stuff. Maybe you and I could say a word or two, so he will have friends at his—his taking off." "I agree." She paused. "I think that's the way to handle it, Jay." It was the last Sunday in July, clear except for scattered cumulus clouds and haze in the east, stagnant pollution above the Piedmont cities. The sun stood above the green eastern hills of Holy Rood Valley, huge and orange, like the planet Jupiter seen in astronomy textbooks. In the MacTavishWebber cemetery, a red clay hole lay open to the sky, a mound of fresh earth beside it. At the bottom of the grave, Sandy MacTavish's locust coffin rested, polished and new-looking in spite of its long years waiting in the attic of Sparr's Store. Anna DeVoss and Jay Webber had insisted that no artificial grass be spread over the mound of earth or around the grave. It was to be an honest funeral: a dead man was being interred forever in the bosom of the earth, and no pleasant euphemisms would be used. The only hitch was that Mack Jones and his boys, eager to finish the job, had lowered the coffin into the grave before the funeral ceremony. Anna smelled the coppery fresh earth, and it stirred briefly an old sadness. Closing her eyes, she could visualize her father's broad back and the trac- �John Foster West 221 tor he sat on as he plowed a field, several red and white chickens following in the furrow gobbling up the earthworms. She opened her eyes and was back in the cemetery. Martha Webber, wearing a navy-blue dress and hat, stood near one end of the grave, holding Hilda's hand. Henry Sparr stood beside Mrs. Webber, dressed in a baggy wool suit which had fitted him before age had pared his flesh closer to the bones. The Reverend Joshua Larson stood next to Hilda, dressed in a white linen suit, holding a straw hat in one hand and a Bible in the other. He was a tall, lanky man, his bald head white as a boiled egg, his eyebrows, the only hair in sight, like albino caterpillars curled above his deep-set eyes. Anna, wearing the black suit she had worn at Pete's funeral, was next in line, and Jay stood to her right. He had conformed to the occasion to the extent that he wore dark trousers and a white shirt, open at the collar. Beyond the mound of earth, several spectators gathered in a huddle for mutual security, strangers to Anna and, most of them, to each other. Some of them were dressed in neat, expensive sports clothes—summer people seeking unique entertainment. The others were dressed mostly in cheap Sunday clothes, mountain folk who lived with more important problems than what they wore. They had all merged, united by morbid curiosity. They had heard about the funeral of the drowned �222 The Summer People stranger and had come to see what would happen, to see if it would be different from other funerals they had attended. Off to one side, Mack Jones, the Webber's tenant, and two of his sons leaned on shovels, disassociating themselves from everything related to the "quare burryin," except the labor. Reverend Larson was finishing his sermon. "We who are the quick have no way of knowing, but we pray that this young stranger was saved and that his soul will rest in the lap of our Father who art in heaven forever. Amen." Jay Webber stepped forward. He held in his hand fertile soil Anna had seen him take from his garden, behind River glade. He stood close to the grave. "Although we do not know your name, you are not a stranger to Anna and me," he said quietly. "We found you and claimed you as our friend who also loved the mountains. Rest in peace, friend, here in the Appalachians, the oldest mountains on earth." He extended his hand and crumpled the dirt, letting it whisper downward. Anna could hear the soft patter against the lid of the casket. "May the rich soil of Holy Rood Valley rest with you in the peace you have found." Anna was impressed by the simple ritual and surprised at this new side of Jay Webber. She moved forward to his side. She was confused. She wanted to say something only for the corpse, but the staring spectators beyond the grave intimidated her. She felt as though she was staging a false show �John Foster West 223 just for them. Her mind cleared suddenly, and she put everything else out of her thoughts. "Young mountain walker," she said so softly only Jay could have heard her, "Rest with my husband and be remembered with equal love." That was all. Reverend Larson turned and started shaking hands because that was all he knew to do at the end of a sermon. Mack Jones and his sons shuffled forward several feet, ready to start the task of shoveling the red clay back into the grave, so they could hurry home and get their Sunday rest. The spectators milled uncertainly, looking at each other, then back at the grave, as though expecting a Choragos to step forward and utter an epilogue; otherwise the show was hardly worth the admission—getting up early on Sunday and driving to this godforsaken cow pasture. Anna stared at them with resentment, then turned away and grasped Jay Webber's arm. �Chapter XV Anna awakened at dawn for no reason that she was aware of. She stretched and yawned. God, but she felt good. She felt seventeen and queen of the world. And she was hungry and thirsty. She could have polished off a Roman banquet table all by herself. Dawn filtered through the windows, like square portholes in a sunken ship. She was more than hungry. Her body was famished. She kicked off the sheet and stretched her legs, her toes pointed, until her joints cracked, sounding like dead twigs broken in a silent forest. She stretched her legs far out and ran her hands along the corrugation of muscles across her stomach. "Ohoo-oooo!" she groaned. She hooked her right foot behind her left ankle and clamped down, muscle against muscle, with all the power she could exert, breathing hard. She probed inside her mind. There was nothing there to disturb her. It was as clear as the spring water above the Butterfly Falls. All her needs were physical. She threw the extra pillow across the room. It landed on top of the dresser, where Pete's photograph had sat yesterday. Whose photograph? 224 �John Foster West 225 That beautiful young stranger she had once slept with for ninety nights out of an allotted one hundred eighty-three. She bounded to the floor, pulled her pajama top over her head, and hurried to the bathroom. Afterwards, she prepared for breakfast. Some remote segment of her mind kept listening for a knock on the door, but it never came. She ate ravenously, scrambled eggs with hot-peppered sausage mixed with them, buttered biscuits, sliced tomatoes, all with hot coffee. All three eggs would not have been enough if she had not eaten three additional biscuits, peach preserves spread between them. After breakfast she went for a long walk out past Butterfly Falls, but the farther she got from the cabin, the more frustrated she became. The sun broke through the foliage, promising a good day, but her excursion seemed like wasted time to her. Whatever she was looking for was not out in these woods. A new circuit came alive in her mind. She whirled in the trail and hurried back to the house. She herself had no plan, but she suspected that her body did. She dressed carefully in the prettiest white blouse and shorts she could find. After that, she applied makeup carefully, for the first time since she came to the mountains, including a greentinted eye shadow, and fussed with her hair longer than she wanted to spend on it. �226 The Summer People Finally, she hurried from the cabin and toward her car. The low-heeled sandals made her legs appear even longer than they were. The huge bugeyed sunglasses gave her a sophisticated touch she believed would have turned any male's head on Granby Street in Norfolk. She drove as fast as she could take the curves up the river out of Holy Rood Valley and turned right onto the highway. When she pulled into the parking area in front of Mark Grunwald's chalet, she stared for a moment at the white Mercedes. The night he had dated her, he had driven a black one. She wondered why he had traded, then shrugged the problem aside. When you get tired of your Mercedes, what kind of change can you make when you have everything? You trade for a Mercedes of a different color, obviously. She got out of the car and climbed the steps to the deck. Choosing a stance she thought would look seductive, she composed her face in a whimsical little smile and rang the bell. Nothing happened. She rang again. She waited a long minute. The door whipped inward suddenly. "Hi, Mark, I—" She shut up. The blowsy looking dyed blonde who stood in the doorway holding a Martini in her hand was everything Mark Grunwald was not, or vice versa, she thought. The woman smiled a crooked little �John Foster West 227 smile, the gin film over her eyes as bleary looking as cataracts. She thrust her head forward like a curious hen examining a new kind of bug she was about to eat and blinked at Anna. "Mark is not heah, deah," she muttered. "I have the chalet in August. I'm the late, late Mrs. Grunwald. Are you his latest stuff?" Anna was so startled by the question she retreated a step. "I—I'm sorry to disturb you," Anna babbled. "I just wanted to—" "It's all right, deah. Mark's free to mess with whomsoever he pleases. Or pleases him." She paused, turning her head to the side. "Come here, Bertha!" she called back over her shoulder. A moment later a skinny girl of fifteen or so appeared from out of the shadows and stopped behind the blonde. She stared at Anna with large, bewildered eyes through her granny glasses. Her feet kept moving as if they wanted to rescue her, carry her somewhere away from the scene. "Look at what your father's messin with, Bertha." The woman then laughed a guttural laugh. "Isn't she a loser compared to your mamma?" The pain that crossed the little girl's face reflected agony and shame. Her eyes begged Anna's forgiveness. "It's all right, Bertha," Anna said gently. "Your mother's just ill. Why don't you go on back to where you were?" �228 The Summer People Bertha Grunwald wheeled and disappeared as quickly as she had appeared. "Mark means nothing to me," Anna told the blonde. "But he's a gentleman. You, madam, are a shameless lush. The child should be taken from your custody, and I have a good mind to do it. I am familiar with the legal steps necessary." The woman's face changed suddenly. Tears welled into her eyes. She thrust her hand out toward Anna. "Wait! Wait a minute, please, let me 'splain—" Anna turned away and hurried to her car. As she was backing around to leave, she glanced back toward the front of the chalet. Mark Grunwald's ex-wife stood on the deck watching her, and she was crying. Anna spent the rest of the day driving about the countryside. She returned to the little parking area near Linville Falls and sat for an hour listening to radio music and watching tourists come and go. She drove to Blowing Rock by way of Boone and had a Reuben sandwich and a mug of beer at Hemlock Tavern. Only tourist families came in to eat while she was there. Later, she drove about the campus at the state university in Boone and was amazed to discover that male students looked so young. She ended up at an afternoon movie, but left in the middle of it and returned to her cabin. After a supper of tunafish salad and crackers, she got high on Martinis, the first she had had since �John Foster West 229 Pete once mixed them of Oso Negro gin, and went to bed around ten o'clock. Before the bedroom ceiling could make a tenth revolution, she was asleep, breathing softly. She awakened abruptly and, miraculously, without a hangover. The windows were slate black. She looked at the irradiant dial on her watch. It was ten after four. Her body was a great hungry void that needed to be filled. Yet she was not hungry. She stared at the ceiling, trying to hold her mind blank. But as she stared and as she thought nothing, her left hand moved from beneath the sheet, reached out to the lid of the window seat, lifted the lid, crept stealthily down the inside of it. Her middle finger found the button of the alarm bell. She touched it gently, caressing it. She flexed her wrist to withdraw her hand, but before she could move, her finger stiffened, thrust, depressing the button once, as far as it would go. Then she snatched her hand back, letting the seat lid slam shut. For five minutes she lay there, hardly breathing, listening, as though she expected to hear Jay Webber leaping to the floor and struggling into his clothing, way across the field. Finally, she reached out and turned on the bedside light. She removed her pajama top and crossed the room to the closet; she removed the old robe from a hanger and put it on, clutching it closed in front of her. Then came the muted roar of an engine as it �230 The Summer People approached the cabin, followed by a silence, then a loud knock on the door, the wrong rhythm. Anna hurried across the shadowy living room, dully illuminated from the bedroom light, and turned on the porch light. She opened the door. "What on earth is the matter, Annar?" Martha Webber demanded. "Are you a-being bothered by somebidy?" Anna stared at her. She stood on the deck just beyond the door, wearing a quilted robe so old it had lost all its color except a dingy gray. Her red and gray hair reached to her waist, down her back and across her shoulders. Her eyes were wide with excitement or concern, Anna could not tell which. "Well, child, speak up! What's wrong?" "Oh, I'm so sorry. I really am sorry," Anna stammered. "I thought I heard a noise at the door. But it was just a dog, I guess." "Are you shore you're all right? I got to get back to Hilder. I can't leave her long by herself." Anna looked from her to the old pickup truck in the yard. "Where's—where's Jay?" "Lord a mercy!" She laughed, too loud for so early in the morning, Anna thought. "He done moved lock, stock, and barrel to that big old house down yander on the river three days ago. Didn't he tell you?" "No!" Anna shook her head. "He hasn't said a word to me about moving. But I've seen him only once since the funeral." �John Foster West 231 "Well, he ort to a-told you. I got to get on back to Hilder, if you're shore you're all right." "I'm fine. Mrs. Web—Martha," Anna said. "Thanks for coming to my rescue." She watched the woman let herself down the steps, one slow tread at a time, as though she half expected them to break under her weight. When she heaved herself up and behind the wheel of the pickup, Anna closed the door. Hurrying back to her bedroom, she flung herself onto the bed and seized her pillow, hugging it close to her breast. "Stupid! Stupid!" she muttered. By the afternoon of the same day, Anna decided she was going to get out of the mountains and back to where she belonged. She spent two hours packing, getting everything in greater order than necessary. By the time she had the trunk of the car loaded and the last bag buckled to the carrier rack at the rear, it was late afternoon. She reasoned that it was better to spend another night in the cabin and leave the next day. She was so tired she prepared canned soup for supper and went to bed early. But she could not sleep. She rolled and tossed for more than two hours before giving up. She got up, finally, and mixed her a tall bloody Mary, using V-8 juice and vodka. Each time she looked at her watch, she was convinced the hands had frozen in place and could not move. At 11:00 p.m. she pulled on her jeans and a T-shirt and �232 The Summer People blundered out of the house. She got into the car, backed around, and kicked up dirt and gravel as she tore off up the driveway. She almost left the road taking the curves down the end of the ridge, then slowed, slightly sobered. When she braked to a stop at Riverglade, she could see one dim light beyond the dining room window. Jay, barefooted and shirtless, met her at the door. He stared at her. "Why the devil didn't you tell me you were moving down here?" Anna demanded. "Well, I didn't think you cared. I've talked my head off trying to get you interested in the mountains, but you—" "When I ring for your help at four—damn— o'clock in the morning and your mother shows up, I'm sure as heck interested." She pushed him aside and entered the foyer, slamming the door. "I'm sorry, Anna. I thought it was a little cute, not telling you." "You're about as cute as a redheaded woodpecker with a beard," she grumbled. She peered into the dining room, where a cheerful little fire burned in the fireplace. "Looks like you're having a cozy evening." "Won't you come in and join me, your Ladyship?" "I just felt like a little company tonight," she said. "You haven't been around lately, and I don't know anyone else." �John Foster West 233 As she approached the fireplace, Anna saw that he had spread a blanket before the fire, a pillow at one end of it. He had apparently been lying on the blanket, relaxing. How long he had intended to remain there, only he could say, if he knew himself. The blanket and pillow looked comfortable. She had a perverse urge to steal it from him, to stretch out herself and watch the fire's changing patterns. She did not admit to any right of occupation. She dropped down onto the blanket and faced the fire, her heels drawn up, hugging her knees. Jay stood and watched her for several seconds, then carried one of the ladder-backed chairs from those around the dining table over near the blanket, sitting down in it, saying nothing. "I did not intend to run you out of your den," she said, yawning. "No problem," he replied. "I've been using it for quite a while. I needed a change." "Why did you decide all of a sudden to move down here?" "Actually, it was not all of a sudden. I had intended to do it sometime ago. Then you came along, and I wanted to educate you in the importance of these mountains." Anna laughed. "You mean indoctrinate, don't you? You ought to be a tobacco auctioneer. Or a patent medicine salesman." He looked at her coolly. "Is that a compliment? If so, I don't really appreciate it." �234 The Summer People "No offense." She sighed, stretched out on her back, her head on the pillow, as she watched the shadows cast by the fire dancing on the ceiling. "You were so passionate protecting the mountains from outsiders, like they were your private property." "I was passionate, Anna. And I am. Most natives feel the same way, except the greedy ones. Do you appreciate the scenery here?" "That's a meaningless question. Of course I do. I think things here are magnificent. I have had the most peace here I have had in the six years since Pete was listed as missing in action." "Then visualize this, lady." He leaned forward, thrusting his head closer to her. "Visualize gaudy motels on skylines around here. Imagine the area around Boone, even here in the valley, ten years after they have four-lane highways running into them. I realize I can't change what will be. What I'm bitching about is, there's no control. Zoning is slipshod. There need to be controls. There need to be skyline laws to keep obscene commercial buildings from destroying the skylines. At the rate it's going, this country up here is going to be a red clay crater filled with tickytacky buildings instead of green mountains with a limited number of buildings. Sweet Jesus, lady, we're heading for disaster. Where will we go next when these valleys are trashed?" Anna heard him from far away. Her mind was �John Foster West 235 shutting down. Some deep neurons were vaguely aware that he had asked her a question, but she did not know the answer yet. "ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME, ANNA?" At the loudness of his voice, Anna sat upright, then collapsed back onto the pillow. Then from some remote corner of her brain came the answer. "Another valley like these, until it's raped and commercialized too." "Give the lady a silver apple!" Jay paused. "Go ahead and rest, sleep, my pretty outlander. You're already back in Norfolk. You're not interested in what I'm saying. You're still searching for Pete." �Chapter XVI Anna awakened with a start. For a moment she was disoriented. The strange arm across her waist frightened her. Then she felt a heavy torso against her and she had a momentary need to cuddle up to it. Carefully, she moved the arm, let it slide down her front and rest on the blanket. Jay Webber's breathing changed for a moment, becoming intermittent, then long and even again. She eased herself quietly away from him. Jay murmured. She paused, then moved again, farther backward. Finally, she stood, looking down at him. He slept peacefully. His face was relaxed and boyish despite his beard. She smiled at the spray of tiny russet freckles covering his nose. Leaning down, she kissed him lightly on the lips, their first and last kiss, she realized. She felt the silken brush of his mustache on her upper lip, the hot jet of his breath on her cheek. Straightening up, she tiptoed from the house. Her engine started quickly, and she drove up the grassy lane, away from Riverglade. She watched the massive old building dwindle into the night, in her rearview mirror, and felt 236 �John Foster West 237 a sadness she would not have suspected possible until this moment. Back at the cabin, she went to bed, but could not sleep. For hours she tossed and rolled. The freedom she had experienced following the funeral had been compromised, but she did not understand how. Only one thing she was sure of at the moment: she had to return to Virginia Beach and to Norfolk. She got up, dressed, and finished packing a few odds and ends. The glow of false dawn was flushing the eastern rim of Holy Rood Valley when she had everything in the car. She wrote a brief note for Jay and left it beside the sink, then returned to the Porsche and started it. She sat there for several minutes listening to the smooth mutter of the engine. Abruptly, she switched it off and ran back into the cabin. She retrieved the note and carried it into the bathroom, flushing it down the commode. Anna left the valley behind her headlights, winding her way up the river road. Dawn was a mother-of-pearl fan flecked with pink over the Piedmont, as she swung down out of the mountains, rolling from curve to curve on squealing tires. She looked forward to the comfortable apartment, to the familiar routine she had deserted weeks before. But a sadness weighed on her also. It had nothing to do with Pete DeVoss. He was dead and buried. Leaving the mountains was a spe- �238 The Summer People cial agony that startled her. Once or twice she felt a great urge to make a U-turn and head back. She bypassed Wilkesboro in misty daylight, the coat on her tongue thick and bitter. The highway was the left lane of a planned four-lane road and was well engineered, and she encountered little traffic. The Piedmont hills unrolled beneath the Porsche's wheels like waves beneath a fast boat, as the speedometer needle crept up to eighty, then to eighty-five, before she was aware of what she was doing and let up on the accelerator. When she saw the truck-stop ahead, she realized suddenly what she needed more than anything else—food and coffee. She slowed and whipped into the parking area, coming to a stop between a camper and a panel truck. She started to get out, then remembered the emergency toothbrush and toothpaste in the glove compartment. When the lid came open, she saw at once the neatly folded sheet of paper, one corner thrust into the slit of the small box of Kleenex. One word, Anna, was written on the side of the folded sheet. Forgetting the toothbrush and toothpaste, she removed the paper from the Kleenex box and unfolded it. Dear Mrs. Anna DeVoss: I really liked you, to put it modestly. I "courted" you all those weeks in vain. I pretended to myself I was teaching you about the mountains, �John Foster West 239 but deep down I knew I was doing it just to be with you. For a while I did hope you and I might "join forces." The episode at Riverglade during the storm and the burial of the stranger enforced my hope. But I realize now that your emotions were not concerned with me. You are too full of yourself, your grief, and your martyrdom. I want you to understand that you are not the only one who suffered because of the Vietnam War. And your perverse martyrdom is a waste of intelligence and a waste of your potential. It is a blasphemy. It never occurred to you to ask me anything about myself, and therefore you know nothing about me. Let me give you a few facts, my lady. I have a B.S. in Art from A.S.U. I have studied art in Italy and among the mountain Indians of Mexico. The paintings in the DeVoss cabin and the one at Riverglade are mine. I too was in Vietnam, but I did not die quickly, without pain. Even now I won't run over a caterpillar crossing the road if I see it, yet I was compelled to cut the throats of two Vietnam soldiers while they slept to save two wounded G.I.'s. I was a medic. It took more than two years in a Veteran's hospital for me to get well enough to survive. That, and the return to the mountains. But you learned nothing about all that. Martyrs are too deep in their own grief. I'm moving down to Riverglade. I probably �240 The Summer People won't see you again. But I'll tell you, lady, you won't find Pete DeVoss at Virginia Beach nor at Oceana Naval Base. There's more of old Pete right here in this valley than anywhere else on earth. So good-bye, my intelligent friend. I wish you only the best and the brightest of futures. Jay Anna wadded the letter into a ball and hurled it to the floor. Her eyes were filled with tears, but they were not tears of grief. She had never been so furious in her life. The smart aleck thought he knew her. She was sobbing as she started the engine. Her wheels dug in throwing gravel up under her car as she roared backward toward the asphalt highway. But at the last moment she hit her brakes and skidded to a halt. She eased backward into the highway and headed eastward at forty-five. "The bastard," she sobbed. She dabbed at first one eye and then the other, with her fingertips. "The redheaded peckerwood! I'd like to scratch his eyes out. I'd—I'd—" Far away, to her left, she could see the hazy bulwark of the Blue Ridge. The sun, orange and cool, stood above a line of trees in front of her. "Pete and I never did really get beyond our honeymoon!" The thought flashed across her mind like a new element through a fog chamber, startling her. "No, damn it, no! Our lives were perfect together. Our love was everything. No, you're wrong, �John Foster West 241 Jay Webber. I will have no doubts, no regrets concerning my marriage." The green waves of the western Piedmont hills rolled beneath her at a leisurely pace. Now and then the road blurred out as though she had hit a sudden shower with the windshield wipers off. She had to blink her way back to clear visibility. "But we never went anywhere except that time to Skyline Drive and those three days with his parents in Jacksonville. Aside from that, Pete was flying, or we were at a party. No. No. Our marriage was short but sweet. If Pete had lived, if he had not been a military pilot, if we could have spent more time together—" What? What would have happened? How would it have been? "Damn you, Jay Webber, you and your flowers and trees. I know what it was like with Pete. I was there. Me!" She slowed to thirty-five. Wooded hills swelled into the ancient ridges of a small mountain chain to her right, a narrow creek valley to her left. The leaves, the weeds, the whole world around her, in front of her, gleamed and scintillated with the green life of earth in its early-morning robe. Clusters of blackeyed Susans and daisies decorated the grassy banks and fields around her. She saw a little island of white, where a clump of Queen Anne's lace held a family conference. Beyond them, disorganized and scattered, the tousled heads of common yarrow asserted their individualism. Yarrow �242 The Summer People has a shallow root structure, she thought. Queen Anne's lace is wild carrot. The tuber root is edible. "Good grief, what has that kinky-headed sonof-a-gun done to me?" she muttered. "Who cares whether you can eat wild roots or not? Who really cares about the mountains and clouds and rock formations and trees? Life is back in Norfolk, where they need me." Suddenly, she whipped into a parking area beside a faded green picnic table and braked to a halt. She threw the shift to neutral and yanked up on the emergency brake, then sat staring ahead, into the morning sunlight. Poor Pete, what an awful price to pay for the love of flying! Miles of Blue Ridge formed a miniature skyline framed by her rearview mirror. "Poor Pete!" She sighed, but it caught in her throat, choking her. "And you, Jay Webber—yes, you, you, very you! What shall I do about you?" When she braked to a stop in front of the old mansion, Jay Webber opened the door and strolled nonchalantly toward her. She got out of the car and watched him. He came within three feet of her, stopped, and she studied his face uncertainly. "How far did you get?" he asked casually. "How far did I—" A surge of resentment swept over her. "What do you mean, how far did I get?" A grin divided his red beard. "I knew I would �John Foster West 243 make you angry enough with my letter to make you challenge me, but I wasn't sure just how angry." "Oh, so now you're a psychologist?" "Strictly amateur, my lady." They came together sedately, like two pawns in a foregone conclusion. He was warm and firm in her arms. She looked beyond his head, but the sky was as blue and empty as it had been that day at Oceana Naval Base when Pete's A-6 had flickered and disappeared, to rendezvous with his carrier, somewhere on the ocean beyond her vision. �was in on Dec. 10, He he the Air Corp. When in 1945; West to at UNC at he a B. A. in 1947 M.A. in He his Ph.D. the He at Old He ASU in He is the of Time Wasf Dawnf This Land, He on 2, the age the an of at � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian Consortium Press Publications Description An account of the resource This collection contains digitized monographs and collections from the Appalachian Consortium Press. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Appalachian Consortium Press Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Appalachian Consortium Press Date Issued Date of formal issuance (e.g., publication) of the resource. June 1, 2017 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <a title="Digital Scholarship and Initiatives" href="http://library.appstate.edu/services/digital-scholarship-and-initiatives" target="_blank">Digital Scholarship and Initiatives</a> Publication Digital Publisher Digital Republication Appalachian State University Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Summer People Description An account of the resource <span>In the summer of 1974, twenty-four year old Anna DeVoss finds herself widowed and alone in the unfamiliar country of the North Carolina mountains. The body of her husband, a navy pilot missing in action for six years, has just been returned home from Vietnam. Following his funeral her mother in law persuades her to spend some time alone at the family’s summer home in Watauga County, North Carolina, in what becomes a summer of discovery for Anna.</span><br /><br /><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Hb3067mJVocyA5IMb4iY-our4Tgqe8aG" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Download EPub<br /><br /></a><a title="UNC Press Link" href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469642079/the-summer-people" target="_blank" rel="noopener">UNC Press Print on Demand</a> Subject The topic of the resource Watauga County (N.C.)--Fiction Mountain life--Fiction Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1989 Language A language of the resource English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource West, John Foster Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Appalachian Consortium Press Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF E-books Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed</a> Spatial Coverage Spatial characteristics of the resource. https://www.geonames.org/4497707/watauga-county.html Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA 76 Appalachian Consortium records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/9" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> UA 76 Appalachian Consortium records </a> Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. <a title="Appalachian Consortium Press Publications" href="https://omeka.library.appstate.edu/collections/show/82" target="_blank"> Appalachian Consortium Press Publications</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant ||||osm Watauga County (N.C.) Temporal Coverage Temporal characteristics of the resource. 1980s fiction locals summer residents Vietnam wealthy https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/a6b71683a78084e78fc5011a16611d49.pdf aac04c2dcfbbd529fec35f62d942f60b PDF Text Text Name: Branch: Years Served: Conflicts: Date of Interview: Richard Gilbert U.S. Army 1968-1971 Vietnam War October 15, 2012 Cody Spiker: My name is Cody Spiker, interviewing Richard Gilbert at 214 West Academy Street, his residence. [Cherryville, NC] Mr. Gilbert, when were you born? Richard Gilbert: I was born March 27th, 1948. Spiker: Where were you born at? Gilbert: I was born in Franklin NC, which was way up in the mountains up in the corner of the state. But I grew up in Lincoln County. Spiker: Lincoln County, when did you move down to Lincolnton, or Lincoln County? Gilbert: Oh, probably when I started school, around First grade. You know, about seven, six or seven, something like that. I think I actually started second grade down here, so. We moved up on highway 27 out in the country. Spiker: Okay, so your family is from the Appalachian Mountains actually? Gilbert: Yeah my mom was born in the mountains, my grandmother and grandfather yeah, basically homesteaders, so. Spiker: Okay, one of the things that they are pushing for in this interview process is people from the Appalachian Mountains, (“Oh” -Gilbert) the Appalachian area, veterans form this area so that’s excellent. So, which war did you fight in? Gilbert: I fought in Vietnam. Yeah I went, I got in the army, let’s see, it would have been ’68. I think, and then I went to Vietnam in ’69. So, I went in in December, I went to Vietnam I December of ’68 and came back in December of ‘69. Spiker: Ok, and where you a volunteer or were you a draftee? Gilbert: Well, I was a volunteer. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. I didn’t really support the war but I knew that needed a college education and I didn’t really have a way to pay for it. So, I saw that as a way of getting an education an you know, so, I enlisted for three years. Spiker: Okay, so at the time that you enlisted where were you living at? 1 �Gilbert: I was living in Lincolnton and I was attending Lincolnton high school, and I was in my last year. And there were several of us who talked about it and decided we would go see a recruiter, and so we did. We all went in together; there was about, I don’t know, eight or ten of us. Spiker: So you were about eighteen? Gilbert: … Somewhere along in there, it was just after high school. Spiker: What branch of service did you enter? Gilbert: Well, since I enlisting and I got the opportunity to pick, I had some choice and they told me what was open. Artillery, a couple things, communications, and military police and I decided that I would go military police. Sounded exciting. (Spiker chuckles and says, “MP’s lead the way.”) Spiker: So you obviously enlisted into the Army? Gilbert: Right. Spiker: Do you recall your first days of service? Like when you went to basic training? What was that like? Gilbert: Oh I remember the first day of training like it was imprinted in my brain, (Gilbert chuckles) It… we had about a week or so before we actually started basic they had us in a kind of holding pen, which was extremely boring, there was nothing to do except you know what freedom we had to go to the PX and eat. That was about it. So… when we were ready to start basic they put us on the bus and drove us over to our company and then I think you can imagine what happened after that. Hahahaha. It was in July at Fort Bragg and I think that was probably the hottest place on earth. And… it was a pretty miserable day. Spiker: I can imagine. Do you remember any of your instructors? Gilbert: Oh yes, lets see, there was… a Corporal Norris who had… he was an interesting character. He had been in the Army and… served and came back home and somehow or another he was in the reserves and didn’t attend the meetings and got re-drafted, (Chuckles) so they pulled him back in and they put him as… in our company as a trainer, as an instructor. …There was a couple of Drill Sergeants, you know I guess if I thought about it I could probably remember their names but I can’t right at the moment… it was interesting. I learned a lot about the Army. The Army travels on its stomach, the food was great. Everybody else complained, but I ate like a king… there was a fairness. They picked on everybody equally, (Chuckles) It was… interesting. I got kind of an insight into Army thinking which… and I respect that, I really do. I respect that. I didn’t like being in the Army but I did respect it. You know. Spiker: You mentioned earlier that you went to talk to a recruiter with a couple of fellows from your high school; did you end up going to basic training with those fellows. 2 �Gilbert: As a matter of fact, we all went through basic training together… all in the same company except two of use. Two went into the company next door and the rest of us were in the same. I went in with a guy named Steve Rice from High Shoals and… Steve, Steve was tough guy. He was real tough; he was a street cred guy you know. He carried a hawkbill knife and (chuckling)... you didn’t mess with Steve. But… Steve and I were good friends… he and I, we stayed together all through basic training and.. we did some crazy things together… (“Do you want to explain some of those?” -Spiker, laughing) Oh, I’m glad to tell you one. We had to do; you know we had to spend the late afternoon and evening crawling under barbwire while they were shooting over the top of us in training. And they had these bunkers placed out there that had artillery simulators in them. And I went first, I was in a wave that went in and crawled under the barbwire, and then Steve came after me. I said Steve I’ll meet you at that center bunker and we’ll smoke a cigarette before we go on. And we did, and we both got chewed out (Chuckling) seriously chewed out. But we did, we had to hold it so nobody could see the light from the cigarette, we passed it back and forth. And the artillery simulators were going off and the ground was shaken, all the bullets going over head and all that stuff. It was pretty exciting. Spiker: So after basic training you went to your MP school, where was that at? Gilbert: That was at Fort Gordon Georgia. (“Fort Gordan Georgia.”-Spiker) Yeah, and I did not know it snowed in Georgia, but it sure did. (Chuckling) Yeah, I graduated on November the 22nd because I remember it was… it got pretty cold down there… it definitely snowed. We had a bout three or four inches one day. That was fun, we got to drive jeeps in the snow, out through the hills. We did a night driving class… so we had to keep our interval and that kind of stuff. It had snowed on the ground so it was a lot brighter than the sergeant liked but…(chuckles) It was good. Spiker: So… when you finally graduated… MP school where did you go after that? Did you go directly to Vietnam or…? Gilbert: No, I got, I got leave. I came home…for… I got a, I think a thirty day leave. And then… I reported to… California… and I don’t remember all the details of this but… we had to stay in… It was right next to the Navy compound and… we could see the swabbies walking around. Course, you know how soldiers…they are… there is always enough competition to start something. So, there was always some yelling back and forth across the fence and… I thought California was kind of neat. I didn’t get to see a whole lot. There was a building there, it was building 590, which, you know, can you imagine… They must have shipped cow in it because this thing was huge. It was long and wide and all the bunks were three bunks high and close together. They were… sending a lot of people to Vietnam. Yeah… I stayed in building 590. That’s… kind of a famous landmark I guess if you look at the history books. Spiker: Lets backtrack for a minute, when you said you had leave. Did you come back home? Did you have a significant other at the time? Gilbert: I had a girlfriend (“okay, what was her name?” –Spiker) Harriette, Harriette, yes Harriette Gurley. (“Where was she from?”