The First Peace; My Search for the Better Angels

Chapter One

Prologue

The advent of my Daughter in 1987 and the divorce from her Mother in 1988 compelled my return to a church. I was not a member of any church during the eight years between my junior year at the University of Tennessee (UT) and the birth of my Daughter. My absence from organized religion during such a period was not unusual. My attendance at Vanderbilt Divinity School (VDS) during this period perhaps was, if only because I was a divinity student who did not attend some church and who did not intend to become a pastor, preacher, minister, and so on.

I was confirmed as a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States at the Easter following my Daughter’s birth, more than five years after I left VDS. The Easter Litany begins with a recitation of the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments). My voice blended with others to produce a cadence that became nearly hypnotic. Awareness returned with the chilling realization that I was hard-pressed to find a commandment that I had not broken.

The monthly session with my counselor occurred some days later and I related my liturgical realization to him. He asked: What’s the worst thing that you have ever done? I began to respond even before he completed the question.

A cousin and I were hunting one fall day, something I did a few times as a teenager. The grass in the fields was still high, but brown and dead. The trees were without leaves. The sky was gray and the air was damp. The day passed without even a glimpse of any game. We were making our way back to our truck when we passed beneath a sugar maple tree, the lowest branches some six feet above our heads. A sparrow sat on one those branches, sharing a joyous melody with the air. I jerked my shotgun upward and fired. Silence was invaded by the sound of my shotgun; the air was invaded with smoke, pieces of bark, and a few feathers making their way to the ground. Incredulity filled my cousin’s face and nauseating regret filled me.

The Easter Litany served as a litany of my sins. I was certain that I had broken nearly if not all the Commandments given to Moses (and us) by God, but my worst transgressions included shooting a bird, taking a life, for no reason other than a heinous impulse. That transgression remains as one of three sins for which I have been unable to find forgiveness or absolution – and these three sins remain in my memory with perfect clarity.

If a writer is so cautious that he never writes anything that cannot be criticized, he will never write anything that can be read. If you want to help other people you have got to make up your mind to write things that some … will condemn … If you write for God, you will reach many … (people) and bring them joy. If you write for … (people) – you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while. If you write only for yourself you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted that you will wish that you were dead.⁵

– Thomas Merton

This book was written while the angel of humility and the demon of hubris danced in my psyche and while I danced on the edges of both Ockham’s and Maugham’s razors. Actions speak louder than words and what does this (or any) writer have to offer but words? Do I have anything new to offer? Humility is one of my ideals and humble people do not presume wisdom, much less presume to offer their supposed wisdom to others. Is this ideal being used as an excuse not to write? Perhaps my purported humility is derived from the fear that my words will be rejected? Perhaps I am giving some prosaic rationalization to my procrastination and neuroses? (A line from the film Broadcast News: Wouldn’t it be a great world if desperation and insecurity made us more attractive?⁶)

Equanimity is found in the following.

•   Having something to say or write is more important than being heard.

•   To paraphrase an Arabian proverb: Examine what is said, not the speaker.

•   Those who receive the message, not the messenger, determine the value of that message.

•   Samuel Johnson, the great American educator, wrote that, more often than not, we need to be reminded rather than instructed.

•   The advice most often given to aspiring writers is: write what you know and just write.

I heard an interview with a writer on National Public Radio (NPR) during my drive back from the Abbey of Gethsemani after one of my annual retreats to that monastery. The writer opined, Every writer is trying to ‘wow’ one person. He was trying to wow his father.

This writer confesses that he is attempting to impress, but that attempt is not (I hope) a motive for writing – or at least, not the only motive for writing. Who am I trying to impress? My Daughter. I still hope that the ripples which flow from the tossing of this stone into the pond of human thought also will impress my Daughter’s Mother, the rest of my Family, my Friends, Brother Patrick Hart – and you. When both the angel of humility and the demon of hubris are silent, the need to write remains.

The title of this book derives from the quotations with which this book begins. Angel is defined, for the purposes of this work, as inspiration to do what we perceive to be good. This definition is used in respectful deference to all of our diverse beliefs and traditions because the purpose of faith is or should be to allow the better angels of our natures to guide each of us, to unite all of us. The purpose of faith should be to unite all human beings – not by making everyone the same, but by enabling the fulfillment of everyone’s potential for good intention and action. Belief in the human potential for goodness will suffice for those who do not (and some of us who do) believe in God.

