Alternate Memories - Ft. Meade

My internal alarm clock went off a little before 6 a.m. I was snuggled against Maribeth's back and I immediately sensed that I was already erect. Men call this "morning wood," and it happens a lot, especially if you sleep on your stomach, which I do, or snuggle up to something warm. Usually it just goes away after you get up and doesn't really require any "attending to." I've heard that some women like it that their man are "ready" when they first wake up, but I had no idea of Maribeth's opinion on the subject. In any event, I had no intention of awakening her to ask the question.

I had to get up to take care of "business," but then I was faced with a choice. Out of habit I normally ran five miles every morning about this time, but Sunday's we're typically my rest day. I chose not to run on Saturday for obvious reasons and my native discipline was screaming at me not to get lazy. Countering this, my emotional self was looking at the bed with a beautiful sleeping woman and whispering "are you crazy?"

Five miles usually took me about 38 minutes at a nice easy pace, so in the moment I rationalized that I would probably be done and back before Maribeth even awoke. Most mornings for PT, I would be dressed in fatigues and boots with a woolen pullover and field cap.

When I ran on my own I usually skipped the boots for sneakers and the fatigues for black fleece pants, otherwise it was pretty much the same. I scratched out a short note telling Maribeth where I'd gone and when I'd be back and snuck out the door, closing it softly.

The base had a golf course about a mile from the BOQ and I'd discovered that traversing the 18 hole cart path was almost exactly three miles, so that plus the mile to get there and the mile back was my normal 'private' route. The day was cloudy but looked as if there would be sunshine later. The 40 something temperature only felt cold for a couple of minutes, but once I got going was actually quite pleasant.

I encountered a few 'regulars' along the way and we waved as we passed. There were some small hills but nothing like the PT route which had a bunch, so the running was easy and soon I slipped into that never-neverland called the 'runner's high,' where it just seemed effortless. 36 minutes later I was back at the BOQ and was surprised at the time. It was perhaps the fastest circuit that I'd made and it seemed so easy. As I mounted the stairs to the second floor, I idly thought that perhaps the prospect of a naked woman awaiting my return was a subconscious motivator.

If indeed that was the case, I was in for a disappointment. The lady was neither naked nor in bed. As I opened the door, I could smell the coffee right away. Maribeth was not only up, but she had fixed her hair, the coffee and was in the middle of buttering toast. She looked up, smiled, and said, "you're 30 seconds early. I haven't poured your coffee yet.

I grabbed her, being careful to avoid the loaded butter knife and gave her what I hoped was a welcome 'good morning kiss.'

She returned the kiss with fervor and said, "you smell wonderful." I thought she was being sarcastic since I had gotten a good sweat from the run. I stepped back and said, "OK, I'll hit the shower." Maribeth grabbed me and clarified, "no, I mean it you really DO smell good." As if to emphasize her words, she buried her nose into the crook of my neck and inhaled deeply. Then she looked up and said, "I'm becoming aroused just from your smell."

I laughed, and thinking of a bad pun, I asked, "bed...or.... breakfast?" Maribeth groaned as was required when puns are in play and replied while pulling out one of the table chairs, "breakfast now, and if you're good, maybe bed later."

The lady knew how to brew coffee! This is no small thing. I am amazed how many people are seemingly incapable of doing this simple job, since it's only a matter of the right ratio of coffee to water. I had no idea whether Maribeth's result came from experience or luck, but it was perfect. As we ate, I suggested that I'd like to go to the ten o'clock service at the base chapel. As with all military bases I was familiar with there were always three services. Jewish synagogue was held on Saturday and two Christian services on Sunday. Catholic mass at 8:30 and a Protestant service at 10. I had no idea what Maribeth's religious affiliation was since we'd never discussed it, but if we were going it would be at 10.

Maribeth nodded her agreement. When I finished eating I got up intending to shower when Maribeth grabbed my hand and pulled me to where she was still sitting. She wrapped her arms around my waist and pulled me close enough that she buried her face into my stomach. I knew she was inhaling my aroma which I now knew was a turn on for her and I made a mental note of this interesting discovery for future use. I bent down and kissed her forehead and disengaged from her arms. "Later, little girl," I said as I pulled off the sweaty shirt and tossed it in her direction before heading to the shower.