- Spiker) Cherryville (pronounced Chur-a-ville) 3 �(“Cherryville, okay.” –Spiker)… Cherryville and Lincolnton were big rivals so… me dating Cherryville girls was… kind of a risky thing, but I found out that your Cherryville girls were very attractive. (“Yes sir.” –Spiker) …I dated here almost a year before I went to Vietnam and then several years afterwards and then we got married. Spiker: Okay…When did you actually get boots on the ground in Vietnam? Gilbert: It would have been December of 1968. I don’t remember the exact date, but… flew into… Long Binh and then flew from Long Binh to… Quin Yon and that’s where it think, if I remember correctly or company command headquarters was there and we had two platoons at… well that was battalion and then we had… another, our main area where I was, was in Pleiku. And.. Quin Yon is right on the coast, so I got to see the ocean. Of course, Cam Ranh Bay we did... in-country training. We did a couple weeks of in-country training in Cam Ranh Bay… Pretty place too. Nice white sands azure sea and sea snakes. (Chuckles, “Did you encounter any sea snakes?” –Spiker) No, no but they always warned us if you go out into the ocean be careful. (Still Chuckling) So, but it was a beautiful place I loved it. Vietnam was a beautiful country…. So, Cam Ranh Bay and the I went to Quin Yon; and from Quin Yon I went to Pleiku and that was where I was mainly stationed. We did have two other, little satellite outpost that we… we convoyed. So, we would convoy up to the pass from each side and then we would convoy back… and we would you know, switch of the convoys…. My route was up to the what was called the Mang Yang Pass, if I remember correctly…. It was real gentle going up on one side and then It was real steep going down the other side. And there were tanks parked all over the place on the down-side of that. Spiker: Now a days there is two different MP’s, you have the Combat MP and the Garrison MP. Was that still so back in Vietnam? Gilbert: Well no. I was a 95b10, hahaha, everybody was a 95b10, it was… completely different I guess from… what’s going on today. It was… our main focus was convoy escort and… then town patrol, where, you know, you… actually patrolled in the streets of… like Pleiku or An Khe or some place like that. And… that was pretty much it. There was none of the urban warfare kinda stuff that you guys have gone through, so…. Spiker: Okay… while you were in Vietnam did you see any combat? Gilbert: Ambush or two…I got blown out of bed one morning. That was exciting. A rocket landed between where I was and the mess hall and blew a pretty good size hole in the ground. And there was a sandbag wall between me and the explosion so I was okay, but I woke up looking at the floor coming up at my face…and… I couldn’t hear anything. It was just.. ringing in my ears. I was armorer at that time. They put me in the arms room. I was taking care of the weapons, and we had florescent lights in the arms room and it blew every one of them out but one. There was only one burning and that was pretty exciting. We lost a guy that morning, he was a dog handler. Killed him and his dog as they were going on duty, it was very early in the morning so… Spiker: And do you remember his name? 4 �Gilbert: I don’t, I didn’t know him… we had two barracks of MP’s, one of infantry who helped guard our perimeter and then we had a dog handler… barracks…you knew them in passing, but you didn’t really work very close. Those guys mainly were perimeter guys and they guarded the ammunition supply dump and that sort of thing. We would mainly patrol and come back. You know, we considered them as part of our unit, I mean there was no doubt about that but…there wasn’t as much interaction as there was you know.. with the other MP’s. We had our own club. Spiker: Really? Tell me about that. Gilbert: Well it was up on the little hill and it was the road runner club because it was our mascot and… the MP’s didn’t do well at other peoples’ clubs for some reason… But the club was just a small little separate building with a bar and… served soft drinks and beer. No hard liquor. No one was eligible for that… occasionally they would hir, you know, a little Vietnamese rock band and bring them and they would you know have a couple of Go Go Girls or something like that.. It was just a nice little club. Spiker: You mentioned your unit a minute ago, I forgot to ask your unit number. Gilbert: Oh Lord, let me see. Gah, that’s just been so long. It ws the 504th MP CO, and Battalion, I think If I remember correctly, I was in Company B. I was in B, 504th MP Battalion at Pleiku. But that’s been a while, don’t quote me, hahaha. Spiker: Okay, other than being an armorer, did you have any other details…jobs? Gilbert: No, that was the only really specialized job that I did. They… our armorer had…the person who was serving as armorer had left, and…they “Okay you’re good with tools, go down there and keep the record.” Course you know everybody does things like paint numbers on jeeps and that sort of thing but that was the only one that I had actually just a separate job. It wasn’t that bad, there were only two of us and we had… it was one on and one off. We slept, we actualy had a bunk in the arms room so we could actually sleep in there two…so, there was always one of us in the arms room, so. If any thing happened we could unlock everything. I did have a station… if we were attacked, from the arms room I was to move up on to a bunker that had a .50 on it. I was to… be part of the .50 crew on, if else had…if I had expended all the ammo that was where I went. (Chuckling) Spiker: So, that never happened though? Gilbert: No. Our attacks were mostly rocket attacks, which were pretty long, big rockets and then of course mortar attacks, we would get those every once in a while. Ambushes would be anything from a few pot shots to a couple of mortar rounds coming in to some sort of improvised device… every once in a while they’d blow a bridge up and we would have to put a defile around it and you know, keep and eye on that. But, I think the road was probably the most dangerous thing. That’s where we, we got more people hurt. Mainly form accidents…rain, mud, jeeps turn over. We also had an armored vehicle, we had V100, which I think now is obsolete, 5 �we probably sold them all to some other country. I really liked it because it had a 318 Chrysler engine in it with a four barrel carburetor… (Chuckling) Spiker: Can you tell me about some of your most memorable experiences while deployed to Vietnam? Gilbert: Oh, wow, let’s see. Well I can think of a couple things… I enjoyed shooting rats at the mess hall at night that was fun, with a crossbow. We would get Vietnamese crossbows and shoot the rats and try to stick them into the wall and that was fun. I used to like to drive out to a … yard, you know the local indigenous people…there was…the French had built a damn near this little village and I used to sneak out their and lay out underneath the trees and just sleep. It was just a whole different…the kids around and all that kind of stuff. Little kids you know how they just want to play and I’de go out and skip stoned with them things like that. It was a good way to kind of relax. Spiker: So were…was everybody able to just go out? Gilbert: No, this was something that really wasn’t sanctioned. Haha, but… you would have your radio on and if there was no convoy…you’d just have to run the road by yourself, just you and your… you’d have a driver and an interpreter and then a gunner on the jeep who had a M60…But if there was nothing going on we’d kind of sneak over, it wasn’t just about a quarter of a mile and just sneak over…relax a while. Have lunch and then get back on the road. It might have been breaking the rules a little bit, but it wasn’t that serious. It was no, no real threat to anything. It was just a little way to unwind. Spiker: Do you remember much from the end of your tour? Gilbert: Well, I remember when I got short. They took me off duty, I think the last couple of weeks they take you off duty and then put you on light duty where you’re basically cleaning up barracks and taking new guys around to get their equipment and showing them where everything is and things like that. And then, they start processing you out, you have to send your whole baggage and that sort of thing back…and then I think I caught a ride we was always thumbing rides on airplanes or something. I went over to the Air force base, which was right behind us, so I went over and thumbed a ride on a transport and it was a great ride. I remember going back, it was fantastic because the back door was open a couple of feet. And it had a big crack and I could look down on the jungle and there was no one else on the plane except the pilot, co-pilot, crew chief, you know, and me. And I was in the seat, the last seat, just strapped in, looking out the door at the jungle going by. It was pretty cool; it was a good flight back. Spiker: You say… getting short…for the sake of the interview can you explain what that is? Gilbert: Short is when you’re getting ready to go home and your friends will present you with a swagger stick. And its usually a bullet with a stick stuck in it. (chuckles) And it’s carved to look like a long, little swagger stick, or it’s a shell with a stick stuck in it, then you kind of stick that under your arm and you walk around with it and everybody knows you’re short, you’re bragging you know…and then of course you would make the twoe fingers close together like 6 �that…(Demonstrates fore finger and thumb about half an inch apart)…short, and people would be envious. And of course you would have your short timers calendar up n the wall with all the X’s over everyday that you been there…. Spiker: What rank where you when you went in and when you came out? Gilbert: Oh, Lord. I remember being an E2 for about three weeks-four weeks and then they made me a E1; I guess an E1 and then they made me an E2. I think that when I got out of basic they made me a E3. And then when I got o Vietnam I became a Spec4 and I stayed that, or should I say, I stayed that until I got back to the United States, I did get busted. Not real proud of that but…I lost my rank for about a month but I made it back. I was basically a good guy, just little things happen. Spiker: Yes sir, yes sir. So, while serving did you earn any awards/medals? Gilbert: I had just regular Vietnam medals…I did have a whole bunch of unit citations and all that kind of stuff…I didn’t get any wounds or anything like that. I just tried to stay out of trouble and not get killed. I did think I was dead one night though. I ran out of the barracks, we had an attack, and I ran out in the middle of the night and they had dug a ditch across the walkway and I had forgotten about it and the next thing I know I had came too looking up at stars. I thought I had been hit, I start trying to feel for things and, I figured I would get a purple heart for that but they wouldn’t give it to me for some reason. (Spiker laughs) No, falling in a slit trench was not considered being wounded in action… Spiker: Oh, it was a slit trench?! My goodness, haha. Oh, that’s rough (Gilbert laughs) Gilbert: It was new thank goodness. Spiker: Oh good, so there wasn’t anything in it yet. Gilbert: They had just dug it. It could have been worse. Spiker: It could have been a lot worse. How did you stay in touch with your family while in … [Vietnam] Gilbert: Well, we had a new method of communication. It was the cassette tape. My wife, well my fiancé at the time, we sent cassettes to each other. I got lots of letters. I wasn’t as good at writing as she was…she…basically, I had a couple of pounds of letters by the time I got to come back. Spiker: What was the food like, over there in Vietnam? You said you liked the Army food. Gilbert: Well, I always thought it was great. The cooks were well trained, they were good. Our company had one cook who was, all he did was make pastries, so we had fresh bread and cakes, pies. He would make breakfast rolls and sweet rolls…I guess I was a chow hound because I liked to eat late. I would have breakfast at eleven o’clock at night and like if I was going on duty 7 �and skip the morning breakfast, and eat late…. I never really complained about the food. It was all I wanted and there was plenty of it, and it was good food, it wasn’t just empty calories… occasionally we had steak and baked potatoes. Something weird happened, strange happened when I was in, this was when the Army tried a little experiment. They actually, for the evening meal, they sold beer in the mess hall. Your limit was two, but they were “tall boys”, you know, tall ones. After the evening meal, if you were off duty, you could have as many as two beers in the mess hall. Now I don’t think that lasted too long, but that was an unusual, this was strange for the Army. That getting very liberal here. Spiker: So it sounded like ya’ll had plenty of supplies while you were there. Gilbert: We did run short in Vietnam, we ran short of canned drinks for a while, in the PX and all that kind of place it was just, something happened and for about a month we couldn’t get soft drinks and things like that for a while. They were short supply…you could get them. A lot of guys would take cases of drinks, buy them at the PX and then take them and trade them on the black market… that kind of thing is always going on. Spiker: Other than shooting rats, how did ya’ll keep yourselves entertained? Gilbert: Well, we had a day room, and there was tv, and that’s where I saw the moon landing cause that happened when I was…you know… there. Then we had magazines and occasionally, if you had a good friend, you could sneak into the commo bunker, the command bunker, the communications bunker and you could make a phone call or get a phone call… so, one of my friends actually called me from Vietnam, he was in another company a couple of hundred miles away, and he’d call me and we’d talk every once in a while. But that was bellow the radar (Chuckles “Yes sir.” –Spiker) ...there was always an emergency phone call if somebody at you home needed to get up with you, you could, it would have to bounce all over the place to get to you, and there was no guaranty that it would get there, but you could make a phone call to the states every once in a while. It was not something that was easily done, at least in my unit. Spiker: I meant to ask you, your buddies from high school, did any of them get assigned to your unit with you? Gilbert: No, I was the only MP. The rest of them, I think maybe about half of them ended up in the infantry and I know one of them became a medic or maybe two of them. Two of them became medics and I don’t really remember the rest of them….Did have one that went to Chemical Warfare school. Yeah, I remember him. He went there, he was a pretty smart guy. They grabbed him up, and I don’t think he went to Vietnam, he went to Washington and, or some place, kept him stateside. He was real, he was a smart guy. Spiker: After your three years was up…or did you spend all that three years in Vietnam? Gilbert: I did not. When I came back from Vietnam I was stationed in Maryland at Fort Meade. There were…Fort Meade was Basically riot control for the city of D.C. at that time, and this was when, you know, everybody was rioting about everything. There was always some kind of march going on somewhere. So, that’s where I was, and I applied to Gaston College and got an 8 �early out to go to school. I got about four months out early to go to college. That was just like, exciting like going into the Army. It was great. I was ready for college then. Spiker: Did you use your GI Bill to go to college? Gilbert: I sure did. I got almost four years of college out of three years in the Army. Spiker: Nice. Gilbert: Yeah, at that time it was a full, about a hundred and ninety dollars a month if you weren’t married, so, I think it went to a little over two hundred dollars a month if you were married, as I recall. But you know you could live cheap in Boone, it was a hundred dollars a month in rent… Spiker: So, you went to Appalachian State as well? Gilbert: I did. Spiker: Good, good. Were you married to Harriette at that time? Gilbert: We got married the year that I transferred from…it would have been my third year of college. We got married just after I graduated from Gaston. I got an AA form Gaston and then we got married and she started graduate school because she was ahead of me by four years. And, I had just started my third year at Appalachian. Spiker: Did you retain any friendships from the service while you were still in college and throughout life? Gilbert: A few but unfortunately they have gone by the wayside, most of them. I can’t, only the ones that are from Lincolnton that I went to school with I still see them occasionally. Most of them are, you know, you just lose touch. Spiker: I understand. While…studying at Appalachian State what was your major? Gilbert: I was an Art Major. Spiker: Art Major, and did you go on to fulfill your dreams in art? Gilbert: Well, I got out from Appalachian, my wife and I were married, we moved to Dallas, NC and I started teaching at William C. Friday Middle School. Spiker: What did you teach there? Gilbert: I taught art, my degree was actually art education, so, either being an artist or being a teacher was…either way. It was convenient and there was a job…I didn’t know I was going to like teaching though. She talked me into…I was just going to be an art major, she’s the one who 9 �talked me into being an art education major she says you might want to teach, you don’t know, you know. You might not do well as an artist when you first get out. So, why don’t you just do that, it’s just a few extra courses. I said, “Alright.” …and I kind of like teaching. Spiker: So, you continued to teach until? Gilbert: Well I taught for about…six years and then I went to work for a mining company, but there was financial incentive. Yeah, I got a pretty good raise to move into the mining industry…I went to work in a lab for them and got to do all kinds of wonderful and interesting things in mining and in a lab and chemistry and special projects…mainly why they hired me was because I knew a little bit about chemistry, I knew a little bit about ceramic engineering, I knew how to weld, I knew how to do some electrical work, so that art background of kind of knowing a little bit about a lot of stuff, but not being an expert the said, “Well good, we’re going to put you in special projects.” So, for about twelve years. It was a good job, excellent, I was never doing the same thing for very long they were always pulling me around and making me do all kinds of crazy… I mean learned how to survey, learned how to use a computer. Just everything. Spiker: After that job you went on to teach again? Gilbert: Well I stated teaching college off and on as an adjunct professor, not a full time professor, but just in part time. And then I’ve done that ever since. I worked as a computer programmer at Doran Mills in Shelby. I worked in the printing industry for a couple of years as a trainer, I would install systems and train people on how to use computer systems and use programs like photoshop and how to do touch up editing and I was a font expert I guess you would say. And all of those electronic font things…and then I got back into teaching again in middle school. An then…this will be my tenth year and last year. And I will retire. Spiker: Congratulations. Well, I think that’s pretty much all I have. Is there anything else that you would like to add to… Gilbert: No, I enjoyed talking to you. Spiker: I have as well. I have as well. I do appreciate it. 10 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/c96ca3742e967c7d579080db60668489.mp3 33274ab687bac5808732c11c00bd0f44 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. File size 75.7 KB 16 MB Format, digital MP3 Military Branch military branch (U.S. Army, etc) U.S. Army Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Spiker; Cody Gilbert; Richard Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Spiker, Cody Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Gilbert, Richard Interview Date 10/15/2012 Number of pages 10 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:35:06 Date digitized 2/5/2015 Checksum alphanumeric code 1ab5da6a51135cdce2f97284fb80a21a 33274ab687bac5808732c11c00bd0f44 Scanned by Leah McManus Equipment Adobe Acrobat XI Pro Resolution 300 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal; non-commercial; and educational use; provided that proper citation is used. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived UA.5018. American Military History Course Records Recording rate A/V rate (48,000kzh x 16 bit) 48000kzh x 16 bit Format, original Electronic File Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 5018_Gilbert_Richard_20121015_transcript_M 5018_Gilbert_Richard_20121015_audio_A Title A name given to the resource Interview with Richard Gilbert [October 15, 2012] Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Language A language of the resource English English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Spiker, Cody Gilbert, Richard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Description An account of the resource Richard Gilbert served in the army for three years during the Vietnam War. He was a volunteer right out of high school, and figured the military was his only way to get to college. He was stationed in Pleiku, Vietnam and worked as a military police officer. He saw very little combat but his base was ambushed a couple of times. After the 3 years were up he majored in art at Applachian State and worked as a middle school art teacher. Subject The topic of the resource Gilbert, Richard Veterans Vietnam War, 1961-1975 United States Personal narratives, American Interviews army Fort Gordon Georgia Fort Meade GI Bill military police Pleiku Vietnam https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/4a928b1ec8b3d7fd6da4d7cdbed5e15b.pdf fe875733014d9fe367de00274fd3b28a PDF Text Text Name: Branch: Years Served: Conflicts: Date of Interview: Franklin Omsted Pitzer U.S. Army 1950s-1970s Vietnam War November 2, 2012 Haley Kearns: Today is November 2, 2012. I am Haley Kearns and I will be interviewing Frank Pitzer for my American Military History Class at Appalachian State University. You ready to begin the interview? Franklin Omsted Pitzer: Yes ma’am. I guess I can start from basics, like Haley…Haley said I’m Franklin Omsted Pitzer named after my maternal grandfather, Franklin Omsted Baxter and … I grew up most…uh…most of my twelve years in California and then we went to what was capitol district New York, the Albany area. I uh graduated from high school there. I had…a concept of going to college, but didn’t go because Korea was there and then all of that that followed, so I went in and had a…was gonna enlist but patriotism was very high and I was a young kid and bottom enlist, so this being so, all of the branches were plum full, you know? First thing was try the Marine Corp and then the Navy, and then all the other branches and I wound up volunteering for the…ah…draft. It took three months for them to draft me, went from induction in Albany to...ah…to a packet in Fort Dix, New Jersey, to my basic training at…ah…Fort Riley with the Tenth Mountain Division…ah…we happened to be the right number to fatten out the Tenth Mountain Division, so…uh…that was what happened to all of us we joined in a packet, we wound up at Fort Riley, we rotated with the Tenth Mountain Division under…ah…the operation gyroscope with the entirety, sent units…uh…to Hamburg, Germany…Germany and…ah…was lucky enough to be in a unique situation which was sort of unusual. Usually you went in, you took basic, you got shipped somewhere to another unit and …uh…ah… you know by the time you had a stripe on your arm or something you had been in several other units, you know like that? I found that I like the military very much and so…ah…I had gotten married just before I went into the military. I felt…felt that that was the…the situation being is if I didn’t like the military I’d come home and stoke the home fires. Well, I found that I like the military. I stoked the home fires because home was anywhere Uncle Sam sent me. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: So they initially sent me to Hamburg, Germany and I had a full tour there with the Tenth Mountain Division. I was…ah…started out taking basic at Fort Riley, you know like that, and then I was with …ah…I became a Box Sargent with…and then a Sargent E5 and I was with…with communications and so we were a different, rather unique group in that we were very proud of what we were, but we were soldiers. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: And so naturally took basic, qualified with your weaponry every…every year…ah…kept your military subjects at the bases and wore my uniform, I think I was so proud I probably could have busted the buttons if they…if they would have popped. And so I stayed in the…with 1 �the…ah…with the 85th infantry…ah…and went to the rank of Sargent, and I know a lot of people thought I was crazy but I took what they called a burst of six, my first enlistment it was six years. And the military was to me the culmination of a young man’s desires to serve his country. So I was extremely fortunate. I went to the rank of Sargent like I said and I …ah…went along until it was in…in the late ‘50s, early ‘60s when the …ah… there was a lot of turmoil in the military with people getting out and coming back in and trying to decide what they would do, etc., etc. So I enlisted for six years and with that enlistment of six years, I …ah…looked the Army over and said this is where I wanted to be. I had…ah…a lot of background in mechanics so…ah…they had an old Kohler…ah…Kohler generator that needed to be over…ah…overhauled, rebuilt, and I had a platoon leader, a young lieutenant and he said “I have this engine, does anybody know?” And I walked up to him and I didn’t even know how to appropriately report to him. And Sargent Brewer was a tremendous Sargent and he looked down at me and he says “Sargent come to brace,” so I snapped to attention and I apologized to Lieutenant Chetty and from then I knew I was his number one boy so simply because I had overhauled Valley Chomers, farm hauls, John Deeres, Remmele ...ah…Kohler…Kohler generators and everything, just had a good mechanical background. So, went ahead and…ah…became the power generation person and with that came a Corporal stripe, and as you progress along and confidence…confidence is building yourself and your fellow troops and the whole morale of the unit just seems to cement together, and hey this is where it’s at. And so with that mentality, like I said I took a burst of six. And when that happened they needed a Motor Sargent, and, well, most of what I was working on (laughs) had to do Peaky ten to twelve inch tires, you know, the…the only difference between that and a motorized vehicle that you pushed around and one that drove itself around was the transmission and so on and so forth. But just being mechanical and having worked around all this a lot of my life before I went in the service, why, it just expanded and next thing you knew, why, rotated back out of Germany and …ah…(coughs) when we went back over to Germany I was a Motor Sargent in an artillery unit. And…from there I considered myself very lucky because the unit that I went to, we were responsible for…ah…for preposition…ah…firing positions of part of NATO on the ….Neurenb…no, the Frankfurt…ah…Nuremburg Autobahn. And…ah…well, what it meant when we had an alert was we were…were trained that at such and such a time if the alert sounded we deployed to our vehicles and the vehicles deployed to a given spot, and we would be established there until the drill was over with or the threat if there…one existed was…taken care of and we could return back to our unit and went along til the next alert. And we had monthly alerts which was all part of NATO, and…ah…so I progressed from being just a…typical, very proud American soldier to thinking, well, hey, I could really enjoy this service. And so the next thing I knew I had applied…I had applied with Northern Area Command under Seventh Army to be a Warrant Officer. And…being a young Sargent and fortunately promoted and people knew me well…ah…I went to the board and satisfactory passed the board and so I come home a wobbly one, which is what they call a (laughs) a Warrant Officer First Class. And…ah…I got sworn in under General Norris and General Norris was a…was the...ah…Seventh Infantry Division…ah…the Commander Infantry…Seventh Infantry Division Artillery Commander. And…ah…I’ll never forget how good it felt to walk outside and nobody knew whether I was a hundred and twenty years old or less than five minutes with…carrying my bar. And there is a tradition in the army…is…and I hope it still goes on, I don’t know, I haven’t been near it and made that inquiry, but the first person who salutes you, you bring him around in front of me and you sort of like “hey, troop, post yourself,” and so that gentleman, or the young…young Private, 2 �or PFC as it usually were would be…would be just thinking “Oh my God, what have I done?” And so you just proceed to make him feel like he’s the lowest thing other than the dirt that he’s standing on, and it’s all part of you “chewing out” the first troop that salutes you as an officer. So here I was…ah…a W1, hardly know how to put on my bars and…and this young PFC walked by me and that’s when…naturally enough if it moves and it has a bar on it you salute it, so he snapped to and…and he…and it was in the afternoon, just after noon, and he “Good afternoon, Sir!” And he started to walk on, just as would be customary, and I whipped around and I said…like I said I told him to post in front of me and I asked him, “Do you know what you’ve just done?” And my gosh, you know, I guess he thought he had done…really done something terrible, so when I explained the situation to him he burst out in a big smile and I said “Son, this will probably be the first and the last time an officer will ever hug you unless it’s in your family” and I said “Thank you, you have made my day.” And I…I handed him the dollar and he looked up at me and Sargent Major were…you know and I was…was…in the Division…in the Division Artillery Headquarters door and he smiled and he said “Well done Mr. Pitzer.” And that’s what they call Warrants regardless of what they are…W1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on, they expanded the ranks and …ah…he said “I’m looking forward to seeing you in the motor pool.” And I said “Sargent Major are always welcomed in my motor pool and if you got any problem that it can’t be fixed, I’ll personally fix it.” And he said “that won’t be necessary.” He said “I’m sure you will have a staff ready to go in…in quick order.” And so with that I started my career as a Warrant Officer and moved through the ranks. And I retired as a W4 from Fort Bragg (clears throat) Fort Bragg…ah…I was what they called a Post Corp, Maintain Chief. But I had…ah…skirmishes here and there and elsewhere, primarily Vietnam and …ah…other than that…other than being grateful that I was not wounded…ah…I must admit that I was always walking with a loaded weapon and I was always ready to use it because that’s how I…that’s how I was trained and besides being a Motor Officer and a Warrant Officer I knew these young men that worked under me and to this day I can remember many of their names and everything and I told myself I will never lose one of America’s best Kearns: Uh, huh Pitzer: to some stupid stunt that I pulled. And by that I meant whatever it could have been, that I could have contributed to that. And I was lucky enough to work for Special Forces at Duc Loc which is…ah…was part of Fifth Special Forces. I carried a coin that they gave me as part of the…ah…as being part of that team…ah…I was nom…nominated for a…a Silver Star but it got lost in the normal…ah…MOA which is military ordinary mail. Things get lost and so what? I know I was nominated, I know I served with some of the finest that America ever put in line. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: I’m…very proud that…that when we were stationed in Fort George G. Meade that we were responsible for riot control and etc. I did…show how…what a fool I might have been in that when we came back from Vietnam, we were going to the supply area and being reissued things and I was flipped a flak jacket and …and I threw it back to the…the supply Sargent and said “Why do I need this…blank thing?” (Kearns laughs) And he said “Because you’ll have to wear a flak jacket if you go to our nation’s capital.” I said “Like blank the day that I wear a flak jacket in my nation’s capital it’ll be a free fl…flier zone.” And unbeknownst to me and many 3 �other people that when new people came into their unit the then commanding general of Fort G. Meade more or less perused as they went past the Supply Sargent and he said “Pick that up mister.” And that…I whipped around and there stood a Two Star General and said “You got your wish.” He said “You’ll be responsible for the hard column which means tanks and heavy guns and things. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: And…ah…when they had riots they just placed a regiment of…ah…infantry from the 82nd Airborne and it would go up and be...be housed in the…ah…commerce building which looks out at the Capitol and my mouth got me loaded up that when it and if such a situation happened that they had to deploy to secure the ellipse that I would be responsible for six Sheridans and six heavy tanks forty-eight A1s, medium tanks and…and that was it. The situation never came about, but I considered myself very lucky to have been part of…ah…of a team that would have defended our Capitol if for whatever reason and for whatever unfortunate circumstance American citizens or whatever turned against and rioted in our Capitol. So…ah…that…that was it. And that happened to me twice when I went back to…ah…to that area of…assignment, but I had twenty-four years in the service as a Warrant Officer…ah…I worked with the finest and I…I’m sure that if I had been in the Marine Corps I would have thought that, if I had been in the Navy I would have thought that Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: if I had been in the Air Force, cause there was nothing finer than American fighting men. And I get dewy eyed just thinking about how prepared we are for war and how willing our young men and women are and how many of them are coming back. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: Not…not whole as we would consider it whole but proud of every darn thing they do Kearns: Yeah Pitzer: and every darn thing they’ve did. And so I would say to…anybody it isn’t…it isn’t what you do, it’s who you are, and if you’re an American, you serve your country. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: And I see these wonderful young men and women that are going now, off proud and ready to do whatever they have to do, like so many before them did, like I hope I did, and that I might have…have expressed that confidence I’m an American Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: I’m an American fighting man and if there is anything better I haven’t seen it. And so I’m very patriotic. I’m very dedicated to our country, to our veterans. And we’ve all took 4 �our…their place. My father told me about Guadalcanal. He and so many other people have told me about different battles and things and veterans compare notes, you know, and you know we joke about it, and there I was surrounded by ten this and that and ten of that and…and make jokes about the fact that we’ve seen combat. But deep down inside all of us are American and all of us are very proud to be veterans. And no one service does it all by itself, we’re dedicated, we cooperate, we have proven over the years that the American ideal I am an American fighting man is…is…it goes on to the fact that we have integrated our services and you don’t know how wonderful it is when you see…like you’ll see this upcoming Veteran’s Day, Old Glory standing tall, our national colors going down through and men and women marching together to make this a safer, more complete, and God fearing nation that we have been ever since our inception. And I only can say that the young men and women who are in school right now, do the very best you can…scholastically. When you…you go into whatever branch of service it is, be the proudest person that you ever have known to put on that uniform. Serve your country, be able to look down at the little tow heads and rub their heads and say whatever it is you’ll say to them and that they’re so darn proud to be an American you can’t stand it. And let’s keep this country free. Kearns: That’s really good advice. Pitzer: Thank you Kearns: You said that your dad, he served in the military as well? Pitzer: He was a…he was a…an army man and he served at Guadalcanal. Ah…he just told me…never ever forget who you are and where you’re going and that you’re an American and that…that held me in…in stead. And when you…when you look and you stand out there as a Platoon Sargent, when you stand out there as a Platoon Leader, when you stand out there and you’re in formation and there is your Captain, there is your Major, there is your…your Battalion Staff, your Commanding General, you…you really feel good. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: And people joke about it, there’s a word…the word that is passed to the command when you see all the troops so beautifully in line and so trim and so true, so exact, walk in front of the reviewing stand and that’s pass and review. I bet your chest grows three inches, you stand six feet tall, and you see your guide arm which is your unit flag and in front of that is our national colors, Old Glory, and that’s it in all her glory. And the…battalion or regimental staff depending on what the size of the operation of review is. And we joke about the…the ah…band being the drum and stumble Corp. I tell you what, when you hear the words pass and review and then the commander of troops, you hear this “Forward harch,” and they step off and there isn’t…there isn’t one foot that isn’t on the ground constantly, just like it’s supposed to be. And every time that…that drum drops, and Old Glory waves, and you go on you say “This is what it’s all about, it’s been worth all the dirt, the mud, the smarty pants Sargent who makes you feel like a monkey,” and then as proud as if you were the whole army itself. That’s…that’s military life. I mean, like I say I was…was a soldier, but had I been a…a marine, a sailor, an Air Force man. Kearns: Mmhmm 5 �Pitzer: Or whatever the branch might have been, I would have still be just as proud. And when you see all your different branches of services on Armed Forces Day and other days of national celebration, pass and review, it makes you so darn proud, you stand there and you cry cause you’re not ashamed, you’re proud. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: And you want to let them know that…that this is your country, our country. And that’s all I can say is that being a veteran and having had the pleasure to serve my country, if it ever came to it and God forbid that they take men my age again, I would be out there again. But, you’ve got to be young, you’ve got to be full of vim and vinegar and patriotism to be a good anything, no matter what you are in uniform and this country’s got it. That’s all I can say is Veteran’s Day is…is just another way of saying thank you. And you know you just…just thank the young men and women in uniform, but remember they didn’t get here without mom and dad. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: Mom and dad took their turn and on down through history. As you…as you look back there’s always been a group of dedicated Americans willing to go that extra mile. And that’s what I would leave you with. Kearns: You were talking about the importance of parents, when…when were you born and when did you decide that the military was where you wanted to go, was it something that your parents talked a lot about growing up, patriotism or…? Pitzer: I was March 15, 1935, that’s the old original income tax day. And I can remember so vividly…when Pearl Harbor got struck. I was playing in the mud, in the sand, and running around stubbling my toes, but I had…I was part of an adopted twelve boys, like I told ya. And …and…all the uncles, they got in their cars, two by two, you might say. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: And went to Victorville, California and joined a branch of the service. And Aunt Mary, bless her heart, she was a very God fearing, we called her Grandma Bird, Aunt Mary, but she was the matriarch of that…that family unit. And she knew when those boys went in the uniform, she knew when they debarked from the continental United States, she just had that…that feeling…and she gave all twelve boys, she was a twelve gold star mother, but so proud, so God fearing, so glad to have been done her part as a mother. And she was no different than…than any other mother in this world, who ser…served her family, served her country. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: And that…that’s…that’s when I became aware that no matter what happened that one day…if I didn’t die before I was old enough to and capable to, I would become an American military man and serve my country. And I just am so grateful that most all of us people that are 6 �like myself feel that way, because there is one thing that you’ll never forget is…is your country. And just because it…it may skip a generation does not mean that you have not served. Kearns: That’s definitely true Pitzer: And this is…this is what makes America so special to me. Is….I have truly lived the American dream. Whatever you might concur or might not concur is the American dream, the American dream to me was being born American, having the right to go to free public school, to pledge allegiance to my flag, to sing our national anthem, and other patriotic songs, and to serve our country both on our own immediate soil and anywhere where our American flag went. And that’s the substance…substance of it. Kearns: Yeah. You said that you were in Germany for a while. Pitzer: Yes Kearns: Where else were you during your service? Pitzer: Ah…Well I got Vietnam…ah…I was on the DMZ in…in Korea…ah…we (laughs) joke about how hard it was to be in…in riot control cause it was from the standpoint of there were Americans who were rioting for what they thought was right and there were those of us in uniform standing there saying that maybe you’re right, but for God’s sakes, don’t ever make the mistake of disgracing your flag, your home, your country. I don’t think there’s a military person that’s ever served in…during the situations when we had our Americans standing in…in a street trying to tell other Americans protest if you must, but remember first and foremost you’re American. And I am…just…just so glad that whatever has happened and whatever will happen that I was born American, Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: I’ve lived American, and that I will die American. Kearns: Yeah…that’s…yeah. You talked about the protesting… Pitzer: Yeah Kearns: You said you talked about the protesting here…happening here, were you informed of it regularly, or was it just more… Pitzer: When I was stationed at Fort George G. Mead and stationed in a unit there, our sole purpose was to deploy and I was in charge…to be in charge of a hard column, the Sheridan tanks, and M40A1 tanks that would, God forbid, we ever had to deploy to our nation’s capital to keep it safe against our own people through ignorance who were protesting what they didn’t fully understand, but had a right to protest. Kearns: Mmhmm 7 �Pitzer: That…I just prayed that I would do what I had to do, but pray that that would never mean that I would have to take an American life in execution of what I was there to do. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: And I don’t think I’m any different than any other American that’s ever stood in a…in a riot line or anything else like that because it was not…not what I was doing…what was wrong or was it right, it was American, and what they were doing was American, but we just happened to have (coughs) a different sheet of music that we were marching to. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: In America and only in American can…can you say that. Kearns: You said you served the tail end of the Korean War and during the Vietnam War… Pitzer: I was on the DMZ, I…when I was assigned in Korea during the Cold War, ha ha (coughs) I was in charge of the site that looked up what they called the Wo Chan which was that part of Korea up from Pan Mun Jon where there was a North Korean barracks in the Wo Chan Valley and their…their purpose was if anything ever happened between North and South Korea that they would come across the DMZ. So they were doing their thing and we were doing our thing. And as…I’m sure as proud as I was to be an American and to stand there and tell them as long as you stay up there, we can wave to one another. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: We can be friends. But the day you come across, with a weapon in your hand, discharging as we…you would be required to do. Kearns: Hmm Pitzer: May God forgive me, you are then my enemy. Kearns: Yeah Pitzer: And I tried to tell our people that I was responsible for up there never ever let your guard down, you are an American. Kearns: Did you feel like you were prepared when you headed in to Korea or was it learning on your feet once you got there? Pitzer: No, I…I knew that…that some, one of us in American uniform had to be on the DMZ as they had been ever since the DMZ was established. And to this day I have gone to our nation’s capital ready to prevent riot through what…whatever ignorance or misunderstanding that it may have come about. But I don’t…I don’t regret for one minute my military service. I’m proud of it, 8 �I’m proud of my country, I’m proud of these beautiful young men and women who go on and carry on…and are prepared to do whatever they need to, but they’re still preparing for their future. And they are the young men and women that will become the old men and women who will look onto their grandchildren and their line and say “Been there, done that, I’m an American, I’m very proud.” Kearns: How long were you in the military? How old were you when you joined and how old were you when you… Pitzer: I spent twenty-four years in the service, and I volunteered for the draft and had to wait three months before I could go in because of the…the allocation. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: Ah…I wanted to first join the Marines, well it didn’t take long to find out that there was…this was…I was still in school, but there was…there was such patriotism that all of the quotas were full. Kearns: Mmhmm Pitzer: And like I say, I volunteered for the draft and I waited three months in order to be called to go into the service. And I went into the U.S. Army, I don’t regret it a minute, I’m proud of my service, I’m proud of my country, and when Old Glory flutters in the wind, she flutters there for me and everybody I’ve ever known and ever will know. This is our country. Kearns: Yeah Pitzer: And as a veteran, I don’t regret one moment. And when people will…will say what they will regardless of what they might, it matters not. We are American, we serve our country and by so doing we secure the world for the oncoming generations that have…have no idea how wonderful it is, although some of it is limited to be born free, that…that’s the whole thing. Kearns: Thank you so much for your time. Pitzer: Well, thank you. Kearns: As previously stated, it is November 2, 2012 and I have conducted this interview in High Point, North Carolina for my American Military History Class. Thank you so much Frank for your time. Pitzer: Well, thank you and I thank you for the education you’ve got, the effort you’ve made, and it is the young men and women like you that will keep this nation strong. Kearns: Thank you. Pitzer: Thank you. 9 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/706663b7371b6ea77a20ea548ff5cd8e.MP3 0e0ca3f65d246f46174d1bc9cb7a35b8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. File size 65.2 KB 53.4 MB Format, digital MP3 Military Branch military branch (U.S. Army, etc) U.S. Army Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kearns; Haley Pitzer; Franklin Omsted Pitzer Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Kearns, Haley Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Pitzer, Franklin Omsted Pitzer Interview Date 11/2/2012 Number of pages 9 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:38:55 Date digitized 2/7/2015 Checksum alphanumeric code a17586674d9b4261a290bea38d189c77 0e0ca3f65d246f46174d1bc9cb7a35b8 Scanned by Leah McManus Equipment Adobe Acrobat XI Pro Resolution 300 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal; non-commercial; and educational use; provided that proper citation is used. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived UA.5018. American Military History Course Records Recording rate A/V rate (48,000kzh x 16 bit) 48000kzh x 16 bit Format, original Electronic File Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 5018_Pitzer_Franklin_20121102_transcript_M 5018_Pitzer_Franklin_20121102_audio_A Title A name given to the resource Interview with Franklin Omsted Pitzer [November 2, 2012] Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Language A language of the resource English English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kearns, Haley Pitzer, Franklin Omsted Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Description An account of the resource Franklin Pitzer made a career in the army and served for over 20 years. He trained at Fort Riley as a part of the 10th Mountain Division and was first deployed to Hamburg. He had many jobs in the army, such as motor sergeant and warrant officer. Subject The topic of the resource Pitzer, Franklin Omsted Veterans United States Interviews 10th Mountain Division Fort Riley Franklin Pitzer Hamburg Motor Sergeant US Army Vietnam Warrant Officer https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/b887e3850b5b6488106359b106d28c7c.pdf 680fa470135551dfd46942395954531e PDF Text Text Name: Branch: Years Served: Conflicts: Date of Interview: Larry Richardson U.S. Navy 1968-1974 Vietnam War October 11, 2012 Trey Pitts: This is Trey Pitts in Lincolnton, North Carolina the date is October 11, 2012 and I am interviewing Larry Richardson. Okay first question is: Where were you born? Larry Richardson: Charlotte, North Carolina Pitts: In what year? Richardson: 1949 Me: When you got into the services were you drafted? Or did you volunteer? Richardson: My dad was in the Navy, during WWII, in the Pacific, my older brother was in the Navy on riverboats in ‘Nam, and had nowhere to go, I graduated High School, my plan was to join the Navy, so that is what I did, in 1968. Me: What was your rank? Richardson: When I got out? Me: yea Richardson: I was E 5, second class, when I got out in 1974. Me: You served in Vietnam, where exactly did you serve? Richardson: I was on board a destroyer, what I call a tin can, If you ever see it up beside a battle ship or a aircraft carrier, you will know why they call it a tin can, because that’s what it looks like, out there on the water, it goes everywhere. I went to boot camp in Orlando, Florida in 1968. I joined my ship which was stationed in Newport, Rhode Island at the time in 1969. Pitts: What was the name of it? Richardson: The USS. Keppler, DD 765, the keel for it was laid in 1946. Pitts: While in Vietnam, were you in any battles? Richardson: When I got on board the ship in Newport, Rhode Island in 1969, we were there for about 3 months, we were suppose to go to the Mediterranean, had no intentions of going to Vietnam at the time. They cancelled the cruse to the Mediterranean; they told us our home port was now changed to Pearl Harbor. From there we made our first cruse to ‘Nam. We went through the Panama Canal, which was awesome, even though we went through in the middle of the night. 1 �We were a support ship, the Vietnamese had no Navy. They had land armaments, canons, and they would shoot at us. They had a bunch of sanfrans, you think they were fishing boats, but they were the enemy Pitts: They actually disguised them as fishing vessels? Richardson: Yea that’s what they were; they would have Viet Cong, North Vietnamese on them. In fact three years before I got on board in 1966, one of those fishing vessels was acting suspicious, and our ship followed it, up the North China Sea, right off the coast of Vietnam. And our ship followed it, they got bombarded, our ship was the first U.S Navy ship to suffer casualties. And it is not recorded anywhere, I have looked. What we did was support the land movements, Army, Marines, whoever they were. They would call in support and we would blow up everything. Pitts: Ok, so you were land support, uh sea support for land movements, so what was, right before you got out of the Navy in 1974 what was your assignment at that point? Richardson: I was a boiler technician, back then the boilers made the steam that turned the turbines in the engine room that drove the ship. They do not use them anymore. After I got out they did away with boiler technicians, they are no more, the only thing boilers are used for is to make hot water for showers or whatever, now everything is nuclear even destroyers are nuclear. Pitts: Was the ship coal fired? Richardson: no it was oil, number 6 oil; Pitts: oil, ok Richardson: It was thick and nasty, where I was always hot, probably over 110 degrees constantly, you were dirty, stinky. They called us snipes and bilge rats and all this stuff, cause that what we were. Pitts: Yea, it was a messy messy job huh…. Richardson: Yes It was, defiantly was… Pitts: What port were you at when your ship docketed when it was not on assignmen, where did it dock? Richardson: Pearl Harbor Pitts: At Pearl Harbor? So you went to and from Pearl Harbor to Vietnam and back. Ok. Richardson: yea, we were in the 20th corps, been to several places in the western Pacific, Southeast Asia. 2 �Pitts: So, did you go anywhere else besides ‘Nam, during the war? Was you assigned….. Richardson: Yes, we went, you talking about other ports? Pitts: yea Richardson: Spent a lot of time in the Philippines’, went to Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Bannock, Thailand, Taiwan, I already said that. Singapore, we were heading for Australia, talking about did we taking fire, we were heading for Australia for R and R, we were gone, we had already crossed the equator. That what this shirt is, my shellback shirt, I will tell you about shellbacks in a minute. We were heading there when our sister ship, the Lloyd Thomas DD 764, was hit in Vietnam, we would trade places. We had to turn around and go back to relieve them; they had to come off line, so we never made it to Australia, and I always wanted to go there. Pitts: would have been a bit of a vacation Richardson: oh yea that would have been cool. Pitts: so you mentioned what was it? Richardson: shellbacks Pitts: yea shellbacks Richardson: shellbacks are for when you cross the equator, you become a shellback, normal people, and navy guys are little people, pollywogs. When you cross the equator it is a big ceremony for your ship. Everybody that have crossed the equator before, they dress up, one of them is going to be King Neptune, they put grease all over his belly. The pollywogs on board, they have to go through a ritual, I doubt they do it anymore, because there are women on board…. Pitts: oh Richardson: you wear nothing but your underwear, and that is it, and you crawl around the whole deck. Pitts: around the perimeter of the ship? Richardson: yes, around the whole deck of the ship, on your hands and knees, and they squirt you with sea water and hit you and slap you and all this stuff. They had what they call, I don’t know how to spell this Trey, but what they call shilalies. Pitts: shilalies? Richardson: It was a piece of fire hose; you know how rough fire hose is? 3 �Pitts: yes, yes I do Richardson: It was pieces of fire hose about three feet long, and rap one end of it and bind it, so they could get a handle on it. And for weeks at a time shellbacks, the ones suppose to whoop your rear, would soak it in sea water, and dry it, soak it and dry it. Pitts: so that just made it harder. Richardson: hard as a rock, as your crawling around there, they would hit you, it hurts, there not permanently damage you, they do all this, they put a life raft on the fan tail, that’s the rear of the ship, and fill it full of garbage from the kitchen, fill it , and water, and they collapse it, it’s got a roof on, and you got to go in one end and come up the other, with something in your mouth, it was terrible. Pitts: didn’t matter what it was, just something. Richardson: just something, didn’t matter if it was a carrot, sardine, something, it was terrible. Remember you are on the equator, so what’s the temperature like? Pitts: up in the 100s probably? Richardson: pretty ripe, all this stuff was pretty ripe. Pitts: so when you said they were on the equator, they would actually anchor right on the equator? Richardson: No you couldn’t anchor, there ain’t no way! Pitts: oh yea! Richardson: Your there around it. Pitts: they would just stay on it, pretty much orbit it Richardson: yea Pitts: I don’t know why I said anchor Richardson: but anyway, everyone squirts you and hits you, and all this stuff, then the fat belly dude, with all the grease on his belly, you got to come you to him, state your case as to why you should be a shellback, then they grab your head and rub it in his ol greasy belly, and then you become a shell back. Then you’ve got king Neptune, usually the oldest shellback, that stands there with his what do you call it.. Pitts: trident? Richardson: trident, whatever, it was cool, every ship goes through it, I have seen it on the military channel, an aircraft carrier, it was cool, it was December 7th, 1971, I will never forget it. 4 �But you got a big certificate, I got it hanging on my wall. Pitts: so when you went through the trash, what did you come up with? Richardson: I don’t remember, I believe it was a sardine, dead fish or something Pitts: more or less It just smelled bad so you wanted to get out huh? Richardson: oh yea you wanted out of there! Anyway we had to cut short from that instead of going on to Australia, and head for the South China Sea. Pitts: To relieve your sister ship? Richardson: Yea Pitts: so when was your last tour of duty? Richardson: My last trip to Vietnam I would say in 1972. Pitts: two years before you got out, and that was when you was a boiler technician? Richardson: yea I was boiler technician at that point. Pitts: Well I guess, so when you got out, did you retire? Richardson: No I got married while I was in the Navy; I met a gal over there in Pearl Harbor, she was, not Hawaiian, she was a Navy brat, she was raised there, so that was why I got out, I got out in 1974, to start another life. Pitts: ok Richardson: I wish I would have brought my uniform with me. Pitts: yea, what medals did you receive? Richardson: I got my service medal, everyone gets those, then I have a Vietnam service medal, a good conduct medal, basically that is it. Since we were not involved in hand to hand, we did not get any of those, we were support, we did our job, the ship got awards, so, no medal of honor. Pitts: You mentioned the shellbacks, so what else sticks in your memory? Richardson: things I will never forget, going through the Panama Canal, after we had went through, the Panama Canal, we were going to go to stop for a little R and R in Arco Poco, we didn’t, our ship broke down, we were dead in the water, If you look out at the ocean there in the south Pacific, it looks like glass, it looks calm, but it wasn’t real slow moves, our ships rolled side to side and you thought it would tip over, the moves were so drastic. Pitts: did anyone get sick? Richardson: oh yea people got sick all the time, I never did, a fuel pump went out in our fire 5 �room, You got two fire rooms one boiler each in them, I was in the aft fire room, we busted our rears, it took ours, literally hours, took about twenty hours or so, that stopped our R and R into Arco Poco, we went in to San Diego, were talking about 1969, beautiful city. When your out on the open sea, you just think this place is vast, one of our duties was escorting aircraft carriers, and planes would take off 24/7, at night it was an awesome sight, they would come back in at night. Pitts: One thing I meant to ask you was, I know during WWII, ships were limited on how much light they could give off, did they do the same thing during nahm? Richardson: oh yes, we were in reach of land, I guess you could say, we could not open any hatch leading to the outside, no smoking on deck, none of that, you could go forward to aft inside and never go outside, you had to be secure. And you always training, when you were not on duty, they did a lot of training, lot of damage control. Pitts: so they basically ran scenarios. Richardson: yea, over and over, so you could be automatic if anything happened. Pitts: did they do any weapons training? Richardson: Yea oh yea, when we were out in the middle of the pacific, when you are out there doing nothing, your are training, damage control safety or you were weapons training small arms, 45 automatic, M 16, we did not get to do a lot of that, and I loved that. Pitts: so all other training was basically, everyone was a fireman. Richardson: yea, got a lot of gunpowder on board, armament, and that was what happed when we did get hit, it blew up the front gun torrent, pretty major. Another thing when you go to foreign countries, at least then, I don’t know how it is now I haven’t been to a foreign country since 1974 or so, for instance we would go into Sewage Bay, in the Philippines, and there was a bridge there we had to cross from the base to town, we would cross this bridge, but You thank God for America, when you are in these foreign countries, we had a name for this river, but I’m not going to repeat it, these little kids were swimming in this river, and they would holler up at you to throw in a dime or something, and they would dive down and get it, and all the sewage in the world ran into this river, it was terrible. Went to Hong Kong, made several trips to Hong Kong, the city itself, it was like New York, beautiful. We toured this city and you would see signs that let you know that it was Red China and not to got there, at the time England controlled Hong Kong, There was a grave yard, and what they would do is they would bury someone, and 6 �in a few years dig theme up an bury someone else in that hole. There was no room you were on an island, big apartments, looked like outside of Washington D.C, thousands of people living there. Every country I went to had its good and bad side. Pitts: I guess this was during R and R? Richardson: oh yea, we were not there for very long, reloaded with food, supplies and stuff like that, and another thing I remember was refueling at sea, it was an amazing thing to see, cause again everyone had a job, you job may be no more than to stay out of the way. Pitts: that was your job. Richardson: that was your job, and you better do, don’t want to get in the way, very dangerous, because you were side by side with a ship, nothing ever happened, I never say anything bad happen, planes taking off at night was just one of the most awesome things. Pearl Harbor itself, beautiful, where we docked, when we were home, was right across from the Arizona memorial, the whole island was full of memorials, would I do it again, in a heartbeat! 7 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/75af38983675344eb90a2a1fc5184cf9.mp3 ee77a7ce4aa75037f25189bb029303f7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. File size 49 KB 30.3 MB Format, digital MP3 Military Branch military branch (U.S. Army, etc) U.S. Navy Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Pitts; Trey Richardson; Larry Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Pitts, Trey Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Richardson, Larry Interview Date 10/11/2012 Number of pages 7 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:26:33 Date digitized 2/9/2015 Checksum alphanumeric code 43375089912d4c8d3e89b74dbdafcf65 ee77a7ce4aa75037f25189bb029303f7 Scanned by Leah McManus Equipment Adobe Acrobat XI Pro Resolution 300 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal; non-commercial; and educational use; provided that proper citation is used. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived UA.5018. American Military History Course Records Recording rate A/V rate (48,000kzh x 16 bit) 48000kzh x 16 bit Format, original Electronic File Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 5018_Richardson_Larry_20121011_transcript_M 5018_Richardson_Larry_20121011_audio_A Title A name given to the resource Interview with Larry Richardson [October 11, 2012] Type The nature or genre of the resource Oral History Language A language of the resource English English Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Pitts, Trey Richardson, Larry Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Description An account of the resource Larry Richardson served in the Navy 1968-74 aboard the USS Keppler. He was an E5 2nd class when he left the army and was a working as a boiler technician, making the steam that would allow the engine to run. His ship came and left out of Pearl Harbor. Subject The topic of the resource Richardson, Larry Veterans Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Personal narratives, American United States Interviews 1968-74 boiler technician E5 Larry Richardson Navy Pearl Harbor USS Keppler Viet Cong Vietnam https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/9c900aada3130c6925cfe705dab8e397.pdf 0aca8a23c1a9936c79bc6493039eb7b4 PDF Text Text Oral History with Charles Watkins April 28, 2011 Interviewer: Judkin Browning Judkin Browning: It is Thursday, April 28 [2011]. My name is Judkin Browning and I am here at Appalachian State University interviewing Charles Watkins, a professor in the History Department here at Applachian State University, and the interview will begin now. Chuck, if I may? Charles Watkins: You may. Browning: First of all, when and where were you born? Watkins: I was born a poor, black sharecropper’s… oh, no wait [Dr. Watkins, who is white, was joking, mimicking a line from the movie, “The Jerk.”] I’m sorry. I was born on February 4, 1946 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Browning: And when you joined the military, what branch of the service did you join? Watkins: I joined the army under duress. Browning: Ok. So please enlighten us on how you entered the army, obviously not voluntarily. Watkins: Well, my family had moved to Delaware when I was a young kid and my father had opened up a clothing business in the early 1950s, and in the mid-60s, he started having a series of heart attacks while I was away at college. So I was having a very good time at college. I was in the middle of my second senior year, and he had another heart attack, so I dropped out and went home to basically run the business. And, as such, I had had a series of deferments, being in college. I think I had actually had every deferment known to mankind. And, when I left school I was able to get a hardship deferment because I was working for my father. And my dad died in late December 1968, and technically my deferment, of course, died with him, and so then I began to battle the draft board, which increasingly wanted me to make reports, in particularly business reports. It so happened that one of my father’s rivals was on the draft board, and I figured if I turned over my business records to the draft board I would be out of business the next day. So, I thought that I could stand down the draft board, which proved to be an idiotic concept on my part, because they finally had enough. And so they not only sent me a draft notice, they gave me a week to report, and so I did what every good business man would do, I ran to my senator in D.C., whose name was Caleb Boggs, and I moaned to him about the problem, about how unfair it was and so on, and of course he said to me, “Gee, if you had just come before you were drafted I could have helped you, but I can’t do anything after you are drafted.” So he sent me to the 1 �Pentagon. So I had a nice chat with the people at the Pentagon, who basically said (laughing) “That’s going to leave a mark.” So anyway, what I did was I found that I could enlist and get a 120-day delay, and it was my goal to try and sell the business in that period of time… I worked on that and lo and behold the time came and off I went to Fort Bragg, in North Carolina. Browning: What year was this when you eventually reported? Watkins: I guess it was 1969, I don’t remember the date. I remember it was hotter than hell in Fort Bragg. If you’ve ever been to Fort Bragg, you know they have these wonderful ants, and in summer it’s hot as blazes and no matter where you sit down, the ants climb up your boot, and start rolling up your pants leg there. Browning: Let me ask you a question about how, for those who are uninitiated, how does the draft process work? When you were a young man in college, how did you know that you had been drafted? How did you get a deferment? What were the mechanics of that? Watkins: You would be automatically deferred if you were actively enrolled in a college, or in certain types of graduate school, like Divinity School would give you a deferment. You made application for deferment, and you were given a classification. I think 2-S was a student classification and 1-A was… you were ready to roll, as it were, you were unprotected. And you got a draft card and it had your number on it. So colleges would report to the draft boards when students graduated or unenrolled any longer, so it was an interesting system of “Gotcha,” if you will. [Browning starts to speak]. I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but I think that I was drafted in the last draft before the lottery was introduced, and I had a wildly high lottery number as I recall, so I never would have been drafted. And I was reasonably old at that time for a draftee. Browning: The lottery was in ’69. Watkins: I was 22 or 23 years old. So I was… they caught me at the very end. Browning: I believe the lottery was in December of ’69. So prior to the lottery, there was just an understanding that if you were 18, you would be issued a number? Watkins: You had to register with selective service just as I guess you do now. So you did that and you requested a deferment. Browning: So when you eventually enlisted, it was 1969. The Vietnam War had been in the news for quite a while, especially with the Tet Offensive in ’68. Watkins: Yeah. 2 �Browning: What were your thoughts on, or did you have any thoughts about what was going on in the Vietnam War during your college years, during your deferments? Watkins: You know, I went to a Southern school, good ole Mars Hill College, favorite college of the South. I like to brag that Mars Hill College is the only degree-granting reform school in America at the time. (pause) When I left college in 1968, unless you were going to Yale or one of the Ivy Leagues, or really any of the northern schools, people’s idea of the ‘60s really hadn’t hit. So most of my classmates—my class was 1967, even though I didn’t graduate with it—most of those guys, if they thought they were going to get drafted, they went ahead and enlisted, and it was just one of those things that you did, you got out of the way. Now when I went back to Mars Hill in the early ‘70s for a summer to get my degree, the place was plastered with anti-war stuff, you know. The teachers had stuff on their doors, and all this kind of stuff, but that was really an early ‘70s phenomenon for most places. Browning: So did you, I mean, just following the news, did you have any thoughts on what was going on overseas, or “when my time ends, I may end up there?” Or was it all so far away? Watkins: It was all very, very, very far away. And it was not something that I thought that I would be a part of. Because if you think about it, the draft system was a kind of social classifier, in the sense that if you were not college bound or college trained, you might well go. Otherwise, you could very easily escape it and avoid it. Browning: So, back to your service—you entered in 1969, wound up in Fort Bragg in apparently the summertime, and your boot camp experience was there? Any memories that you have? What was boot camp like for you? Watkins: well, the army is a wonderful place to be if you’ve been under a lot of pressure, because you don’t have to make any decisions. You don’t have to pick out a tie in the morning. You don’t have to figure out what you’re going to have for breakfast or when you’re going to have breakfast, or if you’re going to have breakfast (laughing). The army takes care of all the major decisions. Do you need to have a crap? Well, you have ten minutes here to do it in. It’s now or never. So it’s very (pause) a simple life, shall we say? I had a great drill sergeant, whose name was Churchill Graham. Churchill Graham was a great guy. He said, “Don’t ask, don’t ask about my feelings about the war. I’m a professional soldier and I go where they tell me to go.” And he didn’t want to hear any crap from anybody. He was an equal opportunity taskmaster. He was black, but he didn’t care if you were black or white or green or yellow, as long you could get down and give him 25 pushups when he needed it. He was a good role model, a good role model. 3 �Browning: Did you find the physical challenge of boot camp to be difficult for yourself? Watkins: At first, because I had been out of school—I’d played soccer in college, and I had been away from that for awhile—so I was out of shape. But I managed to quit smoking before I went in, so that was a help. But the army knows how to get you into shape very quickly. They are very effective at doing that. Browning: So when you finished your time at boot camp, where were you—what was your specialty, and where did you find yourself next? Watkins: well, I, because of I guess the needs of the army at the time that I enlisted, I ended up signing up to become a clerk. So they sent me to clerk school at Fort Jackson [Browning: in South Carolina?] in South Carolina. And they ran three schools there, as I recall. They ran the clerk school, and then they ran what they called spoon school, and that was to teach you how to do mass cooking for the military, and they also had pole-climbers school, which you trained you to climb up poles and fix communications lines. We all sort of trained together. I was… I didn’t realize it at the time, but they were going to save my life, because they taught me how to type. Basically, they taught me how to type by having a sergeant stand behind me and every time I made a mistake, he hit me in the back of the head. And so I got damn good and accurate and fast, real quick. So it was intensely boring. Browning: How did that save your life? I’m just curious. Watkins: Well, I’ll tell you a long story, Judkin, if I may. I got bored, and so I volunteered for flight school. I thought that I was going to be sent down to learn how to fly Hueys. So off I went to Fort Walters, Texas, where flight training took place. What I discovered was, (laughing) we weren’t going to learn how to fly Hueys. What we were going to learn how to do was to fly a little two-man bird called the Hughes—had a big, bubble top and a little boom on the back. And what you basically did was you, if you were a pilot, you flew real low and real slow with a guy who had a rifle, and you looked for people in foxholes. As romantic as the opportunity was, I thought, you know, I’m not going to do this, because that gave me a four-year commitment, and the deal at the time was—well, this is great. You go in, you graduate as a warrant officer, you do 12 months in Vietnam, and then they promote you to Lieutenant. Then you come back and you spend a year out, and then you go back and you do another year in Vietnam, and then you come back, if you come back, and you’re a Captain. I thought, well, you know, I’m not going to make this a career, I don’t care if I’m a Captain or fraptain. They tell you at that time, when you’re headed off to flight school—they say “look, you’re going to Vietnam, one way or the other. You’re going to fly in Vietnam or you’re not going to fly in Vietnam, but either way, you’re going to Vietnam.” So I thought, well, okay, you know, the hell with this, I’ll take my poison up 4 �front. So I dropped out, and of course I got orders to Vietnam as I knew I would. I expected that they would make me a door-gunner… Browning: on a helicopter? Watkins: On a helicopter, or I would be assigned to an Av Company in some regard. But, lo and behold, I stayed in Cam Ranh… Browning: That’s Cam Ranh Bay. Watkins: Cam Ranh Bay. What I discovered was—I did not know it—but I possessed at the time the most valuable skill that the army needed. I could type. Who knew? And so I ended up being a clerk with a Headquarters company there. Browning: Did you find yourself thanking that sergeant who beat you in the back of the head at Fort Jackson? Watkins: Yeah, it was good, you know, because quite frankly—you might want to turn the tape off—but you know, as far I knew, they could have sent me to Fire Base Fuck You in a heartbeat (laughter). But it was better to be at Cam Ranh. Browning: So when you were sent to Vietnam, do you remember when it was that you arrived in country? Watkins: It was sometime around Thanksgiving. Browning: of ’69? Watkins: Yeah. Browning: Did you serve twelve months? Watkins: Yeah. See, that’s a funny way to fight a war because, you know as soon as you get there, you are given a date—it’s called the DEROS date: Date Eligible to Return to the States I think is how the acronym works out. So let’s say you go on December the 25th, well you know on Dec. 24 the following year, you’re going to be out of there. So it doesn’t encourage you to take risks, I don’t think. Because, now we were housed next to a bunch of troops from the Republic of Korea, known colloquially as ROKs. They were very, very difficult people, and one of the reasons why they were thought to be very difficult people was because they were there until the war was won. Which means that every night the ROKs pounded the shit out of 5 �somebody all night long with artillery fire, and you know, I never had any bad experiences that would give me flashbacks, but when I came back I found that it took me months to go to sleep at night with quiet, because I was used to artillery fire all night long, and that took some time to go away. Browning: What were your duties primarily while you were at Cam Ranh Bay? Watkins: I filled out forms. Browning: You weren’t actually loading and unloading so much? Watkins: No, although I was with an outfit called the 124th Transportation Command, and if you’ve ever seen these big SEALAND vessels were container ships basically, sailing container ships, and we’d unload them primarily using local labor. The material would be divided up and we would send truck convoys all over the place in the central part of Vietnam, so you’d go to Pleiku and Buon Ma Thuot, and Nha Trang, all kinds of interesting places and we would send those things out with what were known as hard trucks. They were supposed to be armored vehicles, but we made them armored by putting sandbags in the bottom of the truck and screw a couple of M-60s on the side, and that’s your protection. Browning: As part of your time in Vietnam, did you ever visit other parts of the countryside? Did you ever make your way to Saigon, for instance, or any other places besides Cam Ranh? Watkins: (pause) I never actually went to Saigon proper. I went a couple of times to Tan Son Nhut Air base, to the international terminal, where… because I took a leave back in the states, and you end up back there on your way out. Never saw Saigon. I went on… we used to call these things Civic Action Missions, where you go out and theoretically help the populace, and so I did some of those and I realized that my captain wasn’t reading the intelligence reports before we left, and at one point we had a MACV [Military Assistance Command, Vietnam] advisor who showed up and said basically, “what in the hell are you people doing out here?” Browning: This is a hot zone? Watkins: Yeah, I mean, you know, here we are wandering around in a convoy of jeeps. Browning: Now did you ever experience any combat or engage in a firefight, or witness one taking place? Watkins: No, no. I have no war stories. The only problems that we had really involved rockets. I don’t like rockets. And Charley would try to hit the SEALAND ships by setting up 6 �these rockets and try to nail the ships. The only problem was they didn’t have a guidance system, and so sometimes the rockets would end up in odd places, like my company compound, for example. I thought for God’s sake, you know, we’re the most industrialized country in the world, can’t we give these people a guidance system so they wouldn’t kill us accidentally. And every now and then sappers would come in and they’d blow the place up. But other than that. Browning: It makes me think, Cam Ranh Bay makes me think of the scene in “Forrest Gump” when he first arrives in Vietnam. Have you seen that movie? Watkins: You know, I did see Forrest Gump. Browning: and he first arrives in Vietnam, and they’re playing the Credence Clearwater Revival song, “Fortunate Son,” and Forrest Gump’s narration says when I first got to Vietnam the thing that I was surprised about was, something to the effect of the amount of beer, because they’re having a big barbecue when they first arrive in country. I didn’t know if that movie or any Vietnam war movie that you’ve seen if you thought that these people are getting it wrong, or that’s somewhat similar to what I remember over there. Watkins: You know, except for “Forrest Gump,” which I don’t think is really Vietnam. Browning: No, it just has a scene. Watkins: I have deliberately never watched Vietnam films. I think I’ve seen snippets from two. I remember seeing the river scene from… what was that film taken from Heart of Darkness? Browning: “Apocalypse Now.” Watkins: “Apocalypse Now.” Some very dark and weird scene. Browning: So you’ve never seen the Robert Duvall Air Cav scene? Watkins: No. Browning: The classic scene of that movie. Watkins: No. But the other scene I saw was, I think it was “Platoon,” and I came upon this accidentally. But whoever the main characters were, I think there were three of them. You and I may have had this discussion before—but they’re all standing around having a chat while somebody is burning shit in the background. And, I’m a guy of fastidious manners, and I like privacy, and there is no privacy, certainly in the war. And so you discovered that if you needed 7 �to have a bowel movement, there was a place to do that, a small building euphemistically called “the shitter.” And it consisted of about a board with maybe 8 holes in it, and underneath the holes were half of 50-gallong oil drums and that’s where the waste material went, and every morning, a Papa-san, an older Vietnamese gentleman would come by and put a handkerchief around his face, like he was holding up a grocery store, and he would take gasoline and he would pull out all those drums with a stick and he’d pour gasoline in those drums and then he’d light them all on fire. And, you can imagine the worst thing that you’ve ever smelled in your life and multiply that by a factor of 100 and you’re not even close to what that stuff smells like. You don’t want to be anywhere close to that. and the fact that these three guys are standing there talking in the middle of this is so absurd. When Papa-san or anybody else would go on holiday for Tet, that meant somebody else had to do that. and the person that had to do it was the last guy who’d shown up in the company, and we used to outfit that guy, whoever it was, in what amounted to a 1969 HAZMAT suit, you know with a gas mask on and everything else, and they’d still be half dead. It was just a very unpleasant experience. I don’t like to watch Vietnam movies, but that one fascinated me just to watch that scene, because who’s the director of that? Browning: Oliver Stone. Watkins: Oliver Stone. He’s supposed to be a big Vietnam vet. Browning: He had served a tour over there. Watkins: So he says. Well, I don’t know how anybody who ever served a tour in Vietnam (laughing) would have been able to do that scene. Because anybody who’s ever been near that would understand how absurd that is. Browning: Now I remember that you mentioned to me before that—I had asked you earlier, off the record—about the climate in Vietnam. I wonder if you could remark on that again. What you encountered when you got off the plane, and a lot of people are “Oh my god!” Watkins: Well, it was hot, it was real hot. But the climate to me was just like Delaware. It just had a more garbage-y smell than Delaware. The funny thing is, speaking of movies, because you land at Cam Ranh on a jet, at the time I was there they flew Flying Tigers, and so they didn’t want the jet to be on the tarmac for very long because you start to attract mortar fire, so you go off the plane and another group of guys gets on the plane. It’s a very surreal experience, because you’re getting off and you’re in your jungle togs, and they’re just fresh from the factory, everything’s clean. And the guys who are getting on the airplane. They looked like they’d been through hell, I mean, their clothers are all ripped and all that. and there was a guy in front of me, getting off the plane—and the lines pass, you know, you can talk to each other—and he looks over at this guy getting on the plane, and he’s obviously very nervous and he said, “how was it, 8 �man?” (laughing) and the guy looks at him and he says—I’ll never forget this—he said, “It was the worst movie I was ever in,” (laughter) and he kept on going. And I thought, well, there you go. And that really kind of describes the situation. You know, it’s why everybody talks about “when I go back to the world,” or “when I get back in the real world,” and at first that doesn’t make any sense, but after a while it does. Browning: and did you find that while you were in country in Vietnam—obviously Vietnam is much talked about in the years following the war and in the years of the war—did you when you were in country, did you find you and your comrades discussing the war in any way, greater mission, why are we here? Or were you just counting down the days until you. Watkins: No. Browning: Not many philosophers in the organization? Watkins: No. Not too many people want to (pause) discuss the philosophical aspects of things. You know what your day is, and you want to be around for that day. That’s the only thing. Browning: So your day came around Thanksgiving of 1970? Watkins: Yeah. As I recall, and this may be incorrect, but I remember having Thanksgiving dinner twice that year, because we were flying back. But I couldn’t get on the first flight, and I remember I was standing there, and I had given away all my other sets of jungle fatigues that I had. I had only had one pair of boots for about 4 months. They wouldn’t give you any more, and one of mine had fallen apart. I’m standing there and it’s raining like hell, and I missed the flight, couldn’t get on it, gotta wait for the next one. “What’s that God-awful smell? Did somebody dump their garbage or something?” And then I realized it was me. I was out there and I just smelled like an old wet dog. And I wanted to keep that set of fatigues, you know, as a souvenir and the boots, and finally I threw them in a trash barrel, and I put on a pair of Class A khakis that I had. You know, it’s hard to stay clean, and it does accumulate. Browning: When you returned to the States, what consisted of your remaining service once you got back? Watkins: Well, I had orders to go to an MP company in Fort Belvoir outside of Washington. But clerks and Spec 4s, they always know what’s going on in the army, and it became known that good duty could be had in what were called AFES stations, these were induction stations. If you could get assigned to an induction station, you weren’t on a military base, and you lived basically a civilian life, except for the time that you spent at the station. They get you an apartment and this sort of thing, and I was getting married anyway, and so I had orders to AFES 9 �station in Charlotte, NC. So I had somewhere around a year left, so I gave mental tests to people who didn’t always want to take them. Browning: Did you also have to judge the tests, or judge the results? Watkins: Yeah, we would score the tests. And it was really great training because you learn how to add up really long columns of numbers in your head to save time. You score these things real quickly. At the time it was the AFQT, the Armed Forces Qualification Test, and then another test called the AQB, Army Qualification Battery, I think, and so you’d