It's the winter of 1967. I'll be graduating from Camden-Rockport high school in June, if everything goes as planned.

My family moved to Chestnut Street in Camden the fall of 1965 from our little house on Thurlow Road in Lincolnville. I couldn't understand why we would be making these drastic changes, as we had just got electricity the year before and appeared to be coming up in the world, Father had just gotten a raise at the Seabright Woolen Mill. Little did he know that that job would disappear real shortly.

My parents' thinking was that it was closer to work, and in a few years my sister and brother would be going to high school, so all in all they felt it would be cheaper to live in town.

We moved into a little apartment owned by Frank Leonard, the postmaster at that time, just across from the YMCA and Yorkie's restaurant. The apartment had light switches on the walls and hot running water and a stand-up shower—some different from the pull-chain lights and the big ol' wash tub heated on the wood stove, where we kids would draw matchstick straws to see who went first. Man, I can honestly say I'm glad those days are over.

Back in the fall of '65, I had been hanging around the Y when Lloyd Snapp asked me one day, "Would you like a job?" I jumped at it and started the following Saturday morning working for Doug Weed, who was the head custodian at the Y. I worked six days a week, with Sundays off, from 5 to 7:30 a.m.

I also joined the co-op program offered to juniors and seniors. You got to work at a trade and get out of school for a half day. I was placed in a body shop located where Maritime Farms is now. it became my body shop in later years.) I was working for Scott Rollins and Wes Bowley at Wes-Scott Auto body. I also got a job working for Sy Perkins, stocking shelves and washing windows, and making deliveries of drugs for Libby's Drug store. This was a 5 days a week job from 5 to 8 p.m. and a half-day on Saturday.

Then, on Saturday and Sunday afternoons I worked for Haig Nargesian, the Camden Episcopal priest, at his farmhouse in Saturday Cove. So there was little time for mischief.

I was making about $60 a week—good money back then, seeing as how my parents were making about $90 between them, so the extra money in the household was needed. My mother took most of my money. Twenty-five was for room and board, and she gave me ten dollars a week to get by on. Little did I know that she was putting the rest in a bank account in my name. I didn't find out about it till I was in the service.

The fall of '66 my folks moved us again, to another apartment next to the Post Office and across from Baptist church. I'm starting to wonder: could we be Nomads!?

So, getting back to 1967, my senior year . . . Classmates are talking about what's gonna happen after June, and some are making plans for college. Others are thinking about enlisting in the service, while others are coasting, Keep in mind that there were no drugs in the area at this time, if you could get a bottle of beer it was a huge deal, the worst thing I ever saw was an upper classmate straining canned heat through a slice of Wonder Bread and drinking it. Wow!

Now, here are some of the news highlights of that year.

Boxer Muhammad Ali was stripped of his boxing world championship for refusing to be inducted into the U.S. Army. In the middle east, Israel went to war with Syria, Egypt, and Jordan in the six-day war, and when it was over Israel controlled and occupied a lot more territory than before the war.

Once again in the summer, cities throughout America exploded in rioting and looting, the worst being in Detroit on July 23rd when 7000 National Guardsmen were bought in to restore law and order on the streets.

In England a new type of model by the name of Twiggy became a fashion sensation. Mini skirts continued to get shorter and even more popular, with a short-lived fashion being paper clothing.

Also during this year, new discotheques and singles bars appeared in cities around the world, and the Beatles continued to reign supreme with the release of their "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band" album. This year also brought the summer of love, as kids around the country grooved to the music of The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and The Byrds.

The movie industry moved with the times and produced films that would appeal to this younger audience, including The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, and Cool Hand Luke. TV shows included "The Fugitive" and "The Monkees," and color television sets became popular as prices came down and more programs were available in color.

Gas was about $.33 cents a gallon and the federal minimum wage jumped to $1.40 an hour.

It's about this same time our great leader, President Johnson decided that the 475,000 troops already in Vietnam weren't enough and the number needed to be increased, which in turn rallied the multiplying number of antiwar protesters.

