Day + 90 "Orlando Daydreamin' "

THREE AND A WAKE UP!!!!!

I can’t believe what I’m typing (not that you can call my 2 or 3 fingered disaster typing)… three days, then I get the word. I’m as nervous as a new bride. I’m praying my little buns off that all goes well.

I have my P.E.T. scan tomorrow… that will take up from 11:30 till 3 PM, and then the pulmonary function test is at 4. I’m going to have to get up at 5 AM to get some breakfast and I can’t have any carbs. So it’ll be a couple of eggs and some bacon, without toast.

I mentioned Ernie a few weeks ago; Ernie is a guy who has been a friend for a very long time… since 1964! We first met in a summer math course at the UConn Waterbury branch before we started engineering classes. We struggled through engineering together, and both changed our direction at the end of our first year… he to the business school, me to liberal arts. We also went through ROTC together and in our second year, I was a platoon leader and Ernie was my platoon sergeant. “Eric the Terrible” was our cadre leader, and Ernie and I shared many a story about him.

When I got to the Storrs main campus for my third year, I walked into my room… Ernie was my roommate! We lived together for one semester… he moved to another fraternity house and pledged there, I stayed where I was and pledged there. When I went through hell week, Ernie provided a bed for some uninterrupted sleep… that is, until another “friend” from Waterbury ratted me out to our pledge master (they were friends). Through all of this was the ROTC connection and when we got our branch assignments we had both gotten assigned to the Signal Corps.

Larry Schriffres (still another Waterbury friend) and I made arrangements to travel together to Fort Gordon for our first assignment in November 1968 and we arrived in Augusta, GA a couple of days ahead of time… bought some fatigues and got the lay of the land. We walked into the orderly room of the training brigade and who’s standing there… you guessed it, Ernie!!! So we did Fort Gordon together, and then moved on to Fort Sill for the next school. I left school early, but Ernie and I stayed in touch.

When I got my orders for Viet Nam, I called him (he was at Ft. Meade, I at Ft. Dix). Sure enough, he had his orders too. We were manifested on the same flight from Travis AFB, AND assigned to the same unit in Viet Nam! While he ended up in Quy Nhon, and I ended up in Nha Trang, we were still with the 21^st Signal Group. We did get together a few times while there and went to Hong Kong on R&R together.

All these years, we’ve stayed friends (even in the same business for part of our careers). He’s living in Danbury and of course, through the miracle of the Internet, we keep in even closer touch than ever.

I left out the juicy parts of our relationship (Lawton, Storrs, San Francisco, Hong Kong etc.). That would take up much more space than I care to take up here, and I worry about the censors.