Potential, intentions, thoughts, and feelings are of little consequence unless they result in some action. Actions derived from thoughts and feelings determine whether a thought or feeling is angelic or demonic. Actions reveal nature and character; thoughts and feelings do not. We often allow the better angels of our nature to be dulled, sedated, even repressed by the verisimilitudes of living. This allowance skews our perception. That still and small voice becomes harder to hear.

We cannot control our thoughts and emotions; we can learn to control our reactions and our actions. We can learn not to be controlled by our thoughts and/or emotions. Finding some measure of tranquility, even peace, enables such control. Other control is transitory and illusionary.

Attempts to control that which we cannot control ultimately derive from our egos, false selves, and perhaps an inability to face one’s mortality. Each of us will die; integrating the knowledge that our individual lives will end is essential for peace of mind (and heart and soul). Mortality, the most common denominator, defines, but not solely defines, existence. The manner in which one lives certainly is more important than the manner in which one dies. Legacy is not as important as integrity. Our respective legacies will be determined, indeed, by the manner in which we have lived.

There is another fear that most of us need to face: the fear that there is no God. Many of us, especially those of us who are regular church-goers, are afraid that if there is no God, then life has no purpose, no meaning. We must integrate the possibility that there is no God before we can claim an honest faith. Real purpose and real meaning and an honest faith are found beyond the fear that God does not exist.

I believe in God, but I know that the god in whom I believe does not exist. I believe that reality is not limited to our perceptions of or our musings regarding reality. I believe in faith and hope and love and liberty and responsibility and justice and contentment, the best angels of our nature. Saint Augustine: I believe in order to understand. To paraphrase Saint Anselm (who paraphrased Saint Augustine): Do you believe in order to understand or do you understand in order to believe? (Credo ut itelligam … Itelligam ut credo?) This writer wants both faith and knowledge; this writer wants neither to be determined by the other. I suspect that you do too.

Each of us chooses his or her beliefs and his or her actions – and the meaning of those beliefs and actions. Beliefs, thoughts, feelings, may and often do skew clear perception of meaning and purpose. Clear perception is essential for the discovery of true meaning. The person at peace may become a resolute soul who is able to perceive clearly and honestly.

The better angels of our nature communicate constantly, but we are not always perceptive or receptive. Conflict arises from our inability or unwillingness to heed the quiet voice inside. Accurate (or less inaccurate) perception becomes possible when internal conflict is stilled. We then can choose honestly and correctly the meaning of our respective lives.

Perhaps perception and preparation are the meaning and purpose of this book. You will discern and determine what value is inherent to this work, my intentions notwithstanding. That discernment and that determination will, of course, derive from your own perception and interpretation. Such exercise is perhaps purpose enough.

For those readers who skipped the Acknowledgments section of this book (as readers, including this writer, often do): The person who edited this book advised me to advising readers to read the entire book before judging, before deciding if they like this book. That editor likened this book to a speech or a sermon that must be heard in its entirety. (There is a certain, albeit unintentional, summitry to the idea that The First Peace; My Search For The Better Angels is a speech or a sermon.)

Are you trying to entertain, inform, educate, or persuade? The preceding question was often posed to me by a once-close friend. We met when we were both students at VDS. He became a Methodist minister, but he eventually left the ministry, returned to school for his doctorate in English, and became a newspaper editor. I always resisted the urge to say all of the above when this friend posed his question.

My intentions for writing this book include an attempt to weave a tapestry of stories, ideas and ideals, ethics, experiences, and expressions of thoughts and feelings – all of which I hope will entertain, inform, educate, persuade, stimulate, and even challenge. The result is probably more akin to a crazy-quilt than a tapestry. (A quilt is better for keeping warm.) Perhaps the words contained herein will remind you of your own experiences, thoughts, and feelings that provide some measure of contentment, but also some measure of challenge, even conflict. The silence beyond those reminders is where we find the first peace and where we are at liberty to be real and where the better angels of our nature touch us.

Chapter Two

Touchstones

My Father’s physical remains are interred in a cemetery near Chesterland, Ohio, a rural township east of Cleveland. This is the area in which my Father was born and spent most of his youth; he had one place to call home even though he left for good when he was eighteen. Dad was a lifer in the Air Force, which meant that we moved from base to base with regularity. A sense of home, as a place, is something that I never had. I am pleased nonetheless that he is buried in this place.