As the hot water beat down on me, I wondered about some of the things I was learning about the woman who had become such an important part of my life recently. Outwardly, and in public, she was still basically the same person that I had first asked for a date over a year ago; friendly but somewhat reserved and perhaps shy in new situations or around strangers and some may have even said a little on the prim side. But as I had come to know her, there was definitely more to Maribeth than those first outward impressions.

She hadn't had a lot of family support growing up and I really hadn't been apprised of all the details, but I sensed there was a lot of water under the bridge on that score. I found that her mind was like a sponge, she seemed to absorb and immediately grasp everything she encountered. I was constantly amazed at her ability to retain and recall even small details of past experiences and she was definitely ambitious with high expectations about what she could accomplish in life.

Of course the most fascinating discovery was the beautiful sensuous woman that lay just under the surface. In this respect Maribeth had far exceeded my wildest expectations. She was a wonderful lover who had, from my point of view, blossomed into the most compatible sexual partner I could imagine. Most of the time she was soft and yielding, the very incarnation of the feminine ideal. A woman that reveled in the phrase "viva la differance." But sometimes, there was a more assertive and demanding Maribeth. A woman that knew herself as an equal partner in the acts of love, who could set the tone and pace for herself. While I had little to compare her to, I had a sense that these were extremely rare qualities.

Maribeth was just finishing dressing when I emerged from the bathroom. She had on the beige tweed skirt that she'd worn to the officer's club on Friday night, but this time she had a pretty blue blouse that I had never seen before and she had set out the pearl colored high heels which I guessed were the only other pair of shoes she had brought.

My own choices were similarly limited, so I again put on the light khaki trousers and a blue and white shirt. The shirt happened to be short sleeved, not the kind you would normally wear in December, but I pulled a red sweater over it, so it didn't make a difference.

The base chapel looked like church with a steeple and Greek columns at the entrance. The organ was already playing as we entered and the choir was just settling into their seats in the side of the altar. There were perhaps a hundred or so people seated in the twelve rows of pews. Most were dressed in civilian attire like us, but there were a number also in Army dress greens, both officers and enlisted.

Since there are so many Protestant denominations there is no practical ability to have a service for each of them so, out of necessity, the service is always non-denominational. This means it's mostly hymns and a sermon with communion offered once a month, but that wouldn't be today.

I have always enjoyed hymns and gospel music and it turned out that almost all of the selections were familiar. The sermon was interesting and given that I was heading for Vietnam, appropriate. The subject was "Why God allows tragedies to happen," At one point I looked at Maribeth as the pastor was saying that sometimes you have to look beyond the victims of tragedy and see how others rise in response to it. A tear was forming in Maribeth's eye and I made a note to ask her later what she was feeling at that point.

When the service was over I made it a point to express my gratitude for excellent sermon to the pastor, and Maribeth echoed my sentiments. I was feeling spiritually refreshed, and as we walked arm in arm down the steps, Maribeth whispered in my ear, "that was beautiful, I haven't been to church in ages, thanks for bringing me." I turned and whispered back, "If you thought that was good, wait 'til you see where I'm taking you to breakfast."

Annibelle's was a small restaurant in Odenton, not far from Sledgehammers. It was famous for it's breakfasts and I had decided to introduce Maribeth to this little gem. I anticipated that it would be busy, particularly on a Sunday, and unfortunately I was correct, but we only had to wait for about twenty minutes. As we stood against a wall, I surveyed the customers. They ran the gamut of American society; mostly families, but a lot of couples like us. Some were well dressed, others in dirty jeans. Blacks, Whites and even an Asian couple. The air was filled with the smell of frying bacon.

We were finally seated at a table near the front window and I could see a steady stream of people both leaving and coming. The parking lot looked like a permanent traffic jam as cars jockeyed to get in or get out. When unordered coffee magically appeared, Maribeth raised her eyebrows in surprise. I chuckled and told her that Annibelle's had some interesting policies; one of which was if you were over the age of concent you needed coffee, so they dispensed with the unneeded step of actually ordering it. Maribeth nodded at the apparent logic of this and looked around at what the nearby diners were eating.

