Sex and the Single Sailor

A Deal I Was Stupid Enough to Refuse

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I’ve never been much of what you’d call a “ladies man.”  This little story will make that abundantly clear. It also illustrates how opportunities can pass us by never to return.

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It was the spring of 1958.  I had turned 20 the previous October.  I had taken 30 days leave and was headed home to Iowa.  I was long on time and short on cash so I was hitch-hiking.

I'd gotten as far as Riverside, California when my luck turned bad.  I'd been there about two hours, trying to catch a ride east.  No luck.  Even worse luck: it was raining and it was dark, about 8 o’clock at night.

I'm drenched, wondering if I'm ever going to get out of there, when this baby-blue 1957 Chevy Bel Air goes screaming by. 

Zoom!  Whoosh!  Splash!  Screech!  The driver slams on the brakes and starts backing up.  I grab my bag and start running for the car.

I hop in, throw my bag in the back seat and take a gander at who just picked me up.  It's a young woman in her mid-twenties, a good-looking brunette with a hint of plumpness but far from being overweight.

 

We engage in some idle conversation – you know, who I am, who she is, where I'm head­ed, where she's headed – that that sort of thing.  It turns out she's an English teacher, on her way up to Portland and then on to Seattle for her spring break.

I'm struck by a change in her use of language during the course of our conversation.  At first, she's all prim and proper.  Pretty soon, she says, "Damn."  Then it's "goddamn."  Next, in quick succession, it's "hell," "s--t" and then the “F” word.

Darned if she doesn't proposition me.

"Look," she says, "would you like to come along to Seattle with me?"

"That's nice of you,” I replied, “but I don't have any civilian clothes, just the uniform I'm wearing and a spare one in my bag."

"I'll buy you all the clothes you need.  I've got close to $4,000 in travelers checks."

"I couldn't let you do that,” I said.  “Besides, I really do want to get home to Iowa."

"That's no problem,” she declared.  “I've only got 10 days and you've got 30.  You come along with me for those 10 days and I'll buy you a round-trip train ticket home and back out to San Diego."

I was too young to know that “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” and I said, "Naw, I really do wanna get home and see my mother."

She pulls over, stops and tells me to get out.  I grab my bag and get out.

The tires on that baby-blue Bel Air screech again; this time from digging out instead of stopping.

I manage to get home in a couple of days, spend my leave and then get back to the ship.  I go down to the mess decks at lunchtime, grab a tray full of chow and sit down at a table with some guys I hung around with.  One of them was Tommy Lee Crabtree.

I told them about the English teacher.  Tommy Lee looks at me, stands up, picks up his tray, looks down at me and says, "You have got to be the dumbest son-of-a-bitch alive."

Now, a little more than 50 years later, I'm inclined to agree with him.  I wish somebody would invent a time machine so I could go back and try that one over again.