be done at 12 or 1 or 2 o’clock in the afternoon and you could go off and do whatever you wanted to do. Browning: So you said you were getting married anyway, were you engaged while you were in Vietnam? Watkins: Yeah, I was. Browning: Communication was almost exclusively letters? Watkins: Yeah, entirely letters. The idea of making a phone call was—you were in another world. Browning: How often did you have correspondence with your future wife? Watkins: I did not have correspondence with that woman, my wife [Dr. Watkins is again joking] Browning: (laughing) I’m sorry I should have phrased it differently. Watkins: I don’t really remember. We’d get mail once or twice a week maybe. Sometimes there’d be a letter, sometimes there wouldn’t. Just depended. Sometimes you get a bunch of them at one time. Browning: When were you officially decommissioned, if you will, from the army? Watkins: I got an early out, to go back to school, sometime in ’73, I guess. I don’t remember actually. Browning: Was it a four year commitment that you had? Watkins: It was three year commitment. So I went in last ’69… 10 �Browning: Somewhere in late ’72 or early ’73? Watkins: Yeah, something like that. Browning: And so you said you went back to Mars Hill College? Watkins: I did, I went back to Mars Hill. Browning: And finished your Bachelor’s [degree]? Watkins: Yeah. Browning: And from there? Watkins: I came to Appalachian for about nine months, because at the time I was interested in going to law school, and no law school would take me. I was being turned down by night law schools that largely took cops, you know, that wanted to get out of “copdom.” A friend of mine said… and secondly, although I am usually—I probably shouldn’t admit this—I am usually amazingly adept at taking standardized tests. I am really good at it. Well, I couldn’t score high on the LSAT to save my life. All the answers looked right. (Laughter) And having given mental tests, you know I was very adept at testing strategy. So I knew how to maximize the score by, essentially by manipulating how I answered the questions. Well, it was absolutely not helpful whatsoever, and I thought, well, you know, I don’t think I’m stupid, but I need 200 more points on this thing. So a friend of mine said look, you need to go to Appalachian, said they’ll take anybody, and then you know you can use that transcript for grades. And amazingly, while I was here I took a course in constitutional law from a guy in Political Science who had both a Law degree and a Ph.D., and that’s how I learned how case law was built, and I realized how you actually made the determination on the LSAT, but I was interested in museum work also, and I had a chance to go to Delaware, so away I went. That was the end of law school. Browning: So you acquired your Ph.D. at Delaware? Watkins: Yeah. Browning: What year was that? Watkins: ’82. Browning: And then soon after that you wound up back here. 11 �Watkins: Well, yeah, I mean I had worked for a couple of years. When I left Delaware, I got a job as a museum director in Pennsylvania. I had the dissertation completed, researched, and everything written but two chapters, so I left in 1980. And it took me two years to write those last two chapters, because the work was pretty intense. So that worked out well. Browning: Obviously, you’re at Appalachian now. What year were you formally hired here? What year did you join? Watkins: I came in 1984. Browning: And been here ever since? Watkins: Yep. Browning: I guess the final question I should ask you, being an oral history interview for a military veteran, is: when you look back on your military experience, do you see any… what value do you see? Life lessons or anything that it taught you? What of intrinsic value would you say your service gave to you? Watkins: Well, Judkin, I can honestly say to you that I hated every goddamn day that I served in the U.S. Army. I got up every morning and I said, “I hate this fucking army.” I’m insuring that you will never be able to play this tape. Browning: You are not insuring that. Watkins: But the army… I was a snotty, superior kid. And being a private in the army was the greatest experience that I could have, because it threw me in with people I never would have been involved with. And it taught me that except for a very few number of morons at the bottom, and a few Mensa people at the top, the difference in intelligence between our smart people and our dumb people—it ain’t that much. So, when I think of William Buckley’s great quote, that he’d rather be governed by the first 20 or 50 or 100 people in the Boston telephone directory than the Harvard faculty… I don’t know if he understood exactly what he meant, but I understood what he meant, and that is, if you have to rely on the average intelligence of the American public, you’re going to be okay. Because there’s not much difference between whether they got a high school diploma or a doctorate—they’re about the same. And that was a real good experience for me to have. You learn how to get along with people who sometimes, you know, don’t want to get along. Then the army ruins you in a certain other way. If you need sympathy, or you need coddling, or you need psychological assistance, the army would not be the place to look for that. The army doesn’t care if you don’t feel well today. They don’t care if your knee hurts. They 12 �don’t care if your nose is running. They don’t care if somebody has just shot at you with an M60. They just want to know a simple question: did you accomplish the mission or didn’t you? And so that becomes the deal. They teach you to get the job done. No moaning, just get it done. Nobody wants to hear the grisly details. And so that’s good to know, and frankly, I probably would never have gone back to college without the GI Bill. It enabled me to have time to do what I wanted to do without the need to get a job right away. So I got a lot out of that as a result. So it’s a good thing. Sometimes…. I remember one night…. I’ll tell you a war story here, but anyway. We seemed to be being blown up, and I was dropped on a hill with an M-60 machine gun, a tripod, and a box of ammo. And it was pitch black out. And I was gonna defend the hill. Hoorah. It was just one problem. I had never fired an M-60 machine gun, and I had never loaded an M-60 machine gun, and so after about half an hour of trying to figure out how to put a belt in the damn thing, I just sat there next to the gun and waited to see what would happen. But you know they give you a lot of leeway for experimenting. You done? Browning: Well, Chuck, I thank you very much for the time you took to tape this interview. It’s been very enlightening, informative, and entertaining. Thank you very much. Watkins: I do my best. THE END 13 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/adda78b91181f55ebcd43c34c25d63a3.mp3 c8f984fb1ba2e1935de0a077ae2c8f41 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Watkins, Charles Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Browning, Judkin Interview Date 4/28/2011 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:42:34 File name 2013_063_Watkins_Charles_interview 2013_063_Watkins_Charles_transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Charles Watkins, 28 April 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Browning, Judkin Watkins, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 13 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Veterans Watkins, Charles United States Interviews Personal narratives, American Description An account of the resource Charles Watkins talks about his service as a typist in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. He spent a year overseas, and finished his 3-year service contract conducting mental health tests in the US. 1969 AFQT Appalachian Cam Ranh Bay Charles Watkins Churchill Graham deferment Fort Bragg Fort Jackson Mars Hill private typist Vietnam https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/80a567b50a51ed95806e7d6193774e48.pdf 60894303b13ad617ee39c00d7bc7d102 PDF Text Text Oral History Project Interview Conducted By: Bradley McMahan Interviewee: Michael McMahan-US Navy Veteran March 11, 2011 Interview Transcript Bradley- Ok Uncle Michael so this is an interview for Dr. Judkin Browning's American Military History class and it's being taken place in Black Mountain, NC and I'm Bradley McMahan and his is my uncle Michael McMahan and Uncle Michael when and where were you born? Michael-! was born in 1951 in Asheville, NC Bradley- What branch of the service were you in? Michael- I was in the Navy Bradley- What was your rank while in the Navy? Michael-My fmal rank was aviation ordinance, third class. Bradley- Where all did you go on duty? Michael- I went into boot camp in Orlando, FL , from there I went to ordinance school in Jacksonville, FL, from the there, I went to Alameda, CA, which was my home port during my first cruise I went from Alameda to Hawaii to the Philippines to Hong Kong to Japan and then back to CA, back to Alameda. Then on my second cruise I went to San Diego and to San Diego to further train and I went to again Hawaii, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore and then finally Bremerton, WA. Bradley- And what was your specific duty usually while on your cruises? Michael- During my first cruise I built bombs from 250 pounds up to 2000 bombs to load on the planes Bradley-Ok and are you considered by the Veterans Administration a Vietnam Veteran or just ... Michael- A Vietnam Veteran yes Bradley- And did you join the Navy because it was your choice or were you drafted? Michael- It was my choice �Bradley- And where were you living at the time you enlisted? Michael- In Black Mountain Bradley- What was your driving factor behind it? Michael- During that time I was ... restless, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I was attending Asheville Buncombe Tech College. During that time I was going ok where is my life going. I grew up listening to the stories of my uncles, my father's about all the great places they had seen in the military and that really appealed to me. Bradley- And what made you choose the Navy? Michael- You get to see the world. And fortunately I didn't realize the world was 75% water at that time. Bradley- What was it like when you first joined, coming from such a small town in Black Mountain, you really were on the whole other side of the world? Michael- Your first experience is always boot camp which is ... quite a bit different from waking up to your mother asking you to get up nicely ... ! saw a lot of things I never thought I would see. I was excited. Jacksonville, FL, I had only seen the ocean a couple of times before that and California I had only seen it in the movies. So it was a great time, it was very exciting. Bradley- Did you enjoy boot camp or is it ... Michael-No way Bradley-Or is it pretty terrible? Michael- Well you adapt Bradley- Did you ever regret your decision while in boot camp? Michael- Oh several times ... several times Bradley- What do you remember about specifically about boot camp? Michael- Uh the rigid structure, the numbness of time going by so slowly, of having to pause for toothpaste, for a tooth brush, I uh sometimes it was the brutality of people getting slapped in the heads with clipboards and different things, so yes it was not like around where I grew up. Bradley-What made you finally pull through it? Michael- Pull through it. .. time ... and that... Bradley-You just get used to it after a while? Michael- You get used to it. Bradley- I've heard you say before you'd watched a lot of John Wayne movies and wanted to go to Vietnam. Did they talk about Vietnam much in boot camp or was it just. .. �Michael-No, no they did not talk a lot about Vietnam ... in boot camp a lot of that is just getting your mind right. Bradley- So after you went to boot camp, your first assignment was where? Michael- I went to Jacksonville, FL for aviation ordinance school, that's where I learned how to build bombs and missiles ... and how to work both and how to do trouble shooting on weapons systems. Bradley- And then from there it was off to the west coast? Michael- From there I was transferred to the USS Ranger ... which was an aircraft carrier, which had more people on the ship when it was fully loaded than my hometown. Bradley- So after you went to the USS Ranger, did you enjoy your ... bomb making or.. ? Michael- Well my first duty on the Ranger was mess cooking which in the Navy unless you're ranked is what you do. That's where you cooked. I told you the story of meeting your Aunt Janelle. When I met her at night my job was cracking 1200 eggs ... scramble eggs. Uh ... the bomb we when out to sea .. .it was bomb making was assembly process it was just like working a assembly line, screwing things together. And was it enjoyable? No it was work. You worked twelve, thirteen, fourteen hours and then you would probably stand four hours other duties. Bradley- When you go on leave, did you ever get a chance to come back to Black Mountain much, or were you solely on the West Coast? Michael- I got to come home uh ... twice ... twice ... maybe three times. In the military you get 30 days leave ... so I got to come home before I went to California and then I got to come home before I was going to head to Vietnam the second time Bradley- Did you ever get home sick at all on the west coast? Michael- Uh ... yes ... yes ..l met your Aunt Janelle. You miss family. You know uh people grow up while you're gone. Bradley- Once you ... got out to sea did you find pretty monotonous out on the sea. Did you ever get really bored out there? Michael- You got uh ... again on my first I was down below decks, I might not see .. .l was working days down below, I wouldn't see sunlight twenty days, twenty five days. So I stayed pretty busy when you got time all you want to do is eat and sleep. Umm but uh in down time, you got bored. It's not today ... you've got all the video games, you got all those things, there isn't all that type of entertainment. You read a ton of books. You'd stand in lines in read books. You'd stand in line to eat. You stood in line to do everything. Bradley- So after you got back off your first cruise, you were wanting to get a Vietnam assignment? �Michael - I had been, ever since I had gone on the Ranger, about every couple of months, I would put in for Vietnam land duty or be stationed. I primarily wanted to be a door gunner on a helicopter. Bradley- What was the major changing force and did that happen or. .. ? Michael- Well, I got my orders, I was put to Cameron Bay, Vietnam ... transferred off the Ranger, went port for survival school at North Island and San Diego, CA for survival school. At that time Nixon started pulling troops out of Vietnam and my orders got cancelled, so I stayed in San Diego for about a month and then I got orders to report aboard the USS Enterprise, which is a nuclear carrier. Bradley- Now were you disappointed that you didn't get your Vietnam assignment? Michael - Absolutely Bradley- And what appealed to you so much about Vietnam? Michael- To me, John Wayne movies Bradley- So none of the bad news reports and anything that ever came back didn't scare you at all or phase you? Michael- They actually enticed me. Bradley- So once you got on the Enterprise, did you find that more enjoyable than the Ranger? Michael - Uh my duties changed . . .! stayed in the bomb division I worked in the missile division .. . ! worked on the flight deck. So I did get fresh air .. . sunshine. That was more enjoyable, yes. Bradley- Did everybody still talk about Vietnam much while you were on the Enterprise and if maybe you guys would eventually get to go, or did you pretty much accept that your orders had changed? Michael - I pretty much accepted that. Bradley- You said when the Enterprise sailed out you went through the pickets, what was that like? Did you feel anything? Were you angry at the people that were trying to do it or ... ? Michael - It was odd feeling because a lot of them were my age. At the time you were in San Francisco, Almeda was right off San Francisco and you would go down town and you would wear your uniform and people would take and there would be protests ... and you were like ok I'm going overseas and there' s a missing piece. At that time it was angry and were pulling out, just watching people, the helicopters would hover over the protests little boats and flood them so they couldn't stop us from leaving. Now I look back at it and I have mixed emotions. They were right about a lot of things, the protesters were. A lot of boys died needlessly there. Bradley- Did you know anybody personally that had gone to Vietnam and gotten killed from Black Mountain, or that you had met, or Naval buddies? �Michael - Let's see did I know anybody ... personally that went to Vietnam. Yes I knew some people that went to Vietnam and you know that came back and talked about the good stuff and then they had uniforms, they looked sharp, all this type of thing, they talked about all their adventures . .. but there were several from Black Mountain killed. Bradley- So when you were on the Enterprise, what was the most eye opening experience you had? Michael- .. .1 was on the flight deck, there was a F-4 coming in with damage and it got about two hundred yards from the ship and exploded ... another two hundred yards and it had landed on the ship, I would have been toast. Bradley- Was that the first casualty on your boat or had you seen them hit the water before that? Michael - I had seen right when I went on my first cruise, I saw an airplane, he came in, the tail hook broke, plane went in the water, it rolled, the pilots ejected and broke their necks .. .I also saw I guess on the Enterprise, on the flight deck, there was a prop plane that transported mail and parts and that type of thing, I had thirteen people aboard, it took ... machinery broke it was carrying the back, it dropped in the sea killing thirteen people ... and that was just part of life. Bradley- Did it freak you out at fust? I don' t know if it was the fust death you had really seen but. .. Michaei-...Did it freak me out? That's a good question . ...there' s a curiosity about it ... you know at that age you don' t ... you don' t think it's going to happen with you. If it does you' ll go out in all the glory you know. Go in the retirement home. Bradley- ... What was your favorite port you went in to? Michael - ... uh they were all unique. They were all unique and unless you visited them, they were exotic, they were nothing like you would ever see in Black Mountain, beautiful scenery, interesting people ... growing up in Black Mountain, working at the service station , you always had interesting people, so I was always fascinated with interesting people and their cultures ... so there was not one particular, I would say was the one. Bradley- Did you enjoy all the time you spent on leave and stuff and in ports? Was it almost to foreign to enjoy at some points? Michael- No ... it was never too foreign. I mean you only go around once, so you try and see it all. You know when a kid from Black Mountain gets to see all this exotic stuff.. . you know the capitols of the world. You grow up in school and read about them and how exotic they are and all that, then you find out most of them are just people. Bradley- Did you ever ... at what point did you realize that you weren' t going to .. . did you decide whether you would make a career out of it, or what point did you say this is fun now but am I going to keep doing this after this? Michael - Well I got married while in the military .. .very high rate of divorce, especially with Navy at that time because a cruise lasted about nine months ... and then when you were home you would have sea trials so you weren't home that much so marriage became a real problem and �also there was sometimes the boredom factor, there's a lot of that, when you're not, when you're not making missiles or bombs or whatever, it can get boring like anything else. Bradley- So when you came back in off that last cruise and you had seen the world and everything were you excited about being done, or did you feel like you were leaving a little bit of you behind on those ships? Michael - ... I was very excited to get out. I was coming home. At that point we working in the Enterprise had gone into dry dock in Bremerton, so all we were doing was chipping paint. I was very excited. I had a brother that I wanted to see grow up. Best part, big part in the hand. It was a lot of those types of things that you miss and when you get back home on the flip side ... you come home and people hadn't been through those experiences, you're different. When you talk to military people that have seen the world, they have a different view than someone that's say .. .local. When you join the military, you do whatever see as much of the world you can. Bradley- So did you do .. .it was four years? Michael - Four years, yes. Bradley- And after your four years did you look back and say that that it was well worth it or did you think you could have maybe been happy without it? Michael- That's a very loaded question ... first of all it changed my life forever, I met my wife, set a lot of things into motion ... so that's good. The flip side ... set a lot of things in motion ... a lot of things change you can't say what I'd have done ifl stayed in school, got my head on straight and become the attorney I thought I might be one of these days ... but you can't look at it that way. You really can't. Bradley- So I'm guessing that you definitely came out with honorable discharge? Michael - Yes Bradley- You're ready to move on with the rest of your life and once you got back in Black Mountain, did you think that, that restlessness had kind of been cured, that you had seen what you wanted to see, or did it almost just make it harder to be back in a little town now that you had been to had been to Hong Kong and the Philippines .. now your back to two stop lights. Michael- .. .I had a job one time, I was a cop here ... to turn off the stop lights(laughter) ... no I enjoyed being here but I always missed the excitement of seeing the world ... and today I still want to see the world. Bradley- And .... once you got out did you think that the Navy made a you more driven with the structure it had given you ... you said you were kind of restless when you went...just a teenage kid that didn't really know what he wanted to do ... do you think it really focused you in for the rest of your life. Some military people say it changed them for the better and some say it changed them for the worse ... Michael - It focused me, I grew up in there, accepting more responsibility that was a real positive .. .I think it was all in all a positive. It turned out to be a positive experience. There were people I know that went in there and it didn't turn out to be a positive experience for them. �Bradley- Did you keep in touch with any of the people you were in the service with or when you got on the plane back, you were on the plane back? Michael - I was on the plane back. Bradley- What did you decide to do career wise after you left the military and made that decision? Michael- When I come back l. ...this was during a recession in 1974 .. .1 was fortunate enough to get a job as a policeman. I had a wife to support and jobs were ... not that many of them ... plus I got to drive a car fast ... so as policeman I knew I needed education so I went back to AB Tech to finish that and then ... my son was born and then two and a half years late, we moved back to Oregon .. :out to Oregon, not back. Bradley- Do you think any of your Navy experience on the west coast, made you want to go back to the west coast or was that more of a total non military related decision? Or do you think had you been in Black Mountain, the west coast would have just been another place? Michael - I think ... if it hadn't been for the military I wouldn't have been exposed to the west coast. I wouldn't have had the opportunity ... ifmost people go to the west coast, they're there for a week. The Navy gave me a home there ... where you blend in with the local, you know where to go to have fun, you know those types of things. There's beautiful places all over the country, drove across country and all that, there's some very fascinating places, I love the west coast, I love the east coast, but Black Mountain's home. Bradley- And once you were on the west coast, you got into the banking industry. Do you think anything you did in the Navy helped you with the banking? Michael - Uh ... no actually it put me behind. The reason I say that is at my age people in banking already had their four year degree, so I was competing against people with a degree. Uh .. .I was fortunate enough to get a job and work my way up through the company. Bradley- Do you think .... you went on to be pretty successful in the banking ... do you think once you got past the four year degree set back and the age difference with some of the people, that the structure you gained from the Navy helped your drive at all to get to the top of the corporate ladder or was that just who you were? Michael- That's just natural ... get it from parents ... my father ... my brother is successful I was successful .. .ifi had the drive in the Navy, for the example to work on the flight deck, you had to have drive. It was an automatic given that you had to prove yourself to move up to that level. Bradley-... Since you've gotten older and experienced some of the benefits of the VA hospitals and stuff, do you think that that is a very good prospect. ... or selling point I should say of joining the military for people that don't have a lot of money potentially or to have access to that for the rest of their lives. Did you take advantage of the GI Bill went you went back to AB Tech? Michael - What I found looking back and even back then the military and I talked to you about this one time the military is a way people see of getting their education paid for. The GI Bill was the most equalizer when it come out of anything happening after WWll all of a sudden it wasn't �just the rich kids that could go to college, it was the blue collar workers son or the blue collar worker. That' s the most equalizer; everyone looked at it that way. Unfortunately there' s also a price to be paid for that. Not everybody comes back from war with all their limbs or the same mental as when they went in. You can go into the VA hospital and you can see men that have seen things that no one should have to see. If you go to the VA hospital and look around, most are trained killers ... at one point in their life, they were trained killers and now a lot them its impacting them. Bradley- So when you see these recruiters and the posters that you get your college paid for, your medical bills for life, you know prescriptions are cheaper ... free .. .they make you feel like essentially you' re going to live a very covered life for the rest of your life. Do you just kind of look it and laugh, like it' s kind of a croc? Michael- It' s first of all when you come, unless you retire you're not under the medical plan. And there' s some provisions, for example now if you get out ofthe service and you' ve had combat duty, then you get two years insurance coverage down at the VA, you don' t get three years, you get two. Unless you get injured, then It's a whole different story. So .. .it' s not quite a croc but . .. . Bradley- There ' s a lot of :fine print. .. Michael- A lot of :fine print, remember they' re there to do a job, they're there to get you in. For a lot of people it' s the right decision and for a lot ofpeople .... no, it's generally if you look at the mixture you can go over to the VA now, most are high school graduates or less, most of them there weren't in the best jobs in the world, you know they worked in the mills, blue collar when they come out, they had done all the right things, but never made a whole lot of money just working in the mill. Bradley- So I guess the tell all question for the whole thing, is looking back now is do you think that you joining the Navy was a good decision or do you ... if you would have not done do you think you would be the same person you are now and everything would still be ok? Michael - I have to answer that in two ways. First of all you don't know what'll happen if you hadn' t joined. If you change one thing in your life, you change everything. I'm sitting here today with family, everything is good ... There' s people down at the cemetery that never made it past my age on account of Vietnam or another war. There' s .. .we have an uncle that fought in WWII, he came back physically alright but he was never mentally right, he lived that war the rest of his life, he lived into his late 70' s, early 80' s. So that's the first part of my answer. I can' t change anything because I'm here so I can't judge. The second side, would I advise someone going in? First of all it would depend on what their goals were and all that. My answer would be no. If it's there just to get an education, there' s other ways to get an education. It' s to unequal between the poor boys, the blue collar boys, the minorities going in, just trying to make it up the ladder. While you have the other group who because it is an all volunteer, they don' t have to go in because they have the money to stay out. So in four years, they have their degree, the other kid comes back out of Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan or the next thing, and they' ll be alright or maybe not. So why take that risk? �Bradley- Well I think we've covered about everything and thank you for everything and that concludes this interview on March 11 , 2011 in Black Mountain, NC between Bradley McMahan and Michael McMahan, for Dr. Judkin Browning' s American Military History class at Appalachian State University. � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/e6bae362c605e1ed0a03f0611c0f1888.mp3 80a0280bfaf7d5aa6d62de1cce8c33bb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. McMahan, Michael Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. McMahan, Bradley Interview Date 3/11/2011 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:31:27 File name 2013_063_McMahan_Mike_interview 2013_063_McMahan_Michael_transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Michael McMahan, 11 March 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource McMahan, Bradley McMahan, Michael Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 9 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Veterans McMahan, Michael Personal narratives, American United States Interviews Description An account of the resource Michael McMahan is interviewed about his service in the US Navy aboard the USS Ranger. He spent the majority of his time as a mess cook at the bottom of a ship, and was never stationed in Vietnam. aviation ordinance Black Mountain Cameron Bay cruise Enterprise GI Bill Michael McMahan US Navy USS Ranger Vietnam https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/cad92d9b79bd0262e73154ab52ba1d5e.pdf c9d6dfa77af719a4f9bd24074705adea PDF Text Text Transcript of Oral History Interview with James A. Love March 11, 2011 Crossnore, NC Brandi Bounds: It is March 11, 2011 and we are in Crossnore, NC, and I am interviewing James Love. And I am Brandi Bounds, a student at the History Department at Appalach ian State University and we will begin the oral history now. Where were you born and raised? James Love: Avery County, been here all my life. Brandi Bounds: And when is your birthday? James Love: March 7, 1949. Brandi Bounds: 1949? And when and why did you choose to join the military? James Love: Drafted. Brandi Bounds: Drafted. James Love: In the Marine Corps. Brandi Bounds: Marine Corps. Ok, that was, that was going to be my next question then . Which war and which branch of the service? James Love: Vietnam . Brandi Bounds: Vietnam . Which, what year or years did you serve? James Love: 1969 and 1970. Brandi Bounds: 1970. James Love: Spent 17 months and 22 days. Brandi Bounds: 17 months and 22 days in Vietnam . No? James Love: No, just 12 in Nam, but I did 17 months and 22 days. I spent a year in Nam . Brandi Bounds: Ok. And what was your rank when you were in? James Love: I was an E4 when I got out. �Brandi Bounds: E4. So that would be ... ? James Love: Corporal. Brandi Bounds : Corporal, ok. Right below sergeant. James Love: One below sergeant. Brandi Bounds: Ok. And do you remember arriving? What was it like in Vietnam? James Love: Scary place. I had never been there and you know, Lordy God, I went to 3rd MP Battalion, that's where I was stationed . There was a Marine Corps Brig, what it was. You went in there was a year. In went in right after Tet. Holes through the, big holes through the side of the hooch's, Brandi Bounds : Ok. James Love: where they had rockets and mortars. Brandi Bounds : Now the big holes were through what? James Love: Through the Brandi Bounds: Through the buildings? James Love: Hooch's is a sort of a Quonset hut type thang. Brandi Bounds: Ok. James Love: Its what we stayed in . Big holes in them and stuff where rockets and mortars had hit them. Blown up and stuff. And all it was, was the brig. We had our own prisoners. Brandi Bounds : You had your own prisoners there? Oh my gosh. James Love : It was just a different world . Just everything, you know, everybody was. Brandi Bounds: Right. James Love : Anybody that said they wasn't, they was . They were lying. Brandi Bounds: Uh-huh. Wow. James Love: It was different world . �Brandi Bounds: Did it take awhile to adjust to the weather? James Love: Oh yes . Miserable. Rain . I've seen you can be soaking wet one minute and 15 minutes later completely dry. Brandi Bounds: Oh my gosh. James Love : That's how fast the temperature over there moves. Brandi Bounds: Uh-huh . Did you arrive there in the Spring or Winter? James Love: I got there in 'bout October. Brandi Bounds: '69? James Love: 1969. When I left here it was cold and when i got there it was hot. Brandi Bounds: Oh, so it really turned your systems around. James Love: It was a different world . We, well I had to go to California . Couple of months before, 'bout a month before I went over there . You got a little bit __there. Its just different. Brandi Bounds: Oh my gosh . James Love : You never know 'bout the people and where they was and stuff. Their habits, completely different. Most of them were, I don 't if you would call it silk, it looked like silk. But doubt it was silk, it was real thin clothes to where they didn't, didn't worry about the rain. It didn't bother them a bit. Brandi Bounds: It was because they had grown up with it? James Love: Ya. It was just a different way of life to us. Brandi Bounds: Oh my gosh . What was your job or assignments? James Love: MP. Brandi Bounds: MP. James Love: Ya, I worked in the brig. For awhile I was a Military Police then the last, my company pulled out come back to the world and the last four or five months I was in fire department. �Brandi Bounds: Fire Department over there? James Love: Ya, we had our own fire departments. I worked in ammo supply puttin' out fires . Brandi Bounds: I'm sure that, I hope that didn't happen too much. James Love: We put out a lot of fires. Brandi Bounds: How did they start? Were they targeted or just the heat? James Love: Where they'd shoot flares and stuff up and sometimes we'd get rockets set it off. And the, the ammo supply dump I worked in had two, three thousand pounds bombs in them, all kinds of shell casings and stuff, and howitzers and all that, and all they had to do was hit them. Brandi Bounds: Oh wow. James Love: It was like parked cars . You had to go in and put them out. Brandi Bounds: Wow. were things spaced out within the ammo dumps so they didn't start a chain reaction? James Love: Ya, what they'd done, they had burms in between them, sorta like over at the high school (Avery County High School}, you know where they have the big .. . Brandi Bounds: The big domes? James Love: the burms, where the dirt was, that's the way it was there . They had all ammo in the different sections. Brandi Bounds: Oh ok. James Love: Different kinds of ammo. Brandi Bounds: That makes since . James Love: If all the powder and stuff in the buildings underground. Brandi Bounds: Oh ok, that makes since. Did you see any combat? James Love: You was always in combat. It was always there. I mean you didn't see no real combat, but most of it was you went down town on a fire and you'd get snipered at. Brandi Bounds: Right. �James Love: So you always had a gun with you or a weapon or something. Brandi Bounds : Ok. Where you ever wounded or anything? James Love : No . Brandi Bounds: No, ok . James Love : No, never was. I was lucky. Brandi Bounds: How did the rest of your unit fair in that department? James Love: Well we was in the rear, I was never, I wasn't five miles out at an angle the whole time I was there. Brandi Bounds : Ok. James Love: I was in the rear. You would get rockets, mortars, snipers but we never did, I think we got, I there was one boy killed while I was there. Brandi Bounds: Right. James Love: And that playing with a rifle . Brandi Bounds: Ok. How did you stay in touch with your family? James Love: Wrote letters. Brandi Bounds : Lots of letters. James Love : My mom kept every letter I ever wrote . And I still got them. She kept them in a box. Brandi Bounds : How long did the postal service take? James Love: I have no idea. We got Free letters. Brandi Bounds: Right . James Love: Didn't have to pay postage. So I don't know how long it took. Brandi Bounds: Weill just didn't know if it was quicker or faster or slower than today. You know for two weeks or month or something. �James love: We see you, you got to set and figure, it went all the way from the Nang to and it would have to go through a FPO box in the post office somewhere and I don 't know how long it took there for it to get here. Brandi Bounds: Right. James Love: Probably a week, two weeks . Brandi Bounds: Ok. James Love : Never did think about it. You know it was just.. .. Brandi Bounds: Just happy to get mail? James love : Ya, that' s what it was. It was good to here from home. Brandi Bounds: What was the food like? James love: Fairly good food. Brandi Bounds: Did you? James Love : You know we had (-rations and stuf( that's not the greatest stuff in the world. But now some of the food was pretty good . The biggest majority we, 'bout like here, cause we didn't, we wasn't out in the bush, we had a mess hall and stuff. Brandi Bounds : Right, ok. James Love : It was just according, according to what kinds of meat they had is according to what you had to eat. Most of the vegetables and stuff was the same. Brandi Bounds: Was fresh? James Love: and potatoes Brandi Bounds: Ok, well I didn't know if you had a lot of powdered foods or not really? James love: No . Brandi Bounds: No really. James Love: Not back then, we had C-rations. �Brandi Bounds: Ok. James Love: C-rations are, I don't know if you have ever seen C-rations? They are in little boxes, 'bout like that, its got the whole meal in it. You'd get three or four cigarettes in a pack. think most of them, when I was over there in '69 and '70 most of the (-rations we had was made in back in the '50s. Brandi Bounds: Ok, left over from Korea. James Love: You think how some of that food had been in cans and .... Brandi Bounds: Did you guys swap food or did you ... James Love: Ya. Brandi Bounds: Or did you just know not to eat certain foods? James Love: Well we just, most of the time we, we did a lot of C-rations, most of ours was Brandi Bounds: Regular mess hall food? James Love: mess hall food . Brandi Bounds: Ok. James Love: We went right down there and we worked different, we worked one week on and one week off in the brig. Which is guarding prisoners. Just a matter of being there. Brandi Bounds: Oh my goodness. How many prisoners did you guys have there? James Love : I'd say 6-700. Brandi Bounds: 6 or 700, oh wow. For the most part were they calm or did they try and escape a lot oftimes? James Love: Most of them that I know were there were coming back home. They were waiting to be court marshaled and sent home. Brandi Bounds: So a lot of them were deserters? James Love : Deserters, people, I know, some of the boys I, we had one boy who killed everybody from his company commander to his first sergeant because they wouldn't let him go on R&R. Walked by and rolled a fragmentation grenade in their hooch. Its simple. �Brandi Bounds: So you didn't really have to many of the enemy prisoners just Americans? James Love : No we had ours . Brandi Bounds : Ok, so we had ours, no enemy prisoners. James Love: We had all the boys . Brandi Bounds: Now were a lot of them court marshaled there or were they waiting til the United States? James Love: Most ofthem had done been court marshaled . They was .. . Brandi Bounds: Just waiting. James Love: Just waiting for transport . Brandi Bounds: Ok. James Love: But most ofthem was court marshaled at their company units. Brandi Bounds: Ok. Tried by their peers, ok. Did you guys have plenty of supplies? James Love: We did. It was, we never did worry about it. Brandi Bounds: Right. James Love: Not in supply phase of it Brandi Bounds: You really don't notice it too much? James Love: You never notice it, all you do here and its there. You just go by and pick up ammo as you need it. Clothes and stuff we had, we took clothes we had, we always had big, we had our allowances, they give us our clothes. Brandi Bounds: Wow, I didn't know if it had changed or anything? James Love: I know they make a lot more money than we did. A hundred and twenty-six dollars a month. Brandi Bounds: That's how much you made was a hundred and twenty-six dollars a month? Oh wow. I guess, I guess it is very different today. James Love: It is. �Brandi Bounds: Wow. James Love: They still get allowances for clothes and stuff now. Most of the stuff is give to them when start. Part of it. Brand Bounds: Oh my gosh, lets see . How did you or others entertain yourselves? Because you said you worked one week and took one week off so I guess ya'll had to do something. James Love: We went down town and just, that's not a good question. Brandi Bounds: Ok, lets go to the next one. Did you guys pull any pranks amongst each other to entertain yourselves? James Love : That was part of it. We had our own place where we could go drink and stuff. We very seldom seen any shows, USO's was very few. Brandi Bounds : Ok. Now what part of Vietnam were you stationed in? James Love: The Nang, up North. Brandi Bounds : Nang? James Love: The Nang. Brandi Bounds: Nang, The Nang. Ok James Love: We was up North, we was pretty close, we weren 't too far from the DMZ. Brandi Bounds: Ok. James Love : Most of the Marine Corps was up North, down South was Army. Brandi Bounds: Ok, so ya'll were closer to the border. James Love : Ya, I'd say we was probably 150 miles from the DMZ. 200 something like that. Brandi Bounds : Ok. So that's not far at all. Did you guys have an air base right there too? James Love: Ya, we had a big air field right there. Brandi Bounds: Ok. �James Love: So I mean it was, I think everybody come into the air field and flew out, at least all the Marines. Brandi Bounds: Ok. James Love: We had a big naval base there, it was all there. Brandi Bounds: How big was the base? I mean how many people did it house? You don't know? James Love: