Don't get excited -- these weren't Mama-san's PJ's although a couple of the younger ones had given pidgin-English hints to get into my bed when I was still in it! That was when they thought I was still single since I had kept my marriage secret. The Red Cross had let the cat out of the bag while I was on that secret flight over the Ho Chi Minh Trail -- no more horny mama-sans would be making sexy hints to me. Well, probably not. Who knows if they weren't just looking for a better deal than they had in Vietnam, anyway? Washing clothes and cleaning the hootch are not the most lucrative jobs in the world although I had heard a couple of the 20-somethings had found ways to supplement their regular mama-san incomes. Now, after learning about divorce first-hand, I'm not so sure it's any different back here "in the World!"
But the PJ's were VERY nice embroidered silk PJ's purchased from the on-base Vietnamese concessionaire, and left on my bunk in my locked-door Pleiku AB room as a surprise gift to be mailed to my new son from I-still-don't-know-who. I guess the on-base American Red Cross (ARC) worker must have notified the Squadron to find out how to locate me. He left the announcement to go by his office next day off for the official ARC certificate announcing Rik's birth. My buddies must have been shocked to find out I was married and, more shocking for any who previously thought I was a religious zealot because I wouldn't join them looking for "stray stuff" (for sex). Ironically, that's kind of how Ivan got started in the first place.
I recently ran across the photo I took of my son in those PJ's when he was finally big enough for them a year later and walking. That pic is of him opening the refrigerator door in our post-Vietnam quarters at Mather AFB in Sacramento, CA -- He has the cutest smile on his face as he turned his head around to look at me calling his name. I can picture it in my mind's eye anytime I want. Life was sure to turn out differently in the long run for us, but he and I have always remained close. Should be -- my love for him is really why I married his mother. NO child should be cheated out of knowing his/her Dad!
It was after the Red Cross announcement that I bought my own wedding band from the little BX on Pleiku AB. I had already given Raquel her diamond and wedding bands before I left the States. Isn't it interesting that my wife NEVER gave me another one, herself, over the next 20 years we were married? (Food for thought!)
posted by Richard A @ 10:44 AM
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