My first visit to Dad’s grave since his death was a mixture of strategy and spontaneity. Visiting during the Fourth-of-July Weekend in 1988 was an impulse. In the four years prior to my visit, I had plenty of time to plan the details of my pilgrimage; what I would do was strategic, when I did it was spontaneous. I silently left my cousin’s home before the dawn of what-would-become a hot July day. I listened to Pachebel’s Canon during the short drive up Cedar Road to the cemetery. The tape player was switched off as I steered my truck onto the circular drive that ran through the cemetery.

My Father’s grave lay, in an east-northeasterly direction, about ten feet from the trunk of a large oak tree. The direction was discernible because the grave lay in a direct line between that oak and the rising sun. I sat on the ground and leaned my back against the trunk of that tree. The grave was between the horizon and me. The grave and I were both beneath branches that would provide shade when the sun was high enough.

Pachelbel’s Canon lingered in my thoughts as the sun rose over the farm across the street. The stifling heat of an Ohio summer kept the grass dry even in the early morning. The sun’s first light was captured between the ceiling of branches and the earth below. This light swirled in my makeshift sanctuary and I noticed the marker at the foot of my Father’s grave. There was no cross or headstone – only a copper plaque, provided by the Veteran’s Administration and placed by my Uncle Arnold Bottger (who was married to my Aunt Lila, my Father’s sister). Sunlight caressed the plaque and enabled me to discern the words on that plaque. Those words were composed of raised letters polished bright against a black background.

Floyd R. Hatfield

July 12, 1929 – October 24, 1984

SMSGT USAF

Korea Vietnam

How succinct … I said to no one. Gravestones are not intended to delineate one’s life and yet, this one seemed to do just that. My gravestone came to mind.

Charles W. Hatfield

November 21, 1955 – who knows

USAF – UT – VDS

Discharge, Divinity School, Divorce

Looking at my Father’s gravestone, I conceive my own. How’s that for self-absorbed?

My Prayer Book was held tightly, like someone holding a telephone book about to be torn in half. I stopped kneading it so I could use it. I opened to the Office for the Burial of the Dead and began to read aloud. Perhaps the words lacked because I was not a priest. The Unitarian minister who officiated at Dad’s funeral and who delivered Dad’s eulogy did not know my Father. Someone who knew my Father, someone who loved him, should have spoken at his funeral. I should not have remained silent at his funeral. I stood there reciting words four years after his death, but at least I was the one doing the recitation. The recited words of one who knew him seemed better than the original words of one who did not; I wished that I had not remained silent at my Father’s funeral.

I tried to remember everything regarding my Father and I asked myself: Do our brains, our memories, really have the capacity to retain every experience? If so, then what we choose to remember – and the manner in which we choose to interpret those memories – reveals more about ourselves than the actual experiences. What I choose to remember about my Father reveals more about me than about him.

For additional distraction, I began to wonder why certain experiences are so important, why a shared experience might be meaningful to one and innocuous to another. I recalled some words attributed to Alfred North Whitehead: History is the past re-thought in the mind of the historian.

My Father’s footsteps seems an odd memory, but his arrival was signaled by the sound of his combat boots on the walk just outside whatever house in whatever country or state that we resided. He was handsome, bearing a strong resemblance to the actor John Wayne (or vice-versa), about 5'9 and weighing 175 pounds, all muscle. His features fit together well: hazel eyes, a straight and good-sized nose, an square jaw and more-gray-than-dark-brown hair cut in a perpetual flattop. He looked so sharp; the starched fatigues accentuated his muscular build. The aviator sunglasses and a cap with some Air Force insignia were the perfect touches to make him appear larger-than-life. Dad was an example of how a real man" should look.

I came into the world on 21 November 1955, during the year in which Albert Einstein and James Dean died, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to relinquish her seat to a white man on a Birmingham bus, and the USA sent 218 million dollars in aid to South Viet-Nam. Shaw Air Force Base (AFB) in South Carolina was my birthplace.

We moved from Shaw AFB to Laon AFB in France soon after I was born; we then moved to Minot AFB in North Dakota in 1962. My younger brother was born in Minot in 1964. Our Father was assigned to another tour of duty in France, if at a different base: Chaumont AFB in the Ardennes region.

We did not return to France together. We proceeded together to Dunlap, Tennessee; Dad then proceeded to France after he found us a place to stay in Dunlap. Our home was a small, olive-green, one-story house in a subdivision on the southwestern side of town, not too far from Route 127. We were approximately twenty miles north of Chattanooga as a crow flies. Bisecting Dunlap and Sequatchie Valley, Route 127 went on north to Pikeville and then to Crossville on the Cumberland Plateau. The mountains on either side of Sequatchie Valley stood like bookends.

