Never Just A Couple
Two unique individuals in temperament and personality becomes a couple and not just any couple but of all THE COUPLES on earth the only two who could produce you! Yes we have never been just a couple.
You could say we grew up together as a couple!
I’ve known the following most of my adult life but didn’t benefit from that knowledge until I applied it later in life: If love and respect doesn’t follow infatuation, relationships struggle! Selfishness enhances infatuation yet hinders love & respect. Selflessness & unselfishness allows love & respect to flourish
The chapters on ‘Killing’ and ‘Okmulgee’ are life stories mostly absent of me applying what I knew to be true to those I loved! What a shame! One difficult chapter that could prove a real challenge to write after this one will be chapters about ‘Vietnam’ ‘Iran’ and ‘Korea’ but looking forward to writing them anyway!
Looking back, I can see that many of my selfish and selflessness tendencies that I still display at times were formed early on in life.
I feel from early on I quickly developed certain personality traits (good & not so good) but was very slow in building a desire to crawl out of those tendencies and traits that were unsettling to and hurt those I love… most of the time I selfishly enjoyed becoming who I was becoming and most likely for the rest of my life in this old world will suffer both the joys and the consequences! Excuse me for not making any excuses. Hey, I enjoyed life (& was often resented and at times even disliked by others for doing so) which meant I was pretty well happy with my life at any given time in life!
Keep that observation in mind as we (yes, WE – you’ll enjoy Camilla contribution in this chapter) do back, just prior, to events in my life that gave fuel to both wonderful and sad memories I’m now privileged to write about!
The period just before some intense and not so pleasant personality traits set in was one filled with sweet memories & at times sadness for the way it could have been had I exercised (for any reason, even a selfish one) more self-control and held back from giving into so many so-called pleasures in life.
Never really had a girl that was a friend until mid-life, but I did have a few so-called girl friends in high school and college
The so-called girlfriends were fun to get to know, they were Interesting plus I enjoyed smooching on them!
I used to imagine what my life (with a wife) would look like and what my wife would look like. I never even dreamed sho would be this beautiful.
I didn’t have a desire to get married but I wanted a woman in my life! Just being around a few of my school days girlfriends I came to that realization fairly easily! Life is quite different with a girlfriend than without one just as I imagined life would be quite different with a wife then without one! I was right!
I met you mother in a NM State University night class! Night classes were held in the old high school which later became North grade school and junior high school!
From the beginning I was infatuated and intrigued by her! She was quiet, shy, sexy and beautiful! Insun I realize she was a lot book smarter than I was.
I only took two night classes and she was in both of them English and psychology!
In both classes we sit fairly close to each other. At first, we really didn’t give each other any attention! I knew I would enjoy her attention but seeking it never really entered my mind.
I had never even spoke to her in class or in the hallways until I miraculously ran into her at her day job on Holloman AFB!
She worked at what was called the film lab and this particular afternoon I was delivering some film for a friend of mine who usually made the deliveries and lo and behold as I walked by this one office and out of the corner of my eye I caught site of her.
As I took the film to the film lab, I was thinking what a fool I would be if I pass up this opportunity to get to know this beautiful mysterious sexy woman. My heart was throbbing. No one likes to be rejected but I was prepared for rejection while hoping for a better outcome!
As I walked by her door I acted as if I had just saw her so I stopped in my tracks waved at her and said ‘hey I’m glad I caught you at work (and the following words just came out of my mouth out of nowhere), so what time did you say I should pick you up tonight!’
She looked at me like a little deer caught in headlights! I can’t remember what her reply was because I was already thinking of what I was going to say next!
After she said whatever she said, I said and what’s your address?
Again, I have no idea what she said because I was going to play the clown and laugh it all off. Which I did as soon as she gave me her address.
Hoping for the best I said ‘seriously though I’ll see you tomorrow night in class and maybe we can talk more’… again I have no idea what she said next but it didn’t matter I was already planning what I was going to say when I saw her in class
I made sure she was in the class before I walked in and as I walked by her desk I said ‘good to see you again. This class is so hard for me! How about you!’ I think she said English is not as hard for me a psychology and the rest is history….
We talked together before and after classes. I tended to cheat off of her in English and she tended to cheat off of me in psychology!
I finally worked up the nerve to ask her for a date and she accepted
I can’t remember anything about that date like where we went or what we did or what we even said to each other, but I’ll never forget walking through the front door 1707 Alaska dining room and meeting the Brunson clan.