Camden/Rockport was very fortunate to have some outstanding teachers in those days. Two that stand out were my shop teachers, Dan Richards and Mort Strom. "Come on boys. Don't drag. Get going!" I can still hear them saying. "It's not a game over there, guys! If you don't want to carry an M16, sign up and get a good job, or go to college!"

Since I saw or heard the news of the war every day, this was one time I listened to my teachers' advice!

I applied to NMVTI in Presque Isle and was accepted into auto body school. "Wow! How did I squeak by?" I thought. But wait . . . it cost money to go to school. So I was about to give it up when someone pointed me to the Allen Agency's Dave Montgomery. He helped me apply to the Tom Thumb Fund, which granted me a loan.

Dan Richards convinced me to go take the test for Air Force just in case, so off to Bangor I journeyed and took the test and passed. They wanted me to sign up right then, but I decided to wait. Maybe this conflict would be over by graduation.

Spring came as it does eventually every year and found me still driving a '56 Chevy Bel Air, although I'm not sure you could call it driving, as the forward gears in the powerglide transmission were blown and had been for some time. But it still had a great reverse, so I would back all the way to school. At that time it was really cool to have a car, let alone one that would even start.

I was dating this great little gal from Rockport who lived on Church Street. I would back all the way to her house, then around by the Corner Shop, then it was back onto Main Street and back all the way up and down Union Street to Camden to the movie theater.

You'd have to be real clever where you parked so as not to get blocked in. Then, a lot of times after the movie, it was back over to Beauchamp Point Road. This was no problem after the snow was gone—you could back all the way around. It was a great place, 'cause lot of kids went parking down there , so if your car wouldn't start, there was always somebody around to give you a boost.

Well this all went great till one night Camden patrol officer Kip Stinson hit me with the blues and said it was time to get this wreck off the road. He was tired of seeing it backing around town. So the next morning up .... or back up to Thurlow Rd. in Lincolnville, where it joined many other beauties lying in their resting position in the woods.

It was on the trip home from there that I happened to stop at Carley Joy's used car place on upper Mountain St. There in the parking lot was my next love, a 1962 Plymouth. It was an ex Waldo County Sheriff Dept. cruiser, and man would it go. Didn't take long to find out how strong the 3-speed transmission was (or wasn't), so, soon I was back to delivering prescriptions on the old two-wheeled western flyer—how degrading!—until I got the Plymouth's transmission fixed.
June arrived right on schedule and we are all making preparations for graduation. I couldn't wait—school was not my favorite subject. Oh, yes, the partying on Marshalls Island in Megunticook wasn't bad either. All of us were so innocent at that time. I remember the hit song was "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair." Little did we know how life-changing the next several months would be.

I continued to work the same jobs, only with more hours at the body shop. I sent in the $100.00 entry fee at NMVTI and was waiting to hear when in August to move to the dorm.

Then real life begins three weeks after graduation, There's a call for more troops. I come home from working at Libby's one evening and mother says, "You have a letter from the Selective Service board in Rockland." The letter starts out with those famous words: "Greetings from your local draft board. You are hereby required to report to such and such a place on this date." Bottom line—real soon!

Within a couple of days I go back to the recruiting office in Bangor, and within week's time I'm flying for the first time ever. It was cool, flying on a C47 to Pease AFB, then on a C54 to Lackland AFB, San Antonio, Texas.

We arrive at three A.M.-ish and step out of the plane. I thought I knew what heat was, but oh, was I wrong! No question I'd been sent directly to hell, do not pass go, and do not collect $200.00. And first up, haircuts—mine never recovered!!!! Believe me, hell didn't improve!

I spend eight weeks in Texas, then get sent on a 3-day troop train to thech school at Chanute AFB, Rantoul, Illinois. Thought this was going to be a piece of cake—wrong again!

It's a long story, but it starts with the thinking, you're a big man now, should be no problem handling 3.2 beer. It has the same effect as our E10 gas today: like your car, you're a little sluggish.

