M Y O B

AROUND THE COUNTRY

To get our minds off Mom’s demise Dad took us on a trip around the country: basically, we went to Quebec by way of New Orleans. This was the summer of 1951: “Jim Crow” was in full swing, and Dad hated everything about the South, but felt we boys ought to see it. I’m glad he lived long enough to see much of the discrimination reduced.

We traveled in our 1948 Chrysler Windsor, pulling a Higgins trailer. Ours was blue, like the one in the photo, and as far as I know, they all were.

1948 Chrysler Windsor, pulling a Higgins trailer

These were popular in the late forties and early 50s, and our family, now of four, fit inside just fine. We saved a lot of money not staying in motels. The two halves of the trailer lid opened out on hinges and a canvas tent popped up on metal stays. Sleeping-bags went on the  two opened flaps, and there was room for two more on the floor of the thing. Here’s a view inside: I slept right up there, and my older brother slept on the one opposite.

The two halves of the trailer lid opened out on hinges and a canvas tent popped up on metal stays.

Dad and my oldest brother flopped on the floor. We had cooking equipment and carried our own food, so we  slept and ate nearly all of our meals in and around this contraption for the  whole summer.

My biggest problem under this regime was to find times when I could exercise my new ability to jack off. I expect my brothers had the same problem, but none of us ever thought of taking matters in hand together. So the summer was spent whacking off in gas-station rest-rooms, behind trees at camp-grounds, and at other places that presented the opportunity.

On the way home, Dad remained in Denver for some conferences, so my brothers and I continued on our own by way of Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. I often jerked off in the back seat of the car, believing my bothers did not notice. I expect they did, though, but chose not to say anything about it. I recall wandering off alone in Yellowstone one day (a fascinating place for a budding chemist): watching a small geyser erupt, I could not help myself. I pulled my pud and erupted right along with it! Far as I know no one was watching, but who knows? Maybe I gave a voyeur something to remember.

GROWING UP

With hormones now ruling my life, I grew up another foot, and out by an inch or two where it really counts. Better yet, I began to find some hair here and there where there had been none. So, when I entered my sophomore year at MHS, I was catching up to my peers in ways that made me feel a little better about myself. Nevertheless, there were residual effects from the hazing I got for being so immature: I became completely pee-shy, unable to piss in the presence of another person (unless I sat in a stall).

This pretty well put an end to my cruising for dick in the boys’ rooms, and in fact led to a permanent aversion to “tea-room” sex.

SOPHOMORE YEAR

The science course in my second year was Biology. We dissected frogs and did all the usual icky stuff. We also got some rudimentary sex “education”, in a class separated by sex. The girls, who probably would have benefited from some insight into how boys work, saw films about girls. The boys, who might have found useful some insight into how girls work, saw films about boys! If what the girls saw was as unenlightening as what we did, the whole exercise was futile. How  can you spend a half hour discussing sex with a bunch of horny teen-aged boys and NOT EVEN MENTION masturbation? Sheeesh! However, the episode did give me an inkling that I might not be so different from my peers as I had come to think.

I endured PE, this time with the help of a lanky fellow named Bill who enjoyed playing hand-ball as much as I did. We actually got pretty good at it, kept score, and once in a while induced another guy to attempt it with one or the other of us. I got a passing grade in PE for the first time in my life!

Still, I remained very much a “loner”. I had only a few friends, one of them a devout and proper Catholic boy who I liked a lot intellectually, though I was not attracted to him physically. He was a bit pudgy; my aversion to adipose tissue was already evident. But at the end of that school year, Gary went off to Bellarmine Prep School, determined to be a priest, so he went out of my life. The tall and lanky basket-ball players remained my favorites and fantasy-fodder for innumerable jack-off sessions—by myself, as usual—and while I often contemplated broaching the subject of mutual JO to other boys, I never did so. I generally got my rocks off twice a day: once after getting home from school, and once before going to sleep. On week-ends, with many hours spent alone in my little “laboratory”, I might scatter my seed on the floor several times. My last act of every day was to whack off in bed, where I just rolled on my side and shot my wad on the wall. I’d be asleep in minutes: masturbation is nothing if not a good soporific!

I was beginning to form some fixations that have lasted to this day. One was a fascination with arms (and legs) which I have already mentioned. Another was a fascination with boys’ adams-apples, since my own did not yet show.

But my primary fixation was on the phallus: furtive glances in the gym were not what I had in mind! It would be a while before I got my hands on one other than my own!

ANOTHER MOVE

As that school year drew to a close, Dad moved us to a rebuilt house on the outskirts, nearer to his job and nearer to the railroad.

The move resulted in one of the most embarrassing moments of my youth. When the bed in my room was removed by the moving crew, the wall beside it (which had once been all white) was found festooned with yellowing cum-stains! Their location on the wall made it abundantly clear that little Bruciebabe had been spraying his load repeatedly on that wall! It’s twoo, it’s twoo!  I’d been shooting off every night for a year or more; the incrustation was not only obvious, it shouted out to anyone who looked: that little kid’s been spankin’ the monkey! I was mortified, but not a soul mentioned it. Whoever bought the house musta painted that little bedroom quickly.

Ironically, we had a half acre of almond trees again, but never harvested them ourselves: Dad sold the crop to the neighbor who also had almonds. The impetus for a new house was his remarriage, too soon after Mom’s passing as it turned out. His new wife was a real bitch, and she had a bratty kid from a former marriage who was too young to be of much interest to me.

However, our move put me closer to a fellow I admired named Jim. He and I shared many interests in mechanical things and, above all, CARS! Jim had several, and through his influence I was able to find a beat-up 1926 Dodge sedan that cost me all of fifty bucks. The windows (except windshield) were missing, and the upholstery was in tatters, but it ran well and I loved it. That car was the first of a bunch of them, all unusual in some way. I had a lot of fun with a 1933 Oldsmobile straight-8 sedan: the engine was so worn out it got only 18 miles to the quart of oil. A few trips the length of the town’s main drag on a hot summer night would lay down a formidable smoke-screen of blue haze. It did not look anything like this restored one, except for the shape: mine was black and ready for the junkyard. (Oh, wait: that’s where I got it)!

Restored 1933 Oldsmobile Straight-8 Sedan

Jim and I bummed around a lot the summer following my sophomore year. Dad and his new shrew wife were off on what I later learned was anything but a honeymoon, so we had plenty of time to go places and do things. One night we were tinkering in his work-room when he asked me a question I certainly had not expected: “Have you ever jacked-off a dog?” Holy cow! It was the first time he’d mentioned anything even remotely about sex! I had to answer truthfully, (see my story Animal Crackers at Nifty), “Yes, why do you ask?”

In the end, we went behind his garage and I showed him how to JO his mutt, at the conclusion of which it was obvious Jim had a hard-on, just as I did. We went inside the garage, sat side-by-side with our backs to the wall, opened our pants and fondled ourselves for a few minutes. Then it happened: Jim reached over and grabbed my prick! I thought I’d died and gone to heaven: it felt absolutely incredible, and utterly unlike how it felt when I held myself. Within seconds, I had his dick in my fist and … well, you know what happened.

Absolutely Wonderful

Though it felt absolutely wonderful to jack each other, we completed the “off” part individually, much as we would have done if alone. In fact, that remained the pattern whenever we got together, which was often. I discovered Jim got horny when driving, just as I did (and, I think, many men do), so most of our jaunts into the Sierra foothills on back roads resulted in one or more JO sessions together. It was a fun and busy summer: the wall in my new bedroom remained clean since Jim and I got off together often, and because when I pounded one out at home, I used an old towel I kept under the bed.

JUNIOR YEAR

At the end of summer my Dad and his new bride shrew returned and life should have returned to normal. Several events occurred to render the school year different. It quickly became apparent  that Dad’s love-life did not exist, and his marriage was headed for divorce. Lillian, a fiery red-head, might have been a hot number once, but towards my Dad she was utterly frigid. When it came some months on, the divorce was based on the fact their marriage had never been consummated! Now that I was learning the importance of getting off, I had a new appreciation for Dad’s dilemma: his needs were obviously not being fulfilled by this witch. Can you spell  G-O-L-D   D-I-G-G-E-R ?

More importantly, now that Jim and I were on intimate terms, I learned he had been using his expensive polaroid camera to photograph as many hard-ons as he could find! Mine joined his rogues’ gallery soon enough, but the erection that fascinated me most was attached to a fellow nick-named Butch—I forget his real name now. Imagine my surprise, then, when I learned Butch was only a seventh-grader, and a classmate of my (for the moment) step-brother! For some reason, Jim had lost interest in Butch, but I was fascinated by the photo of his toad-stabber, and through the agency of little Dougie was able to make Butch’s acquaintance. He lived only a couple of blocks away, had a car, and loved to let me play with his salami! Despite his being younger than I, Butch was taller, far more precocious, and well ahead of me physically. I coulda cared less: he was willing to let me play with his prick, which was enough for me (it was enough for two, to tell the truth, but I kept him for myself)! [Jim and his photos, and Butch, found their way into my story, Piece on Earth: read it at Nifty].

Dad was busy most nights and his “wife” would take her kid and go somewhere (I didn’t care where, as long as they were away!) so I had the house to myself. I’d call Butch, he’d drive over, and we’d play for several hours. Don’t ask me why: we never tried sucking or fucking! We just played with each other’s hard-on and felt each other up elsewhere (remember, I already loved legs and arms, and Butch had some fine examples). He seemed to get a kick out of my lack of precocity, just as I was fascinated by his abundance of it. When he got tired of playing, he’d announce a “race” to see who could cum first: I always won. It seemed with all that length to deal with (I did measure, and he was fully 8½ when hard) it took him a long time to reach nirvana. Perhaps watching me shoot helped, for soon after I shot my wad on to the wooden floor he would blast his likewise. That signaled the end of  our tryst: he’d hike up his jeans and drive home. I was so wound up, I’d often whack off again, then wipe up the mess before going to bed.

Those grand romps came to an abrupt halt: some gal got him up one night and stuck that lovely thing in her snatch, and it was all over: little Bruciebabe couldn’t hold a candle to the “real thing”.  Damn!

As a Junior, I was taking Chemistry as my science subject. However, since I’d already done all the experiments and knew the subject well, the instructor appointed me as “lab assistant”, so while he was lecturing I was prepping his “show and tell”.  Perhaps the association of chemistry in my little home lab with the number of times I whacked off there was the cause: whatever, I jacked off in the school lab frequently while the lecture in the adjoining room was in progress.

I was also on television that year, on a program called “Science in Action”. This is described in some detail in my story, Central Valley High: read it on Nifty.

FRUSTRATION!

The divorce was finalized mid-year and Lillian & Doug were gone. For good! My sex-life consisted of an occasional wank with Jim and non-stop wanks at home. One day in Latin class a fellow I liked a lot stuck his leg out into the aisle, which caused his jeans to ride up, revealing some leg above his socks. I was fascinated by the hairiness there, since my own ankles were as yet glabrous and skinny. I wanted desperately to see more of that leg—and him, so set about developing a plan. It eventuated that he accompanied my Dad and myself when I drove Dad to a conference in the Bay Area. Ed and I were alone in the car on the way home, and as night fell I managed to get our discussion worked around to sex. I got hornier and hornier, and so did he, so we finally agreed to jack off together (or so I thought). I drove off the highway to a spot I knew where we would not be bothered, hoping to slide across the seat and extricate his meat in preparation for some funzies, but before I could move he was out the door and into the back seat! Damn! It was dark, so I couldn’t even see what he was whacking at back there. We shot our respective wads into paper towels (I was prepared), he returned to the front seat and we drove home, our desultory conversation turned to less interesting things. I never made another attempt on him, and think maybe my aversion to body-hair may have originated from the frustration of not having had a good time with him. He was the only fellow in high school I even tried to lure into my clutches.