I was infatuated with Camilla (especially when she wore her sexy mini dresses) the oldest daughter of the family but from that night forward I loved the entire family!
We spent hours together talking! when we weren’t talkin’ we was kissing. The other airmen in the Barracks gave me hell for hogging the phone almost every evening and I used that as an excuse to tell her well I got to hang up now so can I come by and we can talk more….
Just a few months after getting to know her I perform the same song and dance I performed when I first met her at the film lab on base, only this time instead of acting as if we had already made a date I acted as if we had already decided to get married and I remember saying ‘so
being as how we’re going to get married in a few months shouldn’t we start making wedding plans & looking for a place to live’.
She looked at me like a little deer caught in headlights! I can’t remember what her reply was because I was already thinking of what I was going to say next!
What I said next was in a poem to her asking her to marry me!
Can’t remember if I already volunteered for Vietnam but I think so. I volunteered for Vietnam so I could get a one year early out which I did! Which I’m so glad I did. I literally had a love-hate relationship with military life!
My volunteering for Vietnam was selfish so was my joining the Air Force! From going to Vietnam, I got a one year early out of the Air Force and for joining the military I got college credit hours paid for by the government.
A few months after first meeting we got married and then a few months after that I went to Vietnam and then eight months after that we had our honeymoon in Hawaii and then about one year after that we had our first of three daughters…
Before I went to Vietnam and while still serving at HAFB and right after marriage we lived in a old barracks apartment near the corner of 26th & Iowa
My two best friends at the time, Jim Wilson and Mike Boyles were really jealous of me and Camilla! They were infatuated with Camilla! They had decided that such a beautiful sexy shy girl would eventually dump me for some well to do local dude! There was somewhat of a stigma about local girls dating GI’s.
Mike eventually put the moves on my sister Sherrie both in Alamogordo when she visited me and when he and Jim visited Okemah with me)
Camilla’s girlfriends treated me decently but never warmly! They to thought she could do and should do better but like most people have done all my life they (Camilla’s friends and mine) underestimated me and my ability to get my way!
Both Jim and Mike flirted with Camilla but soon gave up. However, neither of them attended our weddings – they conveniently had other commitments the day we were to be married!
Obviously, your very existence is proof positive we not only became THE COUPLE and got married but we stayed A COUPLE by staying married.
Camilla and I from day one have paved our own path and almost always to the surprise of everyone around us….
Two things I remember about our first apartment in the military style barracks was Camilla‘s first attempt at a romantic dinner and my introduction to and love of music!
I don’t know where she got it but Camilla decided to cook a duck. A roasted duck! It was the cutest thing ever! Also, her first and biggest failure at a romantic dinner! The dark was like rubber! I ate what I could of it and we both made the best of a romantic evening, duck or no duck!!!
Later the next morning I snuck into the refrigerator and took the duck outside to the garbage, but the garbage bin was locked so I threw it beside the garbage bin & it laid there for days and days, not even the alley dogs and cats would eat it… Camilla denies this is the way the so-called romantic evening went but that’s exactly how I remember it and I thought it was a wonderful evening!
Our first few weeks together married made it very difficult for me to leave for Vietnam, but I had signed up and I had to go…
A wonderful byproduct of Vietnam was a honeymoon in Hawaii complements of the US Government.
Day on in Vietnam was a real eye opener for me. Over twenty of us were processed together. They lined us up and they down the line handing everyone their weapon (M16) except me. When the Captain got to me, he simply said Airman 2nd class you can pick up your 4×5 Graflex camera, your weapon tomorrow. which i did and which I lived with almost every day for a year. I now view that first day at Tan Son Nhut Air Base as a blessing. (more on that in my story about my time in Vietnam)
A few weeks after arriving in Vietnam the worst skirmishes in the history of the conflict (The US never declared a a war) with the Vietcong in the history of Vietnam. It was called Tet Offensive! More about all that later in another chapter.
We had a blast in Hawaii! We were both in awe of the culture and the beauty of the Oahu Hawaii island. Known to Hawaiians as Lēʻahi. It was very commercialized but not near to the degree it would eventually become. Camilla and I visited Oahu again in 2009 when an estimated 26,000 delegates attended the Jehovah’s Witnesses international convention there. Go Global Travel was the travel agent for all the 700 or so delegates from Mexico. More on that later.
After you’ve been in Vietnam for six months all Airmen, maybe all GI’s got a paid vacation. The military called it R&R (rest and recuperation)
A lot of GIs took their R&R in Hawaii as the number one choice, the second choice was Singapore, third choice was Thailand, the fourth choice was Australia.
