A trip to California with son Johnny to retrieve his car provides reason to head west, by way of New Mexico, of course. The Great Plains would have been more colorful in June with the wheat harvest in full swing. But the lonesome roads and broad skies still provide that feeling of liberation.
Our second night, we reach Tucumcari, N.M., and stay at Michael and Catherine's Route 66 Motel, still the best motel bargain in the Golden West. Michael tells me that the recession has helped his business - people are looking for value.
Next morning, we have breakfast at the Pow Wow Inn on Tucumcari's main drag - best huevos rancheros this side of the Rio Grande. The manager, doubling as Tucumcari's Chamber of Commerce president, is chatting with the guests. When he finds we are from the beer state he asks if we have any Leininkugels with us. We don't, but chat up Monroe and New Glarus suds. Perhaps on our way through again ...
We arrive in Las Cruces - it's still growing way too fast- and former colleague and old pal, Willie Lujan, invites us to stay at his hacienda amidst cotton and chile fields. We head for the new Irish Pub in Picacho Hills, west of town. A tall, cold beer and chile-flavored mussels in the half shell under the warm desert sky in the gathering dusk is the way to go. The temp still is in the 90s but the dry desert air feels as comfortable as a soft, warm blanket. The setting sun casts a reddish glow on the Organ Mountains across the valley. The desert stars twinkle overhead and the lights of Las Cruces glimmer in the valley below.
Next day, we have coffee and pastry with Willie and old friend Clyde in old Mesilla. We check out my adobe, a three-minute walk from the plaza. My tenants still are content, but my guesthouse needs attention. Johnny volunteers while I run some other errands.
Another desert evening, Willie, Doc, Johnny and I have a great Mexican Dinner at La Posta in Mesilla, once a stage stop for the old Butterfield Line, directly across the street from the building where Billy The Kid was briefly incarcerated prior to his escape.
Next day, it's off to California - across southwestern New Mexico, into Arizona. New Mexico's Chihuahua Desert is higher and cooler than Arizona's Sonora Desert. The temp in Las Cruces usually gets down to the 70s on summer nights. Not so in Arizona. As we hit Buckeye, near Phoenix, it's still near 100 degrees at dusk.
My GMC keeps us in air-conditioned comfort as we near California. California - site of some tough years, both physically - Marine Boot Camp-and later, mentally, that grueling Ph.D. program at UC-Berkeley.
MCRD San Diego - it's where babes in the woods from the Midwest and West get their rude introduction to the Corps. The hapless saps from the East that go through boot camp among the sand fleas, mosquitoes and humidity of Parris Island, S.C., refer to those of us who went through San Diego as "Hollywood Marines." That's OK. If you're going to subject yourself to three months of hell, you might as well do it in good weather.
I recently talked to a Marine just out of Boot Camp. What? The drill instructors can't knock you on your ass anymore when you screw up? Well, theoretically anyway, they weren't supposed to back then, either. But who was going to complain, and to whom? As our senior DI advised us, "Any of you numb nuts wanna complain to the chaplain? He'll just tell you to go to hell in a nicer way than we will."
Actually, we were less interested in complaining than in just getting through that ordeal.
As we descend toward the Colorado River, the temperature drops to the low 90s. We're now in California, ascending again, the temperature reaching near 100 as we head across the Mojave Desert. I recall once again the jubilation as that harassed, harangued, but sharply disciplined bunch of teenagers, Platoon 297, got our orders - some to artillery, some to naval aviation schools, and a few of us to Radio Operators School, back to San Diego. But first, there was the minor obstacle of another six weeks of basic infantry training at Camp Pendleton.
With sea bag over one shoulder and M-1 rifle over the other, we boarded the cattle cars for Pendleton, happy as larks to be getting out of Boot Camp. We were Marines now.
Really? It was not a universally held view. Our infantry instructors greeted us in true Marine Corps style.
"You people think you're Marines? You wouldn't amount to a pimple on a real Marine's ass! You've had three months of that parade ground ----. Now you're up here to find out what the job is. We've already decided there's only one way to treat this motley crew - and that's like boots!"
Whaddaya knmow - here we go again. And "motley?" I had never heard that word before, but even a teen-aged dummy could figure it out from context. Although disparaging, it was softer than the sharper adjectives to which we had become accustomed, and would become a permanent part of my lexicon.
So it was weeks of hiking up Pendleton's hills. Nearing the end of one sojourn, one of the instructors, actually smiling, noted, "I see some of you numb nuts are headed for ditty-dum-dum-ditty school," referring to the international Morse code that would be indelibly stamped on our impressionable minds. The Corps' inimitable method of building confidence does not include suggesting what a bunch of swell guys you are. That would be the supreme insult - intolerable.
As the California desert miles roll by, I reflect back on how going from infantry training to radio Operators School would be a relief, and a whole lot easier.
California dreamin' ...