To be continued …

AND NOW, FOR A SPECIAL COMMENT

With apologies to Keith Olbermann! He and Rachel Maddow are the freshest breaths of air to hit televised news in years! I’m sorry they have to share MSNBC facilities with that loathsome “Predator” series and the interminable, disgusting “Lock-up” crap, but at least they are ON THE AIR!

So far in this blog, I’ve described some of my life up to the age of 15, when I finally discovered what the thing between my legs could be used for besides taking a whiz. In today’s environment, especially in San Francisco, I can’t imagine a boy reaching the age of 15 without making this wonderful discovery much earlier. Indeed, polls at many of the blogs I read suggest that it’s fairly typical for boys to get their first blow-job around 12, by which time, one presumes, they had been jerking off for some time. [Now that the “Fondling Fathers” have been largely put out of business, this age-level may rise a bit]  {chuckle}.

But, it is fair to ask, how did I manage to get to 15 without even masturbating? Even after a cousin had been so kind as  to show me how!

Well, for one thing, my “hormone treatments” were late to arrive. I had my own bedroom always, so it was unusual to see even my brothers nude. I rarely saw my parents in the altogether either, and seeing any other people nude, in fact or photos, simply did not happen in those days. While I’m sure there was an underground trade in “smut”, it was never seen or discussed in my family. And remember, in those days, even Batman & Robin, always fully dressed, didn’t show a lot of basket, and genitals were routinely air-brushed out in most of the illustrations in the National Geographic! I do remember poring over the Monkey-Wards and Sears catalogues, looking at the underwear ads. Even there, though, “bumps” were not prominent, body hair was generally de-emphasized (on those guys and men who would have had any to start with), so there was really almost nothing salacious for a budding young queer to enjoy! I was not into sports or swimming, so even a classmate in a bathing-suit was a rare sight.

I remember being fascinated by a boy named Frankie in my Carmichael days: I was particularly attracted to his arms, which were finely shaped. He was many shades darker than me due to some mediterranean blood I suppose. I joined the Cub-Scouts, not because I had any interest in badges and all that stuff, but because the pack generally met at his house where his mom was den-mother. When it turned out all they ever did was play tag football on the huge expanse of lawn there, I lost interest in the scouts and retreated into my fantasies of touching Frankie’s lovely limbs. I still enjoy a well-shaped arm. It does not have to be particularly muscular; in fact, many of the photos I see nowadays are of guys whose arms are too muscular. My favorite pics are of naturally well-built fellows without the evidence of “pumping iron” so common nowadays.

There were lots of “pin-up girls”, but I was utterly uninterested in them: the belief that I ought to be interested led to a lot of grief!

Neither my own parents nor any others I knew were particularly demonstrative. Anything beyond a casual embrace was reserved for times when we kids were in bed! There were no TV shows for me to watch: Dad didn’t allow a TV into the house until good color-sets became common (late 1950’s).

Carl (he of horse fame) did show us (often) his dad’s collection of porno pictures, clearly obtained through underground sources. But these were straight porn, all in grainy black & white, and mostly in a tiny wallet-size format. Despite being dog-eared and grimy, they seemed to do it for Carl and his friends: they did nothing for me!

But the most telling feature that led to my remaining so innocent so late was my belief that I was some sort of one-off freak. In those days, “gay” meant light-hearted and charming; “queer” meant odd or strange; a “fairy” was something that took a tooth in the night. It would be years before I heard the word “homosexual” uttered by anyone, even though throughout most of my high-school years, the faculty and administration thought I WAS ONE!

WHY THE F*CK DIDN’T THEY TELL ME?!

I learned, years later, they all thought I was sucking every cock in the school. If they had only told me, I’d have obliged, willingly!

Even after my revelation in the gym, overhearing two boys discussing their alleged shooting prowess, I did not immediately realize my peers were probably doing and thinking the same sexual things I was because I was convinced they would all be thinking in terms of doing it with girls. Even when I kind-of figured out that guys might be relieving themselves just as I was soon doing daily, the idea of approaching any of them to do it with me remained beyond the pale. Much as I wanted to, I could not bring myself to proposition any of the guys I lusted after and dreamed about. Damn!

So, I blundered on, oblivious to what adults around me thought I was up to. I was a Junior in college before I learned there were, in fact, other guys with feelings similar to mine, willing to act on those impulses. I was in my 20’s before I got or gave a blow-job, but that’s for another page later on.

To be continued …

CHEMISTRY

Among some old textbooks in my Dad’s library I found a few about chemistry, and quickly developed an interest in that subject. Something about it “spoke to me”, and I found it very easy to comprehend. I converted an old potting-shed behind our garage into a “laboratory” using various “found” items. It was leaky and cold, so Dad helped me build something a bit more substantial: perhaps he realized I would soon be needing a place where I could be alone! I ransacked various middens around town for chemicals and containers and eventually got a chemistry set. I cannot imagine these are still available in anything like the form they were then: there were real chemicals in sufficient amounts for numerous experiments—or for committing suicide! But leaving this earth was far from my mind in those days, so I did the experiments, and learned. I begged a friend for his high-school chemistry workbook and did as many of those experiments as I could, as well.

The friend who supplied that book was “Gerry”, a chap four years ahead of me in school and far ahead of me physically. For some reason, he was willing to pal around with me. He had a scientific bent similar to my own, and we spent a lot of time together in the “Bramson Laboratory” (so the sign on the door stated). I was fascinated by Gerry’s prominent basket, and got up the nerve to push myself against it as often as I could, but never had the “balls” to grope him forthrightly. Damn! Mind you, I was still not getting my own erections yet, so my interest in Gerry was fairly innocent.  Whatever his interest in me, it appears now to have been entirely above reproach. If he had only allowed me to explore I’d have been in seventh heaven: but, he never touched me.  Damn!

HIGH SCHOOL

Again, having begun grammer-school at 5, I was just 14 when I entered Modesto’s only (then) High School. Not surprisingly, it was called Modesto High School, MHS from here on. My freshman year did not go well. For one thing, there was the same old problem with PE, which I could not get out of. My peers, with few exceptions, were ahead of me physically, and I still had the problem of surreptitiously enjoying the views in the locker-room and showers. One of the coaches did take my problems into consideration, allowing me to play hand-ball in one of the two courts out on the playing field: but I had to find someone willing to play against me, and since hand-ball was considered a “sissy” sport, I usually played with my (tennis) balls by myself. Coach also assigned me as towel-boy for the PE period I had, which cut my playtime a bit short, and put me behind a counter where I could watch the boys toweling themselves, but they could not see me below the middle, giving them less excuse to badger me about my lack of equipment “down there”.

My favorite class was General Science; my favorite teacher taught it. Mr. Bosch (not his real name) was a tall, lanky blond in his thirties. He had a rather Germanic appearance and bearing, with a butch haircut and a melifluous voice. But he was a good instructor, got us a lot of interesting movies, and took us on several field-trips around town. I developed a crush (my first) on Mr. Bosch, and did some terrific learning for him and from him. But what I would have liked most to have gotten from him—a pat on the head, or elsewhere—I never got. Apparently, some DID! A couple of years on he was discovered to be diddling some of the boys, and was summarily fired and run out of town. Like everyone else, he never touched ME! Damn!

My freshman year was also distorted by the death of my mother. It was not unexpected: she died a horrible death, from the cancer we had discovered 5 years earlier. This put us all in a funk for a while, and that summer we took a long trip around the US to recover.

But the major event of my freshman year occurred as that school-year was winding down. I had gone to watch our basket-ball players practice for a game to take place that night. I would not actually attend the game itself: I was supposed to be home, studying. But I tended to hang around that hated gym when the guys were playing basketball because I was rapidly becoming a “leg man” (which I still am). In those days (unlike today) most sports were played in very brief shorts: between where these ended and knee-socks began was a gorgeous display of healthy young thighs, and now and then in a particularly  vigorous run-up or jump, one got a glimpse right up to the jewels within. Indeed, many of the guys wore shorts they split up each side, to be as revealing as possible! Believe me, there is NO fun watching a basketball game any more, what with those stupid bloomers the guys wear now!

Anyway, there I was getting my fill of eye-candy, when I happened to overhear two chaps nearby comparing their ability to shoot their jizz. All at once, a whole lot of things fell into place! The scene from years before, when my cousin had shown me the ropes, sprang instantly to mind: I knew at once what the boys were discussing and describing, and it occurred to me I was probably missing out on something.

That very night, alone in my little room at the top of the stairs, I determined to find out just exactly what those boys (and my cousin) were experiencing. Dad was downstairs showing slides to friends, so I figured I’d have some time to myself. [He’d invited me to watch with them, but I told him I had to study: he must have known “something was up”, ’cause I NEVER studied!]

I laid my bod across my bed, pushed my pants down, and went to work with my fist: I can remember it as if it were yesterday! By this time almost 15, my body was ready, even if my mind wasn’t. Once I “got the feeling” (which didn’t take long) I could NOT stop, and before long I shot my first wad all over the place, just as I heard my Dad’s foot-fall on the steps to my room! Jesus!

By the time he opened the door I had hiked up my pants and was seated at my little desk with a book open, but the tiny room reeked of semen and I’m sure Dad knew what I’d just done. Nevertheless, satisfied I was studying, he departed. No sooner was he gone, I dropped trous’ again and whacked off a second time, then set about cleaning up the mess. It was the first of an untold number of joyous jack-offs.

Some of these early experiences, hugely embellished, can be found in my story, Central Valley High, at Nifty.

To be continued …

In 1994, I wrote The Orphanage. While it was on alt.sex.stories, it was reviewed by a reader who remarked about its “sly political humor”. As with all my stories, it wound up on the Nifty Archive.

In 2004, I wrote the sequel, The Orphanage Revisited and sent it to Nifty. Here is the penultimate paragraph:

“But in the end, it was Wayne Henry Lane who was right: the Hilltop scene couldn’t last, and it didn’t. The complete melt-down of the Middle East in 2005 and the world-wide economic collapse in 2006 put us and thousands like us out of business, but also put the skids under Dubya and his neocons and his “Religious Wrong”. There’s never before been an impeachment of both the President and the vice-President. The Republicans were crippled, and when in 2009 President Obama declared a state of emergency, it was so the New Deal could be dusted off and people could get to work to un-do the damage of the previous seven years.”

So, I was off a bit in my timing of the economic collapse (which we are living right now), and so far, the Middle East hasn’t quite melted down (yet), but it seems I WAS right about Senator Obama’s successful run to be our President. I’m delighted he made it!

My only regret is that Dubya will leave office, rather than being thrown out of office. Likewise, it annoys me greatly that none of the perps responsible for our current economic meltdown are in jail, or are even likely to be. There’s no accountability any more for ANYthing: I hope Barack can do something about that once he is actually seated in the White House.

Like many others, I’d made up my mind to leave this country if Mr. Obama lost to the Repugnant Party. This posed a little problem, because my house-mate (thinking likewise) thought New Zealand might be nice, but I thought Portugal was a better choice for me. I read a blog that includes wonderful photos of Portugal. Most of the men are too butch and beefy for my taste, but it looks like Lisbon closely resembles San Francisco; it has hills, a bay, bridges, antique trams, and pretty mild weather. However, except possibly to visit, I doubt I’ll go there.

