CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 1988 -1996
RETIREMENT – WHAT TO DO – WHERE TO GO
Leaving military service, certainly in retirement can be a lot more difficult than getting in. With the draft in the 1960's it was never a case of many were called but few were chosen. At some point EVERYONE was called and MOST of them get chosen. It's either that or go ask questions of a recruiter and see how easy it is to be left alone after that initial interview. Getting out is a bit different certainly in my case was almost comical.
When I finally made the decision to leave
(you really do know when it's time) I was, as you have read,, in Iceland, serving on a NATO Base run by the Navy.
So the Air Force decided that I needed to be flown back to the USA, to McGuire AFB in New Jersey for my discharge physical.
They need or perhaps it's simply want to know you are in at least as good a shape when you leave as when you came in.
Then the orders said, return to Iceland to complete the paperwork, pack up and leave.
The entire process was going to take two weeks as one had to do the tests required and then wait there for the results.
The Navy had a full service hospital on the base, but that wasn't good enough I guess, and nobody I asked had a clue why.
One processing clerk actually said, after all they are Navy.
I couldn't believe it, but they meant every word.
Talk about a waste of money. Airfares, quarters, per diem (meals etc.) I told them either the Navy would do it or I would waive my right to the physical. I finally got it, right there at the Navy hospital. Case closed.
I was married to an Icelander and we both wanted to stay right there as we already had a nice rental apartment in the town of Keflavik, but you have to have a job to live because military retirement alone simply was not enough to have any kind of decent life expense wise. You couldn't live on just retirement money back then in 1988 and it's ten times worse now.
I had received a lot of promises from people concerning possible employment, I applied for at least a half dozen on base civil service jobs.
But when the applications would go forward to Washington or wherever, it was clear that it wasn't what you knew or how good you were at it, It was who you knew that mattered. Problem is, you never knew who was making the decisions.
After a couple of months, we realized that we would have to move back to the USA which we did. Based on trying to find a place, as close to the climate as Iceland, we selected Martha's Vineyard as the place to go.
Naturally, Murphy, who seemed to be every place I went over the years, came along too. As it turned out, the Cape and the Islands had one of the hottest summers in history with temperatures in the low 90's more days that not and of course on an island you have the humidity to deal with as well.
We stayed with my grandmother and aunt for a while as the hold baggage as they call it, mainly furniture we had was still enroute from Iceland. That took about two months.
The day they finally delivered my furniture, the clothes cabinets just collapsed in heaps of balsa wood right on the front lawn of the house.
Both of us had a number of jobs while we were there. I was working at a convenience store for a while, then as a cook at an Edgartown restaurant called "The Wharf."
After that first hot summer I moved to our own place for the winter and also changed jobs and went to work cooking for an elderly home up Island. By this time, my grandmother had become a resident at the home so this made it quite OK, looking back now.
After not having a tropical storm or hurricane in and around the New England area for years, we managed to get one while we lived on the Vineyard. Its name was Bob. Go figure.
Thankfully, as it was approaching southern New England and the Cape it was slowly dying, but we still got winds of 80 MPH or so and a lot of trees fell and damage occurred.
My grandmother, was essentially "old school" in her thinking concerning US citizens married to "foreigners" It was more a grin and bear it we discovered after being with her for a few weeks. I guess when you are in your 90's and have been through a lite of ups and downs with family, which she clearly had, you just have to understand. We got through it.
Then, one very telling afternoon, not knowing it at the time, we learned.
My wife was speaking with her at this assisted living home and mentioned to me that as the conversation ensued, that my grandmother suddenly apologized to her if she had treated her badly in the first weeks of our arrival.
She said to my grandmother, it's OK, it's just nice to be able to really sit and talk together and we'll do it again tomorrow.
Then something neither one of us will ever forget.
My grandmother said to her. "well, I am glad we did have this day together because I won't be here tomorrow."
She passed away at 5:30 AM the following morning It was totally unexpected. For her age of 93, while not the picture of health, who is at that age, was physically and mentally fine. The shock to us and other family in the area set all of us back a couple of weeks, but we all got through it.
Perhaps, the biggest event of my time on Martha's Vineyard was a visit to the Vineyard by the Clinton's for a vacation.
That naturally brought journalists, writers and news people to the Island as well. He played a lot of golf and everywhere that Bill went the press was sure to go.
One night, a particularly busy one at the restaurant, the word went out that the Clinton's were coming into Edgartown, to a place called Mad Martha's to get an ice cream cone.
Well naturally, that brought the hordes of reporters, the secret service, the FBI, the local police, state police, the local sheriffs from all three towns close by.
Streets were blocked off, traffic re-routed, you name it.
ur restaurant was just around the corner, about a block from this ice cream store. We had a full house for dinner, not a seat to be had without a wait of at least 30-45 minutes. Suddenly our waiters and waitresses were bringing back plates of food into the kitchen saying that the restaurant had emptied out.
We all had to have a look of course, and sure enough, the place, ten minutes before with not an empty table or seat to be had anywhere, was almost totally empty. Amazing!!
I got immersed, almost by accident, in what turned out to be a federal court case. A person I knew quite well became involved because of her employment with the government. She was the Director of the Unemployment and Training office on the Vineyard. Maryanne, a nice enough person, fair to everyone and a stickler for stated, state mandated, rules and regulations no matter who, what or where She was the consummate fair and balanced people person. She was having a terrible time with a new contract that was being let by the State of Massachusetts for her very office. They were to move and be combined with the Welfare office where across from that was the Department of Motor Vehicles as well. That certainly sounded convenient and "people friendly" all services in one area concept. It sounded good, but it was anything but that.