Thousands. Brandi Bounds: Ok. James Love: Cause the Nang was one of the biggest cities. So it was, I'd say it was from 100,000 probably more than that. Brandi Bounds: Oh wow, so that's just the base: 100,000? James Love: Ya, that's not counting all the FLC. Brandi Bounds: The FLC is? James Love: Ya, FLC is Force Logistics Command. That was part of what we was under. Brandi Bounds: Ok. James Love: They had all the supplies and everything. I'd say, think how much, all the supplies come into a place like that and shipped to all the other units. So I mean its a monster place. Brandi Bounds: Oh, wow. James Love: So we had a, we had a PX right across the road from when I was in the Fire Department, PX was right across the road from where I was stationed and used to go over there and buy just about anything. Anything you'd want. Brandi Bounds: So it was a large PX? James Love: Oh ya, you could buy groceries, you could buy clothes, you could buy any kind of electronics. Brandi Bounds: Now were most of the buildings, were they mostly similar to Quonset huts or were they actually built? �James Love: Some of them was built. Brandi Bounds: Buildings, concrete, and steel. Ok. James Love: Well most of them was wood. Brandi Bounds: Wood. James Love: Most of them that I was in. I wasn't in many that wasn't wood. Brandi Bounds: Did you guys have any air conditioning? James Love: No. Brandi Bounds: No air condition ing. James Love: No, there was no such thing as that . You could buy air conditioning, but if you was going to be somewhere that long. Brandi Bounds: It made since too, but if you were moving on ... James Love : you could get one . But most of the time nobody had any air conditioning. Brandi Bounds: Ok. James Love: You just, you get used to it. Brandi Bounds: Ok. James Love: The heat ain't good, but I mean its ... Brandi Bounds: I guess you adjust to it once you have been over there too. James Love: You adjust to it sooner or later, after you have been there awhile. Its cold when its raining and its hot when the suns out. Brandi Bounds: So there's really no median? James Love: There is no medium temperature . It, I've seen it so cold that it would shatter your shaving cup. Especially if the wind picked up, I mean it just, once you got wet, you just cold, there's no gettin' warm . Brandi Bounds: Did the base ever flood during monsoon season? �James Love: No, it didn't. I've seen it rain for days at a time. I mean it got muddy. Brandi Bounds: Lots of mud, but never flooding. James Love: No. Brandi Bounds: Well that was good. James Love: You never think about it, I mean, cause most of the water was out, you could see rice patties where stuff, where rice is and stuff. It was raining you just had a poncho you wore and put it on and went on. If it wasn't, well that was it. Brandi Bounds: And kept going? James Love: Yup. Didn't have to worry about it. Brandi Bounds: Oh wow. Lets see, what did you do after you were out of the military? James Love: I got back here in October and I went to work probably right around then, went to working out on the golf course . Brandi Bounds: On the golf course, so October of 1970 when you got back here. Which golf course did you go back to work for? James Love : I worked at Seven Devils. Brandi Bounds : Seven Devils, ok. James Love: I worked there for quite a few years and then I worked at, I got back in '70, worked there for about two and half years. Then got engaged, I went there, then I went to Sugar Mountain and worked and then in '74 I come here and worked. And I've been here every since. Brandi Bounds: So you have owned and operated this gas station in Crossnore since 1974? James Love: Been here 37 years. Brandi Bounds: 37 years, that's a long time to own a business. James Love : Been a long time . Brandi Bounds: Oh wow. Did you maintain any relationships you had while in the military? No? Ok. �James Love: Nope, nobody I, nobody from here that I, the only person I ever met from here the whole time I was in service was Bob Franklin . Brandi Bounds: Bob Franklin. So just one person . James Love: And I met him in a chow line at Camp Lejune. Brandi Bounds: Oh, did you guys see each other when you were over in Vietnam? James Love: Nope, that's the only time I ever seen anybody from here . But he was from here at Jonas Ridge . I met him at chow line, I was going through getting chow and he was on KP duty. He looked me in the eye and I looked him and he said "I know you." I said "Ya, I know who you are. Your Franklin from Jonas Ridge ." He said "That's right." But that's the only time, the only person I seen I was there. Brandi Bounds: Oh my gosh . James Love: But all the boys that I went to be inducted with went to Army. Brandi Bounds: Ah, ok so most of them went James Love: And I got drafted in the Marines. They come through and said we want that one and that one. Brandi Bounds: Ok. James Love: I just happened to be "that one" . Brandi Bounds: "that one". Did your military experience influence your thinking about war or about the military in general? James Love: They should never make you fight a war you can't win. If they'd let us go ahead and do the job, it 'd been over. Brandi Bounds: But they didn't, they held you back? James Love: They won 't let you do it. Same way today. Brandi Bounds : You just can't James Love: Iraq same way, Afghanistan. Turn the place to glass. Brandi Bounds: Turn the place what? �James Love: Turn that place over there to glass. Drop a big bomb and watch that sand turn to glass. With them under it. Brandi Bounds: Did you join a Veteran's Organization? James Love: Yup, I'm VFW. Brandi Bounds: VFW member. Which post? James Love: Post 4286. Brandi Bounds: 4286. And does your post do any kinds of activities? James Love: Oh gosh we do a lot of activities for the community. Got a honor guard that does military funerals, we got a lot in Voice of Democracy, Pens out, theres a lot, if a young knew, there is all kinds of scholarships in the VFW. Voice of Democracy pays around $30,000 if you are the national winner. Brandi Bounds: Oh wow. That's a huge one . James Love : I mean, there's all kinds of different ones, Patriot pens, there's are a lot of different things and they do a lot of them. You know, most people don't think VFW's do anything, We've got, we've thrown children's Christmas party every year for the underprivileged children. Easter, we have a Easter thing, this coming Easter for the youngins. Brandi Bounds: Awww, do you guys do an Easter egg hunt? James Love: Ya, but we all let the ladies do it. Brandi Bounds: Awww. James Love: We don't cook . Brandi Bounds: You let your wives do it. James Love : Ya, they do it we just smile and nod. Brandi Bounds: You smile and nod and glad there's food . James Love : Ya Brandi Bounds: Well, is there anything that you would like to add that we did not cover? �James Love: Na, it's just, it' s an experience. I think everyone should have to go to the military one time. Brandi Bounds: So like Israel does it? Everybody joins for two years. James Love: Ya, it would teach youngins a lot of responsibility. Brandi Bounds: It would . James Love: I wouldn't change anything from my military. I didn't do a lot but I mean I did, it just, it grows you up fast. Brandi Bounds: Meet another culture and just learn? James Love: Well not only that, you just learn about yourself. Cause when you are, I think my platoon when I went to Paris Island, there was about, I walked in down there, I remember when I walked into Paris Island, we'd walk in and there was a boy sitting over in the corner had both wrists slit. Blood flying everywhere. Drill Sergeant standing there saying son you'd better stop that blood or you'll be dead . You know that had to scare the boy to death. Brandi Bounds: Oh wow. What happened to that boy? Do you know? James Love: Have no idea . They run us off on out the door. We got caught in the area . I mean we just walk in and he 's standing there, and blood's flying. And then, l's just had once 18, just turned 19. Brandi Bounds: You had just turned 19. When you went in for basic training? James Love: Yup, I was 19 when we went in. You know, you don't really think about stuff, we just talked about this stuff us boys have. We went, we went to California couldn't even drink a beer but could go die in Nam . Could go into a bar and nobody would serve you . Wasn 't old enough . Brandi Bounds : Still needs to be addressed today. James Love: I mean we could go to Nam and get killed but you couldn 't have a beer. Brandi Bounds: Have you been to D.C. to see the Vietnam memorial? James Love: Nope, but I have seen the, the rolling wall. Traveling Wall. Brandi Bounds: The Traveling Wall. James Love: Its going to be at Marion (NC) in May. �Brandi Bounds: Oh is is going to be in Marion in May? Ok. James Love : Traveling box. I've seen it in Johnson City (TN) two years ago. Brandi Bounds: Ok, I'll have to see if I can go down and see that. James Love: It is, it is a very, very moving thing. They have a lot of letters. They ask people to bring stuff. They ask us to bring stuff to this one down here. Most of ours don't though. A lot of them just don't comment. People that's been there, typically don't. Brandi Bounds: I know its hard. James Love: I know one boy, I've got some buddies that I graduated with that was blown up. One of them, whole right side, re-done his whole face and the other one got shot three times. Brandi Bounds: Oh wow. James Love: Wayne Holden. Brandi Bounds: Wayne Holden? Which was he, Vietnam Army? James Love: Ya, he had boys killed on both sides of him . He got, I think he got three purple hearts. Brandi Bounds: Oh wow. James Love : He got shot through the arm, through the leg, through the hip. Brandi Bounds : At the same time? James Love : All in the same place. Brandi Bounds: That was a rough day. James Love : I guess its just one of them things . You don't think about it . Until it happens. War ain't no fun. Brandi Bounds : It's romanticized to much . James Love: Well it ain't what everybody thinks it is. Brandi Bounds : Well thank you very much. �James Love: Well I'm glad to help you. Do what I can. Brandi Bounds : Its wonderful. � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/dfe65604fef41486275b8006edbe20f0.mp3 bc1dfe62f0a880dcce2addd45fac53d1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Love, James A. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Bounds, Brandi Interview Date 3/11/2011 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:24:48 File name 2013_063_Love_JamesA_interview 2013_063_Love_JamesA_transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with James A. Love, 11 March 2011 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bounds, Brandi Love, James A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 17 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Veterans Love, James A. Personal narratives, American United States Interviews Description An account of the resource James A. Love describes his service in northern Vietnam (Nang) as a part of the Marine Corps. James A. Love letters Marine Corps monsoon Nang VFW Vietnam https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/b4f77b05533202a32151c4de02d37fba.pdf bcb3ed0bd7751f3ae1a6ea655f7663bd PDF Text Text Oral History Transcript Derek Huss Derek: It is September 23rd 2012, we are in Lewisville NC, I am interviewing my father, Petty Officer Allen Huss, born on December 30, 1950. I am Derek Huss, from Appalachian State University, and we will begin the oral history now. First off, were you drafted or were you enlisted? Allen: I enlisted. Derek: Where were you living at the time? Allen: With my parents in Lincolnton, NC. Derek: What made you decided to join, and what branch of service did you go into? Allen: I decided to join because the draft was taking men age 19 because of the Vietnam War, I was going to school at Gaston College at the time, but really didn’t have any direction, as to what I wanted to do with my life, sooner or later I figured the draft was gonna get me anyway, and I did not want to go into the army. That's why I decided to join the Navy. D: How much college had you gone through when that happened? A: A year and a half. Plus the first draft lottery since WWII had started a month earlier in the December of 1969 and my birthday was chosen 3rd. D: So you joined...? A: I joined a month later, on Jan. 26, 1970. D: Okay. Tell me about training. A: I was sent with several other men from around the Charlotte area to Great Lakes training center between Chicago and Milwaukee on Lake Michigan. Training, boot camp, back then, was 13 weeks. They turned ordinary citizens into military men in a matter of weeks. Training is hard, you go to school during the day, you stand watches at night, participate in athletics, and we had a good basketball team. It was company against company. We had a swimming team, and we competed against each other in the classroom, on the athletic fields, so we didn't get to play a lot of sports, that was usually a Saturday morning thing. The rest of the time you were marching, eating or sleeping, or going to class. D: Do you remember your instructors, or have any stories from training? A: Our commanding officer was a chief. A little short, mean guy. Chief Lorreat was his name. IT was his first experience in boot camp, like us, but he was a chief, of course he had been in the navy for 20 something years. And by the time boot camp was over we were all pretty good friends. We learned to respect him, and I think he learned to respect us. D: So it was a learning experience for both of you. �A: Plus we won a bunch of flags. We won the I flag, we were the smartest comp in boot camp at the time. We won the A flag, which meant we were the most athletic, and those were the two he wanted so... D: So those competitions, were they based on just where you were, or a broader area? A: The whole boot camp. D: Oh Okay. A: For every company in boot camp, we competed against. Like I said we had a good basketball team, which I played on, we had a good swimming team, which I swam on, and we had some very smart, intelligent guys in our company so we won the I flag. A company in boot camp is around 60 men, 60 to 70 men, each company sleeps in its own barracks, don’t really mix with another company unless you’re playing in sports against them or eating in the mess hall. But you usually separated and just with your friends in the company that you make while you’re in boot camp, and you become good friends very quickly cause it’s all you do. In the 13 weeks I was there we had two days of leave, and they were toward the end of the 13 weeks where you[‘re] getting near that graduation date. One day we took the train to Chicago and the next Saturday we got a leave to Milwaukee. Saw my first Major League Baseball game in Chicago in April of 1970. Free tickets from the USO and froze to death in White Sox Stadium. D: Alright. Moving on. Which war or wars did you serve in? A: I was in service during the Vietnam War D: And where exactly did you go? A: Well after boot camp I was sent to Bambridge Maryland, I was very lucky I had scored high on the test and they wanted to make me a radioman, so I was sent to Bambridge, Maryland, one of the Navy’s best A schools. They had A schools, B schools, and C schools. A School’s were the top Navy schools, and several of my friends from boot camp went to Bambridge, Maryland with me to radio school. There were four of us from that company that went to radio school. The first night we were there we met a guy that was from charlotte and the bowling alley. He was graduating and leaving his apt that he rented, we immediately took over the next week and I didn’t have to spend 5 days in the barracks the whole time I was there D: Alright. So what was your assignment? A: On the ship? D: Right, yeah. A: I was radioman. And I had a top secret clearance by the end of 1972. Which cleared the way for me to become petty officer and watch supervisor. �D: So you got on the ship, did you ever see combat? A: Uh, no. Thank goodness. We were in the Mediterranean during the Yom Kippur war, which is the second time the U.S. military went to DEFCONN 2, other than the Cuban missile crisis. Ship I was on was the FDR, there was another carrier in our group in the Mediterranean, the USS Independence, and we were all in main comm., the ship went on general quarters and stayed that way for the entire war, lasted about 10 days. D: You said no combat, were there any casualties in your unit? A: We lost, we lost several guys just from accidents, being washed overboard, one guy died one day shaving, and he had a brain aneurysm. When you have 4500 men on one ship, things are gonna happen. We lost several pilots; we lost two jets in 30 seconds. Off the coast of Puerto Rico our steam catapults failed and two jets crashed within 30 seconds of each other, all the pilots were lost. There were deaths. Whenever we took on fuel or supplies, any cargo or water tankers would pull up beside us and we would be moving, we wouldn’t stop like the Russian navy, we were always moving to refuel or to resupply. they would let the elevators down that takes the planes up to the flight deck from the hangar bay, and if it’s rough seas big waves, it can, they can wash a man overboard, and that happened one night while we were refueling, and no one saw him go over. The next morning during roll call they discovered he had disappeared. Of course they never found the man. We did have one that was lucky. He was washed over during the day time and the Russian destroyer that was following us picked him up and one of our helicopters went over and retrieved him off the Russian ship. D: Geez. Well you mentioned a few but uh, can you give us a couple of your most memorable experiences? A: Well, radiomen, you’re either on a 8 hour watch or port and starboard, which means 12 hours on, 12 hours off, and during heavy NATO exercises or during, like the Yom Kippur war, of course there’s a lot of messages coming in. As the battle groups aircraft carrier, we had 8 or 9 ships surrounding us; they did not have the radio rooms we did. We had 3 radio rooms on the ACC, we would take their radio traffic, which is called traffic, and have to send it to them on another teletype machine, cause they didn’t have the room for all of the equipment that would be necessary to go back and forth between a land base or other ships. So in fact, we were taking traffic for 8 ships, not just our one ship. D: And if you don’t mind me cutting in here, can you describe what kind of equipment you had in the radio room? A: Well our printers were old teletype machines, they don’t use those anymore, but they were big loud and bulky. We had different rooms, we had a broadcast room, which usually had 8 to 10 teletypes running full 24 hrs a day, one broadcast operator who had to check every message coming over. We had a TGO room, which is a task group room that we would receive and send messages to our task group. we had an office, that did the printing other messages that would go to the offices that the diff messages were addressed to, runners would come from these different departments, all over the ship to get their messages once every hour or two. In case of a flash message or top secret message, a �runner or messenger would have to go find the Capt. or the executive officer to deliver those messages by hand. D: And then to steer us back on track, can you give us the story about the few days leading up to the Yom Kippur, when you were heading to Vietnam, and had to come back? A: Well, we were in 1972; Nixon tried to bomb Hanoi into the peace table in Paris where the peace talks were going on. Nobody ever understood what President Nixon was trying to do; I don’t think his close assistants knew what he was trying to do. What he was trying to do in ‘71 was get re-elected in ‘72. So he didn’t want to cause any more trouble to the American public, of course it was ... the 60’s, the late 60’s were a wild time with the assassinations, schools, just, a lot of demonstrations against the Vietnam war, and the president, don’t know if he really wanted to get out of Vietnam in the early 70s, I think he found it to be to his advantage to have a war. But in 1973 he ordered 22 carriers off the coast of Vietnam, North Vietnam, and that when we started bombing Hanoi. We were on our way out of the med, to head for Vietnam and that when the Yom Kippur war started that night. We had no idea it was starting, and neither did the Israeli’s, they were attack from three sides by Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. And it was on the first night of the Yom Kippur, which is a very religious holiday, so a lot of their military was off, on leave, and that was their plan. They attacked them at a weak time, where their military was not ready. So the first two days they were really defeating Israel on two fronts, and it looked bad. Of course the U.S. was trying to stay out of it; Soviet Union was trying to stay out of it. But if it had gone any farther or if either side had started to use an atomic weapon on the other, then that would’ve led to the Soviet Union coming in and the United States answering. D: So how far did the Roosevelt make it? A: We were off the coast of Egypt in less than a day. We were at the eastern end of the Mediterranean when we got the call. Compared to the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean’s, the med is like a pond. But the Russians kept a navy of 90 ships in that pond. And we had two carrier groups. It was uh, D: Stacked against you. A: Our mission was to launch our jets, and then we were expendable. So when they started loading the nukes that night... everybody knew we were in for it. D: Well luckily nothing ever happened from it. A: Nope, we never got the call to launch. Of course we were launching our jets, but not with nuclear weapons. But there were a lot of jets loaded with nuclear weapons. They were ready to go. We had a Russian tattle tale we called 'em. It was either a destroyer or a guided missile cruiser come up beside us that night, pointed every missile and gun at us, I was in main comm., so I couldn’t go out and look at, and I was told I didn’t want to look at it, it was just about 100 ft beside us, we had a submarine surface near us, Russian submarine. During that time they said it was right under us following us around. You can’t hide an aircraft carrier in the pond. D: Now you mentioned you have a report saying that sub had been following you for awhile right? �A: They claimed that they were under us the whole time we were in the Mediterranean. We would disguise our lights at night if we weren’t having air ops, try to make the ship look like another type of ship, especially sailing around some of the Greek isles, we would try to lose ‘em at night, but nothing worked. They knew where we were all the time. It was probably from that submarine. We also had fly over’s from Bears, which is a huge bomber. It had six propellers and four jets, and we called those fly over’s, we would usually launch two to four F4 Phantoms to try to head ‘em off, like 200 miles away. They would still fly over us, just to basically tell us they could kill us anytime they wanted to. Two of our Phantoms were flying on either side of a bear one night and uh the pilot of the Russian Bear dropped his wing and damaged the F4 wing, almost made him crash but he made it back to the ship. They would send ships in front of us during air ops and during air ops you have to hold a steady course. One day while we were refueling a destroyer came up between and we had to have an emergency breakaway spilling jet fuel and all kinds of fuel into the ocean. Russian navy was, they were pretty wild. Anything they could do to disrupt our mission, they did it. D: Okay, thank you. We’re gonna move on. Were you awarded any medals or citations during your service? A: Several citations for NATO exercises, which included all the NATO navy's, especially Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany. Sometimes turkey, Greece, and I of course was awarded the national defense medal for being in the military. D: Alright now I’m gonna ask you a few questions about life in the service. First off, how did you stay in touch with your family? A: Well, mainly it was letters. Writing letters. It took 30 days for a letter to get from our ship when we were overseas back to home. So, it wasn’t instant communication, of course there were no cell phones, no telephones, no computers, no webcams. For the most it was good ole, writing a letter, and mailing it from the ship. we had several, what we called COD's, which were propeller driven airplanes, they would bring in mail, and take the mail off, but that didn’t happen every day, it was more like twice a week. D: What was the food like on the Roosevelt? A: Food was terrible. The ship was 25 years old when I got on it in 1970, it had been built and commissioned in 1945, and the mess decks were exactly the same as they were when they built the ship. So, the food was awful. it was 4500 men on the ship and serving 4 meals a day, had a meal at midnight for people who were working all night, and us being in the radio room we worked 24 hours a day, so you go down and before you went on watch at 11 or 11:30 and they called midrats, midnight rations, and it was usually the leftovers from dinner, and dinner was usually the leftovers from lunch. We had a meal that we called red death, nobody knew exactly what it was, but 30 minutes after you ate it, you had to find a commode. D: Now you mentioned you got care packages every once in awhile... �A: Care packages from mom. Alot of guys got care packages; mom’s specialty of course was sending me brownies which were a big hit with my friends. Good friend of mine was from Brooklyn NY, and he use to get these care packages from his parents which included Italian and Sicilian meats of all kinds... pepperonis and ... so I remember one meal, of pepperoni and brownies. And peaches, go down and get a can of peaches. Being in the radio room, it had its advantages. We knew football scores before the rest of the ship did. So we would go bet with the bakers on the NFL scores and we already knew who won, so we won a lot of bread. And that was the only good thing they made on that ship, was good baked bread. D: So supplies were never an issue on the ship, were they? A: Fresh things were. We would run out of milk after about 3 or 4 days, and switch to bug juice or powdered milk. Fresh milk was great. Sometimes we had chocolate milk, then we would go to bug juice, which was weak kool-aid. Of course there was always coffee in the radio room, and sometimes we had tea bags, we could make tea. There were several coke machines on the ship. They usually ran out of syrup abut a day or two after we left port. And I believe it was a dime for a little cup of 8 oz drink of some kind. But they weren’t too good. D: So did you ever feel pressure, or any stress? A: In the radio room we had pressure all the time. The Capt. would come down; the night the Yom Kippur war broke out I was in charge of broadcasts, he came into the radio room, he pointed at me and said 'whatever you do, do not let the broadcasts go down tonight, of course I was in traffic, not in the radio dept. As soon as he left main comm., all of my machines went down, the Russians were jamming us. And we could not receive any messages. So just seconds after he pointed his finger at me and said 'whatever you don’t let the broadcasts go down tonight', it did. So without communications, a ship or a battle group is virtually blind. So it was a scary night. it took us several hours to get our broadcasts back, communications with uh... we had several land bases, one outside Athens Greece, one in Morocco, and one in Rota, Spain, so depending on where you were in the med, that’s where you got your traffic, your radio traffic from, were these land bases. D: So you travelled all around the Mediterranean, did you visit any places in particular on leave? A: One time a friend of mine, we took off; we took leave to Paris and London England, travelling by train from Barcelona. and actually we were headed into Neis, France, which is on the French Riviera, right below Monte Carlo, we had already purchased our train tickets, the ship was going to be late, by about an hour after our train left the station, so our division officer secured two spots on a helicopter that was leaving, so we were about 50 miles off shore and he got us on the helicopter and the helicopter took us to an airport, we caught a cab to the train station just as the train was leaving, we hopped on it. D: Wow. A; And didn’t miss our train. And we spent a great week and a half in Paris and London. the rest of the time we would get over night leave, because there were 100 radiomen on board, and when we went �into a port, most of the time we would have overnight leave, we would get a night on shore, whereas most of the other men on the ship did not get that, they had to be back at 10 o’clock, by ten o’clock that night. So we were very lucky, we got to spend two days at work, two days off, especially at big ports like Barcelona, Naples, Athens. We would get overnight livery, and that was great. D: So how did people entertain themselves on the ship? A: We did get magazines, of course we did have the armed forces radio, and being in main comm., we listened to that a lot. We had our own TV station, that operated from 4 o’clock to 10 o’clock every day, showing real bad movies. Sometimes we had a good movie. Sometimes they would show playboy after dark. There was always a prayer by the chaplain; we had church services every Sunday, and Saturday for the Catholics. most of the time you were either working or sleeping, there wasn’t much time for, uh, when you were at sea you ... it’s all you did. If you weren’t working you were getting ready to work, or you were resting after being at work, it was very loud, and very busy in radio. D: Are there any pranks or humorous events that you can remember? A: On slow nights if all the officers were gone we would have little contests or try to remember like, how many rock groups can you name in 5 minutes. Things like that. But uh, usually when we were off we were eating or getting rest. We didn’t have any type of recreation whatsoever. Some of the guys did purchase some weight lifting equipment, in the Void, which is an empty room where we kept all of our sea bags and uniform or what we didn’t need, they made a little workout area. Where you could go lift weights and whatever. But that was about it. D: So very, very serious on the ship? A: It was always serious. 24 hours a day serious. Sometimes if the admiral wasn’t aboard we would have access to the admiral’s bridge, which was right under the captain’s bridge, and we could sit up there on the admiral’s chair and watch flight ups sometimes at night, it was kinda cool. I remember one night I just fell asleep in the admirals chair and stayed up there all night, sleeping. D: Okay, thank you. We’re gonna move on, after service, couple of questions, do you recall the day your service ended? A: Mhmm. Yes. Well we were in Athens when I was given the ticket home. They woke me up at about 2 in the morning and told me my flight was leaving Athens airport at 6, to pack my bags, which they already were, I had applied for a school cut. I got out of the navy a month early so I could attend Western Carolina Univ. It was about ten days before Christmas, about the 15th of December, I said goodbye to several friends that were in their bunks, I couldn’t wait to get off the ship and fly home. So at 6 the next morning, I was on a C130, flying out of Athens international airport, and we flew right over the Roosevelt, and flew all the way across the Mediterranean to Rota, Spain, spent one night there, caught a flight to Frankfurt, Germany, spent just several hours there before I caught a back flight home, which is the military air command, and it was a regular Boeing 707, a lot of military people, a lot of families, heading home for Christmas. Flew into Philadelphia airport where I was taken by a military car, �several of us were heading for Philadelphia navy base, where I was to be given my top secret talk where I had to sign papers saying I wouldn’t divulge information that I had seen for 25 years. Unfortunately, the officer that was going to give me my briefing left to go on Christmas leave, and I never got the talk. So he never signed my release, and I walked in to the office one morning to check to see how I was being discharged, how that was going, and everyone was gone. it was two days before Christmas, it was Jan-- December 23rd, I looked at the watch officer and I said 'where's everybody at?' and he said 'well they've all gone home for Christmas.', and I said I need one more signature and I’m out of here. And he said 'I can’t help you'... he said 'let me uh, let me go find the commanding officer, see what we can do for you, you might be here for two weeks till everybody gets back'. Fortunately, he felt sorry for me, he said 'do you promise not to say anything for 25 years?' I said 'Yes sir.' and he said 'get out of here. Go get your plane'. So I took a cab or a bus out to the airport and I was home in about 12 hours. At Charlotte airport I took a Trailways bus and surprised the heck out of my parents the next morning, which was Christmas Eve. D: Must've been a good day A: It was great day. A great day. D: So you got back home, did you go back to work or school? A: Ten days later I was in enrolled in Western Carolina Univ. Started January 3rd. A good friend of mine had already found me an apartment, living with him, so we went up for New Years Eve thinking we were going to some great party, well we got up there and the campus was empty, everyone else was home. So we hopped in the car and drove to Asheville to a bar, had a pretty good time that night. D: So was your education supported by the G.I. Bill? A: Yes. Yeah, I got 160 dollars a month, and that was enough to pay for school and tuition and groceries. And gas. Gas wasn't expensive back then. So uh, later on I found a house up above the school on the Tuskegee River, three bedroom house for 90 dollars a month, and I had it to myself. It later became a party house. I enjoyed it, being on the river, right where the Caney Fork came into the Tuskegee. We could walk across the highway and it was about 9 miles to the campus, and during the summer we would actually get in tubes and tube to school. I was also running cross country at Western Carolina, and sometimes I ran to school. D: Alright, did you have any long lasting relationships from service? A: Well, thank goodness for computers and email, I stay in touch with several of my shipmates; we found each other on the ship's website, which is kinda nice. D: That's good. A: I have several old friends... we email each other, once or twice a week. All across the country, from California to Florida, Nebraska, and New York. So, every once in awhile I'll get an email from an old �shipmate, who has found my email address. So yeah, I keep in touch with several guys I was in the Navy with. D: And you joined a veteran's organization a few years back, correct? A: I joined the American Legion several years ago here in Lewisville; we were the fastest growing American Legion in the state at that time. D: What year was that? A: Uhhh... joined back in 2006, I believe. D: Just a few more questions. Does your experience influence your thinking about war or the military in general? A: You have to live it to realize what’s going on out there. I don’t think many Americans realize that we have a fleet in every ocean now, we have a fleet that's, of course, off the Arabian Peninsula. Back when I was in the Navy, that wasn't, there was no fleet. We had the 6th fleet, which I was in, in the med. The 7th fleet, let's see if I can count 'em right. The 5th fleet in the Atlantic. At any given moment you probably have 5 to 600 ships at sea, I don't think the American people even realize what's going on with the military, and why should they? They see it on the news and I'm just talking about the Navy, not about the Army or Air Force or Marine Corps. and the Coast Guard. D; Yeah I guess the Navy doesn't get as much screen time as the front line Marines do. A: Well, we don't have civilians. At the time I was in, we didn't have women on board. Now you see Navy fliers who are women, radiomen who are women, on board ships. We didn't have females on board back in the 70's. Course there were no civilians. Once in awhile we would have a show day if we went into a port. Maybe the king of a country or a mayor of a city would come out and visit, tour by the captain. Just to let him come on board and look around on the air craft carrier. No civilians were not allowed on board unless invited. Whereas if you're in the Army you are on land, Air Force, you're on land, you probably work 9-5 and go home to your wife every night. That's not possible if you're on a cruise 6-10 months out of every year. It was pretty tough on married people, they didn't see their families for a long time, and our longest cruise was 10 months, 301 days. Usually a cruise was 6 months; we had a lot of stuff going on in the Mediterranean that year. We were in Athens, Greece when King Papadopoulos was being overthrown; we were off the coast of Morocco when that government was being toppled. In fact, there was a couple of us in downtown Athens, and students were rioting at the University of Athens, and tanks were rolling by us to go stop the revolution. A car came by us at about 60 mph, threw a smoke bomb at us, we then found out from shore patrol that we were ordered back to the ship, and we didn't mind going back to the ship that day. We could hear the gunshots at the university, they were mowing down students. First cruise I had to make, you had to wear your uniform, that changed after Admiral Zumwaldt became CO, he let us wear civilian clothes when we left the ship overseas, which was nice. D: Blend in a little better. �A: Blend in a little better, they could still pick out American sailors, most guys had long hair in Europe at that time. And here we were in our Levi's and Wrangler's, short hair. We looked very military, and you can't hide that. D: How did your service experiences affect your life? A: Oh wow. Well I grew up. My father told me, 'If nothing else, they made a man out of you'. You see things different, you see the world differently, it just changes you. Sometimes not in a good way, I know several men who were in combat in Vietnam, and they still can't talk about what they saw, of course they probably saw some of their friends slaughtered, or they were slaughtering the enemy. It makes you grateful for what you have. D: I should have asked this in the beginning, to go back to your father, was his military, he was in the military, did his involvement have anything to do with your decision to go in? A: Probably. My dad joined, like most men did back in WWII, he lied about his age, he joined the Merchant Marines when he was 17. D: Right. A: And uh, in fact, he was on a livery ship going back and forth from New York or Philadelphia and when he was discharged he was in Athens, no Naples, Italy. He immediately joined the U.S. Army, and stayed in the Army for two years, and he was discharged from the Army, and he was back in Lincolnton working for my grandfather, he joined the Air Force Reserve. So he was in three branches of the service, in like, 8 years. So between me and him we were in every branch of the service except the Marine Corps. The Merchant Marines were part of the Coast Guard back then. D: Right. So do you still attend any reunions? A: Several years ago the ship had a reunion in Jacksonville Florida, where we were stationed, in Mayport, which is just north of Jacksonville. And there were like, uh, it was open to anyone who had ever served on the Roosevelt. We had one man who had served on the first cruise, and they had gone to Rio de Jainero, Brazil on that first cruise. There were over 400 of us, and that's the only reunion I have been to. D: Okay. Well, is there anything else you would like to add, closing remarks? A: No, I am glad I did it. I don't know if I'd do it again. I just got an email from one of my Navy friends the other day, 'why don't they draft 60 year olds instead of 19 year olds?' And it made a lot of sense. We don't sleep anyway, so it won't bother us getting up at 6. We're grumpy, so give us a gun, we'll mow down any enemy the country has! D: That's good. A: Quit sending the kids over, we know what to do anyway. I remember in '91 when the first Iraqi War started, a good friend of mine who was in Vietnam in the Air Force, we looked at each other, and he said �'Boy I'd love to go help. I could drive a truck, do something, love to be over there helping' but of course you can't join the military after you're 45 years old. D: Right. Anything else? A: It was a good experience, it did change my life. I don't know how I did it. It was very scary at times. It was very hard, shipboard life was not very easy. If either one of my sons was gonna join the military I would tell them to finish college and become an officer, that's the best way to do it. Don't be an enlisted man. It's pretty tough. So, anytime I meet a fellow veteran, it's great. Cause we have a special bond. D: So okay, well I thank you very much for your time and your service, A: Thank you D: Thank you for interviewing me, or interviewing you... alright. � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/cbe095589e70bd7817ffb2341b9bd264.mp3 9520760d90a555484409061865186709 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Huss, Clifton Allen Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Huss, Derek Interview Date 9/23/12 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:48:14 File name 2013_063_Huss_CliftonAllen_interview 2013_063_Huss_CliftonAllen_transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Allen Huss, 23 September 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Huss, Derek Huss, Clifton Allen Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 11 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Subject The topic of the resource United States Veterans Huss, Allen Interviews Navy Radio men Description An account of the resource Allen Huss enlisted in the US Navy in the 1970s and worked as a radioman. He traveled many places by sea, mostly along the Mediterranean Sea, and explains his experience of the Yom Kippur War. 1970 Allen Huss American Legion Hanoi Mediterranean Sea Navy radioman Vietnam Yom Kippur War https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/0a55ed086ce545d8fce337b4ad4fe441.pdf 30940dfb4580bec433fb3e698d8ae303 PDF Text Text Transcript of Oral History Interview with Frank Guy. March 8, 2010. Statesville, NC Will Dulin: We are at the Troutman and Associates Electrical Contractors Incorporated. My name is Will Dulin and I am interviewing Frank Guy for Dr. Judkin Browning's American Military History course at Appalachian State University. Where were you born and raised? Frank Guy: I was born in Statesville, North Carolina, Iredell County and I was raised here also, went to South Iredell High School and then was drafted into the Army. Dulin: Oh ok. I guess I should have started, when were you born? Guy: November 14, 1951. Dulin: Alright. And after high school, what did you do? Guy: I worked at a machine shop for approximately a year and then about 