Likewise, I decided that if Mr. Obama won, I’d have the engine in my Chrysler rebuilt: the car has gone just shy of 200K miles. I know I’ll never go out and blow 20-30-40 kilo-bucks for a modern plastic car that I don’t fit in, so $6K  to have the engine running well seems like a bargain.

My Chrysler

This car will run until I crash it or my body crashes! The engine rebuild is complete, and I’m still breaking it in. Too bad I can’t be rebuilt in like fashion.
My regular narrative will resume on the next page.

HARD TO BELIEVE:

Despite growing up on a farm, watching animals being bred, watching Betty’s horses, and working with Carl, the notion of doing something other than taking a leak with my own little wiener never occurred to me. Even after an older Cousin, who must have been about 15 at the time, let me watch him jack off and reach an orgasm (he was into keeping his loads in a little bottle in the refrigerator for some reason) I did not put “two and two together”. Throughout my extended youth (I would turn out to be a “late bloomer”) not one person of any age ever touched me — dammit! [Why, if I’d known then what I know now, I’d have joined the Catholic Church (except there wasn’t one in Carmichael then)]. The blessed event that was my own first orgasm came much later. Meanwhile…

BACK TO A CITY

Dad took a new job in Modesto, roughly 90 miles south of Sacramento, so all our stuff got packed up and shipped in a huge van to a new house in a small corner of Modesto. There were a number of adaptations that had to be made, not the least of which was receiving milk by delivery in quart bottles: like, 20 at a time? On the farm, we had our own cows, and kept their milk in gallon jugs: my bothers and I would polish off an entire one at every meal, and that was whole milk, not pasteurized or skimmed. But the stuff we got in the bottles was skimmed milk, and we thought it was like drinking water: our intake of milk dropped off rapidly.

JUNIOR HIGH

The 7th grade was a whole new experience for me, much of it quite negative. For one thing, I was a natural hellion, and disliked regimen in almost any form. I also disliked sports, since I was very uncoordinated, but also could not see any real point to the kinds of sports we were required to play: baseball? I couldn’t hit the ball even off a stand! Football? I couldn’t hang on to it and run at the same time. And so it went. But the real problem was the requirement to dress for PE. Actually, we had to UNdress, put our clothes in a locker, change into little grey shorts, go out and play, then come back, UNdress again, shower, dry off, and put our street-clothes back on and go to the next class.

The problems came particularly in the shower-room: there were guys there who were men! They had hair down there! They had huge penises! And they loved to beat up little Bruciebabe, who was still a child.

Further complications arose because I loved to look at all the nude guys, but didn’t want any of them to see me watching! Of course I got caught peeping, so I also got towel-snaps and occasionally more brutal forms of abusive bullying. I tried getting a Doctor’s excuse: no deal—there was nothing wrong with me. I tried making myself appear sick: no deal—the Doctor saw through that in a heartbeat. So, I stumbled along, knowing there was something wrong with me because I hated sports but loved the nude guys! Such angst! I formed no friendships, kept to myself and somehow managed to get through the first year intact. I dreaded the approach of the eighth grade.

NOT ALL BAD

Modesto did have a few redeeming features; most notably (for me) its location on the main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Our house was just a few blocks away, and when I was not in school, I was usually somewhere around the railroad. I met the southbound Daylight every afternoon: it was due in at 4:50 or so, and usually made it. For this little tyke, standing beside one of those gorgeous GS-4 locomotives all decked out in the smart orange and red scheme of the Daylight trains, this was the high point of each day. Once in a while a kindly fireman would beckon me up into the cab, where all the heat, fire, handles and gadgets were simply awesome!

GS-4 Orange and Red

The Daylights ware Southern Pacific’s Premier trains in the hey-day of passenger trains. In my youth they ran from San Francisco to Los Angeles via the coast (The Coast Daylight), and between San Francisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles (the San Joaquin Daylights); later they also ran North from Oakland to Portland (The Shasta Daylights). Still regarded as the most beautiful passenger trains to operate anywhere in the world, they are, of course all gone. Just one example of their famous locomotives still exists:

All other examples of this spectacular machine have been scrapped.

For most of my years in Modesto I continued to meet the afternoon Daylight as often as I could, usually every day. I could watch the train depart and ride my bike home in time for dinner. There was not a lot of other excitement around Modesto’s station, although once the local steam switch-engine failed to clear the high-iron for a northbound freight, resulting in a spectacular wreck. I lingered past dinner time to watch crews trying to untangle the mess, and caught holy hell for not being home on time.

The SP also occasionally sent one of their famous cab-forward locomotives down the valley if they had a particularly long train to handle. What went south had to come north, and this usually occurred in the afternoon when I was out of school. I would hear the distinctive sound of the air pumps on those huge machines and ride my bike over in time to see them getting under way again after having taken on water. These things were amazing:

SP Cab-Forward Locomotive

They are essentially two locomotives on a single frame and designed for heavy drag-freight use. They were used almost exclusively on Donner Pass. Putting the cabs in front prevented asphyxiating the crew when passing through snow-sheds which were essentially wooden tunnels designed to divert the avalanches so common in the high Sierra. On our trips to Tahoe it was not uncommon to see a freight-train with three of these mammoths working their balls off: one in front, one in the middle of the train, and one at the rear. The three crews could not communicate: they simply had to know when the engine was doing the right thing.

f the 400 or so of these built, just ONE remains – in the Railway Museum in Sacramento.

Watching one of these get under way was incredibly exciting (with tender, these are a city-block long)! All the machinery is exposed and beefy. I could ride along the tracks for a quarter of a mile or so before the thing out-ran me: I’d stop and watch as 125 cars rumbled by, gathering speed, so the caboose receded into the distance rapidly. Naturally, I wanted to become a locomotive engineer, but while I was in college, steam died. Diesel locomotives just don’t have the charisma of steam!

EIGHTH GRADE

Too soon, September rolled around and I entered the eighth grade. But, something had happened along the way: I was beginning to grow up!

So, the eighth grade was perhaps a little less stressful than the seventh. I remember less about it, though I know my feelings of inadequacy and differentness persisted. By the end of Junior High school I was at least beginning to mature, and there were a few stirrings of the hormones beginning to rage. But, I was still far behind most of my peers physically: academically, I was ahead of many, being something of a bookworm, or what we now call a nerd. High School terrified me, because I knew the Physical Ed bullshit would continue for another four years!

To be continued …

I INTERRUPT MY NARRATIVE …

… to discuss a matter of some importance to several large segments of our population: pornography.

I’m old enough to remember vividly the days when there was NO commercial porn. What porn there was consisted mostly of typewritten material, often second-and third- carbon-copies, occasionally with crude drawings included. A friend of mine had a HUGE collection of this stuff. Later, when the firm for which we both worked got a dry copier, he made Xerox copies in large quantities. Since he was the “key operator” for the machine, he got away with it for many months, until he left an “original” on the platen which someone else found. There was a bit of a dust-up, of course, but only a very few knew he was the perp, so he went on with it, being more careful! But I digress…

As I completed college, I found there were some magazines available here and there: these were not really pornographic in today’s sense of the word. There were no “dirty-book stores”: only a few magazine-stands would carry these off-color rags. One of these was a tiny (like, 5″ X 7″) black and white booklet called Tomorrow’s Man. It was mainly devoted to body-builders, posing (often oiled) in miniscule thongs and jock-straps. Penises were generally stuffed out of the way, which gave rise to the notion that most body-builders are not well hung. (The porn revolution has busted that myth!) Fizeek was another of these magazines, very similar in design and scope and there were several others.

Then there was AMG (Athletic Model Guild), in a slightly larger format, also black and white. This was produced in Southern California and appeared to contain mostly navy guys (”seafood”) earning a little extra cash (to buy booze and girls, of course). I suppose a collection of these magazines would be worth some money nowadays. In the early issues the boys were mostly dressed, usually shirtless, and showing some basket (sometimes enormous ones—I often suspected salamis had been substituted for the real thing). The intent of these photos was certainly to provoke a salacious reaction in the reader, and I suppose it was successful for some: but the other intent was to “push the envelope” and get porn main-streamed. As time went on, the guys wore less and less and various symbols (often scratched on the negatives) were used to indicate sexual preferences, physical statistics and so forth. It is difficult, now, to believe that to state (or even suggest) that someone was “gay” or -gasp- homosekshull, was forbidden! [When someone implied Liberace was homosexual, he sued (libel), and WON!] The cute stuff in AMG was all designed to avoid prosecution for distributing “obscene” material under a whole bunch of court rulings generally lumped together and called “obscenity laws”

TM eventually disappeared (a copy from 1954 was available recently for $95.00), but AMG pushed on pushing, their material becoming more prurient and occasionally in color. Then, in 1973, came “Miller v. California”, which, while not opening the flood-gates exactly, did make it obvious the definition of obscene was not an easy task. It gradually dawned on people in general and on the courts, that obscenity was as much “in the eye of the beholder” as in the producer: by this time, AMG was definitely obscene, and was to become far more-so before it folded.

However, from the 70’s on, pornography “took off”. Large-format magazines that had kept the air-brushes busy removing “lumps” began including explicit (and occasionally real) hard-ons: the air-brushes went to work enhancing rather that deleting! With the useful addition of “adult” bookstores where all this stuff could be displayed and sold, the pornography market exploded. Specialty-subject mags appeared, including kiddie-porn, which as quickly as it appeared was legislated out of existence. My favorite title of the “niche rags” was Stump, and I leave it to my readers to imagine its contents!

Professional pornographers were quick to exploit technology: even amateurs quickly saw the possibilities of the Polaroid camera! I had a neighbor in the early 50’s who took photos of every hard-on he could find (he’s immortalized in Piece on Earth at Nifty). Prior to that, all porno had been produced on conventional film, an expensive and laborious process given that one had to find places to develop film that would NOT call the cops if they found a hard-on (or worse). The advent of the electronic camera for production (professional and otherwise), and the internet (for distribution) has radically changed the whole “porno” scene. Kids growing up today have this phenomenal wealth of porn available if they want it, and the ready means to produce and distribute it themselves if so inclined:  and they do, as I’m sure my readers know.

It’s all pretty amazing stuff for old farts like me who have watched it all unfold. For a walk through memory lane, there’s a website that sells the old magazines here. My own career, such as it is, writing “fuck stories” began in 1987 with First and Second Cousins: it has been on Nifty practically from its inception.

PeeYes: I’m also old enough to remember that the Nifty (gay) Archive was originally accumulated by someone at Cornell University: whether student or faculty I’ve never known. Its original URL ended in cornell.edu! I suppose someone eventually discovered it and forced it off-site! But it still exists here and contains thousands of original gay stories; many are fine examples of “one-handed-reading”.

July 18, 2009

As the late, great Anna Russell often said, “I’m not making this up, you know!” Shown below is a scan of one of the many pages of my letters from VietNam. My long-hand was better then than it is now, so I can actually read most of these as I transcribe them for your edification and entertainment.

One of the many pages of my letters from VietNam

Continuing my letters describing my first days in Saigon, during the Tet Offensive.