The one thing that was readily apparent was that the portions were huge. Annibelle's served dishes on platters piled with bacon, eggs and mountains of potatoes. Maribeth looked at the menu and seemed to quickly identify what she wanted. We both opted for my regular; three fried eggs cooked medium, crispy bacon and hash browns with a small glass of orange juice.

As we started digging in to the food in front of us, Maribeth commented that she hadn't known that I was religious. I thought about this for a second before I replied, "I don't think of myself so much as religious as spiritual." She asked, "what's the difference?" I suggested that answering that question would probably be a long conversation, but I'd try to make it as short as possible.

By way of background, I reminded Maribeth that for a 22 year old, I had a unique set of experiences that shaped my opinions. Even though I was only five years old, I lived in Japan in 1949 which was only four years after we had dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the ravages of war were still visible. The next year the Korean War started and B-26's flying combat missions took off and flew only a hundred feet over our house located at the end of the runway. Twelve years later I was boarding at a high school on an air base in France when the Berlin Wall went up and we were bracing for a possible nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. These events, combined with an exposure to people from all cultures and beliefs had a profound influence on how I viewed the world.

When I got to Dayton, which was a Catholic college run by the Marianist Order, I got another boost of consciousness. Catholic students were required to take a series of religious courses, but if you weren't Catholic, you could opt to substitute Philosophy instead. As a result, I had been exposed to the entire history of philosophical thought and the greatest questions of what constitutes "right" and "wrong," morals, ethics and a bunch of others including comparative religions where I learned about the history and beliefs of Judaism, Islam, Buddaism, Shinto, Confusism and others including native American's.

During my sophomore year, I had applied for a job as a resident advisor and was assigned to Stewart Hall, one of the male dorms. The RA had a small suite behind the front desk with two bedrooms, but I was there by myself. A few weeks later I was asked if they could move a Jesuit priest from Mawlai into the second bedroom. Father "Joe" was short, thin, bald and as black a person as I'd ever met. He spoke with a decided English accent and was very friendly. I liked him immediately.

It was never clear to me why the administration didn't want to house "Joe" with the other religious in Sterm Hall, but here he was. He was quite a bit older than me, perhaps 35, and he was in a Master's program. When he found that I was non-Catholic he set a personal goal to convert me to the faith. For the next seven months I was immersed in philosophical/religious discussions, both in classes and every evening with "Joe." These had the effect of crystallizing some things in my mind.

While I explained all of this background, Maribeth listened attentively and never interrupted. It was a little bit of a challenge to both talk and eat fast enough that breakfast didn't get cold. The waitress appeared several times and refilled the coffee, but Maribeth turned her cup over after the second one. I didn't, the caffeine was helping me think.

Without explaining how I finally reached it, I outlined for Maribeth my thoughts about reality and the "why we are here" question.

I definitely believed there was a conscious intelligence behind all of creation, but I didn't think it was the "humanized" God of any of the religions I studied, except maybe Shinto or the Druids, who had a concept that Nature itself was primary. I thought that "souls" did exist as individualized elements of a reality that itself was an indistinguishable whole. I admitted that these two ideas seemed to contradict each other, but while I couldn't rationalize this, I believed it to be true nevertheless.

I believed that what we experience as "physical reality" is just a subset of the larger "spiritual reality." I even thought that other kinds of physical realities might possibly exist, since it was my belief that these were the stages that souls used to create and manifest their individualism since it would be impossible to do so in the all encompassing wholeness of the spirit world.

At this point Maribeth asked if I thought individual people had souls that needed to be saved? I opined that I thought it was the other way around. I didn't think people had souls, I thought souls manifested their individuality as people, so it would be impossible to either save or lose your soul. I used a rather crass analogy that we were like clothes; souls need us to experience physical reality for the same reason we wear coats in the winter. When we come inside we hang up the cost. When the soul returns to its spiritual reality it dispenses its physical body. We call this dying. From the souls point of view it's just hanging us up.

