Sunday, April 06, 2008
Friday, March 07, 2008
Only the Good Die Young
I still remember my first trip to New Orleans. It was with my Dad's sister, Aunt Carmol. Carmol was a school teacher in New Orleans and she was quite a woman. When WWII broke out, she joined the Marines and served with them throughout the war. She was a liberated woman, even during a very un-liberated time in Louisiana. When New Orleans first integrated, it was at her school and she walked the children into the building every morning to insure their safety.
When I was eleven and my brother Jack thirteen, she took us to New Orleans for a visit, and a grand tour of everything cultural in the venerable old city. We stayed with her and her husband Tack. We didn't go alone. She also brought two very young north Louisiana school teachers. I can't remember their names but I will call them Sandra and Dolly.
Sandra and Dolly were as excited about their first visit to the Big Easy as Jack and I. They were both young and pretty and they flirted with Jack and me all the way to New Orleans. As best as I can remember, it was the first time that I fell (no, tumbled head over heals!) in love.
Aunt Carmol showed us the French Quarter, the zoo and the museums and we saw little of Sandra and Dolly during our visit. Before we left, however, we all took a night time excursion to the Lake Pontchartrain Amusement Park, Sandra was Jack's date, Dolly mine. The memory of riding through the Tunnel of Love with Dolly still remains as one of the all time highlights of my life.
Aunt Carmol died in her forties of a kidney disease that could have easily been cured today. I miss her but I feel that she is still somehow with me. Her early passing goes along with my theory that only the good die young, in which case I expect to live until a hundred-twenty, or so.
http://www.ericwilder.com
When I was eleven and my brother Jack thirteen, she took us to New Orleans for a visit, and a grand tour of everything cultural in the venerable old city. We stayed with her and her husband Tack. We didn't go alone. She also brought two very young north Louisiana school teachers. I can't remember their names but I will call them Sandra and Dolly.
Sandra and Dolly were as excited about their first visit to the Big Easy as Jack and I. They were both young and pretty and they flirted with Jack and me all the way to New Orleans. As best as I can remember, it was the first time that I fell (no, tumbled head over heals!) in love.
Aunt Carmol showed us the French Quarter, the zoo and the museums and we saw little of Sandra and Dolly during our visit. Before we left, however, we all took a night time excursion to the Lake Pontchartrain Amusement Park, Sandra was Jack's date, Dolly mine. The memory of riding through the Tunnel of Love with Dolly still remains as one of the all time highlights of my life.
Aunt Carmol died in her forties of a kidney disease that could have easily been cured today. I miss her but I feel that she is still somehow with me. Her early passing goes along with my theory that only the good die young, in which case I expect to live until a hundred-twenty, or so.
http://www.ericwilder.com
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Buck McDivit Revisited
The protagonist of my first novel, Ghost of a Chance, was Oklahoma cowboy detective Buck McDivit. A mysterious lake in east Texas was the backdrop for the novel that highlighted lost Confederate gold, Indian artifacts, the ghost of a girl, and murder. I’m presently working on a sequel to Ghost of a Chance, this time with the action occurring in Oklahoma.
The working title of my new book is Panther Stalking and the story involves modern-day cattle rustling, a compound populated by female pagans, and of course, murder. I’m about twenty thousand words into the novel.
Before starting on Panther Stalking I wrote a Buck McDivit short story to reintroduce myself to a character that I haven’t visited in almost three years. Prairie Thunder plants McDivit back in his home turf of central Oklahoma. Moonlighting as an assistant medical examiner, McDivit helps investigate the death of an American Indian artist. The story leads him to Oklahoma City’s historic Paseo District.
Anyone who read Ghost of a Chance and is interested in reconnecting with Buck McDivit is invited to visit my website http://www.ericwilder.com . Sign my list and I will email you the short story in PDF format.
Monday, February 11, 2008
No Better Place on Earth
I served in Vietnam from July, 1970 until September, 1971. As a draftee, it was not a place I chose to be but I met many wonderful people during my tour. It is also impossible to spend fourteen months of total hell. There were moments of total hell but most of the time was almost normal, some moments even fun. Tonight I was remembering an event I still can't believe, even after all these years. To say that I had fun is a lie because my rear end was puckered the entire time. The event took place almost four decades ago, at the non-com club in Bien Hoa.
I spent the first six months of my tour in the boonies as an infantry foot soldier. I've told the story of getting poked in the eye with a bamboo limb. Recuperating in Song Be - relative civilization compared to where I had been - I played chess and became close friends with the company clerk of Headquarters Company. When a position as a clerk-typist came open, I was offered the job. I didn't have to be asked twice if I was interested.
A time came when I was asked to fill in as Battalion Courier for a soldier on R & R. Long before the days of personal computers, the courier physically transported a satchel of papers and documents from our outpost in Song Be to the main headquarters in Bien Hoa. I was a spec 4, the equivalent of a corporal but not considered a NCO. A friend that I will call Sergeant Brown was going to Bien Hoa at the same time and wanted me to accompany him to the NCO club later that night.