Saturday AM Feb 3, 1968

Still under curfew. The night was locally quiet, but the VC mortared the Cho-lon power sub-station but missed. Distant heavy artillery continued, and I understand this goes on at all times. The VC are slowly being cleaned up in town; there are still a few pockets of them left, and snipers are still around. The enclosed leaflets were dropped this morning: they tell the remaining VC how many of their comrades have bit the dust since the big push started. and what they can expect if they don’t turn themselves in.

The feeling of boredom setting in is strongly reinforced in some of us by helplessness. We are one block from the RC [Roman Catholic] hospital, where I’m sure we could do some useful work. But the oriental philosophy prevents this: the local people feel they have the situation under control, and do not want our assistance; in part this is because by accepting it they would be admitting the need for it. “Face” is all-important to orientals, and the ramifications this involves are hard for us to understand. Then too, there is a certain amount of anti-american feeling among the South Vietnamese, who reason that our presence is responsible for the current hardships, not to mention many civilian casualties. It is easy to overlook the hardships that they would almost certainly face if we were not here. While it is certainly true that our military presence is pretty obvious, the less obvious—but more important—impact on the local economy is quite easily observable. In many ways, the South Vietnamese never had it so good, despite  inflation, and despite the VC attacks. Many of the VC defections are prompted by the realization that they’re better off living off of us than fighting against us. Unquestionably, Ho Chi Minh is fighting an ideological war, for economically he would be far ahead to capitulate and let us spread our wealth throughout all Vietnam, rather than just in the south. I have not seen anything yet to alter my conviction that Vietnam should be united in accordance with the Geneva Convention of 1954, even if that means electing Ho as President, as it certainly would. But then, I really haven’t seen much of South VietNam, so this conviction could yet change. Well, more later…

7:30 PM

Things are returning to normal—whatever that is. The guards in the streets are more lax, and some small amount of traffic is beginning to flow. The big guns in the distance can be heard, but the occasional firing in the streets has very nearly stopped. Our hotel has run out of nearly everything, so many of us will doubtless try to get downtown tomorrow, and it seems almost certain we’ll be getting on with our work on Monday, when I will also be able to mail this letter. How soon you get it depends on various factors. Military aircraft and personnel flights are now operating from Tan Son Nhut, but commercial flights other than charter and freight aren’t yet back in operation. The mail should go out quickly—I do hope so, so you won’t be in suspense longer than necessary.

Well, more tomorrow, after (hopefully) a trip down-town to see what’s left.

Sunday PM
4 February 1968

A group of us walked down-town today, but it was largely a futile effort. The curfew on the Vietnamese was lifted from 8 [am] to 2 pm, but it being Sunday nothing opened up anyhow. The BOQs were serving only stew—we suspect it was water-buffalo—and though the Brinks PX was open, the lines to get in were so long that we didn’t bother. Altogether a dull walk, but at least a change from the duller existence here. Another civilian (U.S.) curfew went into effect at 7:00 pm tonight, to last until 8 am tomorrow—this to continue indefinitely.

Tonight’s TV news reports 9 civilian U.S. killed in Saigon since 29 January. Rumors tonight have it that 3 PA&E people got it today; one of those allegedly killed was a man I met at Long Binh last Tuesday. But rumors are a dime a dozen here, and I won’t believe it until I hear it from a much more reliable source.

Sporadic incidents around town are still being reported. 2000 VC have been killed in Saigon since they infiltrated the night of the 29th Jan. Civilian (VN) casualties are heavy, but no count has been given. Estimates put the remaining VC in  Saigon at around 700; untold numbers surround the city as well. Refugees since 29 January coming into Saigon now number over 25,000; they are fleeing either from VC or from bombed out homes in the Delta. One of the popular tricks of the VC is to infiltrate a number of homes and slaughter the occupants; the remaining people surrounding, fearing their own safety, refuse to let the word out on the location of such an enclave. When the ARVN or police close in, the VC set fire to the area and when the local people flee, they [VC] go along unnoticed. The police can’t get them without killing numerous innocent people.

We have no idea whether we’ll go to work or get on with our processing tomorrow or not. Commercial operations at Tan Son Nhut have been resumed. Assuming they have the necessary buses and can arrange an escort, we probably will go to CMO—after all, we’re all on salary & accomplishing nothing here. But if buses and escorts are not available—and they are in short supply—we might not get back to it for a while.

In any event, I shall try every possible way to get this letter off tomorrow, hoping you may get it by Wed or Thursday. If I fail, all I can do is hang on to it, as before!  For now, then, off to bed —

Love to all
Bruce

Nine days into my stay at VietNam, and I haven’t done anything of use to anyone! Little did I know that seven months on, I could report very nearly the same thing! Note my optimism that if I got a letter “off” Monday, the folks would get it 2 or 3 days later: in actuality, most letters took closer to two weeks to reach the States.

Here I began a second letter.

2:00 pm
5 February 1968

Dear Everybody ~

Despite our hopes of getting out again today, it has not come about. A representative of PA&E did come by this morning to see if we are still OK; he confirmed the rumor that 3 PA&E Entomologists were killed yesterday, but the circumstances are not yet known. All in all, the word is that 22 PA&E people have been killed all over Vietnam since 29 January.

Today there is no movement of VN or U.S. civilian personnel without armed guard; there being a lack of the latter, only essential services are being maintained. Garbage has been piling up in the streets (shades of New York!). Sporadic fighting still rages, some of it quite close to us here.

(Later)

As I wrote that last sentence, a whole lot of shooting erupted nearby. A bevy of VC have apparently been flushed out by a fire about one long block westward, and they’re being fired upon as they flee. A number of grenades have been heard. We have orders to stay altogether in-doors now, so somebody is getting worried about our getting hit. More later . . .

6:00 pm

Well, well! The action got a bit thick around here for a while this afternoon, and may get thicker before the night is over. Electricity has been off since shortly after noon, which means we’ll soon be out of water, and rations are getting quite short. PA&E is trying to arrange to have us evacuated, but they have a great shortage of help, vehicles and security guards, who are military, of course, and are pretty busy.

The PA&E man who came by this am took  my last letter out—I hope it gets through. As soon as I can I will cable, but being restricted as we are makes this impossible. More later . . .

6:00 pm

Tuesday, 6 February 68

Well—now I know something about psychological warfare, at least. The action reported on page 1 of this letter, yesterday, got to within a block of us. About 2 hours after it had died down, 2 americans arrived at our compound alleging they’d been driven out by advancing VC. Their no doubt greatly exaggerated estimate of the number involved was “at least 100″—and at this point, 5 people in our group panicked. A flurry of phone calls to PA&E CMO resulted in nothing, and by 11:00 pm someone had us surrounded by 2000 VC, with two ARVN battalions trying to fight their way on to [rescue] us, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam! The fact that there was absolute calm for miles around, so far as a good ear could judge, and the fact there was less shooting in the streets (almost none) than the night before made no difference. One stupid b—–d brought out a .45 revolver and packed it around—cocked—all night, supposedly protecting us (it is strictly verboten for U.S. civilians to carry weapons, and this nut is surely going to be shipped home because of it—good riddance). I was a lot more worried about this guy and his pistol that I was about the VC. He sat out on the street side balcony all night, a perfect sniper target, and generally raised enough Hell to keep us all pretty well awake most of the night.

February 7, 1968

So: all the telephoning and bitching finally resulted in our being evacuated mid-afternoon today. We’re now staying at the “Tourist Hotel”, which, compared with the facilities we had at the Loc building, is a dump. Latest military intelligence (not the most reliable) has it that Phan-thanh-Gian street (where we were) will get “a lot of action” tonight—but the bamboo telegraph says otherwise. The only saving feature of this hole is that is is closer to down-town, but otherwise has no apparent virtue.

I can get mail out better, from here, so I’ll probably mail this when I finish it. Please send all clippings you can about what’s supposed to be going on down here: the news black-out is very bad.

Unless I’m mistaken, it was Rudyard Kipling who wrote in one of his poems about what happens to he who “Hustles the East”.  His astuteness considerably pre-dates Eisenhower and others who warned of the dangers of an Asian land war!

It is now fairly clear at to what happened, here in Saigon, al least, in the current offensive. On the night of 29 January, about 2500 VC infiltrated the city in 2s & 3s from the surrounding delta areas. Their missions were well planned and generally involved taking and holding for 48 hours certain key points. This they managed fairly well to do. But their back-up teams were largely either cut off or were non-existent, and when food ran low, the VC began some skirmishes on their own to cover retreats. These still continue sporadically, so the curfews remain in effect and the lid is clamped on all movement from 1900 to 0800 every night. Apparently, the VC hoped they could spark a general uprising aimed at evicting the “Free World Forces” (i.e., U.S.) but their own atrocities largely thwarted their own attempt. The lowest figure for South Vietnamese dead in the fighting (not counting ARVN) is over 500, with 2-4000 wounded. This is probably a conservative figure.

It’s now anyone’s guess when the mop-up operations are sufficiently complete to allow of our complete processing and assignment. The CMO office, which was confused enough before all this began, is doubtless utter chaos now, so the last thing they want hanging around is a bunch of green processees. I’m inclined to doubt that anything significant will happen for most of us in the remainder of this week, and in my own case, it may be two weeks before the hiway to Long Binh is secure and buses re-established. C’est la guerre!

Love to all,
Bruce

The tourist Hotel was one of the most pestilential places I ever stayed in: I was amazed there were no bed-bugs. Once again CA and I were in the same room, but there was a 10KW generator-set right outside the window providing power for the building 24/7. It made a heck of a racket and smelled of diesel fuel. Even so, we were fortunate: most of our group wound up on the top floor which was just a barracks with rows of beds. The dude with the .45 undertook to clean it one afternoon, and forgot to unload it first, so managed to fire a ram-rod across the room, narrowly missing a fellow nearby. This chap was on the next plane out, contract torn up, assignment rescinded. The other unfortunate thing about the Tourist Hotel was  that it stood directly in the line of fire aimed at the Palace, and it was hit once or twice later on. But mainly, it was horribly run-down: about all that kept it alive was that infernal generator!

Pathetically, there was one older man there who was being sent home: according to gossip, he’d been on a bender for over two months, and I never saw him sober. A couple of days later two men were assigned to dry him out so he could fly, and one of them went with him to keep him from arriving home soused. We were told this failed, and he had to be poured off the plane back in Los Angeles.

I spent my 32nd birthday in this hell-hole, as mentioned in the next letter.

Just turned 32 Photo taken in the Loc Building, probably just after my birthday.

8 February 1968 (here!) Dear Folks,
Well, today’s my 32nd birthday here—tomorrow at home—so I guess I’ll celebrate twice! We did get out to CMO today—it’s still there, but utter chaos—and managed to get letters off, buy stamps, change some money, and—miraculously—found my transfer papers to Long Binh!

Got the nicest possible birthday present from PA&E—a raise! And I haven’t done an hour’s useful work since I arrived. Somewhere along the way I was classified as GS-13 equivalent, which carries a base salary of $1100 per month instead of the $960 that I hired in at. The classification is retroactive to 25 January, so every day I’ve been here I’ve been on that salary. From what I’ve seen of the cost of living here in Saigon, I should be able to live comfortably on $350/month, and am going to do my best to sock away the remaining $1000 per month. (1100 + 250 living allowance = $1350/mo).

Things are slowly returning to “normal” but it’s obvious that it will take longer than anyone first thought. Latest G-2 (intelligence) places the number of VC in Saigon at about the same number as were here before the offensive began: this is normal, as there are generally thought to be about one battalion (1800) in Saigon at all times. Normally they are underground and indistinguishable from other LNs.

