July 1966
When I got back to the house, I could see the evidence of our coupling still on the sheet, but it was only damp. I leaned down to smell it and the pheromones were still present. I thought, "what the hell." I climbed into bed and with this aroma still in my nostrils I fell asleep.
Friday was going to be a busy day, since it would be my last full day in Dayton before I had to report to my new unit at Ft. Meade in Maryland. I got up at 6:30 a.m. and put on my grey ARMY shorts for my usual early morning run, but, this morning, I took a key off my key ring and slipped it into the small pocket inside the waistband. I ran the same route as I had on Monday which included the U.D. campus.
As I approached the fieldhouse, I noticed two trucks parked outside which I assumed were there to set things up for the concert that was going to be held at 8 p.m. that evening. The structure held about 12,000 for basketball and perhaps a couple of thousand more for concerts.
There was a stage located at the opposite end from the fieldhouse entrance, but what a lot of people didn't know was that surrounding the stage on the back and sides were three floors of rooms that could be accessed from a loading dock and doorway out of sight from the fieldhouse proper. The first floor rooms were mostly dressing rooms of various kinds, but the second and third tier rooms were all for storage.
For most of the time I was a student at U.D., I worked part-time with the computer department. Initially I was just a keypunch operator, but soon they gave me some simple programming jobs and eventually I worked with the systems analysts. The computer department was located in Blythe Hall just behind the fieldhouse.
In the mid-1960's the computer business was just entering commercial use. There were three major competitors; IBM, Sperry UNIVAC, and NCR. Since NCR was located literally across the street, the University had gotten one of the very first NCR 304 computers which they had shoehorned into Blythe Hall, but it was going to move to the still under construction Stewart Hall when it was finished sometime the following year. Because space was so limited in Blythe, the computer department used three of the storage rooms in the fieldhouse. And I had a key.
When I had graduated seven months ago, I had completely forgotten about the key to the fieldhouse which was still on my key ring. I didn't think that the locks had been changed since I last used it, but I needed to make sure. I slipped the key into the slit and turned. Voila! It still worked. I went inside and up the stairs to the second tier. When I walked around to the south side, I could see between the rows of curtains and confirmed that from that vantage point we would have a clear view of the entire stage. I was assuming that no one would notice anybody up there during the concert, so that was my plan.
I finished my run in good spirits. I threw my running clothes into the washer along with my other laundry, including the sheets, took a quick shower and went downstairs to fix breakfast. John was rummaging around in the kitchen and I asked him if he wanted an egg sandwich because I was making one for me. He nodded, so a few minutes later the two of us were eating breakfast at the big round kitchen table. John noted that Maribeth and I were definitely an "item," and asked how things were going. I replied, "great, couldn't be better." John just smiled and nodded, "She's a nice girl, what's she going to do with you in the Army?" I said, "I think she wants to go to school and become a psychologist." John commented, "good, you need somebody to figure you out."
After breakfast, I put the laundry in the drier and called Norb, who was still at home. I confirmed that the concert was a "go," and suggested we all meet at Bob's Big Boy around 6:30 or so. It was only a short walk from there to the fieldhouse. He was leaving for work, but would pick up Kathy afterward and said they were looking forward to seeing us.
The heat wave had broken overnight as a cold front came through, so I dressed in jeans and black tee. I had told Maribeth that I'd pick her up around 10 a.m. since we agreed we wanted to spend as much time together as possible. I didn't have a firm plan for the day, but I figured that Maribeth and I would find some way to pass the time.
Unlike every other day, Maribeth wasn't on her porch, so I opened the car door to walk to the porch and ring the bell. I had only gone a few steps when she appeared from behind the garage. She waved and sort of skipped to the car. She had a big smile that struck me as perhaps just a bit forced. We were both aware that this would be our last day together for a while and I knew we were saddened by that reality, but it appeard that Maribeth was going to start out showing a brave front.
I told Maribeth that I was open to suggestions of how we might spend our day together, but I wasn't exactly prepared for her quick response, "please take me somewhere that I can fuck your brains out." This sent me into uncontrollable laughter and Maribeth started giggling at her suggestion too.
I tried to kiss her, but I couldn't stop laughing. Finally, regaining some measure of composureI told her that I was hoping that she would do just that, but perhaps we should consider pacing ourselves. She gave me one of her false pouts and asked, "don't you love me anymore?" I started laughing again, so I just put the car in gear and drove down the street.
As always, Maribeth looked great. She had on yellow Capri pants with a green flowered blouse, this time sporting sleeves. Her hair was back in the normal bun she usually wore and she had her white visor and yellow sunglasses I remembered from Tuesday. She also carried a black tie top bag and when I asked what was in it, she just replied, "stuff I might need."
Since I was declining to take Maribeth to "somewhere she could fuck my brains out" before lunch, I started driving north. I always had an interest in history in general and military history in particular, and as I drove away from her house, I had a wild idea.
Everyone knows that the Wright Brothers designed the first airplane in their bicycle shop in Dayton, but fewer know that they continued to design and build planes for another twenty years. They flew these planes at a private airfield that's now known as Wright-Patterson AFB. One of the things I always wanted to do, but never did, was visit the Air Force Museum. So, that's where I headed.
The museum was located in a hangar at the old Patterson Field that had now been incorporated into Wright-Patterson. It took me about a half hour to get there up state route 444. There was a gate at the designated entrance to the base where visitors were supposed to get a pass. I stopped and showed the guard my military ID. He looked at the picture on the card and then looked at me. He returned the card and took a step back while giving me a snappy salute, "have a nice day sir" he said as he waved us through. Maribeth turned to me, and in mock amazement she said, "Oh wow.... Sir!"
We pulled up and parked next to the hanger with a big "89" painted above the door. There were about thirty airplanes of various vintages parked outside and a few inside, including the one I really wanted to see. The inside was brightly lit and in surprisingly good condition for it's age.
Occupying almost to he entire interior was a massive B-29 bomber, its silver aluminum body glittering in the bright lights. On the side of the plane near the nose the words "Bock's Car" was painted in black block letters. This was the plane that dropped the atom bomb on Nagasaki to end World War II. I was amazed at what good condition it was in. The more famous "Ebola Gay" which dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima was in boxes somewhere in the Smithsonian and wasn't being exhibited.
We walked around the plane and mounted the external scaffold that allowed a view into the cockpit. There were quite a few displays that described the air war in the Pacific, B-29's in general and this particular one specifically. Several small fragile looking wood and canvas planes filled the rest of the hanger space including a replica of the original Wright Flyer. The contrast with the massive bomber was striking. It was amazing to consider that only about forty years separated the two planes.
Outside were more aircraft. I was particularly interested in a North American B-26. It was a twin engine medium bomber that came out near the end of World War II. I explained to Maribeth that my Dad was stationed in Japan during the Korean War and we lived in military housing right at the end of the base's main runway. I was only about seven years old at the time, but I could remember B-26's taking off and landing after bombing runs into Korea. Maribeth commented "for 22, you've seen a lot of history." When I considered that I had been close to the Korean War and close to the building of the Berlin Wall, I had to agree, although if I was headed to Vietnam as I suspected, I was likely going to see a lot more.