I Have Been So Lucky....#1

An old friend once said after serving in Viet Nam, that once out and retired, he had plenty of free time to think about his war-time experiences, and only then, the battles came back to haunt him. In a way, one man who I worked for started me thinking about what he termed "my vast amount of experience" now that I'm retired. Pondering that over the past four years of writing two books, I've come to realize how fortunate I've been over the last 73 years. I've taken the "Road Less Travele" and now contempolated, am sure I was right. In the airlines sales business, while in Ireland, I met Eamon Devalera, President of the Republic, former Irish terrorist, one of the gunman in the O'Connell Street Post Office insurrectionist rebels that kicked off the rebellion for Irish freedom against the English. I met him in the 1960's while working for Irish Airlines. I toured through Portugal during the student insurrections when Dictator Marcella Catania had two dozen studens shot outside a dorm on a sunny afternoon for rioting. Passing by, our Portugeuse guide heard about it on a radio and detoured our bus away from the action. In Rome, on another visit, my group had an audience with the pope, a wonderful guy. When I lived in Denver with my late wife, I accidently ran into Pope John Paul at the end of a line of Cardinals on Colfax Street, waiting to march into the Cathedral. I was passing by on the way back to work. The pope, for some reason had no security out there at the end of the line. He looked tired, and, I asked him if he wanted a chair, he said, " no thank you, I've had a long day but I think I'm about to go in. " He seemed like a regular guy, not a pope. The music started right then, and in he went. I said, " good luck" and waved. He waved back. Vice President Gore arrived at the hotel campaigning for the seat the next week. I met him. I was not impressed. As a joke, the hotel sales department stuck a life size stand-up cut-out of Clinton in his shower. Slick Willie was on his heels in about a week, all smiles and glad handing. Same story. He was slightly taller, and louder. Women, everywhere. Bill Gates was at the hotel and we talked briefly - he was breaking Windows, his new product, and I could tell his mind was not on practical matters. He thinks in stone tablets. During a break we were standing out in the lobby, he asked me where the Mens' Room as, and I said, Mr. Gates, you're leaning against it. In Tulsa, the General in the Air Force, the last man on the man - the guy who wrote his daughter's name on the moon dust, was one of the most humble men I've ever met. And, then there was John Wayne. I never had a father I could count on. He was never there. Oh, he met the minimum requirements, food, shelter, clothes, but -that was about it. I guess I shouldn't complain. The beatings were there. No emotional support, no golf, baseball, positive " you can do it," kinda stuff. Nothing. So, I had to pick a ....what is called a father - figure. I picked John Wayne. He was everything I thought a father SHOULD be. I emulated him, watched ALL his movies, collected them, I even knew how he reacted to certain situations. Watched interviews, knew how he FELT about things. He once said he wasn't an actor - he was a "RE actor." I didn't know what that meant until I met him. I met him three times. First at the opening of Hatari in Philadelphia in the 60's. He drove up in that modified Jeep, which as coincidence would have it, I would run into 45 years later in storage in Nevada. Got my picture taken in it. Met him again and had b'fast with him in my Tucson Ramada hotel in the late 70's. Signed Autograph to go with it. What I learned about the Duke was this: I could never be like him. He wasn't what I thought he was, but I could still admire him, like him a lot. And I still do. He had a lot of great qualities. He had a lot of values that we could do ourselves a lot of good to adopt. He was an alcoholic, a disease that ruins a lot people, like my father. More later. ###