I must digress here to explain the ludicrous parlance the U.S. military has built up to describe the various peoples here:

1.  The native population is variously known as

First Country Nationals (FCN)

First State Nationals (FSN)

Local Nationals (LN)

or (least often) Vietnamese

2.  U. S. Civilians are

Second Country Nationals

Second State Nationals

or Civilians

3.  Koreans, Filipinos, Australians and so forth are

Third Country Nationals

etc.,

or (least often) Koreans, Filipinos, etc.

4.  U. S. Military are

US Military or MilPers

5.  Vietnamese soldiers are

ARVN (Army of the Republic of VietNam)

6.  All other Military are “Free World Forces”.

The FWF, of course, includes the US military in fact, but the  distinction is generally made  as above.

All this is purely ridiculous, of course, but that’s how it’s done and there is certainly nothing I can do about it!!

Presumably, I will go out to Long Binh tomorrow to begin work in earnest. We’ll see about that! I’m not yet certain whether they actually want to get the lab functioning, or whether they just want to dress it up a little and make it look like it’s functioning. I’m told they’ve hired—or at least requisitioned—a bacteriologist to work with me (I’m a Chemist, remember) but it’s anybody’s guess when he will arrive. The lab lacks the basic equipment to do either quantitative chemistry or bacteriology, so until we can solve the supply problem I’ll probably be sitting on my hands anyhow! As I’ve said before, c’est la guerre!!

Cheers to all,
Bruce

Worth mentioning here by way of background: PA&E was begun by one Thomas E. Spicknell, Retired Military, who had a lot of friends in the right places. Basically, he had a contract with the US Army to supply bodies (called personnel, of course) to do whatever the US Army wanted done that it didn’t want to bother doing itself. The contract was a “Cost +” contract: every expense that the Company could document was reimbursed with ten percent added. [I believe PA&E has “gone straight”, and now operates in many countries as a fairly legitimate engineering firm. But in VietNam, it was just a money-making scheme, and it made a lot of people quite rich. It is probably the model for the likes of Haliburton which operates in Iraq today.]

Essentially, every warm body PA&E could get into the country made money for the company on salary alone, and whatever items they needed to do their jobs—or for that matter, to exist—were imported and marked up as well. The system was rife with corruption, and many of the men (relatively few women) who came over were retired milpers just there to augment their retirement pay: it was understood they were not expected to do much useful work, and many did none at all.

Naturally, all these people lived off base, and most of them had Vietnamese girl-friends: a few married their women, but most did not. However, children were produced in some numbers. CA used to quip that for the next war, “we’d only have to send the uniforms.” The truth is that most of the half-breeds were later shunned by the Viets themselves: many were eventually re-patriated to the U.S. Only a very few were sent-for by their biological fathers.

Also by way of background, some discussion about money! Our salaries were paid directly to banks of our choice back in the States; our per-diem was paid locally in MPCs (Military Pay Certificates) or Local Currency (Vietnamese Dong). The Viets were not supposed to accept MPCs (although they did, since they had back-channel methods of redeeming them for Dong or for US Dollars). MPCs were really only useful at Military installations and the PX. Dong, of course, were universally accepted by the local populace for anything. US dollars, (referred to as “YouEss Green) though, were strictly forbidden, although of course there was a huge black market in them. Indeed, the black market was probably larger than the local economy! There was nothing that could not be had for a price, and anyone willing to pay in dollars was afforded the best rates. Many U.S. civilians would have dollars sent in by mail, which they would sell for MPCs, with which they would buy hooch and other items at the PX, then sell these items on the BM for Dong which they used to augment their fairly lavish off-base life-style. It was a mess, and now and then the Government would suddenly change the design of the MPCs in the hopes of catching-out speculators in them: but leaks always allowed the speculators to dump the old designs before they became worthless. It was a cat and mouse game the mouse always won!

Military Pay Certificates (MPCS

No MPCs were issued in denominations larger than one dollar: there were two reasons, one being that items at the PX and elsewhere were usually priced far below true value. The other reason was that the Vietnamese were not supposed to have these, so if they did, they would have to accumulate large piles of them to have any real value. It was not unusual to see someone carrying huge bundles of these!

All the costs of printing these and Dong were borne by the US Treasury, of course.

Dong were colorful: it was rare to find them in decent condition, however. Many of those I saved are still filthy dirty and look quite bad.

Vietnamese Dong

The per-diem we got was to be used for two purposes: to procure housing off-base, and to get money into the local economy. When I eventually took quarters in Saigon proper, the rent far exceeded my per-diem, so I was not able to save the $1000 per month I had hoped for, but I got close. Occasionally, I used Dong to entice the local boys, but usually they were sufficiently interested in me as a foreigner that money was not required.

I will continue my narrative on the next page, coming up soon.

Estimates at the time suggested there were at least 3 million Honda 50cc motorbikes in Saigon when I was there. They were small, reliable, and good in the basically flat city. It was not unusual to see a family of five riding on one together: Daddy driving, two tykes parked on the gas tank, Mama riding side-saddle behind Daddy with an infant in her arms. Accidents were surprisingly few: everyone drove defensively, and it was a great place for me to hone my MC driving skills. There were hundreds of little repair shops all over town where a machine that refused to run could be diagnosed and fixed. There were also numerous shops selling accessories and parts. In the photo below of Dai Lo Le-Loy, the double-row of parked motorcycles in the foreground was typical. There are too many to count. There was no licensing system: some folks put numbers on their bikes just to distinguish them from the literally hundred of identical ones. I’d have to say, the Japanese did very well during the war in Vietnam!

The building opposite the Rex is the Caravelle Hotel

___________________________

Friday, Apres-midi, 10 May 1968
Dear everyone~

Got to work uneventfully yesterday, and Long Binh was quiet all day. Many Vietnamese workers affected by curfews unable to get to work, so things were dull at the post. I’m now involved in compiling procurement lists for the projected lab, which is purely make-work, inasmuch as no one knows whether there will BE a new lab or not; but I have to do something to pass the time.

I bought a Honda [Motorcycle] from a fellow at LB who is leaving, and brought it into Saigon on the back of a pick-up last night. The driver dropped me and the bike at the intersection of Bien Hoa Xa Lo and Chi Lang, and I motored into Saigon proper from there. It (the Honda) is really a marvelous invention, just the ticket for getting ’round in a city like this, although in heavy traffic it’s a bit hair-raising at times. I don’t really expect to use it much, except as a passenger behind my Number One Vietnamese friend, who is much more familiar with operating one of these gadgets than I!

Just as I pulled into the alley beside my building, there were several very loud explosions not far away: I have never learned whether they were VC rockets, or whether they were our own, but in any event “an enemy of unknown size and force” had been spotted along the point where Precinct 4 borders Precinct 2 (mine), and helicopter gun-ships were giving them a bad time. This continued sporadically until about 2100hrs, when the enemy “broke contact”, meaning they slipped off their uniforms and became civilians again! The remainder of the night was quiet, except I understand TSN AFB got hit again.

And, I had a group of visitors during the night, for when I got upstairs to my apartment I found Number One friend had custody for the night of six charming children whose mama-san had had to go to My Tho for a couple of days. So we all shared the place: these kids live about a block from the bridge in Cho Lon where there has been heavy fighting with VC, and of course with the curfew on, had no place to go. They were lucky at that: there was a group of about fifty refugees sleeping under a marquee on Le-Loi opposite my building all night.

So, Tino, Mercy, Daravith, Lucia, Rico and Bariyano, all of whom speak Vietnamese, Cambodian, some French and some English, and of course Nguyen and myself had a pleasant evening learning about each other; (I taught them how to count from 1 to 10 in German!). About 2100, when the noise of battle died down somewhat, all six of them stretched out on the floor on a large bath-towel, tossed a sheet over themselves, and weren’t heard from again until 0700 this AM!

At one point during the evening, I brought out my photo album and was showing them my papa-san, brothers, niece, nephews, etc. I sure had to laugh when we got to Jeffrey: one of the kids pointed to him and said, with, I understand, absolute accuracy, “beaucoup kilo”! The oldest of these kids was, as best I can gather, about twelve, and could not have weighed in at more than 50 lbs (but this is not abnormal—people are just small over here!)

Everyone left about 0800 to see if they can get home. I decided to stay here myself—work is so unrewarding that ANY excuse will do. The morning I spent cleaning up the Honda (Model 50CL) and making a few adjustments on it.

Friday again, 2000h

Having nothing else to do, I had planned to sit down and try to evoke the mood of this place again, but I had no more than typed the time and date when I noticed the arrival of several truckloads of police in front of the block across the street. The group of about a hundred was pretty evenly divided between ARVN and Saigon Security Police, and there were a few american advisors on hand. They proceeded to make a thorough and systematic search of the entire block, and in the end took away about two score civilians, mostly women: I assume they were prostitutes, not VC. Apparently this was just a random search, not done because of any intelligence that VC were there, but just as part of routine. I expect sometime they will search this block similarly.

So it is now 2130 hours, and quiet again, except that every half hour or so our jets are bombing an area about a mile and a half from here, which makes a hell of a racket just when everything gets nice and quiet. The area is in precinct 4, across the Saigon Canal from Precinct 2, the principal downtown section where I live.

Except for these loud blasts, and occasional bursts of mini-gun fire, about all that is to be heard is the too-loud sound-track of the cinema atop the Rex BOQ, and the quiet swish of tires on moist pavement as a security vehicle cruises by: it rained hard for an hour this afternoon about 5, creating the temporary flooding that lasts such a remarkably short time, and rained again about 7:30, very hard, but for only about 5 minutes! A brief electrical display accompanied that rapidly passing storm.

On the street itself, one sees an occasional wandering child: there are countless homeless and parent-less children who somehow manage to  survive (the mild climate is a blessing!) from hand to mouth, who sleep in the doorways at night and do goodness knows what during the day. Many beg, but many also earn a sort of existence shining shoes and doing odd jobs that come along, such as washing motorbikes and cars, repairing flat tires, selling coke-bottles full of gas to hapless passers by who didn’t make it to the gas-station, and so forth. There are, too, a few wandering cats and dogs, and the sharp-eyed will detect an occasional large rat poking around here and there.

This is the closest thing to the eve of the Paris talks, and there’s been a lot of speculation to the effect that a major push on the palace, or on the American Embassy, may be attempted. The latter is much more heavily guarded now, you may be sure, than it was when the VC succeeded in gaining temporary entrance to it during Tet! The palace is similarly guarded, though of course both buildings are vulnerable to rockets and mortars, assuming the VC can manage to launch any without being detected in the process: there are numerous spotter planes quietly circling about overhead, usually without marker lights: these are either very small piper-cub-like gadgets that can fly slowly and quietly, or ti ti helicopters that can do likewise. They can spot the flash of a rocket launch even in an area well lit with flares, and direct a strike at the spot within minutes. Flares light the entire city perimeter at night, assisting this surveillance work, and casting, an eery glow over everything from this vantage point.

Close to 2200 now, no more paper, and bedtime. I’ll add to this later and mail it Sunday, I expect.

Except that like almost ALL the others in Vietnam mine was red, this is the closest photo I could find of a Honda 50CL like the one I bought there.

this is the closest photo I could find of a Honda 50CL like the one I bought

__________________________

Sunday, 12 May 1968
Dear everyone~

Things are quieting down somewhat, though whether the current offensive is over or just awaiting reinforcements no one knows. The only really annoying thing about this situation is being right in the middle of it and knowing so little about what is going on! The single most worthless institution over here that I’ve found is the Armed Forces Vietnam Network—AFVN: two nights ago, I had just turned the volume up to hear above the din of a nearly battle that “quiet has returned to Saigon”.