11 months after graduation I was drafted in to the U.S. Army. Dulin: Ok. So then you went into Vietnam? Guy: Right. I was sent to Fort Jackson for training ... basic training and also took my AIT ... advanced training ... AIT ... Advanced Individual Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. And after that I was assigned to leave for Vietnam. Dulin: Ok. And what job were you assigned? Guy: I was in mortars .. .! was ... my MOS was 11C, which is a 81milimeter mortar. Dulin: Ok. And what was your rank starting in and out? Guy: I was of course I was an E1 when I went in and I achieved the rank of PVC and I was up for E4, but the orders never caught up with me before I was discharged. So I was discharged as a PFC ... Private First Class. Dulin: Oh ok. What about your boot camp training experience? How was that? Guy: That was at Fort Jackson. It was very hot, very arduous. Dulin: And then after that you were sent to Vietnam? Guy: I took advanced training at Fort Jackson also after boot camp, when I was assigned ... after boot camp you're assigned what you're going to do in the army, and that �was 11 ... They called it 11 Charlie, which was a 81 millimeter mortar, and I trained on it for 6 weeks, at Fort Jackson also. Then I was sent to Vietnam, after a leave at home. Dulin: What ... when you arrived in Vietnam ... What did you ... What were your first thoughts as far as that? Guy: My first thoughts was, Oh my God, I guess. [Dulin and Guy laugh] What have I got myself into. I stepped off the plane and it was like somebody throwing a very wet, hot, smelly blanket over ... over your whole being. It was extremely humid. I think the temperature was around 108 ... extremely humid, and the odor was almost ... overcame me. It was something I had never smelled before it was extremely offensive ... and ... first impression was not good. Dulin: Right. Lets see ... were you in any combat ... experiences. Guy: Yes. For the first three months, I was over there I was ... what they call, out in the bush. That was ... we would go out in a 12 man crew ... helicoptered out. .. choppered out, and ... we would land in a usually an abandoned rice patty, which was severed as the LZ ... your landing zone and .. .I was in ... one small fireflght and ... that would ... but I was in harm's way the whole ... for the first three or four ... well the whole time I was over there I was in harm's way, but the ftrst three ... three and a half months I was actually out on patrols and could've engaged the enemy at any time. Dulin: What ... do you have any memorable experiences ... that ... that stick out? Guy: Well yeah the memorable experience was on my like second mission out ... we were contacted by headquarters platoon, which was approximately a half a mile from our position. They said they were 3 Vietnamese, Vietcong ... headed down the creek toward us, and we set up a perimeter on that ... or line on that creek and as they approached, I was assistant gunner on the M60 machine gun, which meant I was laying in the only opening in the brush, and I held the ammunition up in my hands ... and when the ... the guy fired the ... our sergeant told us to just let the M60 ... mow them down more less is what he said. And when ... they pulled the trigger on the M60 machine gun it fired one round and jammed. And there I was laying in an opening ... and the Vietcong immediately swung around. I was the first one he seen, and my whole life flashed before my eyes as ... as .. .I just knew I was gonna die. And ... my buddy with opened up 3 M16s and mowed them down. We killed 2 of them and one of them run off and we never saw him again. Dulin: Right. Guy: That was my most memorable experience and my most terrifying experience all rolled into one. Dulin: And ... how ... how long were you over there? Guy: I was over there 8 and a half months. �Dulin: Eight and a half months? Guy: Mhmm. Dulin: Did you have any awards or medals or ... ? Guy: I got the Combat Infantry Badge, which ... cm ... which was in .. .isjust a letting you know that you were in combat. Dulin: Right. Guy: That's the Vietnam Campaign ribbon and that's ... that's what I got. Dulin: How did you stay in touch with your family while you were over there? Guy: By mail. Dulin: By mail? Guy: Mostly and ... we were ... when I was in the rear area ... sometimes I was allowed to call them ... made probably: .. probably a total of three phone calls· home. And of course there was 12 hours difference in the time so ... if I called them at noon it was midnight here. I found that out when I called in the afternoon from there and it was 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning here. Dulin: Right ... Did you ... were there ... were there any types of entertainment ... in Vietnam? Guy: Yes ... Very sparse ... very sparse. Some ofthe rear areas had ... EM clubs, which was the Enlisted Mens clubs, and they had ... they did their best to entertain us. They would have the Vietnamese locals had little rock bands. Dulin: Mhmm. Guy: You couldn't really understand what they were saying, but they made a noise and it was entertaining. We had ... when I was stationed in one place the Air Force Base was in close proximity and I enjoyed the chapel annex there. They had a nice chapel and they had a annex behind it, which was air conditioned ... had the pool tables and refreshments available and that was the ... the most enjoyable time I guess ... but that was ... that was short lived. Dulin: Did u keep any .. .like a personal diary or ... ? Guy: No I did not I regret that. I wish I hadda, but I did not. �Dulin: And do you remember ... when you were ... I guess when you were on the flight over back to the United States, as far as being discharged or ... being sent home. Do you remember that? Guy: I do. I remember it very vividly ... We left the Benwah air base and ... we left under small arms fue. Dulin: Mhmm. Guy: And the ... pilot. . .it was a commercial air liner. But I did not know a commercial air liner could do what it did .. .he ... he layed that thing over on its side and ... and ... pulled the nose up ... till it almost stalled ... and cause we were ... were under fue so. We left ... once we got the altitude I was very relieved. Dulin: Right. Guy: Very happy. Dulin: What were your ... I guess your parents or ... or siblings reactions when you came home? Guy: [Laughs] That's a funny story. I was ... as I said I didn't pull a full year. The tours then were a year and I come home in 8 and a half months and ... when I landed in . .. we ... we'd in processed out in Fort Dix, New Jersey and I did not know until that very moment that I would be getting out of the army. I figured I'd serve the rest of my 11 ... 10 and a half... II months in the United States .... and a guy looked at my ... looked at my records and he looked back up at me and he looked back down at records ... said I am not believing this ... this is a biggest drop out ofthe army, said by Guy you're going home ... [Laughs] And he ... then he asked me ifl wanted to ... keep processing out or ifl wanted to get a bunk for the night ... and this I'd already been up at that time for about three days without any sleep, and I said lets keep processing ... cause I was afraid they'd find out their mistake ... [Laughs] ... Dulin: Mhmm Guy: ... and I'd be reassigned to a base here in the United States so .. .I was very surprised. I called home, told my daddy, and he didn't believe me. He thought I'd done something wrong, messed up ... Dulin: Mhmm. Guy: .. .I was getting kicked out of the army, not .. .trying to swear .. .I swore to him that it wasn't. He ... his reaction was ... my family was relief and jubilation. Dulin: Right. �Guy: Very Happy. Dulin: After .. . after that ... did you ... want tomake ... career out of the military? Guy: Absolutely not. Dulin: Not. Guy: [Laughs] No. On hindsight I wish maybe I hadda but .. .at that time in my life absolutely not. I was wantin to get home and get back on with my life. Dulin: Let' s see ... How .. .How did your service experience affect your view on the military or your life in general? Guy: . .. My .. .if affected my view on the military in a .. .I think a positive way. I know what at this time in my life I know what these soldiers are going through and all the conflicts around the world now .. . and it .. . it gave me a great appreciation for the military for ... for the fighting man and ... and it made my grow up. My .. .my military experience .. .I went in as a high school kid and I come out as a man. And .. .I do not regret it. I would do it again but .. . as I stated earlier, I was drafted: I didnot volunteer, but .. .I never had any thoughts other than to go and serve my country and do it and do it to the best of my ability. Dulin: Is there anything else you would like to say? Guy: .. .Just that .. .I' m proud of my service. I'm proud I did it. I was drafted... but I fulfilled my service and as I said I would do it again. And . . .I just .. .it .. .it bothers me when . .. bothered me greatly that we were not welcomed home with open arms. Vietnam era veterans are ...were looked down upon and that really bothered me a lot in my early years, but I've learned .. . and to .. .I've overcame that and ... the ROTC at West Iredell High School had ... had honored the veterans 2 or 3 years ago ... and that's the first time, after I returned home from Vietnam, that I received any thanks or any honor from any organization and that meant a lot to me. And .. .I just think the Vietnam veterans ... they ... they earned and need as much respect as any other veterans have .. .have been awarded and . .. the Vietnam Wall come through here. I went and seen it. The traveling wall. .. and it sent ... sent chills up my back. I seen some buddies names on there and I just feeLthat I'm one of the very very fortunate ones. I made it back with all my. parts and pieces in tact and the real heroes are the ones that didn' t return and gave their life and I just feel very thankful to God that 1.. .I returned in one piece. Dulin: Well thank you for the interview. Guy: Well you' re .welcome. Thank you for interviewing me. � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/410fc99a45bea93058f7ebd1eb8369bd.mp3 e04f8171fffb03455b623d7b1199ea55 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Guy, Frank Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Dulin, Will Interview Date 3/8/10 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:14:19 File name 2013_063_Guy_FrankW_interview 2013_063_Guy_Frank_transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Frank Guy, 8 March 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dulin, Will Guy, Frank Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 5 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Subject The topic of the resource Guy, Frank Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Veterans Personal narratives, American United States Interviews Description An account of the resource Frank Guy was drafted during the Vietnam War and served 8 and a half months. He was in direct combat and had a couple of near-death experiences. He got out of his service surprisingly early, and he was relieved and had no desire to stay in the military or make a career out of it. Despite that, he values his time in the military and says he would not trade the experience for anything. He wishes the Vietnam veterans had been welcomed more warmly when the returned to the States. Air Force Benwah Fort Jackson mortar Vietnam https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/46401aa1b2f411e996a3a879512b26cb.pdf 480be3d941d9f7530e040f436b289783 PDF Text Text Spiker 1 Cody Spiker Browning His 3823 15 October 2012 Oral History Report: Richard Gilbert, Vietnam Veteran, Born in Appalachia, and Appalachian State University state graduate. My name is Cody Spiker, interviewing Richard Gilbert at 214 West Academy Street, his residence. [Cherryville, NC] Mr. Gilbert, when were you born? I was born March 27th, 1948. Where were you born at? I was born in Franklin NC, which was way up in the mountains up in the corner of the state. But I grew up in Lincoln County. Lincoln County, when did you move down to Lincolnton, or Lincoln County? Oh, probably when I started school, around First grade. You know, about seven, six or seven, something like that. I think I actually started second grade down here, so. We moved up on highway 27 out in the country. Okay, so your family is from the Appalachian Mountains actually? Yeah my mom was born in the mountains, my grandmother and grandfather yeah, basically homesteaders, so. Okay, one of the things that they are pushing for in this interview process is people from the Appalachian Mountains, (“Oh” -Gilbert) the Appalachian area, veterans form this area so that’s excellent. So, which war did you fight in? I fought in Vietnam. Yeah I went, I got in the army, let’s see, it would have been ’68. I think, and then I went to Vietnam in ’69. So, I went in in December, I went to Vietnam I December of ’68 and came back in December of ‘69. Ok, and where you a volunteer or were you a draftee? Well, I was a volunteer. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. I didn’t really support the war but I knew that needed a college education and I didn’t really have a way to pay for it. So, I saw that as a way of getting an education an you know, so, I enlisted for three years. �Spiker 2 Okay, so at the time that you enlisted where were you living at? I was living in Lincolnton and I was attending Lincolnton high school, and I was in my last year. And there were several of us who talked about it and decided we would go see a recruiter, and so we did. We all went in together; there was about, I don’t know, eight or ten of us. So you were about eighteen? … Somewhere along in there, it was just after highschool. What branch of service did you enter? Well, since I enlisting and I got the opportunity to pick, I had some choice and they told me what was open. Artillery, a couple things, communications, and military police and I decided that I would go military police. Sounded exciting. (Spiker chuckles and says, “MP’s lead the way.”) So you obviously enlisted into the Army? Right. Do you recall your first days of service? Like when you went to basic training? What was that like? Oh I remember the first day of training like it was imprinted in my brain, (Gilbert chuckles) It… we had about a week or so before we actually started basic they had us in a kind of holding pen, which was extremely boring, there was nothing to do except you know what freedom we had to go to the PX and eat. That was about it. So… when we were ready to start basic they put us on the bus and drove us over to our company and then I think you can imagine what happened after that. Hahahaha. It was in July at Fort Bragg and I think that was probably the hottest place on earth. And… it was a pretty miserable day. (Gilbert and Spiker Chuckle, “I can imagine.” -Spiker) Do you remember any of your instructors? Oh yes, lets see, there was… a Corporal Norris who had… he was an interesting character. He had been in the Army and… served and came back home and somehow or another he was in the reserves and didn’t attend the meetings and got re-drafted, (Chuckles) so they pulled him back in and they put him as… in our company as a trainer, as an instructor. …There was a couple of Drill Sergeants, you know I guess if I thought about it I could probably remember their names but I can’t right at the moment… it was interesting. I learned a lot about the Army. The Army travels on its stomach, the food was great. Everybody else complained, but I ate like a king… there was a fairness. They picked on everybody equally, (Chuckles) It was… interesting. I got kind of an insight into Army thinking which… and I respect that, I really do. I respect that. I didn’t like being in the Army but I did respect it. You know. …You mentioned earlier that you went to talk to a recruiter with a couple of fellows from your high school; did you end up going to basic training with those fellows As a matter of fact, we all went through basic training together… all in the same company except two of use. Two went into the company next door and the rest of us �Spiker 3 were in the same. I went in with a guy named Steve Rice from High Shoals and… Steve, Steve was tough guy. He was real tough; he was a street cred guy you know. He carried a hawkbill knife and (chuckling)... you didn’t mess with Steve. But… Steve and I were good friends… he and I, we stayed together all through basic training and.. we did some crazy things together… (“Do you want to explain some of those?” -Spiker, laughing) Oh, I’m glad to tell you one. We had to do; you know we had to spend the late afternoon and evening crawling under barbwire while they were shooting over the top of us in training. And they had these bunkers placed out there that had artillery simulators in them. And I went first, I was in a wave that went in and crawled under the barbwire, and then Steve came after me. I said Steve I’ll meet you at that center bunker and we’ll smoke a cigarette before we go on. And we did, and we both got chewed out (Chuckling) seriously chewed out. But we did, we had to hold it so nobody could see the light from the cigarette, we passed it back and forth. And the artillery simulators were going off and the ground was shaken, all the bullets going over head and all that stuff. It was pretty exciting. So after basic training you went to your MP school, where was that at? That was at Fort Gordon Georgia. (“Fort Gordan Georgia.”-Spiker) Yeah, and I did not know it snowed in Georgia, but it sure did. (Chuckling) Yeah, I graduated on November the 22nd because I remember it was… it got pretty cold down there… it definitely snowed. We had a bout three or four inches one day. That was fun, we got to drive jeeps in the snow, out through the hills. We did a night driving class… so we had to keep our interval and that kind of stuff. It had snowed on the ground so it was a lot brighter than the sergeant liked but…(chuckles)(“Definitely”-Spiker) It was good. So… when you finally graduated… MP school where did you go after that? Did you go directly to Vietnam or…? No, I got, I got leave. I came home…for… I got a, I think a thirty day leave. And then… I reported to… California… and I don’t remember all the details of this but… we had to stay in… It was right next to the Navy compound and… we could see the swabbies walking around. Course, you know how soldiers…they are… there is always enough competition to start something. So, there was always some yelling back and forth across the fence and… I thought California was kind of neat. I didn’t get to see a whole lot. There was a building there, it was building 590, which, you know, can you imagine… They must have shipped cow in it because this thing was huge. It was long and wide and all the bunks were three bunks high and close together. They were… sending a lot of people to Vietnam. Yeah… I stayed in building 590. That’s… kind of a famous landmark I guess if you look at the history books. Lets backtrack for a minute, when you said you had leave. Did you come back home? Did you have a significant other at the time? I had a girlfriend (“okay, what was her name?” –Spiker) Harriette, Harriette, yes Harriette Gurley. (“Where was she from?”- Spiker) Cherryville (pronounced Chur-aville) (“Cherryville, okay.” –Spiker)… Cherryville and Lincolnton were big rivals so… me dating Cherryville girls was… kind of a risky thing, but I found out that your �Spiker 4 Cherryville girls were very attractive. (“Yes sir.” –Spiker) …I dated here almost a year before I went to Vietnam and then several years afterwards and then we got married. Okay…When did you actually get boots on the ground in Vietnam? …It would have been December of 1968. I don’t remember the exact date, but… flew into… Long Binh and then flew from Long Binh to… Quin Yon and that’s where it think, if I remember correctly or company command headquarters was there and we had two platoons at… well that was battalion and then we had… another, our main area where I was, was in Pleiku. And.. Quin Yon is right on the coast, so I got to see the ocean. Of course, Cam Ranh Bay we did... in-country training. We did a couple weeks of in-country training in Cam Ranh Bay… Pretty place too. Nice white sands azure sea and sea snakes. (Chuckles, “Did you encounter any sea snakes?” –Spiker) No, no but they always warned us if you go out into the ocean be careful. (Still Chuckling) So, but it was a beautiful place I loved it. Vietnam was a beautiful country…. So, Cam Ranh Bay and the I went to Quin Yon; and from Quin Yon I went to Pleiku and that was where I was mainly stationed. We did have two other, little satellite outpost that we… we convoyed. So, we would convoy up to the pass from each side and then we would convoy back… and we would you know, switch of the convoys…. My route was up to the what was called the Mang Yang Pass, if I remember correctly…. It was real gentle going up on one side and then It was real steep going down the other side. And there were tanks parked all over the place on the down-side of that. …Know a days there is two different MP’s, you have the Combat MP and the Garrison MP. Was that still so back in Vietnam? Well no. I was a 95b10, hahaha, everybody was a 95b10, it was… completely different I guess from… what’s going on today. It was… our main focus was convoy escort and… then town patrol, where, you know, you… actually patrolled in the streets of… like Pleiku or An Khe or some place like that. And… that was pretty much it. There was none of the urban warfare kinda stuff that you guys have gone through, so…. Okay… while you were in Vietnam did you see any combat? …Ambush or two…I got blown out of bed one morning. That was exciting. A rocket landed between where I was and the mess hall and blew a pretty good size hole in the ground. And there was a sandbag wall between me and the explosion so I was okay, but I woke up looking at the floor coming up at my face…and… I couldn’t hear anything. It was just.. ringing in my ears. I was armorer at that time. They put me in the arms room. I was taking care of the weapons, and we had florescent lights in the arms room and it blew every one of them out but one. There was only one burning and that was pretty exciting. We lost a guy that morning, he was a dog handler. Killed him and his dog as they were going on duty, it was very early in the morning so… (“and do you remember his name?” –Spiker) I don’t, I didn’t know him… we had two barracks of MP’s, one of infantry who helped guard our perimeter and then we had a dog handler… barracks…you knew them in passing, but you didn’t really work very close. Those guys mainly were perimeter guys and they guarded the ammunition supply dump and that sort of thing. We would mainly patrol and come back. You know, we considered them as part of our unit, I mean there was no doubt about that but…there wasn’t as much interaction as there was you know.. with the other MP’s. We had our own club. (“Realy? Me about that.” – �Spiker 5 Spiker) Well it was up on the little hill and it was the road runner club because it was our mascot and… the MP’s didn’t do well at other peoples’ clubs for some reason…(Spike Chuckles)…But the club was just a small little separate building with a bar and… served soft drinks and beer. No hard liquor. No one was eligible for that… occasionally they would hir, you know, a little Vietnamese rock band and bring them and they would you know have a couple of Go Go Girls or something like that.. It was just a nice little club. You mentioned your unit a minute ago, I forgot to ask your unit number. Oh Lord, let me see. Gah, that’s just been so long. It ws the 504th MP CO, and Battalion, I think If I remember correctly, I was in Company B. I was in B, 504th MP Battalion at Pleiku. But that’s been a while, don’t quote me, hahaha. Okay, other than being an armorer, did you have any other details…jobs? …No, that was the only really specialized job that I did. They… our armorer had…the person who was serving as armorer had left, and…they “Okay you’re good with tools, go down there and keep the record.” Course you know everybody does things like paint numbers on jeeps and that sort of thing but that was the only one that I had actually just a separate job. It wasn’t that bad, there were only two of us and we had… it was one on and one off. We slept, we actualy had a bunk in the arms room so we could actually sleep in there two…so, there was always one of us in the arms room, so. If any thing happened we could unlock everything. I did have a station… if we were attacked, from the arms room I was to move up on to a bunker that had a .50 on it. I was to… be part of the .50 crew on, if else had…if I had expended all the ammo that was where I went. (Chuckling) So, that never happened thoug? No. Our attacks were mostly rocket attacks, which were pretty long, big rockets and then of course mortar attacks, we would get those every once in a while. Ambushes would be anything from a few pot shots to a couple of mortar rounds coming in to some sort of improvised device… every once in a while they’d blow a bridge up and we would have to put a defile around it and you know, keep and eye on that. But, I think the road was probably the most dangerous thing. That’s where we, we got more people hurt. Mainly form accidents…rain, mud, jeeps turn over. We also had an armored vehicle, we had V100, which I think now is obsolete, we probably sold them all to some other country. I really liked it because it had a 318 Chrysler engine in it with a four barrel carburetor… (Chuckling) Can you tell me about some of your most memorable experiences while deployed to Vietnam? Oh, wow, let’s see. Well I can think of a couple things… I enjoyed shooting rats at the mess hall at night that was fun, with a crossbow. We would get Vietnamese crossbows and shoot the rats and try to stick them into the wall and that was fun. I used to like to drive out to a … yard, you know the local indigenous people…there was…the French had built a damn near this little village and I used to sneak out their and lay out underneath the trees and just sleep. It was just a whole different…the kids around and all that kind of stuff. Little kids you know how they just want to play and I’de go out and skip stoned with them things like that. It was a good way to kind of relax. �Spiker 6 So were…was everybody able to just go out? No, this was something that really wasn’t sanctioned. Haha, but… you would have your radio on and if there was no convoy…you’d just have to run the road by yourself, just you and your… you’d have a driver and an interpreter and then a gunner on the jeep who had a M60…But if there was nothing going on we’d kind of sneak over, it wasn’t just about a quarter of a mile and just sneak over…relax a while. Have lunch and then get back on the road. It might have been breaking the rules a little bit, but it wasn’t that serious. It was no, no real threat to anything. It was just a little way to unwind. Do you remember much from the end of your tour? Well, I remember when I got short. They took me off duty, I think the last couple of weeks they take you off duty and then put you on light duty where you’re basically cleaning up barracks and taking new guys around to get their equipment and showing them where everything is and things like that. And then, they start processing you out, you have to send your whole baggage and that sort of thing back…and then I think I caught a ride we was always thumbing rides on airplanes or something. I went over to the Air force base, which was right behind us, so I went over and thumbed a ride on a transport and it was a great ride. I remember going back, it was fantastic because the back door was open a couple of feet. And it had a big crack and I could look down on the jungle and there was no one else on the plane except the pilot, co-pilot, crew chief, you know, and me. And I was in the seat, the last seat, just strapped in, looking out the door at the jungle going by. It was pretty cool; it was a good flight back. You say… getting short…for the sake of the interview can you explain what that is? Short is when you’re getting ready to go home and your friends will present you with a swagger stick. And its usually a bullet with a stick stuck in it. (chuckles) And it’s carved to look like a long, little swagger stick, or it’s a shell with a stick stuck in it, then you kind of stick that under your arm and you walk around with it and everybody knows you’re short, you’re bragging you know…and then of course you would make the twoe fingers close together like that…(Demonstrates fore finger and thumb about half an inch apart)…short, and people would be envious. And of course you would have your short timers calendar up n the wall with all the X’s over everyday that you been there…. …What rank where you when you went in and when you came out? Oh, Lord. I remember being an E2 for about three weeks-four weeks and then they made me a E1; I guess an E1 and then they made me an E2. I think that when I got out of basic they made me a E3. And then when I got o Vietnam I became a Spec4 and I stayed that, or should I say, I stayed that until I got back to the United States, I did get busted. Not real proud of that but…I lost my rank for about a month but I made it back. I was basically a good guy, just little things happen. (“Yes sir, yes sir.” –Spiker) So, while serving did you earn any awards/medals? …I had just regular Vietnam medals…I did have a whole bunch of unit citations and all that kind of stuff…I didn’t get any wounds or anything like that. I just tried to stay out of �Spiker 7 trouble and not get killed. I did think I was dead one night though. I ran out of the barracks, we had an attack, and I ran out in the middle of the night and they had dug a ditch across the walkway and I had forgotten about it and the next thing I know I had came too looking up at stars. I thought I had been hit, I start trying to feel for things and, I figured I would get a purple heart for that but they wouldn’t give it to me for some reason. (Spiker laughs) No, falling in a slit trench was not considered being wounded in action…(“Oh, it was a slit trench?! My goodness, haha. Oh, that’s rough” -Spiker) (Gilbert gawfaws) It was new thank goodness. (“Oh good, so there wasn’t anything in it yet.”- Spiker) They had just dug it. It could have been worse. (“It could have been a lot worse.”) How did you stay in touch with your family while in … [Vietnam] Well, we had a new method of communication. It was the cassette tape. My wife, well my fiancé at the time, we sent cassettes to each other. I got lot’s of letters. I wasn’t as good at writing as she was…she…basically, I had a couple of pounds of letters by the time I got to come back. What was the food like, over there in Vietnam? You said you liked the Army food. Well, I always though it was great. The cooks were well trained, they were good. Our company had one cook who was, all he did was make pastries, so we had fresh bread and cakes, pies. He would make breakfast rolls and sweet rolls…I guess I was a chow hound because I liked to eat late. I would have breakfast at eleven o’clock at night and like if I was going on duty and skip the morning breakfast, and eat late…. I never really complained about the food. It was all I wanted and there was plenty of it, and it was good food, it wasn’t just empty calories…occasionally we had steak and baked potatoes. Something weird happened, strange happened when I was in, this was when the Army tried a little experiment. They actually, for the evening meal, they sold beer in the mess hall. Your limit was two, but they were “tall boys”, you know, tall ones. After the evening meal, if you were off duty, you could have as many as two beers in the mess hall. Now I don’t think that lasted too long, but that was an unusual, this was strange for the Army. That getting very liberal here. (“Yes sir.” –Spiker) So it sounded like ya’ll had plenty of supplies while you were there. We did run short in Vietnam, we ran short of canned drinks for a while, in the PX and all that kind of place it was just, something happened and for about a month we couldn’t get soft drinks and things like that for a while. They were short supply…you could get them. A lot of guys would take cases of drinks, buy them at the PX and then take them and trade them on the black market… that kind of thing is always going on. Other than shooting rats, how did ya’ll keep yourselves entertained? Well, we had a day room, and there was tv, and that’s where I saw the moon landing cause that happened when I was…you know… there. Then we had magazines and occasionally, if you had a good friend, you could sneak into the commo bunker, the command bunker, the communications bunker and you could make a phone call or get a phone call… so, one of my friends actually called me from Vietnam, he was in another company a couple of hundred miles away, and he’d call me and we’d talk every once in a �Spiker 8 while. But that was bellow the radar (Chuckles “Yes sir.” –Spiker) ...there was always an emergency phone call if somebody at you home needed to get up with you, you could, it would have to bounce all over the place to get to you, and there was no guaranty that it would get there, but you could make a phone call to the states every once in a while. It was not something that was easily done, at least in my unit. I meant to ask you, your buddies from high school, did any of them get assigned to your unit with you? No, I was the only MP. The rest of them, I think maybe about half of them ended up in the infantry and I know one of them became a medic or maybe two of them. Two of them became medics and I don’t really remember the rest of them….Did have one that went to Chemical Warfare school. Yeah, I remember him. He went there, he was a pretty smart guy. They grabbed him up, and I don’t think he went to Vietnam, he went to Washington and, or some place, kept him stateside. He was real, he was a smart guy. After your three years was up…or did you spend all that three years in Vietnam? I did not. When I came back from Vietnam I was stationed in Maryland at Fort Meade. There were…Fort Meade was Basically riot control for the city of D.C. at that time, and this was when, you know, everybody was rioting about everything. There was always some kind of march going on somewhere. So, that’s where I was, and I applied to Gaston College and got an early out to go to school. I got about four months out early to go to college. That was just like, exciing like going into the Army. It was great. I was ready for college then. Did you use your GI Bill to go to college? I sure did. I got almost four years of college out of three years in the Army. (“Nice” – Spiker) Yeah, at that time it was a full, about a hundred and ninety dollars a month if you weren’t married, so, I think it went to a little over two hundred dollars a month if you were married, as I recall. But you know you could live cheap in Boone, it was a hundred dollars a month in rent… (“So, you went to Appalachian State as well?” –Spiker) I did. (“Good, good.” –Spiker) Were you married to Harriette at that time? We got married the year that I transferred from…it would have been my third year of college. We got married just after I graduated from Gaston. I got an AA form Gaston and then we got married and she started graduate school because she was ahead of me by four years. And, I had just started my third year at Appalachian. Did you retain any friendships from the service while you were still in college and throughout life? A few but unfortunately they have gone by the wayside, most of them. I can’t, only the ones that are from Lincolnton that I went to school with I still see them occasionally. Most of them are, you know, you just lose touch. (“I understand.” –Spiker) While…studying at Appalachian State what was your major? I was an Art Major. �Spiker 9 Art Major, and did you go on to fulfill your dreams in art? Well, I got out from Appalachian, my wife and I were married, we moved to Dallas, NC and I started teaching at William C. Friday Middle School. What did you teach there? I taught art, my degree was actually art education, so, either being an artist or being a teacher was…either way. It was convenient and there was a job…I didn’t know I was going to like teaching though. She talked me into…I was just going to be an art major, she’s the one who talked me into being an art education major she says you might want to teach, you don’t know, you know. You might not do well as an artist when you first get out. So, why don’t you just do that, it’s just a few extra courses. I said, “Alright.” …and I kind of like teaching. So, you continued to teach until? Well I taught for about…six years and then I went to work for a mining company, but there was financial incentive. Yeah, I got a pretty good raise to move into the mining industry…I went to work in a lab for them and got to do all kinds of wonderful and interesting things in mining and in a lab and chemistry and special projects…mainly why they hired me was because I knew a little bit about chemistry, I knew a little bit about ceramic engineering, I knew how to weld, I knew how to do some electrical work, so that art background of kind of knowing a little bit about a lot of stuff, but not being an expert the said, “Well good, we’re going to put you in special projects.” So, for about twelve years. It was a good job, excellent, I was never doing the same thing for very long they were always pulling me around and making me do all kinds of crazy… I mean learned how to survey, learned how to use a computer. Just everything. After that job you went on to teach again? Well I stated teaching college off and on as an adjunct professor, not a full time professor, but just in part time. And then I’ve done that ever since. I worked as a computer programmer at Doran Mills in Shelby. I worked in the printing industry for a couple of years as a trainer, I would install systems and train people on how to use computer systems and use programs like photoshop and how to do touch up editing and I was a font expert I guess you would say. And all of those electronic font things…and then I got back into teaching again in middle school. An then…this will be my tenth year and last year. And I will retire. (“Well, congradulations.” –Spiker) Well, I think that’s pretty much all I have. Is there anything else that you would like to add to… No, I enjoyed talking to you. I have as well. I have as well. I do appreciate it. � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/1bdd75cdd11a394d9998334fae93d20e.mp3 33274ab687bac5808732c11c00bd0f44 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Gilbert, Richard Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Spiker, Cody Interview Date 10/15/12 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:35:06 File name 2013_063_Gilbert_Richard_interview 2013_063_Gilbert_Richard_transcript Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Richard Gilbert, 15 October 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Spiker, Cody Gilbert, Richard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Extent The size or duration of the resource. 9 pages Language A language of the resource English English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Subject The topic of the resource Gilbert, Richard Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Veterans Personal narratives, American United States Personal narratives, American Description An account of the resource Richard Gilbert served in the army for three years during the Vietnam War. He was a volunteer right out of high school, and figured the military was his only way to get to college. He was stationed in Pleiku, Vietnam and worked as a military police officer. He saw very little combat but his base was ambushed a couple of times. After the 3 years were up he majored in art at Appalachian State and worked as a middle school art teacher. army Fort Gordon Georgia Fort Meade GI Bill military police Pleiku Vietnam https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/2c6f0108d3a44c41a7f922cba4408970.pdf bb5ab50058ac7a03176c5a311b3e7ea3 PDF Text Text Military Oral History Interview Transcript Ralph Lerch Boone, North Carolina 15 October 2011 BC: Benjamin Chappell RL: Ralph Lerch BC: My name is Benjamin Chappell, and I'll be conducting this interview for Military History. I am interviewing Mr. Ralph Lerch who is a Vietnam War veteran and pilot for the US Air Force. We're at Boone airport. Today is October 15th at about 3:00 in the afternoon. He understands that we're conducting this interview as part of my Military History class for a project I have to do for that. So, Mr. Lerch, why don't you tell me a little bit about where you were born, how you were raised...things like that. RL: I Was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1935. I was raised during World War Two, matter of fact it was...let's see, I was ten years old when it ended and when I was 15 the Korean War started, but I was too young to get in that one. I went to a high school in Brooklyn, New York where I where I studied aviation and aviation design or aircraft design and at some point during that four years in high school, I decided instead I’d rather fly them than work on them. So, at the age of, let's see I was 19...I took the test for the Aviation Cadets, which was a program available in those days for people who did not have college or did not go to an academy. Passed the exams, and in March of 1955 I joined the United States Air Force as an enlisted man because I had been waiting and waiting for a call to get into the program but the Korean War was over and I guess they didn't need people as much as they did a few years prior to that. So I thought by joining up, I could get into the program quicker. So I went through basic training and right after basic training they gave me an assignment to Aviation Cadet Program. I got into the Aviation Cadet Program, went through the preflight. Went to Marietta, Florida to start my flying training, and shortly after I started training I took off one day in a T-6 and the engine quit. My flight career came to a sudden abrupt end around a tree. So and after the next...year and a half...I went back to an enlisted status. Primary reason that I couldn't get back in was that I had a pin in my leg and they wouldn't let me back in the program till the pin was removed. It took a little over a year to get that out. After that they made me take all of the exams again which I did. Passed them again, took a physical again, and passed that again and then eventually got back into the Aviation Cadet Program. This time I finished it and went through it graduated as, oh I forgot exactly what they call it. I was at the top of my class basically and I was offered a regular commission in the United States Air Force, which I took. And the rest of my career from that point on was kind of varied. I flew large transports. I worked on Atlas missiles. I was in the radar business for a while, long-range radar. Ended up flying helicopters and at the end of my career ended up at Andrews Air Force 1 �Base and what was supposedly a weather wing...but I really think it was a branch of the CIA or something cause they did an awful lot of wild stuff. So, that...is the short and dirty version. BC: Okay, so you said that you got into flight school at a early age on, upon completion of high school, you got into aviation. What made you first want to get into aviation? What made you first want to join that with the military? RL: Well, I was always intrigued by aircraft and during the war living on Long Island you would see an awful lot of airplanes all the time, and I knew everyone of them, you would see the P-40s and the P-38s and the P-47s go by and the B-25s and they were all going on their way over to Europe. So I always thought man, it would be really neat to be, be in one of them, but I never had the uh I don’t self confidence I guess you could call it to think that I could end up being a flyer, uh but anyway so I really didn't think about that so much later on and I was about 17 when this aviation cadet program came to light and at that time, that was one of the primary methods of becoming a flyer. Nowadays everything is through the academies or the ROTC programs in college. So... BC: Okay. RL: So in short I was one of the dumber ones cause I never did go to college. BC: Well, you still got a commission, and you came out as a major? RL: That’s correct. I made major. BC: Okay. You said you were in the weather wing, was that during Vietnam? RL: No. BC: What kind of aircraft? RL: In Vietnam I flew the C-124s. BC: Okay. RL: Large four-engine cargo aircraft. BC: Okay. RL: Primarily what we did in country was haul things that the C-130s couldn’t carry. Anything that a C-130 couldn’t take, we would take. BC: Okay. 2 �RL: And it was the first time that we really used the aircraft for what it was designed to do. It was big, big cargo, large pieces of cargo. That the airplane could go on very short fields. We used to haul gun carriages, trucks, buses...all kinds of things that wouldn’t fit into a C-130. BC: Okay, so was the mission set limited to bigger runways than what the C-130 could get into? RL: No, we could go into anything a C-130 could go in to. BC: Oh, okay. RL: That was no problem. BC: So you just had more horsepower? RL: Well, it was just a bigger, a bigger envelope basically. BC: Yes. RL: The, the 130 had a lot more power than we had probably but, but we could carry the larger items than would fit into a 130. BC: Okay. I understand. So in Vietnam how much contact did you have with NVA (North Vietnamese Army) or anything like that? RL: To my knowledge I never saw one. They might have been around, you know. Might have had contact but they, they never effected me any, because if you were to go on crew runs there would be Vietnamese all around you but you didn't know whether they were good guys or bad guys. So, in that respect I never did any actual combat as such. We weren’t gun soldiers you know, we were just hauled the stuff. BC: Right, but did you ever have any like fighter escorts from Phantoms or anything like that? RL: No. BC: Okay. RL: Close as I ever got we were on one mission, which was just prior to the incursion into Cambodia. Now we hauled large gun carriages up to a very small place up in what they called the Parrots Beak, and we were loading these things and the Army guys were going with us. And the Army fella said "You guys got any weapons?" We said, "No, we haven’t got any weapons." So they said, "Man, you're crazy for going into that area that was VC (Viet Cong) controlled." So that was the first and I think only time that the C-124 was armed and what the Army guys did was they took the back doors, laid them sideways and they mounted Browning machine guns up on top of them just in case we had…I don't know what they were thinking...in case somebody was shooting at us...figured they could shoot back at least. 