"A hell of a place," he told me, "With the best steaks, beer and whiskey in Nam."
"But I'm not an NCO. I'll get in trouble."
"No one knows you in Bien Hoa. I got sergeant's stripes for you. Tonight you're going to be an E-5 sergeant."
We made it to the club that night. It was dark, smoky and loud, a Vietnamese rock band playing on stage. We ate our steaks and we're well into our second whiskey when who was to suddenly appear but my worst nightmare. It was E-8 Sergeant Roper (I will call him). Sergeant Roper was big, easily three-hundred pounds, and he was black - a little scary for a southern boy that had never known many blacks, much less ones in authority. I had never seen him smile. Totally frightened of the man, I once witnessed him take away a live grenade from a drugged sky trooper that was threatening to blow up an officer's hooch. To say that my heart was in my throat was an understatement and I fully expected to spend the rest of my tour locked in the infamous Long Binh Jail.
I waited for the other shoe to fall. Instead, he asked, "How are you tonight Sergeant Wilder?"
When I noticed the man standing behind him, I realized why I wasn't already in handcuffs. It was our company commander, Captain Ahab (I will call him). Officers, like enlisted men, are also unwelcome in an NCO club. Captain Ahab, white like me, was wearing sergeant stripes - he was an E5. That night I was his equal, Sergeant Brown his superior.
Sergeants Roper and Ahab joined us and we all proceeded to drink, listen to the band and even exchange a few pleasantries along the way. I fully expected to be court martialed the following day, as I'm sure did Sergeant Brown. Instead, nothing was ever said of the incident and we never again acknowledged even a passing hint that we may have consorted illicitly.
Years have passed and I still wonder about the incident. Why had I taken the chance of being court martialed to visit a place where I shouldn't be? Moreover, why had a Captain, the company commander, taken the same chance? The answer surely has to be that there is a deeply buried need in all of us to visit that one place, at least just once, from which we are forbidden to enter. It's a location where everyone is equal. Most of us never visit but there is surely no better place on earth.
http://www.ericwilder.com
I spent the first six months of my tour in the boonies as an infantry foot soldier. I've told the story of getting poked in the eye with a bamboo limb. Recuperating in Song Be - relative civilization compared to where I had been - I played chess and became close friends with the company clerk of Headquarters Company. When a position as a clerk-typist came open, I was offered the job. I didn't have to be asked twice if I was interested.
A time came when I was asked to fill in as Battalion Courier for a soldier on R & R. Long before the days of personal computers, the courier physically transported a satchel of papers and documents from our outpost in Song Be to the main headquarters in Bien Hoa. I was a spec 4, the equivalent of a corporal but not considered a NCO. A friend that I will call Sergeant Brown was going to Bien Hoa at the same time and wanted me to accompany him to the NCO club later that night.
"A hell of a place," he told me, "With the best steaks, beer and whiskey in Nam."
"But I'm not an NCO. I'll get in trouble."
"No one knows you in Bien Hoa. I got sergeant's stripes for you. Tonight you're going to be an E-5 sergeant."
We made it to the club that night. It was dark, smoky and loud, a Vietnamese rock band playing on stage. We ate our steaks and we're well into our second whiskey when who was to suddenly appear but my worst nightmare. It was E-8 Sergeant Roper (I will call him). Sergeant Roper was big, easily three-hundred pounds, and he was black - a little scary for a southern boy that had never known many blacks, much less ones in authority. I had never seen him smile. Totally frightened of the man, I once witnessed him take away a live grenade from a drugged sky trooper that was threatening to blow up an officer's hooch. To say that my heart was in my throat was an understatement and I fully expected to spend the rest of my tour locked in the infamous Long Binh Jail.
I waited for the other shoe to fall. Instead, he asked, "How are you tonight Sergeant Wilder?"
When I noticed the man standing behind him, I realized why I wasn't already in handcuffs. It was our company commander, Captain Ahab (I will call him). Officers, like enlisted men, are also unwelcome in an NCO club. Captain Ahab, white like me, was wearing sergeant stripes - he was an E5. That night I was his equal, Sergeant Brown his superior.
Sergeants Roper and Ahab joined us and we all proceeded to drink, listen to the band and even exchange a few pleasantries along the way. I fully expected to be court martialed the following day, as I'm sure did Sergeant Brown. Instead, nothing was ever said of the incident and we never again acknowledged even a passing hint that we may have consorted illicitly.
Years have passed and I still wonder about the incident. Why had I taken the chance of being court martialed to visit a place where I shouldn't be? Moreover, why had a Captain, the company commander, taken the same chance? The answer surely has to be that there is a deeply buried need in all of us to visit that one place, at least just once, from which we are forbidden to enter. It's a location where everyone is equal. Most of us never visit but there is surely no better place on earth.
http://www.ericwilder.com
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