I mentioned a while back C A [redacted], the gent I got to know on the trip over and with whom I was billeted through the Tet carryings-on. He’s stationed at Qui Nhon, and I repeat below a couple of excerpts from his latest letter to me, dated 29 April:

“An Khe is like Dodge City. A chap named [redacted], youngish, got drunk in a civilian club at An Khe and had a fight with the Asst Installation Manager, who beat him up. He went to the Manager’s quarters, and the manager beat him up some more. Next day, he was in the Area office with one arm in a cast, a black eye, and various abrasions and contusions. After the fight, he went and got a shot-gun to take after the Asst Manager, who in turn got his M-16. Fortunately, there was no further action.

“Civilians in the Qui Nhon area are being armed. That includes TCNs as well as U S civilians. Everyone gets either a .45 automatic or an M-14. Most are taking the M-14, for one of two reasons: 1, they already have a pistol or 2, they couldn’t hit a building or those inside it with a pistol. Jim [Redacted] and I shudder at the possible consequences. Qui Nhon is like Tombstone, Arizona, last century. Some of the military are worried, too: what if a Korean killed a Philipino, or vice versa, in a Qui Nhon bar, with an issued weapon?

“I don’t know if I wrote you what happened here on 30 Jan. On 29 Jan, the night before our three U S civilians employees of PA&E were killed on the main street in downtown Qui Nhon on their way to work, the following entry was made in the (PA&E) duty officer’s log book:

‘9:00 PM – City of Qui Nhon blacked out under Martial Law. Police say heavy VC infiltration and possible insurrection.’

That was 29 Jan, the night before the men were killed. Nothing at all was broadcast over AF Radio, QN. Next morning, our civilians had no way of knowing anything was amiss. There was gun-fire in downtown QN, but they had been hearing giant firecrackers for a week and thought it was just more celebration of Tet. The three were on their way to work and followed the same route they’d taken for more than a year. They were completely unaware anything was wrong: there is no warning system here for people not on a military base.”

The situation described above is little different in Saigon. For myself, I always look out on the street before going abroad to see if other americans are moving about, and then go directly to the Rex for b’fast, in the course of which all sorts of gossip, most of it unreliable, can be heard. Any serious hazards are usually posted on the daily bulletin board in the lobby. As for the radio, as a warning device it is useless, and except for one or two “entertainment” programs, it is equally useless: I like Joe Allison’s Country music program at 5 AM, and Sunday nites they have tapes of the Mormon Tabernacle Program. Otherwise, I listen mostly to Tokyo and Malaysia.

My “family” did not return Friday night, but Number One friend showed up Saturday and explained that all was well: mama-san had gotten back from My Tho (the highway was temporarily blocked); she sent word she was grateful for my hospitality to her children, who, as I said before, were a lot of fun and who showed their own appreciation before leaving by cleaning the apartment thoroughly AND doing up some laundry for me!

The name situation here is confusing. Just about everybody’s family name is Nguyen—it is as common as Smith in the US, Yi in Korea, or Yung in China. There is usually a Van or Thi next, which is meaningless except the Van is for men and the Thi is for women, and then the given or first name i. e., Tai or Hung or the like. However, in addressing another person, where we generally use the family name except in cases of familiarity, the Vietnamese do it the other way around, using the given name virtually all the time. Hence Ong ( = mister, pronounced approximately “aum”) Tai, or Ong Hung (the correct pronunciation for Hung is not renderable in english, but is approximately “howng”). For people of importance, “Thuong” is used in place of Ong, and it means approximately “Sir”, but still is coupled with the given name.

The universal greeting is “Chao” (Chow), coupled with any one of a large number of definitives, such as Ong (cf. above), Co (young woman), Ba (older or married woman), Em (children), Anh (brother) and so forth and so on. Learning all of them gets to be a problem at times, and to use the wrong one is quite embarrassing to the person addressed. Boys are ti ti (i.e., small or young) until they are 16 (the definitive is Cao, pronounced Gow), and are men thereafter (Ong again!). Girls are ti ti until they are 18 or married, whichever transpires first, and thereafter are addressed as Ba: it is not easy to tell if a girl less than 18 is married or not, so one can easily use the wrong form of address, to which the girls are particularly sensitive! (It is very desirable to be in a position to be addressed as Ba, for some reason).

My friend, Ong Hung, is outside polishing up the Honda: later we will go to the PX on it, since the military buses have not resumed their routes. I think we will both go to the Rex cook-out for steaks tonight, and then all too soon the brief Sunday respite will be over and another dull week will commence. Although hired as a chemist, I haven’t run a single test of any kind yet! Cest la Vie. . .

Love to all~
Bruce

After three and a half months in Vietnam, I had accomplished absolutely nothing I could point to and say, “I did that”!

I was not alone! I recall a chap at LB who was supposed to be in charge of creating water points for the Army. It seems that somewhere up-country someone at a  U S base had found a well: they asked PA&E to secure and install a pump so water from the well could be used. To determine what size of pump was required, we had to know at a minimum how deep the well was, and where the water-level was. In its simplest form, this means tying a stone to a length of rope and dropping it down until it stopped. Pulling the rope back up would reveal the depth, and the amount of wet rope would reveal the water level. Since our man had no means of getting up-country, he sent requests through “channels” to have the measurements made. He had a file a few inches thick of the various orders working their way up the chain of command and back again, yet no one had actually issued the order to measure the well! Meanwhile the brass were bitching about not having any water…

Now, 40 years later, I wonder if things in Iraq are as fucked-up as they were in Vietnam. I’m quite sure the answer is yes.

More letters to come!

March 6, 2009

BEFORE I BEGIN THIS EPISODE

Even I was out of my seat several times as President Obama spoke to Congress–and to us–last week. It is so very refreshing to hear someone who can put thoughts into words and words into sentences! Listening (which I admit I was rarely able to do) to Ex-President Bush the last eight years was painful! Watching him I simply could not manage.

The republican response from Bobby Jindal was excruciating. Choosing him, presumably because his background vaguely resembles Mr. Obama’s, was tacky: that Bobby felt obliged to capitalize on it was even tackier. That his speech had been prepared without having heard the President is inexcusable. If Bobby Jindal is the best the repugnants can put forth to articulate their message, there’s little to fear from them. As usual, Rachel Madow summed it up best here.  To top it off, now we find he lied!  Sheeesh!

ONE MORE THING:

The router for my LAN gave up the ghost last weekend, necessitating purchase and installation of a new one. I have to say this for LinkSys: they’ve finally gotten their gadgets together with their installation disc and made the configuration far easier than it used to be. I actually managed to get the new router up and working without calling the Geek Squad or other assistants. Of course, there’s a down-side to that: some of those Geeks are really, really cute! But, on with my narrative.

SAN JOSE STATE

Although the summer job I took was located in Santa Clara, I elected to live in San Jose, not far from the State College campus. I had been so uncomfortable at UR, with all its rich kids, that I quickly decided SJS was a better fit for me. Additionally, it became apparent I could work part time at my new job and attend SJS in the fall. The job was far from onerous, in a small shop that specialized in repairing furniture and other “stuff” that had been damaged in transit. The boss had  contracts with several trucking companies and railroads, so a never-ending stream of broken, crushed and battered items came in. What could be repaired satisfactorily usually went to the customer who had ordered it. Some items were beyond repair (we were the deciders) and went to the dump. Some items that could be repaired but which the customers did not want went to various outlets. The work was varied and sometimes challenging and it fit well with the “fixit” mentality I had developed early on, which went back to my days in Carmichael and which found their way into Heartbreak Motel, one of my stories available at Nifty.

Come fall, I enrolled it SJS (now SJU) and discovered they had something called a “General Major” which led to a BA in “General Studies” (I think the program has long since been abandoned). Essentially, I could take courses in any department I wanted! I went back to Chemistry (my first love), but filled out the days with all sorts of other subjects: law, religion, music, physics, social studies, philosophy: I read the catalogue, and if a subject looked interesting I enrolled! It was a very interesting year-and-a-half: the extra semester was necessary to amass the necessary units and to pass, finally, the American History course I’d blown back in Junior College.

CONFUSION SETS IN

Soon after I entered San Jose State, Dad got married for the third and last time. My new stepmother and I did not get along all that well, but it was clear she loved my Dad and he loved her likewise: seeing him happy at last, I began to feel the usual family pressure to marry and settle down, despite my near-certainty a different life-style was preferable. So I began seeing the only girl who had ever paid much attention to me way back in High School: we had gone on a few trips with the Horseless Carriage Club together back when I was “into” old cars. No sooner than we got together on a couple of dates did I decide to propose marriage! I’ve really never figured out why I did this. I had absolutely NO interest in her physically: in fact, her body was quite repulsive to me when I saw more of it than I cared to when we went swimming.

Unfortunately, not long after this “affair” began, I recalled some of the descriptions of cruising I’d heard from my friend back at Redlands. One Saturday night I went to a local theater and sat in the very back row of the nearly empty place. A chap came in and sat right next to me and began a game of “kneesies”. When he departed, I followed him to the john, but invited him to follow me back to my little room. He was somewhat older than I, and no beauty, but it was he who first shoved a cock in my mouth: right there and then I knew I was born to be a cocksucker! I knew instinctively this was the kind of sexual activity I wanted, as often as possible!

My poor betrothed! She no longer had a chance! I maintained the charade for a while. Driving to visit her in Hayward, I would pick up hitch-hikers in the hope one would proposition me: none did. It slowly dawned on me that if I was ever going to have any guy-sex, I would have to initiate the action. It would be a while before I got comfortable with that idea.

Meanwhile, after about 6 months of living the lie, I called off our engagement. Darley was devastated, saying my being queer would not make any difference, and so forth and so on. But I was NOT going to put her through all that, so we parted, never to see each other again. When I announced to my folks what I’d done, my  new Stepmother’s reaction was, “Oh, thank goodness: for a while there, I thought you were really going through with it!”  She knew far more than she let on, but I continued to dissemble to my family out of worry they could not handle my being queer. In reality it was I who was having the trouble dealing with my sexuality.

MORGAN

During my first Semester at SJS, I met Morgan, a musician, and one of the most beautiful guys I ever met. He was a preacher’s son, and we got along famously, except for one thing: I wanted to get into his pants in the worst way, but was afraid of rejection, so I never could bring myself try it. We took some trips into the hills and did some camping together, but the subject of sex never came up, dammit! At the end of that year, he went off to Juilliard. We corresponded, and his letters came back filled with “hairpins”! It seems he had had the hots for me, but could never bring himself to say so. Bummer! However, when summer vacation time rolled around, he returned to San Francisco, stayed with his parents, and took a temporary job in a local church while their regular organist was on vacation.

After a joyous meeting at my place, where “all was revealed”, we fell into a routine where I would drive up to San Francisco in time to appear at the door of the church as if I had attended the service. When Morgan’s Postlude was finished, we would repair to a twinkie-bar for a couple of drinks (the speciality of the house was a “Thunder Collins”: Thunderbird wine watered with Collins-mix. Just the thought of it now makes me gag!) Then we would return to the church: the sunday-school room had a carpet on the floor, and we would have an afternoon of wild sex! Fortunately, no one ever came back for something they forgot: we were never interrupted.