Now other than going for a week to my Grandmother's in Waltham, Mass., I'd never been away from home. Letters were more than welcome. We get about two phone calls home a month cause it was so expensive to call collect, so I cherish those letters from home telling me the news, some good some not so: local boys coming home wounded, killed, auto accidents, and the gossip of, "Can you believe so and so is pregnant? Why, she just graduated from school!"

It's late November. Thanksgiving is coming and it's getting real boring hanging around base, but there ain't no way I can make it home!

At times a bunch of us would jump into a car and head over to the university in Urbana. Little did I know that 13-year-old Karin was hanging out there, as her Dad was a professor at U of I.

Now, having Thanksgiving with a bunch of buddies is OK, but it's somehow not the same as being with family and close friends.

I'd been writing to my good friend Cecil Dennison who had graduated from NMVTI and was now in the Army station in Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. I suggested that we meet in St. Louis for Thanksgiving, so we met there and had a great time—but that is a story for another day.

Now it's now getting to be early December. If you think Texas heat is hell, you ain't seen nothing till that winter wind whips off those Great Lakes and comes roaring down that flight line off those empty corn fields, grabs your nose like a pair of Craftsman vise grips, and it feels like Charles Atlas is pulling on it. I thought it had dropped off a number of times!

It's not looking great to spend Christmas in Chanute AFB, but better than the jungles of Vietnam. My mother keeps writing, "Are you coming home for Christmas?" Remember, I'm making, like, $56.00 a month. No flights outta Chanute! It's a week before Christmas. Most guys are leaving, some already gone. Gee, where is everybody? I have a ten-day pass! Never been away from home for Christmas before, so I start doing some planning. Don't wanna tell my mother that I'm coming, in case it don't work out.

So I pack a bag and put on my dress blues and hit the road for Chicago, Wow! No dress blue winter boots! It's cold out here on the highwa. I get a couple rides, and a few hours later, I'm standing at the front door of O'Hare airport. Now, that's an experience in '67. I'm sworn at, spit at, called all kinds of names—wow, what country am I in?!

I was soon to learn not to wear military clothing while traveling, and cover your military haircut with a stocking cap.

I find a ticket sales person, and she is very kind. She first tells me a ticket will be about $90, that's almost two months' pay. Then she looks up the military discount, which drops it back to somewhere in the $70 range. I have about hundred dollars in my pocket and I must be looking really frustrated, so she says, "You know, my dad was in WWII. Let me see what I can do." She comes back and says, "If you don't mind flying standby, I can get you a ticket for about $50." That's more my style, so after a night's stay in O'Hare and a couple more days of travel, I wind up in Bangor, Maine, around 8 p.m. on a Saturday.

It's now two days before Christmas. Some kind people who'd been on the plane with me give me a ride downtown. I run to the bus station—closed. Last southbound bus left at 5 p.m.

I check with a taxi company. They want about $25 to take me to Camden—wow, that's half my plane fare. So I guess I'll just hike home. I start down Route 1 It's a Saturday night, should be lots of people out. But it's cold, there's snow on the ground. I'm in my dress shoes, feet are pretty cold. A few cars on road but nobody stops. I walk from downtown Bangor to Hampden. About 10:30, I come to a phone booth and make a collect call home.

Now, my folks go to bed early most nights: Dad by 7 Mom by 8:30, so a call at 10:30 can be quite alarming. I tell my Dad what's up. He says, "I'll be right there" and takes off in the old '62 Ford Falcon to come pick me up. I start walking south again, and when I see the headlights of the ol' Falcon come around a corner about an hour and a half later, I was frozen. I don't think my feet have recovered to this day!

We get to Chestnut Street somewhere between 1 and 2 a.m. Lights are on and everyone's waiting up, even my Grandmother, who lives in the next apartment. My mother, who by rule shows no emotion, pushes back a tear or two, and says, "OK, all my children are in for the night. Time to go to bed." This is almost Christmas Eve.