The most important event of my life to then occurred during that time in Dunlap. Mom started taking us to the Dunlap Church of Christ, where I was baptized in 1965. I had no formal religious education and I do not remember even going to church before. There are faded photographs of Mom and me, dressed in our Easter finery and holding Easter Baskets. These photographs, taken during our time in South Carolina, are evidence that we had been to church. But which church? (The Churches of Christ do not celebrate Easter as a religious holiday.)

My parents’ religious background, if any, remains unexplored. Mom also became a member of the Churches of Christ during that summer in 1965. Her religious inclinations before then are unknown to me. Dad was baptized into the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, when he was twelve or thirteen. Except for the occasional marriage or funeral, however, Dad never went to church. The topics of God, the church, and religion were rarely if ever discussed with my Father. Perhaps we didn’t talk because discussion might lead to conflict and our tacit credo – avoid conflict at all costs – was more important than any creed.

I wish that my baptism had been the result of some conversion experience, some spiritual or religious awakening, some desire to love and serve God. I felt a need to worship, to be baptized, but my baptism may have been motivated by a childish fear of death, eternal damnation, and a need to belong.

Something did begin to awaken in me that year or rather, the undirected and amorphous content of my psyche – soul? – was given a form: Christian. My airy nothing⁷ was given a local habitation and a name⁸.

I was unable, for whatever reason, to make the members of my family objects of my faith, hope, love and trust. I searched for such objects in a church. The Churches of Christ, with their beautifully simple and uncluttered beliefs, was the perfect soil in which I could begin. We had no doctrine beyond Holy Scripture, no creed beyond Peter’s confession, no sacramental ritual beyond baptism and communion, no music beyond our voices.

Why was I baptized? I, as a child of nine, may have been given (and gave) a response to this question. Was the baptism an outward expression of an inward commitment or a desire for perfection through some magical act? In those days, I thought the only guarantee of heaven would be to die immediately after being baptized.

I did not feel changed afterwards. My desire to be a good person did not increase – or decrease – just because I was buried with Him in baptism. Notwithstanding my motivations, something of importance had been found: a search. I believed that, whatever lay at the end of the search, all my answers could be found in the Bible with only my own thoughts and feelings to guide me. …Such innocent arrogance and narcissism.

The extraordinary stories of simple and ordinary people in the Bible fascinated me. These people searched for love, peace, and meaning, even when they were eye-to-eye with fear, conflict, and death. They discovered that the search itself is worthwhile. Like the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin-Man, and especially Dorothy, they looked beyond themselves for that which they already possessed. Those characters in The Wizard of the Oz were at first disappointed when their Wizard was unmasked, but that disappointment was short-lived as their own masks were removed. Unmasking our respective perceptions of God is more difficult. The task was certainly beyond the capabilities of a nine-year-old boy, even a boy who had been baptized – especially one who had been baptized.

Perhaps the absence of my Father helped me find church. Perhaps my Christianity was the first mask that I would wear. Perhaps I had tasted, albeit briefly, a basic human need: to find – and worship – some purpose, some meaning, some god. Perhaps I had discovered a basic human flaw: the inability to find within myself what I searched for elsewhere. If this need and this flaw are common human denominators, then like the proverbial chicken and egg, one is left to ask which came first. Just as the flaw will impede the fulfillment of the need, the masking of the spiritual with the religious can be another impediment.

My time in that perfect soil of Dunlap was short and before the first fortnight of 1966 was over, we boarded a plane for France. As the plane lifted off a runway in Chattanooga, I recited the 21st Psalm with my white-knuckled hands trying to hold the plane down by the armrests on either side of my seat. That Psalm was the only long Biblical passage I had memorized, not for Sunday school, but for a public school assignment.

Our first stay in France lasted three years. Our second stay lasted only eighteen months because President Charles De Gaulle of France evicted the United States military presence from his country. My Father was re-assigned to RAF Alconbury in England in 1967, where we would spend the remaining eighteen months of my Father’s tour of duty, and where Stephanie, my sister, was born.

Chapter Three

Religious Experience

The first football game that I ever saw (albeit on television) was the 1968 game between the Longhorns of the University of Texas and the Aggies of Texas A&M. My family moved to New Mexico in August of that year, returning not only to the United States, but also to American television. My Father and I watched that game between the Longhorns and the Aggies together, my interest spurred by his and by the opportunity to be with him. (I played soccer during our time overseas; I knew nothing about American football, which would become my favorite sport.)

