Cheyenne . . . The Beginning

Cheyenne . . . The Beginning.

What the Sam Hill (as my father used to say) does that mean? It means the start of my completely mismanaged life. While at Lackland everything was organized right down to when and how long I brushed my teeth. Beginning now I would have a little "private" time allotted to me. Although the Air Force still regulated my life, it wasn't so in your face about it. I was allowed to make decisions and this was new to me. For eighteen years I had had decisions made for me by mother. For the last six weeks the decisions were made for me by the Air Force. Now the Air Force was going to attempt to train me in the strange world of teletype communications, plus crypto, where I was allowed to carry a .45 while on duty.

I was ready for all this new found freedom. Freedom! That is how I felt about it. No more would I be at someones beck and call twenty-four hours a day. Finally I was in charge of myself. How stupid and naive I was to think that. How wrong I was in thinking that I knew all the answers and did not need to abide to any rules. But these points would take many years for me to understand, and in the meantime I fell headlong into the world of teletype, it's coded tape, which, by the end of the school I was able to take the perforated tape and pull it through my fingers and read it like I was reading a newspaper. I thought I was a hotshot.

Man, did I ever think I was in seventh heaven? The communications school they send me to was right up my alley. I took to the teletype keyboard and its intricacies like a newborn to its mother's tit. Later on in my life, and not all that much later either, I would again find the keyboard of an entirely different machine, one which would help me roam this great country, from one city to another, one small town to . . . well, you know, and make a decent living as I did it. Being able to operate with professionalism this machine was always my ace in the hole when I had my back up against the wall. To put it bluntly, I was what they called a "tramp printer," and the machine that allowed me to do that was the Linotype.

But as I settled into a routine in Francis E. Warren AFB, those days weren't even a glint in my thoughts. As I said, this was the beginning. This was the open door to my future and what would I do with it? I had no idea, and the future was NOT something I was worried about. It was the here and now which was important, and although I got through communications (teletype) school in good shape I was forming thoughts and habits which would evolve into the person I would become, most of these thoughts and habits would prove to be self destructive . . .

Chapter 19 coming up . . .

MY BOOKS:

Write To Murder . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/956621

Margaret and David: A Love Story . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1072842

My Mother's Revenge . . . http://www.lulu.com/content/1132742