3 �BC: All right. RL: They figured they could shoot back at least. So that was about as close as I ever came to any kind of armed conflict the stuff was all around you all the time and I'm sure they shot at us…but I never got hit some of the guys in our outfit did, but I never did. BC: Right. Okay, so in knowing you, I've heard you talk a little bit about the Distinguished Flying Cross. The Distinguished Flying Cross is a metal for pilots in the Air Force and Army that distinguished themselves; its pretty much like a silver cross for pilots, aviators...you know you uh...distinguish yourself for a courageous act in combat aviation. Can you talk to me a little bit about the difference between getting one then in 1960s-70s era and like getting one like today? RL: Well, in Vietnam, here's a good example…that mission I just told you about where we went up in there into the Parrot's Beak. We went up there and it was myself and that another guy, we had two aircraft. We shuttled back and forth, flew in there a couple of times. We flew bulldozers in and gun carriages in and the bulldozers were to dig the holes, and they'd put the gun carriages in the holes. About a week after that the whole 101st Airborne went up there and some of our headquarters guys went in there and they got the DFC for getting in there. We never got squat. So they had those things out, you know hap hazardless. And its really inflated I’ll give you a good example. The guys that went on the Tokyo Raid in World War Two received it. BC: Yes, that's right, Doolittle’s Raid. RL: The Doolittle Raiders, Jimmy Doodle got the Congressional Medal of Honor and the rest of the crews got the DFC. Now, if you want to compare that those DFC's were for what they did compared to what they were handing them out for in Vietnam, there's no comparison. A lot of guys in Vietnam got them just because they were there so long. Not because of anything they really did. You know you get like 20 missions up north or something you'd get a DFC. Primarily because you survived that long. BC: Right. RL: Look, it was kind of a stupid war, lets face it. BC: Yeah, kind of a stupid war. And that's pretty much the sentiments among all of the guys in your command? RL: Well, I don't know about all of them, but it sure was mine. BC: Okay. RL: So, and I was pretty outspoken about it and its probably why I got passed over the first time. 4 �BC: Right. Yes, it's a big problem. As you were growing up in Brooklyn, you said that you got into a flight school, traversing back into your earlier years, you got into flight school but you said you crashed a T-6 or something like that? RL: That's right. BC: So they kicked you off the flight list for crashing? What was the whole deal with that? RL: They kept me on for three months...after the crash they hold you as a cadet. You know paperwork wise for a period of time, but this injury took too long to heal. I broke my thigh. Which is, you know a big bone so it took a long time to heal. BC: Right. RL: So well as long as that pin was in me, they call that a cruse and a nail, and they put it in threw your hip and shove it down threw the middle of your bone…I think they put it into your hip they shove it down into the middle of the bone. I think as long as that thing was in me they were afraid that if I ever broke it again I would really get. BC: Right. RL: It would really mess the bone up bad so they wouldn’t let me back till that thing was removed. So...that was why it took so long. BC: Okay, and I had another question about your training. You said for the later part of your career you were in what was supposed to be a “weather wing,” but you had a little bit of feeling that it was something else going on…could you tell me anything? RL: Oh yes...they were fooling around with urn. It was the first of the satellites in what we were trying to do. BC: What was that unit? RL: It was the 6th Weather Wing. BC: 6th Weather Wing. BC: Okay. RL: Had something like 28 PHDs in it or something, something really wild outfit. But they were doing things like…primarily a lot of satellite work and what they were working on were…trying to get an area. For example, Vietnam was over but if you wanted to look at a area real time, we were starting to work with satellites...and the camera systems. BC: Okay. 5 �RL: Where they can actually...the field commanders could order up an area? For example, if they wanted to target something the satellites would target a specific area and we would get photographs of that real time. So these guys could actually look at what was there at the time that they were going go prior to takeoff. BC: What year was this? RL: This was in 1974. BC: Wow, I had no idea. Well, as a future Army aviator, on track as it is right now, what is the one piece of advice that you would give me to carry forward in my career? RL: Keep your opinions to yourself. If you don’t follow with the company line...don't shoot your mouth off because it doesn’t pay off in the long run. In Vietnam there was a lot of guys that just got really kind of outspoken against it...and I always thought it was stupid and said so. I thought we would have been much better off if we'd dropped TV sets and bags of rice and Honda motorcycles on them instead of bombs. They probably would have quit a long time ago. And as a result of all that that we did we lost 58,000 guys and the end result was the same. They took over the place though so… BC: Right. Yes. RL: What did we gain? We just spent 10 years over there beating our brains out. We lost anyway, so... BC: We were talking in class a couple a days ago about what keeps soldiers motivated. What do you think was the implications of, you know, what you said was going on what you said the uh the end result being the same. What do you think? How do you think that impacted your squadron’s morale? How do you think that changed their will to fight? Was it more of like a camaraderie? RL: Camaraderie had a lot to do with it, and its mission accomplishment still, and I think that goes true in any military unit. You end up wanting to do the job as best you can, even thought the big overall picture you might not agree with it. If you’re told to…guys in Vietnam, I mean the grunts, I always admired them. I mean they were told to take a stupid hill and they’d go take it. Three days later they were told get off the hill and they’d go back off the hill this kind of thing went on and on but still the morale was pretty high. They always tried their best. I don’t know...from my personal view, I always enjoyed going in where the Marines were. The Marines always seemed to have the highest degree of...oh, I don’t know what you would call it, “gung ho-ness” or whatnot. But, like if you took a load into a Marine base they have you unloaded and turned around in no time. But if you just you’d go in other places like where the Air Force were, ground crews would take forever and they would goof off and there was...it was just…it wasn't the same. BC: Right. 6 �RL: Plus, the whole system was screwy. I give you good example. I was in Saigon one night. There was a C-133 sitting in front of me and they were getting ready to go to Clark Air Base. BC: Which is where? RL: In the Philippines. Four-hundred miles...no 800 miles across the pond. But anyway, the traffic people came and said, "Hey can you take a load back to Clark?" I said "Sure." He said, "Somebody made a mistake and we ended up with 200 and something desks." Somebody put a decimal place in the wrong place I guess or something. So they was this huge pile of military, of GI desks, metal desks in crates. So they started to load all these crates, as many as they could get on me and they were loading the airplane up. And I said, "Hey, how come you don’t put desks on that C-133 in front of me? They're going to the same place, see there going to Clark too." And then they said, "Oh, because they’re industrially funded.” And I said "What?!" He told me, “Well, your aircraft is not industrially funded and they’re industrially funded.” Now, this is one of McNamara's little puppets…was something to do with the way the military was funded and they was supposed to be like we were working on a paying basis. Since that aircraft in front of us would charge the Army or whoever it was that had the desks they couldn’t do that, but since we were kind of an offshoot outfit or something, whatever you want to call it we weren’t funded the same way they were. We could haul the desks back but they couldn't. Now that just shows you the stupidity of the system. Now here we are fighting a war and the fact that it was desks. It could have been anything. It could have been ammunition or whatever but this kind of stuff went on all the time. BC: Yes. RL: Another example of the same stuff went back to Hawaii for what they called “block training.” And every year we would have to go back and you go into the simulator and you go through the simulator program and escape an evasion and all of this kind of thing. Well, it was my time to go home, so I went down to the traffic office, and went to get a seat on a airplane, get back to Japan and they said "Oh well, you'll have to wait for a transient reserve airplane to come through. I said, "Why? "There's all kind of, you know there's Braniff going out of here, there's Pan Aro going out of here...everybody and there, you know there is all kinds of airplanes leaving." "Well, your outfit is not industrially funded, and all these other airplanes are industrially funded so I'll have to put you on an not industrially funded airplane." So I sat around in Hawaii for an extra three days until a Reserve C-124 came through and I got on that and flew. Took another day and a half to get back to where I was going. BC: Right. Well, a lot of corruption in the system. RL: It's just stupid. 7 �BC: Yes. RL: Like you said, you express yourself to somebody. And say you know, "What in the hell are we doing?" Well, then you’re a bad boy. BC: Yes. RL: Your not with the program, you’re a trouble maker. BC: Right. RL: So...anyway. BC: I can, I'm a four year enlisted and I can definitely understand what you're talking about, not to that degree but I'm sure that anybody that’s been involved with the military at all can tell you that there definitely some screwy stuff going on when it comes to money and allocations and things like that. But, is there anything you’d like to add to the interview or anything you'd like to talk about? RL: You're asking the questions. BC: Okay. Well, I think that’s about got it. Again, my name is Benjamin Chappell and this is Ralph Lerch. I'm interviewing, former Major U.S. Air Force pilot. We're at Boone airport on October 15th and this is going conclude my interview for Military History class. The year is 2011. 8 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/fac22515f69b688ff93d9ba56d27515d.mp3 1d103349af81577f5b32d316c1ee244d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Lerch, Ralph A. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Chappell, Benjamin Interview Date 10/15/11 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 22:59 min Copyright Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Tag Air Force, pilot, Andrews Air Force Base, C-124, cargo plane, 6th Weather Wing, Clark Air Base Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ralph A. Lerch, 15 October 2011 Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Lerch, Ralph A. Veterans United States Interviews Personal narratives, American Description An account of the resource Ralph A. Lerch talks about his experience as a Vietnam War veteran and pilot for the U.S. Air Force. He served in Vietnam transporting cargo, which he described as "kind of a stupid war." He entered the Aviation Cadet Program, but crashed during training and broke his thigh which took a long time to heal. After a year he was able to re-enter and he was eventually deployed. He never saw combat or came into contact with the NVA, but was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross Award. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lerch, Ralph A. Chappell, Benjamin Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Extent The size or duration of the resource. 8 pages Language A language of the resource English Aviation Cadet Program C-124 Distinguished Flying Cross major pilot Ralph Lerch US Air Force Vietnam weather wing https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/76c8f54905cedf5afd015685f69a35ae.pdf c64f224c65f9e42ed1a9475f13dcc3cd PDF Text Text Military Oral History Interview Transcript George Murphy Johnson County, NC 16 October 2011 PM: Patrick Murphy GM: George Murphy PM: This is Patrick Murphy interviewing George Murphy for the veteran’s oral history project. It is the 16th of October and I am at George’s house in Johnston County. Can you please state your full name? GM: George Richard Murphy. PM: What branch of the Military did you serve in? GM: The United States Army! PM: What reasons did you have for joining? GM: I didn’t have any choice. PM: So you were drafted. GM: yes. PM: How did that feel? GM: Oh, not uncommon because at that time the only deferments from the military were for medical school and any one, male, who was physically able was being inducted into the army because we have the draft at that time which we don’t have any more. PM: What year was this? GM: 1968. PM: Alright what branch of the military did you serve in? GM: I served in the Army. I went into the Amy in October of 1968 and was discharged in April or May of 1970. PM: Where did you go to boot camp? GM: I went to basic training at Fort Dix, New Jersey for eight weeks for just basic military skills. After then I was transferred to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for what they called advanced infantry training commonly known as AIT. And I went to gunnery school at Fort Sill. I came out my MOS or military occupational specialty with a 13 Eco 20, which means I was a battalion fire 1 �directional controller for the artillery. I did not shoot guns all I did was compute firing coordinates. PM: Would you have considered yourself good at math? GM: My worst subject why I was at school was math and I wind up doing nothing but math the whole time I am in the Army, which is traditional the way the army, does things. PM: What’s your most memorable experiences of boot camp or any training camp that you went through? GM: Probably in basic training. I suppose it was firing weapons some of the weapons I had never seen before. I had spent a lot of time on a farm and we always had guns. One thing I remember especially was the seven mile walks or marches to the firing range, and spending the night in a tent it was snowing, and what did we call it? Riding in cattle cars what were basically semis behind tractors and they would load everyone up in them. That was basically it. It was an experience. And that was when I was at Fort Sill; it was absolutely gorgeous just how big it is. With the animals and all they have a game preserve out there. But the main thing I did was just like being in college I went to class eight hours a day. And then firing, something you will never do in civilian life was firing 155mm howitzers, which was an experience. Oh, I liked that they had tracks so they were movable riding in a tracked howitzer back in forth to the gunnery ranges was something I had never done and never plan on doing again. PM: When did you deploy to Vietnam and where exactly did you deploy to? GM: When I finished gunnery school at Fort Sill I got leave to come back to North Carolina about two weeks. I received orders to go to Fort Lewis, Washington form that I was deployed there to Cam Ranh Base, South Vietnam. And we flew from Fort Lewis to Alaska to Japan to arriving at Cam Ranh Bay. Cam Ranh Bay was a huge air port outside right on the coast of Vietnam and the thing I remember the most is when they shut the air plane down we had landed, they opened doors about a quarter to 12, about 15 minutes to midnight and it was still 95 degrees out and it was absolutely it took me four weeks get acclimated to country to stop sweating it was so humid so hot. PM: Just miserable conditions? GM: Miserable. I didn’t have a dry stitch of clothing for four weeks. But then once you get acclimated it is not all that bad but until you do its absolutely miserable. PM: After you landed at that base where did you deploy to? GM: What they did was, we spent the night in a transit barracks and then you stay there until you get orders to go to your unit. I was there about a day and a half and I got orders to go up to Chu Lai, which I am not really sure of the mileage it’s up north about 90 miles from Da Nang. I 2 �was ordered with the American Division. I was attached to the 380th Artillery, which was with to the 26th Infantry. Our battalion headquarters was in Chu Lai. Which everything up there was on the coast. We did not have any guns in Chu Lai all we had was battalion Headquarters with radios and relies because the guns were actually in other fire bases 15 to 20 miles apart. PM: So you were doing fire controlee at an off sight and the guns were somewhere else? GM: Yes, I start well. I spent seven or eight months in the field on a fire base where we actually had the guns. People think, you were commonly known as a cannon cocker, which I wasn’t. I never fired a gun at all. I did was compute firing missions on a. We had a surveyed battery and we were shooting into a map coordinates. All we did were compute what they call and deflect, which was the raising of the gun how high and the charge to get it to the target. After about seven months I was moved I went back to battalion. Battalion headquarters was strictly in charge of the whole artillery. All we did at battalion was compute fire missions for all three batteries. We had three batteries bravo charley…and alpha, bravo and charley that was scattered out in probably about a 70 radius. And I never saw a gun again all we did was…and at battalion we had contact with all three batteries and we would compute fire missions for all three batteries. Because any time a battery would compute a fire mission we had to compute the fire mission at battalion and our data had to meet within one point of each other and then we could fire guns. If our data did not coordinate we could not fire. We would have to hold off until we could find out what the problem was. PM: How frequently would you be firing these weapons? Was it all day every day or was it a lot of sitting around? GM: We in what you call the FDC or fire directional controlee center. Where we worked out of… we were assigned there twelve hours a day you either worked there from two in the morning or two in the afternoon and every thirty days you would rotate from night shift to day shift. What you did was…generally during the day we only fired as necessary for fire missions. A lot of times we would have fire missions from forward observers and air observers because we were general support for the whole American Division. We would shoot pretty frequently during the day however every night we had what they called H and I, which was harassment and interdiction. And we probably had 300 targets computed by the general staff that these was were the enemy was we might have to fire two rounds at nine o’clock on a location and two rounds at 12 on the same location and most of the time we’d fire 300 to 400 rounds a night on harassment and interdiction. The rest of the time we had air observers flying plans and when they saw a target we would answer to that and of course any ground troops that were…we had to be careful we because our guns were so big that you couldn’t…anything within 50 meters of where the shell landed was in the kill zone so you had to be absolutely careful that there were no friendly’s where you were 3 �shooting. And a lot of times what we did with Special Forces what they called contact fire missions where they were actually being shot at and taking casualties and we would walk the artillery in with a forward observer and just actually walk it in on the ground until we got it correct and then we would shoot everything we’d got to get them out of there when they were in that bad situation. We were only heavy artillery…eight inch and 175 an eight inch would shoot 15 miles and throws a 200 pound shell 15 miles, a 175 would shoot 26 miles. Eight inch was totally accurate 175’s was not very accurate we never shoot 175’s in support of ground troops. Because they just they weren’t that accurate now eight inch we would shoot because the American that is was in was an old division that was reactivated…that was used in World War Two and then deactivated and was reactivated for Vietnam. We had 25,000 men and they included three infantry battalions, brigades and then aw two Special Forces groups pulse all the support that goes with it. Our official designation was direct support for Special Forces and general support of the American Division. We stayed pretty busy the whole time…and I do not know what else to say. PM: What are some of the most memorable experiences you have while just being in country? It does not necessarily have to be related to your mission. GM: The camaraderie that I developed with the members of our company. It was not always… in the field was different then…I mean being on a forward base camp was pure military and was 24-7 with guarding and all the rest. Back at battalion head quarters where I spent my last few months was completely different. It was on top of a hill…we had US shows come in every now and then… every now and then we could go down to the beach. We could go to the beach sometimes Bob Hope when he came in for Christmas and…which was totally secret that we wound up being there. We played flag football a tournament in fact we won so it was…I mean it was not always as bad as you think it was…you never felt safe or secure you always had to worry about what was coming around the corner. PM: How did you and other guys you know deal with that feeling that insecurity? GM: It was just something that you learned to live with some guys took it better than others we had some that actually couldn’t take it and they were rotated out. Some guys resorted to drugs and if we found that out then we got rid of them because we could not depend on them if they were pulling guard duty we knew they were doing drugs we would find a way to get rid of them. It was something that you lived with every day if you thought about it would drive you crazy so you didn’t you try not to think about it you just went and did your job and hoped you would make it till you get home. PM: When you transferred where you did you go for the last few months… what was it called? GM: Battalion Headquarters. 4 �PM: What was the difference in your duty? GM: First of all we did not have the gun crews. You weren’t working hand on hand with guys who were actually shooting guns and looking after each other. Battalion was less stressful you had hot meals all the time things you did not have in the field. And we had more responsibility because we were dealing with all three batteries when in the field you are only dealing with one battery, which was a lot easier. Battalion was a lot more stressful and plus you had so many officers coming in and out it wasn’t as easy as being in the field we had to compute fire missions for all three batteries instead of it was a lot more work and a lot more stressful aw…I would much rather be in the field. Even though the field was more dangerous the camaraderie between the fellows in the field was a lot different. PM: How did you end up being transferred was it by choice? GM: I was running out of time in Vietnam and they rotated guys out and they had an opening for a section chief at battalion. And I got sent to take it. They had two sections at battalion so they had to have two section chiefs, who were enlisted men, and I was a sergeant so I took one of those positions. And then we a…we answered to a captain who answered to a major so…you had…in the field there was just a lieutenant in battalion you never had less than a captain or a major to be responsible to. PM: So it was a lot more up tight? GM: Yes, it was a lot more like civilian. 5 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/f1d2db0e3e286db1b5a34b20655666f4.mp3 785c8ffd47bf1af13dd9ecad43155a6d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Murphy, George Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Murphy, Patrick Interview Date 10/16/11 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 20:46 min Copyright Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used. Tag Johnston County, Army, Fort Dix, Fort Sill, artillery, Fort Lewis, Vietnam, Cam Ranh Bay , 380th Artillery, 26th Infantry Division, Bob Hope Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with George Murphy, 16 October 2011 Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Murphy, George Veterans Personal narratives, American United States Interviews Description An account of the resource George Murphy, interviewed by Patrick Murphy, served in the United States Army and was stationed in Vietnam. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Murphy, George Murphy, Patrick Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Extent The size or duration of the resource. 5 pages Language A language of the resource English American Division Cam Ranh Bay Chu Lai draft FDC George Murphy US Army Vietnam https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/8d1a699827a7096c739e9a5ad18a25a9.pdf 8d03fa2f0cd76cef7d03a54d2627a08a PDF Text Text Military Oral History Interview Transcript Paul Maney Boone, North Carolina 12 October 2011 MO: Marshall Ospina PM: Paul Maney MO: Today is October 12, 2011 and we are in Boone NC, In the History Department on campus of Appalachian State University. I am interviewing professor Paul Maney; I am Marshall Ospina a student here at Appalachian State University. We will begin the oral history now. MO: Where were you born and raised? PM: Marshall I was born in England…my father was a…member of the Air Force my mother was an English citizen. I was born in England lived there for five years and when we came to the states I lived in different times in Northern New England and in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and then in Alaska for four years. Where I supposedly graduated high school. MO: When is your Birthday? PM: October 7th, 1953. MO: When and why did you choose to join the military? PM: Well, I…like I said I graduated in 1971 in Alaska and I did not like it up there I did not care for my family so I moved I basically left home if you want to call it that I hitched hiked out of Alaska down the Alkane Highway and…spent the next three or four months hitchhiking around the country it was something I wanted to do at the time and by October of that year when I turned 18 I was at my grandparents in Pennsylvania and I decided the only option that I really had to go to college was to join the Army so I basically enlisted to get the G.I Bill and that’s what I did in late 1971 four years ago MO: Tell me about your basic training experience. PM: Well, that was again more like the probably the most difficult time I’d say in my life, this was during the Vietnam War going on of course and even though they were drawing troops down…there was that still was back draw, I went in Fort Dix New Jersey at the age of 18 probably totally unprepared for the Basic Training experience…after three months I’d have to say that was probably the worst three months I’ve ever saw of my life, and it was not like the movies they show you where everybody you know pulls together and gets…you know you help one another out it was a very divisive time I saw five people killed in basic training I…I came upon a Jo…a soldier who had sliced his testicles off in the… latrine …I was …on CQ and I found him and I had to break up the whole…I saw people… abused and bullied under the orders of drill sergeants who were psychotic types who were from Vietnam…you know who had gone 1 �to Vietnam and probably got a chance to...indulge all their fantasies about hurting and killing people and…they would...in fact during the time I was in we had people who were drafted of course I was…volunteer but their were people there who did not want to be there and the thing to do of course of course the drill sergeants tried to sort of… point them out to everybody and…literally have them...use the…the troops themselves to police these people to beat them up and intimidate them we had a guy in our… basic training company who get up every morning and defecate in his bed and roll around in it just to try to get out and… he was pointed out to the drill sergeants and later... a bunch of people gave him what they call a blanket party where they throw a…a blanket over your head and beat you up with bunk adapters… this guy has or had his arms broken. The guy who I saw who kill himself was just a heavy set individual who could not do the physical training he was he was bullied and abused there were some awful incidents… that I was telling you about in Fort Dix New Jersey in the winter of 1971 the barracks that were not heated…and situation was pretty… I would say...dictated to our drill sergeant… not to go into that much further that I cant tell you that the follow up on that is…that…after I got out of basic training and I went to my AIT unit some of the people that I was in basic with we ended up in Fort Carson, Colorado and six months later they actually had people from the Judge Advocate Generals (JAG) office come out and take depositions from us about our basic training experience with Drill Sargent Guion. He had run over he run his company at that time over somebody they were going down range road from weapons practice who had a heart attack and...killed him and so after that they had an investigation on what was going on in the various cycles that he went…that he sort of conducted as a drill sergeant… when they came out in… July of 70, 72 to take depositions I sat there with a guy from the JAG for like two hours telling him stories about basic training and what happened so that was probably the most terrific time I have ever seen...you know getting out of that with my sanity intact was you know really maybe an accomplishment… that was the worse I saw of the Army after that it got better but still it was not my favorite time…so how’s that for an answer, ha-ha. MO: What motivated you throughout that very dark period of time? PM: Well, I thought the day after I enlisted I made a mistake…I mean I sat there said oh my God I couldn’t believe I done it you know? I didn’t know it was going be like you have this sort of…vision that you see from these World War II movies where everybody gets in there its all you know...and maybe the drill sergeant’s tough but he’s really…underneath it very fair and everybody bans together that was really not the way it was there was a lot of…I could say during that time I saw…I was really naïve I never even seen anybody drunk in my life until the first night I was in the Army. I end up putting a guy in a wall locker because I refused to have a beer and I still never drank anything mostly because the first people I ever saw drunk acted so stupid I said I would never ever want to do that and so…you know I think that’s another thing the army tries to do of course is to…intimidate a little bit so that you become ultimately…that you are not an individual that you just basically are stripped down to the basics and then you can, they kind of build you 2 �back up but… that in itself was you know a period where you know…I was…having to assert my individuality and I learned a lot about what was going on around me and I guess…about group dynamics and everything, so was there a specific question that I didn’t answer? MO: No you answered it. PM: oh, ok. I was just curious. MO: So was there any hazing in AIT? I mean just… PM: Oh well there was, not like not like in basic I mean in AIT I went down to Fort Jackson, South Carolina I was trained infantry and that was…that was a world of improvement for me I hated my drill sergeant he must have hated me too because ultimately…he…I think that I and a few other people were singled out you know maybe on the basis of what they call GT scores if you have something like… that that’s relatively high maybe the drill sergeants will think that you’re some kind of…you know…egg head or whatever so even though…I always got 500’s on my you know PT and all that. He didn’t like me he thought for some reason cause I couldn’t sleep, I could not sleep and all the time I was there my eyes were literally red as get out so he must have thought I was some kind of drug addict or whatever but this guys eyes were always red too because he was an alcoholic so, so anyways I did not like that he didn’t even promote me to…E2 until I got out of basic when I went to…AIT I was the honor grad I got E4 out of it. So but just because I got… the drill sergeant was without a doubt the most evil person I have ever met. MO: So what…when…were where was your first duty station? PM: Well, I got right after basic and AIT I ended up in fact I was going to Fort Campbell, Kentucky …I was going to go airborne and we had… MO: At Ft. Campbell Kentucky? PM: Yes, Fort Campbell, Kentucky with the 82nd Airborne. MO: I thought it was only in Fort Benning. PM: No, that’s in Georgia, this was back in 1971, 72. So we ended up having a little…misadventure I guess 32 people that evening were sort of injured after…we hit a wind shier…I had a separated left shoulder out of all that it really wasn’t damaging to my in any way I still cant look over my left shoulder I have never parallel parked in my life we ended up having…enough medical attention I was in the hospital for only 3 days but I say that in fact that saved my life because I didn’t get assigned to Vietnam. I don’t know if I was suppose to go to Vietnam anyways some people did at that time even though they said, we weren’t, well I finally got my papers out of all that I ended up in Fort Carson, Colorado with the 4th Infantry Division it’s a mechanized infantry division. 