Dad explained the game of football to me while we watched. He often repeated an explanation so that I could understand. I often asked him to repeat something not just because I did not understand, but also because I reveled in our conversation. He sometimes missed a play because he was explaining the game to me. He attempted to hide his exasperation and impatience when this happened. (He may have worried that I would blame myself for his exasperation.) He usually failed in the attempt to hide his exasperation, but I loved him for the effort, even for the failures, especially for the failures.

I experienced my first, perhaps second, infatuation during my matriculation in the Alamogordo Public School System. Her name was Valerie. I carved her name into the mahogany sand-surfboard that I made in shop class. I sent her flowers and candy. I asked my Father to drive by her house whenever we were in her neighborhood. I even assaulted a boy in our front yard one day for making fun of her. Valerie and I never went out on a date, however, because I never actually spoke to her. There would be other infatuations, primarily young women at the Cuba Avenue Church of Christ in Alamogordo where we, except my Father, attended services, twice on Sundays and every Wednesday evening.

We moved from base housing at Holloman AFB to a small house in Alamogordo during the latter part of 1970. The move was necessary because my Father was assigned a tour of duty in Viet-Nam that began during the winter of 1971, during the first days of that year. Dad drove our 1969 Pontiac Bonneville to the airport with my parents’ oldest son in the passenger’s seat in front; I sat in the back, behind the driver’s seat, behind my Father. Dad did not permit us to accompany him to the gate or even to get out of the car. He got out of the car, pulled the seat forward so that he could lean in to hug me and to kiss me. He did something that he had not before and did not do again: he kissed me on the lips. My chest suddenly, surprisingly tightened with fear that the uniqueness of this goodbye kiss meant something ominous; the possibility that I might not see him again became real and hit me like a proverbial ton. I continued to hold my tears for when I was alone.

My Father’s kiss caused me to face, understand, and admit that he was afraid. And in that Eternal Moment, I too faced, understood, and admitted that we might never see each other again. I prayed.

I was a fan of Mad magazine in those days. And I fancied myself an artist. One of my favorite pastimes was to reproduce – not trace, but re-draw – the caricatures found in that magazine: James Stewart, Bing Crosby, Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, and Henry Kissinger, to name some. I also attempted some serious portraits of Abraham Lincoln, Leopold Stokowski, Richard Nixon, and my Father. That portrait of my Father was a re-creation of a 8-by-10 photograph of him wearing his dress uniform; I recreated the photograph on a piece of lined notebook paper using a number 2 pencil. The most challenging part of the work was reproducing the numerous ribbons above the chest pocket on the left side of his uniform coat.

Dad and I exchanged one or two letters each month during the first few months he was in Viet-Nam. One letter was accompanied by a drawing, which was reproduced from the parody of the film Catch-22 that appeared in Mad magazine. The drawing was of the character portrayed by Martin Balsam in the film; that character was a Colonel or Lieutenant Colonel in the USAF and was sitting on a commode. His trousers were around his feet, his shirttails covered his genitalia, and he was wearing his garrison cap. My Father wrote, in his next letter to me (after receiving my drawing), that the drawing was the spitting image of one of the officers with whom he served. A photograph accompanied that letter from my Father. The photograph was of my Father, standing in the doorway to his office; he had mounted my drawing under the nameplate bearing his name, on the wall next to that doorway. My Father was smiling, a large and genuine smile. The smile and the thick, mostly gray and nearly a handlebar mustache that he grew after arriving in Viet-Nam made him handsome and at least seem happy. I felt pride for and mirth from his smile. Perhaps my drawing had something to do with that smile; I thanked God for the privilege of providing my Father with a reason to smile in that place.

I was halfway through my sophomore year at Alamogordo Mid-High School when my Father left for Viet-Nam. I never completed three years in the same school system before and here I was, halfway through my fourth year in the same school system, with many of the same classmates. Such continuity seemed otherworldly and probably served as a distraction, albeit slight, from the anxiety that accompanied my Father’s absence and his location.

Church activities filled my time away from school. One of my favorite activities was to assist with administering communion on Sundays. The Cuba Avenue Church of Christ was large and at least six men were required to distribute the shallow metal bowls of wafers and then the larger, deeper metal trays containing tiny glasses of grape juice. Distributing the body and blood of Christ seemed the most important thing that I could do and was a solemn joy.

The Elders of the Church and other church leaders kept the youth of the church busy with Bible studies, retreats, visitations, and so forth. We were invited one year to take Christmas to the Native American children at a nearby reservation. (This struck me as odd given that the Churches of Christ do not celebrate Christmas.)