It was a mind-blowing honeymoon. Remember Camilla and I only know each other for a few months before I went to Vietnam so had never really been alone together, away from family and friends and the Air Force life, until our two weeks in Hawaii.
Before i went to Vietnam i had never even seen a joint (not beer joint: much less smoked one but by the time of the honeymoon i was smoking (we called it MaryJane) almost daily. I bought some weed in Hawaii, rolled a joint, smoked it in secret but it horrible smelly stuff compared to what I smoked in Nam.
Speaking of rolling a joint. My Dad was a heavy Price Albert smoker. About a can a day. Yep his tobacco can in a can and he took great pride in how he rolled his smoke. He was really good at it and could actually roll a smoke with one hand while driving a tractor or truck.
When i turned 13 and he found out i was sneaking around smoking he decided to teach me how to roll my own smoke. I wasn’t as good at it as he was but i caught on pretty good and showed off those skills in Vietnam by rolling joints. My smoking buddies thought my skills amazing and loved smoking the joints a rolled and rolled and rolled…
I never talked much about Vietnam while i was honeymooning with Camilla in Hawaii. Actually, I seldom ever talked about Vietnam then or even for year afterwards. When i did talk about Vietnam I almost always mentioned how my going there allowed Camilla and I to have what many considered (& rightly so) a dream honeymoon.
Somehow Camilla found out Rowan and Martin we’re having a concert at a concert hall in Hawaii! They were the new big hit in the USA and I haven’t heard of them yet but Camilla had so she talked me into going! It was a blast. They (Dan Rowan and Dick Martin) as comedians had become famous hosting a show on television called ‘Laugh In’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rowan_%26_Martin%27s_Laugh-In#Regular_guest_performers
We stayed within easy walking distance of the beach and will never forget our time together there.
Like I said I had never even seen pot till I went to Vietnam much less smoked it but by the time I came back from Vietnam i was on my way to being a weird Okie, heavy drinking redneck, hippie, closet Nam Veteran, Pothead….
When I got back to Alamogordo from Vietnam i was a civilian. I had processed out of the air Farce in Oakland even before i got back to Alamogordo.
Odd turn of events in just one year (sept 67 to Sept 68) I had never smoked pot before I went to Vietnam but by time, I come back Me, and all my old buds had all become potheads! A few months later January 69 Woodstock happened!
Vietnam vets were scorned and frowned upon, so I just never talked about Vietnam much after that!
All my friends put moves on my wife
Camilla’s contribution to this chapter
We first met or should I say I first saw Rocky when we were in college classes at the community college in Alamogordo a branch of New Mexico State University at Las Cruces
OK so I saw some guys in my class who I assumed were Gi’s because I’ve never seen them before, and I thought both of them were attractive. I can’t remember if they were both in both of my classes, but I do remember Rocky was in an English class and a psychology class.
That’s all I remember but in retrospect I later took a history class but that was when he was in Vietnam so no, he wouldn’t have been in that class.
Being who I am, not extremely outgoing and somewhat self-conscious, I wasn’t the type that was going to just be out there flirting. I was more reserved. I don’t think that’s the way Rocky saw it. In fact, he viewed it as snobbish.
My first impression of Rocky was an attractive guy in a weird sorta way, his looks and aura was a little scary to me. But as it turns out once I got to know him, he was unique alright, yes he could be scary, but I never exercised any respect for that, even though I should have, but he could be a very fair, non-prejudice and compassionate person.
During this time, I was working at Holloman Air Force Base and I was a secretary at what was called ABRES lab. It was a photo lab where they developed pictures taken from missions that were carried out on the range, I’m not sure what those missions were, reconnaissance or middle tests of some sort, probably. Also, not sure what kind of developing we did at ABRES, possibly both moving pictures as well as still pictures.
The missions were scheduled maybe once a week maybe more at times. So it was one of those pork belly government jobs where all the guys in the lab maybe worked 8 hours a week but got paid for 40, government waste and corporate contractor windfall.
I was the only girl. I was the secretary, and they all gave me a hard time. But otherwise, a fairly decent crew considering. I wasn’t very busy either so when my bosses’ boss was very busy, and his secretary was out for a period of time he requested that I come over to his office and sort of catch up on different things. No doubt she was a real secretary, and she had a lot to do, but when I came in, I had to catch up on some menial things like filing and other stuff like that, that either she didn’t have time for or just didn’t want to do. I really can’t remember if I was there one day or more than one day but maybe a week or more.