I was aware that in attempting to answer Maribeth's original question that I was giving her a drink from the fire hose, so I jokingly said that I was sure she was now aware that I was as crazy as a loon and had splinters in the windmills of my mind. In truth, I was becoming a little embarrassed by stating these thoughts so emphatically since I was acutely aware that I had no more grasp on "truth" than anyone else. So I was surprised when Maribeth admitted that she had some thoughts along these lines as well, but could never have articulated them in the way I just did.

I was just finishing the last of my coffee and looking at the bill the waitress had just placed on the table when Maribeth asked me if I thought "Hell" existed? This was a subject that I had wrestled with for some time, and it was central to some of my discussions with "Joe." I looked up and answered honestly, "yes for us, but no for our souls." I explained that there was no place for a "Hell" in spiritual reality, it could only exist here and be experienced by physical human beings, so I thought "Hell" was actually a state of mind, a feeling of hopelessness and separation probably like what people experiencing depression feel

Maribeth thought for a moment and her eyes looked down at the table. "I think you may be right. I may have visited it a couple of times." I started to ask her what she meant, but she started to get up and said she needed to visit the ladies room. Since you only "rent" coffee, I was feeling a similar urge. We meet a couple of minutes later as I was paying the $5 check and adding a $1 tip. The cashier asked if the meal was ok, and we answered in unison that it had been excellent.

It was now well after noon and most things were closed since it was a Sunday. There really wasn't anywhere to take Maribeth on a cold December day, so we headed back to the BOQ. Maribeth is often quiet, but I was sensing that this was now because she was deep in thought rather than just not having anything to say. I suspected that there remained a lot about Maribeth that I still did not know. Whether this assessment was correct it not, by the time I pulled up in front of the BOQ, Maribeth was back to her cheerful self and was all smiles as we walked to the entrance.

As we opened the door I heard shouts from the "Ready Room," and I suspected that the Redskins had done something positive since the game was probably on. We headed in that direction just as Don Baker was kicking the extra point. The Redskins had taken a 7-0 lead over the Cleveland Browns. This was interesting, since I knew Maribeth followed the Browns, at least casually, since Dayton always carried their games. I was probably a bit more rabid, but my loyalties we're split between them and the 49'ers.

I sat Maribeth in the only unoccupied chair and went to a closet and got a folding chair that I knew they kept there. I introduced Maribeth to the group as a whole and they mostly waved a welcome. I got two beers and sat down next to her to watch the game. In 1965, Jim Brown was in the prime of his Hall of Fame career, and we watched him shred the Redskin defense all the way down the field during the next series. His 10 yard touchdown run made it 7-7. By halftime it was apparent that both teams hadn't brought their defenses with them and it was looking like a shootout. At halftime the Browns were winning 28-24.

Joe Grim and Diane came in a few minutes later, but since there was nowhere for them to sit we all just stood around drinking beer and talking. They had just come from another restaurant that I planned to take Maribeth to sometime during the week, so we spent a few minutes comparing dining experiences. I was surprised to learn that Diane had also grown up as an Air Force brat, but her dad had never been stationed anywhere where our paths would have crossed. She had met Joe while they were both students at Oklahoma State. Joe himself was a troop leader in one of the 11th Armored Cavalry squadrons. I explained to Maribeth that the Calvary had their own set of nomenclature. A Cavalry squadron was similar to my Company. I commanded a platoon, Joe commanded a similar sized group called a troop. Maribeth and Diane just shook their heads.

We watched the rest of the game standing. Jim Brown gained over 200 yards and the Browns pulled away in the second half, winning 44-27. As most people scattered after the game ended we hung around and played pool. Neither of the girls had ever played, so some time was spent leaning over their nubile bodies teaching them how to hold and align the cue stick. This involved a lot of contact and it was interesting how long the instructions took. Maribeth turned out to have a lot more native talent than Diane, and whipped her butt in all three games they played. Joe and I were about equal and he squeeked out a 2-1 win. We decided to meet for dinner and he headed back to our respective rooms.