We collected donations of toys and other gifts in the weeks leading up to the weekend before Christmas of 1971. We gathered one Saturday morning to load the gifts, our luggage, and us into the vehicles that would be used to make the trip. The covered beds of two pick-up trucks were filled, one so much that its front wheels seemed close to leaving the road as we drove to the reservation.

We stayed in an area of the reservation containing a number of large group homes for children. Our group was dispersed, mostly in pairs, among these homes, which housed upwards of a dozen Native American children of various ages. Children were grouped together into homes based on their ages. Toddlers and very young children were in one home, grade school children in another, pre-teens in another, and so on. I stayed in a house occupied by a half-dozen children, none older than 6 or 7, and one pair of foster parents.

My companions (one other young person and one of adult chaperones) and I entered the house in which we would be staying. I sat my small suitcase and the floor just as the children gathered around me, ignoring those who accompanied me. They led me to an over-stuffed chair. I sat in the chair; they sat on and around it. Two of the smaller children climbed onto my lap, one or two other climbed onto the large arms of that chair. They remained calm and quiet, not at all like any young children that I had known before (or since). Their faces melded into one in my memory: a very-young face, not more than four or five … whether male or female is not important … a face with large dark eyes, a mop of straight and thick dark hair that almost covers the ears and forehead, and brown skin … a face that smiles without smiling, a face that needs neither answers nor questions … a face that expresses You know … you know what we know.

We returned to Alamogordo late in the afternoon of the Sunday of that weekend, in time for Sunday evening services. My Mother asked me about the trip shortly after we returned home. I wanted to express my feelings to her, but felt that expression was not possible and might trivialize the experience. All I said to her was: I don’t want anything for Christmas; I’ve already had my Christmas gift. I cringed because my words somehow cheapened the gift that I received. My Mother would repeat my words to her friends as an expression of pride in her son. That understandable, even complimentary, repetition also seemed to cheapen the gift.

I was home alone during the week after Christmas of 1971 when the telephone rang. An operator said I have a collect call from Floyd Hatfield; will you accept the charges? I misunderstood the operator and thought she said, "a collect call for Floyd Hatfield. I responded: He’s not here." I heard my Father’s laughter.

Dad was calling from the airport in El Paso, Texas, to let us know that he was returning home, nearly a month earlier than expected. The surprise of his early return included another surprise: we were moving again. My junior year in high school was barely half over when we moved from New Mexico and returned to Minot AFB in North Dakota.

Three plus years in the New Mexican climate left me ill-prepared for a North Dakotan winter, despite having lived in North Dakota before. Returning there in February, in the middle of winter, was a chilling experience. The concept of Snow Days in North Dakota was laughable. So, there I stood at the bus stop, which was a block or two from our home.

The blizzard in which I was standing reduced visibility to a few yards, but that blizzard seemed mild as blizzards go. Everything, including the air itself, was shrouded in white, made so by the snow that was falling more horizontally than vertically. I marveled at my inability to see. I wished for a pair of sunglasses, even though the sun was not to be seen.

The bus that would transport me from Minot AFB to Minot High School in downtown Minot did not appear while I was waiting. After what seemed longer the ten or fifteen minutes that I was there, the pain had moved from my fingers and hands to my arms, from my toes and feet to my legs, leaving numbness in its wake. I felt that these appendages would cease to function if I waited any longer for a bus that had yet to appear. I returned home with tears in my eyes from the cold and trying not to cry from the pain and numbness. My attendance at Minot High School would have to wait for at least one more day. Some cursory research later that day caused me to conclude that I had a mild case of frostbite in my toes and fingers.

My delayed attendance turned out to be serendipitous because my first day at Minot High School would coincide with Vicki’s first day there. Vicki and I were in the same speech class; we met and talked in the hallway after class. She had moved from Keesler AFB near Biloxi, Mississippi, where she had lived most if not all of her life. (Such a circumstance was rare for children of service personnel.)

She was beautiful. Her skin and her hair were shades of the same color: the color of sunlight reflecting from desert sand. Her blond hair was long and straight and fine. She was very-nearly as tall as I, which meant that our eyes were very-nearly at the same level when we looked at each other. (My memory of her eyes as bright blue is, I hope, accurate.) The contours of her face befit the contours of her body: distinct and defined, soft and firm, and perfectly proportioned. Vicki was not the first young woman whom I thought was beautiful, but she was the first whom I would describe, if only in the privacy of my own imaginings, as angelic.