They were originally located in a central area, convenient to all three towns by road, on a bus route and in a mini-mall environment handicapped accessible and the like. The had about 400 plus square feet of space.
The place they were told they would move to, didn't meet a single requirement of the stated requirements of the contract. It was basically in the woods clearing area owned by a fellow who had ALL the state contracts or knew who did in other cities and towns as well. Not a new story, probably anywhere but very true.
The Department of Motor Vehicles and the Welfare Office had for a number of years been in violation of the State's own stated regulations. Having experience much earlier on in my radio and TV days of getting to the story, I sought to help, or at least to learn why. Teaming up on her behalf along with four others, we investigated. Eventually it led us all the way to Boston and the central office where it was discovered a host of statutes of the state were being ignored or violated and supervisors in this office at least were fully aware of what they were doing, The entire thing was to keep it quiet.
To make a long story short, she was fired from her position. That only made all of us more determined than ever to unmask the entire department. In a Federal lawsuit under the American's with Disabilities Act we went to court in Boston. The trial involved five supervisors of the unemployment agency from a satellite office headquarters on Cape Cod right to the main office in Boston.
The trial lasted two weeks, I was on the stand myself for the better part of two days. I was questioned at length but what I can only say was perhaps just out of law school and if she wasn't probably should have gone back to school. She actually asked the judge when she didn't get the answer she wanted if she could declare me a "hostile witness" The judge said to her, well since he is on the other side, I guess it's fair to assume he already is.
The courtroom chuckled and the jury of six rolled their eyes. The lady won her case and was awarded wenty thousand dollars.
After two years of living on the Vineyard my wife besides being homesick, decided she had to move back to be with family in Iceland. After a year, she returned, but things didn't really get any better for her.
Finally, the break came we needed and we moved off the Island to a place called South Yarmouth, Massachusetts also on the cape, South Yarmouth is a nice town, part of a lot of little towns, all quite unique, in their own right, and a lot bigger than the island for pretty much anything. The biggest town in the mix was a place called Hyannis
We rented an apartment, part of a duplex, not far from the main road, Route 28, but it was super quiet, and you'd never know the road was even there in the winter for sure, but also in the summer. Traffic was generally light, certainly in the winter months and even in the summer except for the daily migration of visitors to and from the beaches for two hours in the morning and two more in the late afternoon.
Our landlord was a true gentleman named Albert, who every morning right around 8:30 AM was in his front yard raising the American Flag on the pole on his front lawn. I was heading to work about that same time at a Hyannis store and he'd always ask, "How's the situation."
Right about this same time, after 52 years of marriage my mom found herself suddenly divorced with almost all her savings gone from their joint accounts.
That pretty much soured any relations I had with my father who had apparently become a different person, certainly internally over the past many years.
Mom simply did not want to live alone, totally understandable certainly close by, in such a sudden traumatic situation.
We all went to looking for a place for her.
It was Albert, the landlord, He knew a widower in the next town, just a couple of miles away, who also had a duplex with an open apartment. She came up, took one look, it was perfect and moved in.
My father, whom all of us children knew had developed an attitude over the years of my way or the highway, had noticed a slow but definite decline in his thinking and life, mostly a change in his attitude in just about everything. He was a very strict disciplinarian, everything had to be just so, but as we were growing up I must say he was a good man.
However, we all believed the marriage at least, was solid.
My mother seemed to be happy or perhaps now we should say content.
We basically stayed out of their lives as we should have.
After all, they had raised all five of us and we figured now was their time. No need to say more, it happened, I am sure it "happens" a lot in life but we all managed.
In 1995, my wife went back to Iceland yet again. Being away from her family was, although most times she hid it well, was painful, as most families in Iceland are extremely close.
In 1996, I followed. It was a place I always wanted to be after that very first assignment there in 1972.
Talk about a breath of fresh air. On arrival back in Iceland even though I was not yet a resident, I felt like I was home. Cooler, fresh air as a matter of fact just comfortable all around. She had rented a little one - bedroom apartment, which was just fine. I actually went to work, for nearly a full year, at McDonalds. I have to laugh today at what I see the work ethic becoming in the why isn't everything free society being pushed by politicians and people, kids (thank God not all of them) today. I remember my time at6 McDonalds as the closest thing to military service and indentured servitude and slavery I had ever encountered all rolled into one.
The rules and regulations for everything were, well to be honest, I guess necessary, but absolutely everything had pages of rules attached I think. I managed to get out of the heat in the kitchen to the freezer and took a job in the storeroom and deliveries to the company once or twice a week. I counted everything from frozen burgers, to boxes of salt packets to Happy Meal toys. It was an experience to say the least.
You had to have a job to even apply for a residence permit. Iceland had very few foreigners then and basically, these were the only job types available.
Then a couple of breaks came my way, none too soon.
I thought. I was booking acts to a few of the clubs again which paid pretty good and doing English announcing of documentaries, and commercials, that paid even better.
I was also doing a program called Motorsport, basically adding a voice track in English to a pre-shot video. That voice work and video made it on to one of the Discovery Channels.
I heard they really liked it, but after many months of doing it,
I left because the work was being done on a studio space available time basis, which meant some mornings going to the TV station at 4:30 or 5:00 AM to do the voice overs.
All in all, as military life and everything that happened over those many years, planned, unplanned, accidental, you name it, had almost disappeared. Life was pretty laid back during this period.
Lots of little things in the country seemed to be changing from the Iceland I first went to in 1972. These, looking back, were in fact the "laid back years" But things were about to change yet again. So let's press on to the next years.