But at the end of that summer, Morgan went back to Juilliard, and eventually settled in Chicago. I rarely ever saw him again. Our “relationship” had been entirely one of wild, crazy sex: there had been no thought of love, permanence, or anything except getting together and getting off!

To be continued: Finally, I come out!

[email protected]

April 12, 2009

If there is anyone following his blog, they know I have not posted for more than a month. Here are some of the reasons why:

• I work four days a week, 7 to noon, in my little repair shop.

• I read over 50 blogs each day.

• I edit a small quarterly magazine.

• I read several magazines each week, though I have long ago given up on newspapers. [Failing newspapers everywhere claim they are losing advertising revenue, yet every issue I ever saw in recent times was nearly all advertising and almost no news.]

• There are major renovations under way here at my house, with scaffolding up inside to reach the ceiling of the main stair-well. There has been damage there from many leaks over the years; a new roof and gutters last summer cured that problem, so now it is time to do those repairs. The house is a mess!

• Weather has allowed me to plant the vegetable garden in my back yard.

• I had the Chrysler out a couple of weeks back for the drive to Niles Canyon for the Spring Steam run. When the Chrysler is out of its garage, my little truck is in there. While there, the battery died. On the first try to get that corrected, the City was digging a big hole right in front of the garage. On the second try, my cell phone did not work (another dead battery!) so I could not call AAA. The third time around, everything worked and the cars got swapped.

Behind SP 2472 Entering Niles Canyon

(The steam trip was spectacular, as usual, on a fine spring day.)

• In an old house, there’s always something: two weeks ago I took something from under the kitchen sink and found it wet. Exploration quickly located a leaking cone-washer on the hot water service tube. Had I not shut the angle-stop, the tube would have popped out, and a major flood would have ensued. Another project for that afternoon. I had to go out and buy a new cone-washer because I could not find any in my basement assortment of goodies. (Later, I found I had plenty on hand: I just could not find them when I needed them.

• Before the scaffolding mentioned above could be set up, I had to remove (temporarily) the gas-light fixture from the second-floor newell-post. This should have been no problem: I have a box of old pipe fittings, where I was sure a 3/8″ cap could be found. But when I went for it, I suddenly remembered I had recycled that box of fittings in a clean-up campaign some months ago. So I had to go out and buy a new cap. This proves the old adage: Never throw anything away!

These are just some of the things that seem to interfere with getting on with my story. Meanwhile, a few items by way of sidelines that I found interesting:

PERFECTION

One of the essences of being gay, for me, has always been the glory of the male body. (Other men have them: I never did!) The internet allows me to view thousands of these each week, for which I am duly thankful. Now and then, something really spectacular shows up which I wish I could share with you,but I can’t.

A PRECIOUS COMMODITY

Here’s an exercise I suppose every guy has gone through at least once.

• The current estimated total population of the world (three figure accuracy):                   6,770,000,000

• Roughly half that population is male:                                                                                3,385,000,000

• About half these men are between 12 and 40 years old (my estimate):                           1,692,500,000

• In any given 24-hr period, half that group ejaculates on way or another:                           846,250,000

• On average, each ejaculation results in 3 cubic centimeters of semen:                       2,538,750,000 cc

• That’s 677,000 US Gallons!

In the days when I could, I produced my share of this stuff, and occasionally found someone willing to share it, or someone willing to share theirs. Following the admonition not to “spill my seed upon the ground”, I generally used an old towel or hanky.

But, here’s news:

Some of Semen’s Ingredients:

• Sugars:
1. Fructose – very sweet sugar, that occur in many fruits and honey and used as a preservative for foodstuffs and as an intravenous nutrient.

2. Sorbitol – found in various berries and fruits or prepared synthetically and used as a flavoring agent, a sugar substitute for people with diabetes, and a moisturizer in cosmetics and other products.

3. Inositol – preventing the collection of fats in the liver, as well as promoting healthy hair growth. It is also can be considered brain food, as the nutrient is necessary to properly nourish the brain.

• Proteins and amino acids:

1. Glutathione – involved in detoxification—it binds to toxins, such as heavy metals, solvents, and pesticides, and transforms them into a form that can be excreted in urine or bile. Glutathione is also an important antioxidant. In preliminary research, dietary glutathione intake from fruit and raw vegetables has been associated with protection against some forms of cancer.

2. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) – nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms

3. Creatine – supplies energy for muscle contraction. Athletes need creatine supplements to make their muscles strong.

• Minerals:

1. Phosphorus – helps the body absorb calcium to make the bones stronger.

2. Zinc

3. Magnesium – helps maintain normal muscle and nerve function, keeps heart rhythm steady, supports a healthy immune system, and keeps bones strong. Magnesium also helps regulate blood sugar levels, promotes normal blood pressure, and is known to be involved in energy metabolism and protein synthesis

4. Calcium – makes the bones strong

5. Potassium – is essential for the normal growth of the body and for the replacement of worn-out tissues which depend upon the presence of this mineral.

• Vitamins:

1. Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) – can help a person look younger and more beautiful. It encourages growth of the protein chains in collagen, which is the main ingredient in all fibrous tissue. Fibrous tissue is your bone matrix, cartilage, tooth dentin (right under the enamel), skin, tendons, ligaments, and all other connective tissue. Collagen is what keeps your cells bound together.

2. Vitamin B12 – energy booster.

3. Choline – to sharpen the mind.

• Hormones:

1. Testosterone – promote sexual function and promote sex drive.

2. Prostaglandins – participate in a wide range of body functions such as the contraction and relaxation of smooth muscle, the dilation and constriction of blood vessels, control of blood pressure, and modulation of inflammation.

• Body by products:

1. Lactic acid – also known as “milk acid”.

2. Urea – fertilizer

3. Uric acid – a waste product that results from normal body processes and is also found in some foods.

4. Nitrogen – balance of nitrogen helps the muscle grow.

Here’s another way to put it:

Sperm Nutrition

As a chemist, my professional career, I find it appalling that we waste all this stuff! Imagine the fun involved in collection any given city’s normal production for a week: thousands of gallons of cum to be sent to a factory for separation and purification of these precious ingredients. The mind boggles!

MOVING ON

Wouldn’t you know? When I got to it, accessing the net today has been slower than molasses in winter! But, I promise to get back to my story real soon!

[email protected]

July 18, 2009

As the late, great Anna Russell often said, “I’m not making this up, you know!” Shown below is a scan of one of the many pages of my letters from VietNam. My long-hand was better then than it is now, so I can actually read most of these as I transcribe them for your edification and entertainment.

One of the many pages of my letters from VietNam

Continuing my letters describing my first days in Saigon, during the Tet Offensive.

Saturday AM Feb 3, 1968

Still under curfew. The night was locally quiet, but the VC mortared the Cho-lon power sub-station but missed. Distant heavy artillery continued, and I understand this goes on at all times. The VC are slowly being cleaned up in town; there are still a few pockets of them left, and snipers are still around. The enclosed leaflets were dropped this morning: they tell the remaining VC how many of their comrades have bit the dust since the big push started. and what they can expect if they don’t turn themselves in.

The feeling of boredom setting in is strongly reinforced in some of us by helplessness. We are one block from the RC [Roman Catholic] hospital, where I’m sure we could do some useful work. But the oriental philosophy prevents this: the local people feel they have the situation under control, and do not want our assistance; in part this is because by accepting it they would be admitting the need for it. “Face” is all-important to orientals, and the ramifications this involves are hard for us to understand. Then too, there is a certain amount of anti-american feeling among the South Vietnamese, who reason that our presence is responsible for the current hardships, not to mention many civilian casualties. It is easy to overlook the hardships that they would almost certainly face if we were not here. While it is certainly true that our military presence is pretty obvious, the less obvious—but more important—impact on the local economy is quite easily observable. In many ways, the South Vietnamese never had it so good, despite  inflation, and despite the VC attacks. Many of the VC defections are prompted by the realization that they’re better off living off of us than fighting against us. Unquestionably, Ho Chi Minh is fighting an ideological war, for economically he would be far ahead to capitulate and let us spread our wealth throughout all Vietnam, rather than just in the south. I have not seen anything yet to alter my conviction that Vietnam should be united in accordance with the Geneva Convention of 1954, even if that means electing Ho as President, as it certainly would. But then, I really haven’t seen much of South VietNam, so this conviction could yet change. Well, more later…

7:30 PM

Things are returning to normal—whatever that is. The guards in the streets are more lax, and some small amount of traffic is beginning to flow. The big guns in the distance can be heard, but the occasional firing in the streets has very nearly stopped. Our hotel has run out of nearly everything, so many of us will doubtless try to get downtown tomorrow, and it seems almost certain we’ll be getting on with our work on Monday, when I will also be able to mail this letter. How soon you get it depends on various factors. Military aircraft and personnel flights are now operating from Tan Son Nhut, but commercial flights other than charter and freight aren’t yet back in operation. The mail should go out quickly—I do hope so, so you won’t be in suspense longer than necessary.

Well, more tomorrow, after (hopefully) a trip down-town to see what’s left.

Sunday PM
4 February 1968

A group of us walked down-town today, but it was largely a futile effort. The curfew on the Vietnamese was lifted from 8 [am] to 2 pm, but it being Sunday nothing opened up anyhow. The BOQs were serving only stew—we suspect it was water-buffalo—and though the Brinks PX was open, the lines to get in were so long that we didn’t bother. Altogether a dull walk, but at least a change from the duller existence here. Another civilian (U.S.) curfew went into effect at 7:00 pm tonight, to last until 8 am tomorrow—this to continue indefinitely.

Tonight’s TV news reports 9 civilian U.S. killed in Saigon since 29 January. Rumors tonight have it that 3 PA&E people got it today; one of those allegedly killed was a man I met at Long Binh last Tuesday. But rumors are a dime a dozen here, and I won’t believe it until I hear it from a much more reliable source.

Sporadic incidents around town are still being reported. 2000 VC have been killed in Saigon since they infiltrated the night of the 29th Jan. Civilian (VN) casualties are heavy, but no count has been given. Estimates put the remaining VC in  Saigon at around 700; untold numbers surround the city as well. Refugees since 29 January coming into Saigon now number over 25,000; they are fleeing either from VC or from bombed out homes in the Delta. One of the popular tricks of the VC is to infiltrate a number of homes and slaughter the occupants; the remaining people surrounding, fearing their own safety, refuse to let the word out on the location of such an enclave. When the ARVN or police close in, the VC set fire to the area and when the local people flee, they [VC] go along unnoticed. The police can’t get them without killing numerous innocent people.

We have no idea whether we’ll go to work or get on with our processing tomorrow or not. Commercial operations at Tan Son Nhut have been resumed. Assuming they have the necessary buses and can arrange an escort, we probably will go to CMO—after all, we’re all on salary & accomplishing nothing here. But if buses and escorts are not available—and they are in short supply—we might not get back to it for a while.

In any event, I shall try every possible way to get this letter off tomorrow, hoping you may get it by Wed or Thursday. If I fail, all I can do is hang on to it, as before!  For now, then, off to bed —

Love to all
Bruce

Nine days into my stay at VietNam, and I haven’t done anything of use to anyone! Little did I know that seven months on, I could report very nearly the same thing! Note my optimism that if I got a letter “off” Monday, the folks would get it 2 or 3 days later: in actuality, most letters took closer to two weeks to reach the States.

Here I began a second letter.