But during time, Rocky came into the photo lab because he had to use some of the equipment that was in possession of Dynalectron. When he came in, I think that he knew where he was going but when he saw me sitting there in the office, he just stopped to ask me where he should go. Really, I don’t remember if I knew the answer. But at lunchtime he came by and ask if I would like to go to chow, so we went to lunch together, and he came back and completed his work there at the lab. When he got ready to leave, he stopped by and he said OK so what time do I pick you up on Friday night.
And that was how it started; he came by Friday night he walked in the dining room at 1707 Alaska right at the time our family was having supper and he was then introduced to the whole clan.
After about two weeks of dating and phone calls he wrote me a poem and asked me to marry him. Also, I might mention at that time he was scheduled to go to Vietnam. I think either that or shortly thereafter he was scheduled. He actually volunteered to go; he was not put there unwillingly from the government. (That speaks to his adventurer spirit) So this was probably in late January maybe February 1967.
We made plans to be married in July I believe it was the 21st which was like a week after I turned 19. Then it was three months later in October that he went to Vietnam.
He wanted to try something different and new, so he opted to take a train from Alamogordo to I guess it was San Francisco*. I’m not sure how he got to Vietnam from SF, it was most likely on a military plane possibly a cargo plane and I’m not sure what route or what his stops were.
So, we begin writing letters immediately. Every day I would receive a letter and I would send a letter and on rare occasions he would find some way, I’m not sure how, to make phone calls to me. There was a big time difference. The call was a little strange, lots of background noise, nothing like what we have today. But somewhere around 3 to five months into his assignment I didn’t get a letter for about 2 weeks, TET offensive on Saigon.
Then about eight months into his time in Vietnam, we met in Hawaii on his (what the military called R (rest) and R (recreation).) if you want to call it a perk for being assigned to a war zone, the government paid for his way to Hawaii. The perk for me was getting to go to Hawaii like a dream come true.
On the plane over there it was kind of spooky because from El Paso to Los Angeles there was this really good-looking man older man (40-50’s) that I sat next to on the plane he wanted to tell me all about his life and then he asks me if I would like to just stay the night in Los Angeles. He looked like a fancy businessman (in those days everyone dressed up if they were traveling by air) and he was from South America. He told me that he liked to party all night and how he could just dance all night long: Well sadly I was flattered. But gladly there was a red flag that went up that said no don’t do that. He did help me when I got off the plane though because Los Angeles was a huge airport with buses going to this terminal and that terminal and I had never ever been in such a place before, so he kind of pointed me in the right direction and it helped a little.
I got on a bus, after completing his rounds the driver noticed I was still there. He was the one who really helped me. He asked what flight I was taking and knew exactly what terminal I needed to be at and what time I needed to be there. He said we have to hurry, and he got me there just in time. He was the one that really helped me. I arrived in Hawaii like at least a few hours before if not a day before Rocky.
So that first day I decided I wasn’t going to sit in the hotel and waste time I could be checking out this awesome Island. I finagled my way into renting a car, which being that I was 19 and they really didn’t want to do that.
Being a very cautious adventurer and also being solo, I took the safest route I could take, and that route took me up to Diamond Head, which I had no idea I was going to Diamond Head, but it was a beautiful view so I couldn’t wait to show it to Rocky.
So that week we had a wonderful time in Hawaii it was warm and breezy you could smell the flowers in fact when I got off the plane, they greeted me with a beautiful fresh lei ‘s of plumerias on my neck and of course an Aloha. The whole island smelled like plumerias. Paradise! When I took Rocky up to my great discovery, he just said oh this is Diamond-head. I thought I did my research before I came, I read the book Hawaii but duh I was uninformed.
There was a lot of great times that week. The morning we left, he left early, and I was scheduled to leave later. So, he said I could sleep in, but I was awake and couldn’t sleep so I got ready and hurried down to the airport to say the last goodbye. I have no idea how I found his gate and remember this was way pre 9/11 so we could just walk right up to the departing gate, but I did. So right before he got on his plane, we said goodbye one more time.
In just a few short months he would return to El Paso Texas. I picked him up there on an otherwise hot day in late summer. It was probably September. I remember when we went into an air-conditioned hotel and he took a shower. He was freezing inside that air-conditioned room; he’d been in hot humid Vietnam and has acclimated to the heat.
* I on the other hand had taken several train rides in my preschool year. Not only did dad work for the railroad, (maybe Southern Pacific) but so did my grandpa Offolter. Being he was from Switzerland. So as family members we got free train rides.
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