Another young man from that speech class joined our conversation. Vicki’s attention seemed solely focused on me; the other young man departed not-soon-enough. This girl, who was so attractive and to whom I was attracted, spoke to me as the sole object of her attention; such an experience was new to me, but I could not understand her. The honeysuckle and molasses of a southern upbringing sweetened her already-sweet voice. Her voice was melodic, clear and articulate, but the language she spoke seemed wonderfully foreign. My inability to understand did not lessen the pleasure of listening to her – to the contrary. The struggle to understand, which required only a few days, added to the pleasure of her. I eventually even missed my inability to understand.

Most of our fellow students at Minot High School had been together throughout their high school years. I was a newcomer again and the years in New Mexico, when I stopped feeling like a newcomer for the very first time, intensified the isolation that I felt when we returned to Minot AFB. Vicki probably was a newcomer for the very first time, given that she had lived on only one AFB before coming to Minot. Talking with her about her (our) feelings may have provided some comfort to both of us. I wish that we had; I regret that we never did. And I regret never asking her out.

One of the speeches that I delivered in that class was in support of U.S. involvement in Viet-Nam. The theme of my speech was: Jesus died to save us, we can do no less for our fellow human beings. Each student in the class would write a short critique of every speech and speaker; the teacher would collect the critiques and give them to the speaker. I shuffled quickly through the responses that day after my speech regarding Viet-Nam; I was looking, as usual, for Vicki’s response. She wrote: I almost cried.

The speech class at Minot High School is remembered because of Vicki. A session of a social studies class is remembered because of a guest lecturer who was a Holocaust survivor. He said: You don’t understand hunger until you’re looking at the man next to you and thinking about which part of him would taste the best.

What the man did not say was as impressive as what he did say. He seemed intent on avoiding talk about puerile details related to the unmitigated evil of the Holocaust. Perhaps he was being sympathetic to the relative youth of his audience; perhaps he wanted to focus on our collective responsibility to prevent the recurrence of such evil.

I cringed when one of our teachers asked the man to discuss the tortures he and others experienced. The man looked down and replied: You don’t really want to know that. The tone of his reply was a mixture of dismay, disgust, and frustration. The greatest dismay that I felt derived from the sense that the question did not surprise the speaker. (I had been praying that my schoolmates would not ask the question; I did not believe that a teacher would ask such an insipid question.)

The regret of never speaking to Valerie during my time in New Mexico was added to the list, as was the regret of not trying to date Vicki. The first young woman that I decided to ask out was Vanessa.

Vanessa may have been of Scandinavian descent, like so many others in that part of the country, but she was not as tall as others of similar extraction. She was four or five inches shorter than I but possessed the coloring and other features of that ancestry: blonde hair with a tinge of reddish brown, a face that was wide at the forehead and narrow at the chin, a smooth and straight nose, and cheekbones that served as vessels containing her large eyes. Her body was more voluptuous than svelte and proportioned well. Vanessa was a quiet beauty, someone who did not stand out and was not readily noticeable. She did not speak much, but when she did, you knew that you should listen. She was guileless.

She stopped to talk with me in the hall during one of the last days of that school year. The experience of again being (if only for the second time) the sole object of an attractive young woman’s attention was a welcome surprise.

We talked about our respective plans for the summer. She told me of, and seemed excited by, her plans to travel. She would be spending some time in Florida. I instantly imagined her in a bikini, which caused a noticeable delay in my response when she asked about my summer plans.

I told her that my family would be spending some part of the summer visiting family in Tennessee. I sensed that she sensed that I was not too excited about my travel plans. I tried to think of something to enliven my demeanor and then remembered that I would be getting my driver’s license while we were in Tennessee. (Military personnel, and their dependents, had the option of maintaining driver’s licenses from their home states, at least in those days.)

I said, with some excitement: Oh, yeh … I’ll be getting my driver’s license this summer while we’re in Tennessee. Vanessa became even more animated, perhaps enlivened by my excitement, and said something to the effect of: Then you need to call me when you get back! My surprise probably was noticeable and Sure! was the only response that I found in my fumbling for a response.

My fumbling continued as I looked for paper and pen, a search that was surprisingly long and amazingly unsuccessful, given that I was at school and carrying books, notebooks, and manner of supplies. I found a pen, but continued fumbling for paper when she took the pen from my hand. She held that pen in one hand and the seam of my open jacket zipper in the fingers of her other hand. She turned the seam inside out and moving closer, she wrote her telephone number on the inside of the white part of that seam. She placed the pen in a pocket of my shirt, looked into my eyes, smiled, turned, and walked away. I stood there watching her walk the length of the hall and then disappear from view.