3 �MO: How did you stay in touch with your family? Or did you… PM: I haven’t been in touch with my so called family since then so its been 40 years I had left… I left you know I have two brothers and two sisters their all in Alaska I guess. I’m not in touch with them. I left them totally I left at 17, so I didn’t bother. MO: What was the food like? PM: HA! THE FOOD! I…I’m pretty picky so as far as food goes I’m not...you know that was not my…you know they shove a lot of carbohydrates at you and they make it you know so that…that may be one of those things you look forward too but I certainly didn’t I…you know…many a times I would be at the end of the… chow line and not have anything in my plate so it was you know… I can’t say that the food was…you know…I’m a real picky eater so, ha-ha. MO: How were the MRE’s over there? PM: They…They didn’t call them that at the time they might have had LRRP’s which are Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols, just sea rations, we didn’t, they didn’t have anything called MRE’s when I was in the Army. So basically it was you know you had those going down range and typically I would always get a can of spaghetti or something you know and have to trade that off to have some eggs and some semi kind of looking meat or whatever but it wasn’t exactly actually it was just as bad it was you know no different than eating in the chow line, well I got to Colorado my friend and I one of my best friends, in fact my best, my best friend during the time we had lunch or whatever we go out and get, I never saw tacos or burritos before at the time Mexican food hadn’t really made it throughout most of the US during that time out west I was able to spend my time eating tacos and burritos, ha-ha. MO: Did you have plenty of supplies I mean when you were at you first unit? PM: Oh yeah there was no problem there again this is you know a time when they were drawing down the Army because of people coming back from Vietnam I saw a lot of people who had been there and came back and were you know affected by it and I was affected by the people around me but, I never luckily enough had to be put in a situation like these guys did… and I think ultimately at the time seeing these people the way they responded and the way I felt like…good Lord, their lives are already you know affected they’ll never change I mean I wonder 40 years now 39 years after that time when I got to my duty station in 1972 how many of these people are really, how many went off the deep end, how many were able to save, how many went through counseling how many became alcoholics, how many became drug addicts how many end up killing themselves. I mean you could see it the affect you know people who spent time in Vietnam what had it done to them. MO: Wow, did you feel any pressure or stress throughout your army career? PM: Well, yeah I mean it did especially early on but as I went on in my time in the army I was trained infantry but after…I got to my…after I got to my duty station… one day saved my life or 4 �at least somebody came down from the orderlies room looking to see if anybody in the company could type and I raised my hand and said yes I could! So I was brought up to the… orderly room and from that point on I became training NCO (non-commissioned officer) I was given… about 6…6 months I was just training you know assistant then after our, my…my training sergeant retired they gave me they made me a what they called an AJ, “Acting Jack” I have, I was spec 4 but I was given Sargent stripes with only three months left I only had been in the army 16-17 months at that time with three moths left to go actually…a little bit more than 8 months to go they actually promoted me to E-5 as a training NCO but my job was administrative more than I wasn’t leading men into the field or anything as Sargent and even though I was infantry trained I was basically… you know…in that field so that was when it got a lot easier when once I got up there it became a breeze I had no problems after that its not easy for me to take orders but ultimately…when I was working with people who were at least… I wasn’t dealing down with some psychotic drill sergeant or somebody down there… MO: People were competent. PM: Yeah so and I didn’t…you know in a line company I mean again I just did not…just a little too different to get along really well with everybody so it was one of those things…I was in...I was in my time of the army I had 12 or 13 different fights I got stabbed three times I hit a guy through a window and I almost severed my artery here I got three knife wounds here in my chest from a guy that had a lot of, a lot of different incidents, that wasn’t the easiest thing for me. MO: Did you start these incidents? PM: I would never said, no. I thought never, I would never but I wasn’t going to back down from anything either and that’s the thing… MO: Of course. PM: Of course you cant you know you cannot do that for a second so ultimately I never felt like I got the worse of anything either even the guy who stabbed me I broke his nose and was pounding his head on the pavement when they pulled me off him so he got me three times in the chest luckily he only had a three inch blade so I had you know I got holes right there just to prove that their there you cant kind of… you can see there… there… and there the only reason he couldn’t kill me is cause he kept hitting my breastbone instead of my heart which he was going for that’s a lovely feeling hearing a knife hit your breastbone. Ha-ha. MO: How did people entertain themselves? PM: Drugs, alcohol...the…the Army it seemed at that time it actually encouraged people to get drunk because they kept having these company beer parties and everything you know so they would do that it was again during the time of the end of the Vietnam war a lot of the people who were hooked on all sorts of things…I saw people shooting up in the barracks they were doing all you know pills methamphetamines…downers uppers everything so that’s...they…they on the post itself they had you know mess halls open late at night they had I guess different functions and everything you know it was…I guess it was for me it was a little different of course I was 5 �probably...the only…I had my locker full of books ha-ha so…I didn’t...I didn’t partake I still never played a card game in my life a lot of people seemed to play cards a lot you know some people would either lose a fortune or make a fortune but you know I would play chess maybe but there were always a few people who I could get along with you know but that’s as far as entrainment goes that was most of what I saw going on. MO: Where did you travel while in the service? PM: Well, not really I was just mostly in Colorado I was only in for 21 months so by the time I got to my duty station since I didn’t have any family anywhere I didn’t really take any leave and when I got out of the army I was able to sale my leave back… because I didn’t use it so I actually got two months of you know pay when I got out so I didn’t really as far as traveling I was again I spent a lot time in Colorado but that’s I got a chance to see that...so…I didn’t really go anywhere at that time so. MO: Do you recall any particularly humorous…or… PM: Humorous? MO: Or unusual event? PM: well everything was…everything was unusual, I don’t know about humorous as far as the army goes because it wasn’t too humorous it was deadly, deadly serious then it got to the point where I was just waiting out my time after I realized that I wasn’t going to kill anybody or that…ultimately hopefully wasn’t going to kill me I was just wasn’t going to go crazy having people over, I didn’t like the idea waking up every morning knowing that, I have no control over my life that ultimately I was owned lock stock and barrel, but…it seemed funny cause there is this Oscar wild you know writer, he said in one of his little stories that everyday felt like a year a years whose days was long that was my time in the army everyday felt like a year and it was a long year I spent 21 months in, which comes to about 700 days but it felt like that was the longest 21 months of my life and I was glad to get out I mean I processed an early out. I got out with an honorable discharge I got an Army ARCOM an army you know Commendation Medal, it wasn’t I could not have re-upped they wanted me to reenlist, when they made me an E5, it was something they thought alright we will give you some rank and authority but there was no way in the world I was ever going to reenlist, I got out three months before my 20 birthday so I was in and out before I was even twenty. So for humorous stories, I was thinking of humorous stories and I really you know. I could tell you no I shouldn’t maybe I could tell you about getting out of the army, I had already processed my early out because I was you know I got three month drop to get out for school cause they were doing that at the time so as the training NCO my job was to put out a …a weekly training bulletin where you know everybody in the company knew what was going on it would be posted you would have daily activities Monday thru Friday and it was always posted in the company area you had times and if you were like lets say going to have a film on VD or if 6 �you arranged a rifle range to you know for you know weapons training or qualification if you done this you would post it all. Well, my last week in the army just a as a joke I had… made two copies of it one was the real training schedule the other was a joke I had to send it up first of all to my company commander then It went up to battalion then to brigade and then to the post to be authorized it was just preferment just a matter of course but I made two separate ones and on the first one I just did the regular week for the company the second was a joke it was supposedly going to be seen by my company commander and he was going to laugh and then you know give it back to me and say but the last one I had instead of my training schedule it has I put down on it in big letters “MANEY ETS,” which means you get… that’s when you get out and terminated service and underneath it I put down FTA and if you don’t know what FTA means you kind of have to go back to the mid seventies it had meant something that was not complimentary. THE ARMY was the second and third letters of that F the F you could imagine and I sent that up and I thought my company commander would see it and reject it and send it back and said nice joke. Well nobody had looked at it and they sent it up first of all from company to battalion nobody looked at it they signed it the company, the… the COL in charge of battalion signed it he sent it up to the guy in charge of Brigade and it eventually ended up in the post headquarters and my 1SG three r four days later got a call from the post 1SG 4th Infantry Division asking about this Maney guy and it was going to be it was like they were going to the stop my early out because of this little thing that was not suppose to go anywhere if it hadn’t been for my 1SG he basically told me the story he said look you know what did you do and I told him this was a joke and he said Maney you better hide out for the next week I’ll save your buns if you don’t. I don’t want you around the company area you better head over to the PX you better head over to the gym you better be somewhere away from here because these people are coming out here looking for you so my 1SG really sort of saved me and when I was processing to get out through all the little debriefings to you when you get out I kept thinking up to the last minute they were going to get me somehow but actually I got out of there ok so I have a picture in fact my last day getting out my company had gone to Ft. Lewis Washington and there was only a skeleton crew left behind there so nobody really with any power so my last day I took all my gear and my…duffle bag and I got a picture sort of I took it out in front of the company orderly room and took some lighter fluid and squirted it on and threw a match on it and set the whole thing on fire so I got a picture of that. How is that for a funny story? MO: What did you think of the officers or higher NCO’s above you? PM: As far as the officers went you know during that time…the officers were all educated college educated a lot of them even though they were officers were opposed to the Vietnam war they were you know, some I would actually have…had deep conversations with I ended up playing chess with a lot of the officers I seem t have more in common with them even though they were a lot older than me I was only again 18 or so but…some of them were conflicted about you know they had joined the army to kind of like you know… they weren’t all the gun ho kind of career officers you see today and many of them probably were just college educated and you know just being in a position so…I had no problems with the officers at all some of the drill 7 �sergeants in particular and especially people who had been career soldiers who were above like E6 or E7 who were you know terminal alcoholics and…and just people who you know didn’t have much imagination but were just there for a long time and got rank I had trouble with a lot of those people. MO: Do you recall…the day your service ended? PM: Oh yeah, yes December 7th 1973 its Buddy Holly’s Birthday. I got out and basically stayed in Colorado I didn’t really have anything going. MO: That was in Fort Carson? PM: Fort Carson I stayed there and I started school at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs right there that fall. MO: So the weeks, and days after you went right into… PM: I just went right into school there from that you know. MO: So I'm guessing your education was supported by the G.I Bill? PM: That’s how I got it in fact I went to a lot of different schools I didn’t have you know, it took me a long time because I have to say after being in the Army it took me a long time to kind of re adjust but it did leave an affect on me it was not you know something that it just kind of…a lot of things affected me in a lot of ways so I…had…by the time I used the GI Bill up I had you know over 200 hours I had gone to 6 different schools at that stage in the game and finally got my degree in English but it wasn’t I was not…I…I didn’t have a lot of direction and the army really didn’t give me any direction really I was in there for two years. I didn’t learn anything not a single thing other than how tot kill people you know and that was it though I didn’t have any skills but I got out of there in 21months and you know I used the GI Bill and eventually it started me off in the right direction I didn’t use it as well as I could have I was not too, you know pride about using it effectively you know so I made I sort of blew that opportunity even though I used it I those days getting 370 dollars a month from the GI Bill I got that for 48 months that was almost enough to live on you know so. MO: Make any close friendships? PM: My very best friend I met my very best friend in the Army we were…together in Colorado I met him 39 years ago…were best friends today. MO: Did you join any veteran’s organizations? PM: No I didn’t I feel like a lot of the veterans organizations are a little too right wing for me for the most part that I see I see, especially the VA, I mean not the VA but the American Legion which is supposedly a veterans, they all are a little reactionary you know of course those who 8 �were in the second world war might have a reason to be but as they die out I find that you know probably not too many people in my generation are into joining anyway like all those you know service organizations like the knights of Columbus and all that they probably appear to an older group but I often thought though that I should maybe. See the various veterans agencies you know around here Wilkesboro the… to see if I could actually try to see maybe I could become a veterans advocate for issues that I think affect veterans you know ultimately everybody seems to be whenever there’s a war but when these people come back that’s where the problem is of course you know as far as you know getting them adequate medical benefits and you know see what happened to them people get affected you know and whether its psychologically and people are usually afraid to talk about that or physically, they all we pay good lip service to veterans all of this but ultimately when they come back it’s a joke I think so that’s something I would like to maybe involve myself in a bit further. MO: How long did it take you to jump-start that career? How did you get to be a History Professor here at Appalachian State? PM: It took me a long long time. Like I said in fact after I got out of the Army after I started school I you know took semesters off I hitchhiked around the country again I spent most the rest of the seventies hitchhiking around I came to Boone in the late seventies…I never been south of the Mason-Dixon Line but I just hitchhiked, I had been writing to a girl who lived in Boone for a year I never met her just sort of was a roommate of mine it was his finance it was her roommate we talked on the phone one night so I decided to hitchhike out here and visit. I fell in love with the area and moved back and eventually got my degree in history and my masters degree I did not get my…undergraduate degree, I had an undergraduate degree in English but didn’t get my degree in history until I was 40 I didn’t get my masters till I was 45 which I why I didn’t go on for a doctors it was too late and I thought so…it was, it took me a long time I did not have that sense of direction you know I was just sort of being buffered around by the breeze I guess you could say. MO: Did you military experience influence you thinking about war or about the military in general? PM: Oh yes well I had already had strong thoughts about it I mean it wasn’t like I was a vet, you know gun ho for the Vietnam war before hand I wouldn’t have probably enlisted if they hadn’t told me that they were already weren’t sending people over that was the thing of course recruiters lie to you unless you get a sheet of paper saying something I say don’t, to students today don’t sign up unless you get something in writing. But I am as a historian you know I knew a little about Vietnam before most people did because surprisingly my father was in Vietnam in 1962 before two years before the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution he was over there in the air force as a ostensibly as a meteorologist but ultimately as a military advisor so I was 9 years old ten years old when he came back I was interesting I knew a little about Vietnamese history and culture before I was even 12 years old and…after being in that war sort of realizing what and all the consequences the information that came out about it 9 �the secrets bombing of Cambodia by Nixon and Kissinger the way the war was conducted the way we got involved made me look back I did not want to listen to you know. I wanted to know for myself the truth of it all and I think having learned that in fact in the spring I would be teaching the history of Vietnam class at Caldwell community college at Caldwell and so I am going to try to put my knowledge and my you know perspective at least to work there obviously there’s lots of ways to look at it but I think that was the defining moment for my generation and probably American history because all the cultural wars that are being still fought today I think in this country are the results of what took place during the Vietnam War of response whether its either positive or negative. I think you can still draw those, draw those battle lines and see that you know its either on one side where you don’t you know…you think that maybe for instance that the reasons we go to war are wrong that the motivation the…the response and ultimately whether or not you should be drafted to fight what you consider an unjust war why do we go to war you know those very things of course you have, what desensitized me and probably everybody who came of age at that time. MO: What do you feel, how do you feel about soldiers nowadays? PM: Well I…I…excuse me I'm sorry Marshall I didn’t meant to talk over you. MO: No continue. PM: Well, it seems to me that in the time I have been teaching that the students that I have that are veterans are a lot more right wing than the ones that I…the people I was in the army with and the people who study you know the veterans who are my age…I don’t know why that I think probably the draft meant that you get a broader representation of society in the military whereas of course they it seems that people do join up at least are the ones who are highly motivated to begin with perhaps and may have a certain perspective about the military to begin with whether its you look at it ok…as oppose to being able to stand back or feel like you know they didn’t want to be in the military in the first place. I do think…and I have some veterans in Caldwell community college where I just started you know I picked up some classes the other night and I have a few veterans and there just like the other ones pretty outspoken about what they think the way this country is and they…I would just say that today’s student seems to be a little more...right wing in nature than the ones I came up with. MO: If you could do it all again, would you have hitchhiked down from Alaska? PM: Yes, I…I have to say even though the army as I look back on it I didn’t want o learn those lessons I'm not even sure what lessons I did learn if I learned any I would probably say for a long part of my life I thought that was probably one of the most biggest mistakes I’ve done you cant really go back and second guess in fact…I was 50 years old before I fell in love and I told my wife and I’ve told her this since the 8 years we’ve been together I said darling if I had to go 10 �through everything I had to go through that I’ve done already if that is what it would have took to get to you then I would gladly go back and do it all over again so in that sense in my life was going to take me in places you know I use to think it was absolutely why did I go through this but then I talk to people you know then find my experience was pretty unique that I had things happen to me that nobody else did that I survived them ultimately you know I feel like I came out of it I wouldn’t go back. I wouldn’t want to go through it again but I would not trade it for what it gave me to give me this sort of unique sensibility of things so in that, in that sense I don’t regret it there’s some things I wish I hadn’t seen but…you know again it...it made me just my reaction to it you know not everybody spent eight or nine years hitchhiking around the country either so you know that was a consequence the things I learned I mean yeah I met my best friend out of it that’s good enough. MO: And I should have asked you this before but since your father was in the Air Force did that I guess push you or did you ever want to? PM: No it didn’t...at all it didn’t affect me one little bit. MO: He didn’t influence you at all? PM: He was in the air force even though I wouldn’t ever get the sense that he was there because the Air Force was a little different of course he didn’t run, he wasn’t a military type really who made people, I had friends who’s fathers would make them you know stand at inspections but that wasn’t the way it was my father sold also real estate and stuff so he had I saw him just as much with a suit on as I did with a you know uniform so that didn’t affect me and I was already estranged from him anyways so it wasn’t like I was trying to prove anything to anybody you know so. MO: Is there anything you would like to add or anything you would like to share? PM: Well, you know again I’d say that…for anybody who wants to go to the military I guess the thing is if you know what you want to do with it then if you can make…if you can…if you have your own agenda then you can probably us the military to your…you know…benefit by learning enough and getting the GI Bill and you know probably for people who need a little direction might need you know some time to think about it… I still think that maybe you know I'm not again, not for the draft in the military but I am in favor, some kind of form for some national service for 18 or 19 year olds to I’ve them some direction to give them a sense of this country you know so its not just the military that actually is you know should have all the money thrown to it. I'm really against that in a way I as a sergeant when I got out of the army I was only making 440 dollars a month which was...maybe live able then but I see the weight scales now that we have an army that has to almost make pay comparable to civilian occupations even though a lot of the soldiers are on food stamps so that’s a problem as well but I just wonder if we did have national service where you could go into he military is one option you could maybe go into the equivalent of the civilian conservation corps like they had back in the 30’s where you would 11 �work on you know just go out there and plant trees or be in nature just do something to be to give service to this country its almost like a Robert Heimland idea military or some kind of service to almost a citizen. MO: So you think it should be I guess obligated? PM: I think that you know it seems almost reactionary you know and I'm not that way at all but I think to act first of all to give a sense of citizenship and maybe a sense of…commitment in a way you know for maybe generations might have lost that it does. I agonize about these feelings I have about something like that but I think ultimately it would be advantageous for people to get to know the country you know for people to involve themselves in something for students for kids who are kids 18 or 19 a that age maybe between your 18th and 21st or 23rd you know year you have to put in at least one year of doing you know maybe two years of this or one year of that but actually getting out from where you live and going out and giving something back. That would give a sense of citizenship that actually in a way you know would allow you to maybe to…to feel you know to get a real sense of what this country is so that’s one way of doing it. MO: All right PM: How does that sound Marshall? MO: Sounds great. PM: Ha-ha. MO: Well. PM: Anything else? MO: No. Anything else from you? PM: Where’s my free pizza? MO: I’ll get it to you next year. PM: Yes. MO: I actually might start taking that class at Caldwell that sounds really interesting. PM: Well its about time you know well for one thing our department chair person here for a long time had his had his doctoral you know experience in Vietnam so it wasn’t like I was going to be able to teach a class here but…they evidently some guy was teaching up in Caldwell has sort of had a break down so I came in just last week to take over his classes and they were so than thankful they offered me a Vietnam history class in the spring so you know take that. And I'm going to try again I’m…the way I look at it… was just a big mistake just a huge mistake and we should’ve never been there in the first place and…when we were there our policies were entirely 12 �wrong and…if you’re interested in all that there’s a really good book written by a guy name Neil Shield it got a Pulitzer Prize its called Jean Paul Van and the American Experience in Vietnam. It talks about a colonel who was there before Gulf of Tonkin and was there watching the South Vietnamese Army be constructed and what we were doing supplying and that’s when we only had 10 or 11,000 advisors over there nearly the time my father was and he kept saying were making a dreadful mistake this is not going to work we are really this government is not supported by its people and that’s the bottom line. There we were supporting a government that was not supported by its people. You know, as many weapons as they needed we didn’t care enough about you know the…democracy whatever you want to call it basically it was a repressive regime same thing that happened in South Korea in the 1950’s you know it was same thing ultimately if you look at the history of Vietnam. In 1956, when the Geneva Peace Accords were signed we were signatory to that but we were looking for a free election in 1958 but when that election was going to be held American diplomats realized that Ho Chi Min the communist would’ve won in a free election in a nut shell he would’ve dominated Diam who was our choice who was a French educated playboy who didn’t even fight the Japanese or the French during the Second World War during the French War and so he spoke English and was Catholic so he was our boy in Vietnam we propped him up for ten years and he didn’t do anything for us ultimately drugged us in I think it was one of the biggest mistakes in American history getting involved just as a big mistake as attacking Iraq. MO: Well, that’s another interview I guess. PM: Yes, I know. MO: Well, this concludes our oral history and I thank you so much. PM: Thank you Marshall. 13 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/fc4915af983ab57b148b10d95f193171.mp3 729fba484d030adf3753ff85303ce739 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed. Maney, Paul Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Ospina, Marshall Interview Date 10/12/11 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 35:06 min Copyright Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Tag Alaska, Fort Dix, Fort Carson, Judge Advocate Generals, hazing, suicide, abuse, Fort Jackson, Fort Benning, 82nd Airborne, infantry, 4th Infantry Division, practical joke, Colorado State, GI Bill, Wilkesboro, Caldwell Community College, Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Professor Paul Maney, 12 October 2011 Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Maney, Paul Veterans Personal narratives, American United States Interviews Description An account of the resource Marshall Ospina interviews Paul Maney who served during the Vietnam War. He describes his time in Basic Training as very dark and disturbing. He was trained in Fort Dix, but never deployed, and spent most of his time doing administrative work in Colorado. He did not like serving in the military and got out as soon as he could. He used the GI Bill to go to school and eventually became a professor of military history. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Maney, Paul Ospina, Marshall Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a title="UA.5018. American Military History Course Records" href="https://appstate-speccoll.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/167" target="_blank">UA.5018. American Military History Course Records</a> Extent The size or duration of the resource. 13 pages Language A language of the resource English ARCOM Colorado Springs Fort Carson Fort Dix GI Bill infantry Paul Maney Vietnam https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/417fbe36754cfb6c811bc722f95b4856.pdf e40979c0b1231784403a5f4e9a8f1f22 PDF Text Text Oral History Interview with Robert Randall Boone, NC 16 October 2011 CD: Chelsea Dix RR: Robert Randall CD: It Is October 16, 2011. My name is Chelsea Dix. I am a student of Dr. Browning’s in the history department at Appalachian State University I’m interviewing Mr. Robert Randall, my grandfather over the phone. He is in Eden, North Carolina and I am in Boone, North Carolina. CD: Mr. Randall… start off, when’s your birthday… just to start off. RR: My birthday is December 15, 1939. CD: Alright, and where are you from? RR: I am originally from Asheville, North Carolina. CD: Okay. What years were you in service? RR: I was in the service from the tenth of March, 1959 until the first of April, 1979. CD: Could you tell me a little bit about when and why you decided to join? RR: I decided to join because of the inability to obtain an education, which I needed, and found that the service offered training and abilities that I was not afforded otherwise. CD: Alright. When, when you joined, what was your experience during basic and your specific job training? RR: My job experience prior to the service was varied quite a bit, primarily as a laborer and…type jobs. My entry into the service was under the infantry initially. Prior to completing my individual training I was trained as a military policeman. CD: Did you choose that or… RR: I was assigned there as I entered the service as unassigned regular Army. And it was chosen for me. CD: were you ever deployed in a combat situation? RR: Yes, technically, I first time was in Vietnam in December of 1969 until December of 1970. I was deployed to an area known as Quinhon, Q-U-I-N-H-O-N, in central Vietnam and served as a first sergeant of a security company in a depot in that area. 1 �CD: Okay. Tell me a little bit more about your experiences in the service. Some positive things you can think of, maybe a couple of negative things. Just your overall experience and how you saw it. RR: Primarily my entire career is of a positive nature. I completed basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. I was assigned to military police school in Augusta, Georgia. Upon completion of that, I was assigned to Sandia Base, New Mexico which, at that time was part of the Manhattan Project, and I served for five years. Prior to being reassigned to Korea, again a great experience. Upon returning to the United States, I was then reassigned to Sandia Base, New Mexico, primarily because of my experience in law enforcement and my security clearance would probably be the primary reason for my reassignment there. I stayed there until 1969 and I was reassigned to a security position in charge of a battalion security operation in the 562nd Artillery, that’s air defense artillery, in Fairbanks, Alaska for just under a year and at that time was reassigned to Vietnam. Again, to that point my experiences were all positive. What else could I add, Chelsea? CD: It’s pretty open. So, whatever you feel like sharing about any of your experiences, whether in the states or deployed. RR: Okay. To back up a little my experiences in New Mexico would have to be rated some of the best in the military services. It was known as the Shangri La of the military. The assignment was excellent; I served on town patrol and worked with the Albuquerque city police department for a number of years and after that point worked on the installation primarily in the operations of the provost marshal’s office. When I left there to go to Alaska, I arrived to take over security for an air defense artillery battalion, however, they found that my experience in personnel as a personnel sergeant was going give me priority or was going take priority and I was taken from there to run the personnel section of the battalion. I wasn’t that crazy about being in personnel, having been in military police for many years. So, I arranged my own reassignment through the Department of the Army to Vietnam. CD: So you chose to go to Vietnam? RR: Yes I did. I had previously volunteered for Vietnam while I was in New Mexico only because of the experience that I would gain to further my career. When I got to Vietnam, I was assigned to a unit that had military policemen that (needed or knew) supervisory positions. So, I formed a security company that, prior to that, had not existed to provide security for the Long Mai depot and shortly after that my initial assignment went from only myself being assigned to having three hundred enlisted men. And a portion of those rotated in and out every thirty days because in addition to being charged with security for the depot, my unit, which we assumed the requirement for gave in- country 2 �training for new arrivals for 30 days and after their training used them as security guards for approximately another thirty days. And it was a constant rotation in and rotation out of personnel. I maintained a roster of approximately three hundred. The detail or the requirement for the company included indigenous escort to and from the workplace and the large city of Quinhon which was approximately twenty miles away, and security for tank farms, that’s fuel tank farms, security for the depot which was several hundred acres, and security for the personnel assigned. We had some skirmishes here and there throughout the year. Luckily only a short number of personnel were involved and I believe during my tenure that I only lost three men. CD: And how long were you there? RR: One year. CD: One year? After volunteering and being there was it what you expected? RR: Almost exactly what I expected. It wasn’t initially a military police unit, but it turned into one with my arrival and once I took over the unit I insisted on the assignment as a military policeman which is what all of the initial personnel were. The general attitude of law enforcement had not been accepted by the personnel assigned to the depot so it was a new experience for the people that were assigned there. They didn’t care to be policed in the manner they should have been, however the support of the battalion commander changed all that and law enforcement began to take hold and everybody decided to go along with us. I don’t know any other way to really put that. CD: (chuckles) During this time did you keep in touch with family or friends or anything back in the states? RR: Yes. At that time, mail was free. All you had to do was put your assigned unit up in the left hand corner along with your name, rank, and so on. And in the right hand corner, where a stamp normally goes, all you had to do was put “free” and your mail was free. If you wanted to send an excess of five hundred dollars a month back to the United States, it had to be in the form of an allotment, which was done by the finance group that…A lot of people had excess cash and they were very limited in what they could return. Also, they were limited in what they could bring back to the United States, financially that is, upon their return. So, it was really a, I guess, a great way of stopping any kind of financial pride. Okay. CD: How long after your return did you remain in service? RR: I remained in service approximately another ten years after my return. I was assigned, after my tour in Vietnam, to the Presidio in San Francisco and remained there for approximately three and a half years. And then, and that was as the operations sergeant in the provost Marshall’s office. And part of that time was spent as the (some sort of interference) NCO of a 504th M.P. battalion. After leaving the Presidio I went to Heidelburg, Germany as the operations sergeant in the provost marshal general’s office and remained in that position until reassigned to the 15th 3 �Military Police Brigade in Mannheim, Germany where I was assigned as the sergeant major of the battalion. And I remained there for approximately another year and a half until reassigned to CONUS which is Continental United States. I was reassigned to Fort Huachuca, Arizona as the operations sergeant of the Provost Marshall’s office and remained there until my retirement in 1979. CD: Okay. Trying to get my, my stuff straightened up here. Trying to think of anything else in particular I could ask. RR: Yea, I don’t know how much detail you wanted me to go into anything so… CD: As much as you want to go in. RR: Well, I don’t know how deep you want to go. CD: Just what… it’s all whatever you’re wanting to share. As I’ve said, it’s a project for researchers as well trying to study different aspects of, I guess military life or I guess if somebody wanted to go back and see somebody else’s perspective on, I guess, you know, when you were in Vietnam, or something. It’s just anything you’re willing to share. Anything that you think relevant. RR: Oh, it really takes some in-depth thought and question and answers to come up with anything that I would think people would be interested in. It was very interesting to me at the time that… I don’t want to sound overly, I don’t know what the word- arrogant and I don’t want to sound exactly humble at the same time. So, it’s, it’s hard to say what kind of information that the researchers would want but I could answer either positive or negatively any question that would be asked of me. I go back a few years, back to Vietnam, which is apparently what the researchers are primarily interested in. I guess the overall problem, other than combat, of course, and having somebody shoot at you, was the attitude of the American public, which was, at that time, extremely bad. And the, I don’t know quite how to put this, but as a result of the attitude of the American public and, and the riots and so on that were taking place in the United States at that time. One of the biggest problems that I had as a first sergeant of the unit was maintaining control of the black soldiers: the African Americans. They tended to run in packs. They intimidated the whites. They had all kinds of slogans. The rank of those who were in charge made no difference to these packs that… When they were off duty or free to roam, as they often were, they intimidated those who were not, at that exact time then, in a combat situation. In other words, this is the times when they had free time to go to the post exchange or to take part in club activities that were in different locations throughout our area of operation. That was the biggest problem that I had and I dealt with it as best I could. Often without an officer available to render his opinion. I dealt with it and carried out my job the best I could. So, other than the combat and tactical part of it, that was the biggest problem that I faced. 4 �CD: Kind of meant to ask you something about this earlier, but I know during the time, like you said, people in the United States were going a little bit crazy with, you know, you had a lot of people who didn’t support the war at all, or didn’t understand it, I’m not really sure. But did you see an effect on soldiers’ morale or did a lot of people seem to agree with the people over in the United States at the time? Did they believe they were over there for no reason or did they seem to actually believe in a purpose, in your opinion? RR: You have to keep in mind that at that time the draft was still in effect and there was an awful lot of people drafted that had no desire to be in the military service and you’re only there because otherwise they would have risked going to jail, so yes there was a lot of people that were opposed to the war. Everybody seemed opposed to the war except those that were, I guess the best way to put it, except for those who were career military people. Everybody else was opposed. Even some of the career people were opposed to what we were actually doing. Not, not, not because they were getting shot at, for instance, it was that they were opposed to the particular actions that were being taken in Vietnam. But the big problem was the total lack, it seemed, of American support. There was no support. I’ve had people spit at me if I were wearing a uniform. I returned from Vietnam and landed at Seattle-Tacoma and had anti-war demonstrators at the airports. They attempted to spit on you, if you were in uniform. It was just, it wasn’t a very friendly atmosphere for somebody that had just risked their life to save theirs is the way I look at it. CD: Right. That must, you know, that must kind of be upsetting, you know. I can’t imagine. RR: It was upsetting for everybody but especially for those that had been injured. Especially those that give their life. The individual couldn’t be upset of course, he wasn’t there. There’s a lot of people that return with injuries that they gave, some gave freely, for what they were sent there for. But this never did make much sense to me but the public was so opposed to the member himself. He could have been, or they could have been opposed directly to the president and to what he was doing at the time. When I returned from Vietnam, and was assigned to the Presidio of San Francisco, the first year I was there, I spent most of my weekends in a riot control formation to stop rioters from coming on to the installation. That was a, a sort of operation, there was no choice but to stop any number (interference) of situations in downtown San Francisco, that we were to stop, was the best way to put it and we did stop it, on all cases. CD: Did that type of attitude from everybody, well not everybody, but a lot of the rioters and a lot of the negativity from the United States, did that seem to kind of put a damper or hinder, let me think of the word, what you all were trying to do? Did it hinder peoples’ performance, peoples’ work? That type of thing. RR: Well certainly it did and you had the feeling that if you accomplish whatever mission you may have been assigned to accomplish, it wouldn’t be appreciated. It wouldn’t even be desired, as a matter of fact, it was looked at as you were being a turncoat because you were following the commands of your superiors because anybody that had went along with the commands that they 5 �were given, were traitors to them that the rioters and the, those that marched and put the United States in an ugly situation. CD: considering all of everything you’ve done and your entire experience; if you could go back in time would, would you do anything different or do you think you would just do it all again the same way? RR: Well, hindsight is 20/20 so, I can’t say that I would do it all the same way. I can say that I enjoyed my experience in the military. There was some difficult times, not all of which were in Vietnam. Like I said, some of the situations, at the Persudio in San Francisco were very difficult because of the lack of U.S support. It was, it was a big strain on my, not only myself, but the men assigned to me and those that I were, I was leading, or attempting to lead. Fortunately, I had a good group of me and later women that accomplished a lot, regardless of what the general public thought about us. CD: That’s good. I can’t think of anything specific to ask but is there anything else you’d like to share or add or any closing thoughts. RR: No, again, I had an exceptional experience. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. There were moments of extreme difficulty, extreme fear, I guess as well, but it all worked out. I was very fortunate in my career and very fortunate and the officers and men supported me. CD: Well that’s good. RR: And I would do it again. CD: Well good. If, if that’s all you can think of, and I can’t think of anything else to ask then I would just like to thank you very much for your time and interviews been a pleasure. It’s been an eye opener and I thank you very much. RR: You’re certainly welcome. I’ll talk to you later. 6 � https://omeka-test.library.appstate.edu/files/original/ff89594049feecbe0e1cae409b7f8df4.mp3 55e7194696ecf34721807ee93a5994c8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Appalachian State University American Military History Course Veterans Oral History Project Description An account of the resource Each semester, the students of the American Military History Course at Appalachian State University conduct interviews with military veterans and record their military experiences in order to create an archive of oral history interviews that are publicly accessible to researchers. The oral histories are permanently available in the Appalachian State University Special Collections. The project is supervised by Dr. Judkin Browning, Associate Professor of History at Appalachian State University and all interviews are transcribed by the student interviewers. Copyright Notice: Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project’s audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, University Archives and Records, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview. Dix, Chelsea Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 0:29:30 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound. 6 pages Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Robert Randall, 16 October 2011 Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Randall, Robert Veterans Personal narratives, American United States Interviews Description An account of the resource Robert Randall, U.S. Army, born on December 15, 1939. In this interview, Robert Randall discusses how his inability to obtain an education led to his decision to join the military. He goes on to further discuss his overall experience in the military. He specifically mentions his involvement in Vietnam as well as his career with the military after Vietnam. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 10/16/11 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Copyright for the Veterans Oral History Project's audio and transcripts is held by Appalachian State University. These materials are available for free personal, non-commercial, and educational use, provided that proper citation is used (e.g. Veterans Oral History Project, Appalachian Collection, Special Collections, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC). Language A language of the resource English Boone Chelsea Dix North Carolina Robert Randall U.S. Army Vietnam