2:00 pm
5 February 1968

Dear Everybody ~

Despite our hopes of getting out again today, it has not come about. A representative of PA&E did come by this morning to see if we are still OK; he confirmed the rumor that 3 PA&E Entomologists were killed yesterday, but the circumstances are not yet known. All in all, the word is that 22 PA&E people have been killed all over Vietnam since 29 January.

Today there is no movement of VN or U.S. civilian personnel without armed guard; there being a lack of the latter, only essential services are being maintained. Garbage has been piling up in the streets (shades of New York!). Sporadic fighting still rages, some of it quite close to us here.

(Later)

As I wrote that last sentence, a whole lot of shooting erupted nearby. A bevy of VC have apparently been flushed out by a fire about one long block westward, and they’re being fired upon as they flee. A number of grenades have been heard. We have orders to stay altogether in-doors now, so somebody is getting worried about our getting hit. More later . . .

6:00 pm

Well, well! The action got a bit thick around here for a while this afternoon, and may get thicker before the night is over. Electricity has been off since shortly after noon, which means we’ll soon be out of water, and rations are getting quite short. PA&E is trying to arrange to have us evacuated, but they have a great shortage of help, vehicles and security guards, who are military, of course, and are pretty busy.

The PA&E man who came by this am took  my last letter out—I hope it gets through. As soon as I can I will cable, but being restricted as we are makes this impossible. More later . . .

6:00 pm

Tuesday, 6 February 68

Well—now I know something about psychological warfare, at least. The action reported on page 1 of this letter, yesterday, got to within a block of us. About 2 hours after it had died down, 2 americans arrived at our compound alleging they’d been driven out by advancing VC. Their no doubt greatly exaggerated estimate of the number involved was “at least 100″—and at this point, 5 people in our group panicked. A flurry of phone calls to PA&E CMO resulted in nothing, and by 11:00 pm someone had us surrounded by 2000 VC, with two ARVN battalions trying to fight their way on to [rescue] us, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam! The fact that there was absolute calm for miles around, so far as a good ear could judge, and the fact there was less shooting in the streets (almost none) than the night before made no difference. One stupid b—–d brought out a .45 revolver and packed it around—cocked—all night, supposedly protecting us (it is strictly verboten for U.S. civilians to carry weapons, and this nut is surely going to be shipped home because of it—good riddance). I was a lot more worried about this guy and his pistol that I was about the VC. He sat out on the street side balcony all night, a perfect sniper target, and generally raised enough Hell to keep us all pretty well awake most of the night.

February 7, 1968

So: all the telephoning and bitching finally resulted in our being evacuated mid-afternoon today. We’re now staying at the “Tourist Hotel”, which, compared with the facilities we had at the Loc building, is a dump. Latest military intelligence (not the most reliable) has it that Phan-thanh-Gian street (where we were) will get “a lot of action” tonight—but the bamboo telegraph says otherwise. The only saving feature of this hole is that is is closer to down-town, but otherwise has no apparent virtue.

I can get mail out better, from here, so I’ll probably mail this when I finish it. Please send all clippings you can about what’s supposed to be going on down here: the news black-out is very bad.

Unless I’m mistaken, it was Rudyard Kipling who wrote in one of his poems about what happens to he who “Hustles the East”.  His astuteness considerably pre-dates Eisenhower and others who warned of the dangers of an Asian land war!

It is now fairly clear at to what happened, here in Saigon, al least, in the current offensive. On the night of 29 January, about 2500 VC infiltrated the city in 2s & 3s from the surrounding delta areas. Their missions were well planned and generally involved taking and holding for 48 hours certain key points. This they managed fairly well to do. But their back-up teams were largely either cut off or were non-existent, and when food ran low, the VC began some skirmishes on their own to cover retreats. These still continue sporadically, so the curfews remain in effect and the lid is clamped on all movement from 1900 to 0800 every night. Apparently, the VC hoped they could spark a general uprising aimed at evicting the “Free World Forces” (i.e., U.S.) but their own atrocities largely thwarted their own attempt. The lowest figure for South Vietnamese dead in the fighting (not counting ARVN) is over 500, with 2-4000 wounded. This is probably a conservative figure.

It’s now anyone’s guess when the mop-up operations are sufficiently complete to allow of our complete processing and assignment. The CMO office, which was confused enough before all this began, is doubtless utter chaos now, so the last thing they want hanging around is a bunch of green processees. I’m inclined to doubt that anything significant will happen for most of us in the remainder of this week, and in my own case, it may be two weeks before the hiway to Long Binh is secure and buses re-established. C’est la guerre!

Love to all,
Bruce

The tourist Hotel was one of the most pestilential places I ever stayed in: I was amazed there were no bed-bugs. Once again CA and I were in the same room, but there was a 10KW generator-set right outside the window providing power for the building 24/7. It made a heck of a racket and smelled of diesel fuel. Even so, we were fortunate: most of our group wound up on the top floor which was just a barracks with rows of beds. The dude with the .45 undertook to clean it one afternoon, and forgot to unload it first, so managed to fire a ram-rod across the room, narrowly missing a fellow nearby. This chap was on the next plane out, contract torn up, assignment rescinded. The other unfortunate thing about the Tourist Hotel was  that it stood directly in the line of fire aimed at the Palace, and it was hit once or twice later on. But mainly, it was horribly run-down: about all that kept it alive was that infernal generator!

Pathetically, there was one older man there who was being sent home: according to gossip, he’d been on a bender for over two months, and I never saw him sober. A couple of days later two men were assigned to dry him out so he could fly, and one of them went with him to keep him from arriving home soused. We were told this failed, and he had to be poured off the plane back in Los Angeles.

I spent my 32nd birthday in this hell-hole, as mentioned in the next letter.

Just turned 32 Photo taken in the Loc Building, probably just after my birthday.

8 February 1968 (here!) Dear Folks,
Well, today’s my 32nd birthday here—tomorrow at home—so I guess I’ll celebrate twice! We did get out to CMO today—it’s still there, but utter chaos—and managed to get letters off, buy stamps, change some money, and—miraculously—found my transfer papers to Long Binh!

Got the nicest possible birthday present from PA&E—a raise! And I haven’t done an hour’s useful work since I arrived. Somewhere along the way I was classified as GS-13 equivalent, which carries a base salary of $1100 per month instead of the $960 that I hired in at. The classification is retroactive to 25 January, so every day I’ve been here I’ve been on that salary. From what I’ve seen of the cost of living here in Saigon, I should be able to live comfortably on $350/month, and am going to do my best to sock away the remaining $1000 per month. (1100 + 250 living allowance = $1350/mo).

Things are slowly returning to “normal” but it’s obvious that it will take longer than anyone first thought. Latest G-2 (intelligence) places the number of VC in Saigon at about the same number as were here before the offensive began: this is normal, as there are generally thought to be about one battalion (1800) in Saigon at all times. Normally they are underground and indistinguishable from other LNs.

I must digress here to explain the ludicrous parlance the U.S. military has built up to describe the various peoples here:

1.  The native population is variously known as

First Country Nationals (FCN)

First State Nationals (FSN)

Local Nationals (LN)

or (least often) Vietnamese

2.  U. S. Civilians are

Second Country Nationals

Second State Nationals

or Civilians

3.  Koreans, Filipinos, Australians and so forth are

Third Country Nationals

etc.,

or (least often) Koreans, Filipinos, etc.

4.  U. S. Military are

US Military or MilPers

5.  Vietnamese soldiers are

ARVN (Army of the Republic of VietNam)

6.  All other Military are “Free World Forces”.

The FWF, of course, includes the US military in fact, but the  distinction is generally made  as above.

All this is purely ridiculous, of course, but that’s how it’s done and there is certainly nothing I can do about it!!

Presumably, I will go out to Long Binh tomorrow to begin work in earnest. We’ll see about that! I’m not yet certain whether they actually want to get the lab functioning, or whether they just want to dress it up a little and make it look like it’s functioning. I’m told they’ve hired—or at least requisitioned—a bacteriologist to work with me (I’m a Chemist, remember) but it’s anybody’s guess when he will arrive. The lab lacks the basic equipment to do either quantitative chemistry or bacteriology, so until we can solve the supply problem I’ll probably be sitting on my hands anyhow! As I’ve said before, c’est la guerre!!

Cheers to all,
Bruce

Worth mentioning here by way of background: PA&E was begun by one Thomas E. Spicknell, Retired Military, who had a lot of friends in the right places. Basically, he had a contract with the US Army to supply bodies (called personnel, of course) to do whatever the US Army wanted done that it didn’t want to bother doing itself. The contract was a “Cost +” contract: every expense that the Company could document was reimbursed with ten percent added. [I believe PA&E has “gone straight”, and now operates in many countries as a fairly legitimate engineering firm. But in VietNam, it was just a money-making scheme, and it made a lot of people quite rich. It is probably the model for the likes of Haliburton which operates in Iraq today.]

Essentially, every warm body PA&E could get into the country made money for the company on salary alone, and whatever items they needed to do their jobs—or for that matter, to exist—were imported and marked up as well. The system was rife with corruption, and many of the men (relatively few women) who came over were retired milpers just there to augment their retirement pay: it was understood they were not expected to do much useful work, and many did none at all.

Naturally, all these people lived off base, and most of them had Vietnamese girl-friends: a few married their women, but most did not. However, children were produced in some numbers. CA used to quip that for the next war, “we’d only have to send the uniforms.” The truth is that most of the half-breeds were later shunned by the Viets themselves: many were eventually re-patriated to the U.S. Only a very few were sent-for by their biological fathers.

Also by way of background, some discussion about money! Our salaries were paid directly to banks of our choice back in the States; our per-diem was paid locally in MPCs (Military Pay Certificates) or Local Currency (Vietnamese Dong). The Viets were not supposed to accept MPCs (although they did, since they had back-channel methods of redeeming them for Dong or for US Dollars). MPCs were really only useful at Military installations and the PX. Dong, of course, were universally accepted by the local populace for anything. US dollars, (referred to as “YouEss Green) though, were strictly forbidden, although of course there was a huge black market in them. Indeed, the black market was probably larger than the local economy! There was nothing that could not be had for a price, and anyone willing to pay in dollars was afforded the best rates. Many U.S. civilians would have dollars sent in by mail, which they would sell for MPCs, with which they would buy hooch and other items at the PX, then sell these items on the BM for Dong which they used to augment their fairly lavish off-base life-style. It was a mess, and now and then the Government would suddenly change the design of the MPCs in the hopes of catching-out speculators in them: but leaks always allowed the speculators to dump the old designs before they became worthless. It was a cat and mouse game the mouse always won!

Military Pay Certificates (MPCS

No MPCs were issued in denominations larger than one dollar: there were two reasons, one being that items at the PX and elsewhere were usually priced far below true value. The other reason was that the Vietnamese were not supposed to have these, so if they did, they would have to accumulate large piles of them to have any real value. It was not unusual to see someone carrying huge bundles of these!

All the costs of printing these and Dong were borne by the US Treasury, of course.

Dong were colorful: it was rare to find them in decent condition, however. Many of those I saved are still filthy dirty and look quite bad.

Vietnamese Dong

The per-diem we got was to be used for two purposes: to procure housing off-base, and to get money into the local economy. When I eventually took quarters in Saigon proper, the rent far exceeded my per-diem, so I was not able to save the $1000 per month I had hoped for, but I got close. Occasionally, I used Dong to entice the local boys, but usually they were sufficiently interested in me as a foreigner that money was not required.

I will continue my narrative on the next page, coming up soon.