To be continued ...
- Monroe resident John Waelti is a native of Monroe township. He can be reached at jjwaelti@charter.net.
Our second night, we reach Tucumcari, N.M., and stay at Michael and Catherine's Route 66 Motel, still the best motel bargain in the Golden West. Michael tells me that the recession has helped his business - people are looking for value.
Next morning, we have breakfast at the Pow Wow Inn on Tucumcari's main drag - best huevos rancheros this side of the Rio Grande. The manager, doubling as Tucumcari's Chamber of Commerce president, is chatting with the guests. When he finds we are from the beer state he asks if we have any Leininkugels with us. We don't, but chat up Monroe and New Glarus suds. Perhaps on our way through again ...
We arrive in Las Cruces - it's still growing way too fast- and former colleague and old pal, Willie Lujan, invites us to stay at his hacienda amidst cotton and chile fields. We head for the new Irish Pub in Picacho Hills, west of town. A tall, cold beer and chile-flavored mussels in the half shell under the warm desert sky in the gathering dusk is the way to go. The temp still is in the 90s but the dry desert air feels as comfortable as a soft, warm blanket. The setting sun casts a reddish glow on the Organ Mountains across the valley. The desert stars twinkle overhead and the lights of Las Cruces glimmer in the valley below.
Next day, we have coffee and pastry with Willie and old friend Clyde in old Mesilla. We check out my adobe, a three-minute walk from the plaza. My tenants still are content, but my guesthouse needs attention. Johnny volunteers while I run some other errands.
Another desert evening, Willie, Doc, Johnny and I have a great Mexican Dinner at La Posta in Mesilla, once a stage stop for the old Butterfield Line, directly across the street from the building where Billy The Kid was briefly incarcerated prior to his escape.
Next day, it's off to California - across southwestern New Mexico, into Arizona. New Mexico's Chihuahua Desert is higher and cooler than Arizona's Sonora Desert. The temp in Las Cruces usually gets down to the 70s on summer nights. Not so in Arizona. As we hit Buckeye, near Phoenix, it's still near 100 degrees at dusk.
My GMC keeps us in air-conditioned comfort as we near California. California - site of some tough years, both physically - Marine Boot Camp-and later, mentally, that grueling Ph.D. program at UC-Berkeley.
MCRD San Diego - it's where babes in the woods from the Midwest and West get their rude introduction to the Corps. The hapless saps from the East that go through boot camp among the sand fleas, mosquitoes and humidity of Parris Island, S.C., refer to those of us who went through San Diego as "Hollywood Marines." That's OK. If you're going to subject yourself to three months of hell, you might as well do it in good weather.
I recently talked to a Marine just out of Boot Camp. What? The drill instructors can't knock you on your ass anymore when you screw up? Well, theoretically anyway, they weren't supposed to back then, either. But who was going to complain, and to whom? As our senior DI advised us, "Any of you numb nuts wanna complain to the chaplain? He'll just tell you to go to hell in a nicer way than we will."
Actually, we were less interested in complaining than in just getting through that ordeal.
As we descend toward the Colorado River, the temperature drops to the low 90s. We're now in California, ascending again, the temperature reaching near 100 as we head across the Mojave Desert. I recall once again the jubilation as that harassed, harangued, but sharply disciplined bunch of teenagers, Platoon 297, got our orders - some to artillery, some to naval aviation schools, and a few of us to Radio Operators School, back to San Diego. But first, there was the minor obstacle of another six weeks of basic infantry training at Camp Pendleton.
With sea bag over one shoulder and M-1 rifle over the other, we boarded the cattle cars for Pendleton, happy as larks to be getting out of Boot Camp. We were Marines now.
Really? It was not a universally held view. Our infantry instructors greeted us in true Marine Corps style.
"You people think you're Marines? You wouldn't amount to a pimple on a real Marine's ass! You've had three months of that parade ground ----. Now you're up here to find out what the job is. We've already decided there's only one way to treat this motley crew - and that's like boots!"
Whaddaya knmow - here we go again. And "motley?" I had never heard that word before, but even a teen-aged dummy could figure it out from context. Although disparaging, it was softer than the sharper adjectives to which we had become accustomed, and would become a permanent part of my lexicon.
So it was weeks of hiking up Pendleton's hills. Nearing the end of one sojourn, one of the instructors, actually smiling, noted, "I see some of you numb nuts are headed for ditty-dum-dum-ditty school," referring to the international Morse code that would be indelibly stamped on our impressionable minds. The Corps' inimitable method of building confidence does not include suggesting what a bunch of swell guys you are. That would be the supreme insult - intolerable.
As the California desert miles roll by, I reflect back on how going from infantry training to radio Operators School would be a relief, and a whole lot easier.
California dreamin' ...
To be continued ...
- Monroe resident John Waelti is a native of Monroe township. He can be reached at jjwaelti@charter.net.