Her movement was sweet and demure, but decisive. She could have been described as seductive, but I did not understand that word at the time. Now that I do understand it, the use of it to describe Vanessa seems trite.

I did get my driver’s license that summer, but I never called Vanessa. We went to Dunlap that summer not just to visit family, but also so my Father could make arrangements for us to move there. The knowledge that we were moving again made the possibility of Vanessa, and the pain of leaving her, too much. I should have called her, though, if only to tell her so.

My senior year in high school was barely half over when we moved from North Dakota to Tennessee. We left for the Minot Airport early one morning, before the sun was up, in December of 1972. I looked out the car window at the field of houses we passed as we left the base. I thought of Vicki perhaps asleep in one of those houses because she too was a military dependent. I also thought of Vanessa, who was a townie (i.e. a civilian) and of my regret at not knowing where either young woman lived. I unsuccessfully tried to aim my apathy for our destination at the place and people that I was leaving, that I was losing.

My Father’s first assignment to Minot AFB lasted three years. Our second visit lasted barely a year. My time at Minot High School was short: the last half of my junior year and the first half of my senior year.

Dad retired from the USAF as 1972 ended and we returned to Dunlap, Tennessee. I attended Sequatchie County High School in Dunlap for one day, after which I pleaded with my Father to find me a better school. He could not afford private school for his children, but we decided to use his business address, which was in Chattanooga, as a home address, and I was able to attend Red Bank High School in Chattanooga. Red Bank was a significant improvement over Sequatchie County High, but nevertheless a significant step-down from Minot High School in North Dakota. The public schools in North Dakota were ranked among the best in the country in the early seventies; the public schools in Tennessee were not ranked so high.

My family moved from South Carolina to France to North Dakota to Tennessee to France to England to New Mexico to North Dakota to Tennessee before I graduated from high school. I attended nine different schools (ten if we count Sequatchie County High School) before graduating from Red Bank High School.

I applied to only two universities: the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. I knew next to nothing regarding either school, but they seemed to be the largest universities that were not-too-close to home, but close enough to make coming home not much of a challenge. UT was chosen because I could not afford the tuition at the University of the South.

I graduated from Red Bank High School in 1973. My family moved to Ooltewah, Tennessee, soon after my graduation. Ooltewah is (was) an idyllic place, north of Chattanooga and east of the mountains that are the eastern side of Sequatchie Valley. Interstate 75 was just a few miles from the small, six-acre farm that my Father purchased. The proximity to I-75 meant that we could drive to Chattanooga in less than thirty minutes and although one can now drive to Knoxville from Ooltewah in less than two hours, I-75 between Chattanooga and Knoxville was not complete in 1973.

My freshman year at UT began in the fall of 1973. I was assigned to K-6 (the southern half of the sixth floor) in Hess Hall, a dormitory near the center of campus. Hess Hall was one of the largest dormitories in the country and it was co-ed, which was something relatively new at the time. The term co-ed had a different meaning in those days inasmuch as young men occupied one-half of the dorm and young women occupied the other half. Women and men did not share rooms or even floors; we shared only the foyer. Visitors of the opposite gender were allowed only during designated visiting times – during the day.

Approximately 40 young men occupied K-6. The character of K-6 had been forged in the previous school year (1972-1973) by the characters who resided there. Nearly if not all of the young men who occupied K-6 in the previous year returned or wanted to return; the bond that existed between those young men was unique, at least for a dormitory, but I had no basis for comparison or reference. I still sensed some good fortune for being assigned to K-6 and I wondered how to become part of the collective.

Hess Hall, like most other dormitories, was constructed of cinderblocks and the walls were painted a shade of yellow so light that it seemed the color of aged parchment, a color best-described as industrial or institutional. The occupants of K-6 during the year before my freshman year unsuccessfully tried to persuade the university administration to paint the walls a different color. Those occupants then offered to paint the walls if the university would provide the paint, but this offer also was rejected. They then offered to buy the paint and do the painting, but again, their offer was rejected. The occupants of K-6 had their cause; their act of defiance, if not rebellion, was to paint the walls without permission. But their actions were also acts of creation.

The result of their work was impressive, more art than paint-job. The walls in the hallways of K-6 were covered with wide bands of primary colors (red, yellow, blue) and green. The bands