The idyllic childhood is fixing to take a hard left turn toward the Dark Side. I suppose that’s what growing up is all about. Puberty. Adolescence. No more sheltered cocoon from the evil outside world. No more comfy incubator. (Yeah, right, try telling that to Gen Xers or all the other modern cohorts still with their heads in their social media balloon – at age 30. Still living at home!)
The end of Elysium? But all that happens is Pop gets assigned to the head office in Madrid. We’re still in Spain. Madrid’s an awesome city. The El Prado museum. Spicy potato crisps at a kiosk in Plaza Major. Casa de Campo, the giant park in city central with birds and ducks and happy kids, couples, and tourists. The Metro (subway). Big city life at its finest – nothing better in the whole world. Not Paris Londo, Tokyo, London.
The same excellent Spanish people live in Madrid. The same wonderful weather. Enthralling culture. The same freedoms for the blond-headed American kid with the blue eyes and the broken Spanish. Taking the Metro to all points. Bull fights. Steaks afterward (the bulls they just killed) at Casa Paco’s.
And, yet. There’s not a doubt in my mind that my folks absolutely DREADED moving to Madrid. Why? It’s not that our Spanish homeland was any different. It’s the whole rest of the world that has changed. And the entirety of that change was represented by that Leviathan of American culture, The American School of Madrid. Henceforth abbreviated ASM. It as a real, live high school just like back in the States – along with all the alcohol, drugs, and social craziness that was the 1960s and early 70s.
My folks were ready for Madrid. My older sisters, too, having been exposed to the cultural tectonic shift at boarding school in Switzerland and college in the U.S. Regan remained in college, but Kelle and Leigh Erin both returned to the house and went to ASM with me. (NOTE: I have absolutely no memories of my little brother John from this point on. I just don’t. I makes me sad. But there it is – a vacuum. Maybe he was stuck in the same no man’s land I experienced growing up; maybe I was just an egocentric, narcissistic teenage bum. Most likely, a little of both.)
This is the late 60’s, folks. Imagine what has been happening all this time I was having the time of my life growing up in the Province of Castelo. The Civil Rights movement. Riots and anarchy on the streets. The Hippie revolution. Drugs. Woodstock. The Viet fucking Nam War. Gays on the march for recognition. Everybody was protesting – everything. And getting high while they were doing it.
But you know what? There was one place in the world where none of this caused the slightest ripple in the space-time continuum. Franco’s Spain. The fascist state run by Generalissimo Francisco Franco. El Caudillo. There were no riots. No drugs. Americans were not spat on. Hippies were nowhere to be seen (except in the upstairs bedrooms in our new home). Gays were still in the closet.
I never saw any TV news. Pop must have read the International Herald Tribune, but I never did. The Viet Nam war was no closer than my friend Pepe Oulahan’s severely depressed father, who was a correspondent for Time magazine. I didn’t know what a homosexual was until I was a senior in college. Didn’t care then. Don’t care now. Never met a real Hippy for three years after that. Had no inkling what racial strife was until, hell – well into my 60’s when Obama got elected. Learned all the racial bigotry I know from the master himself, Donald P. Trump.
First, let’s settle into our new home in beautiful, wonderful Madrid.
It was most definitely a step up. Sure can’t fault the folks for lack of class. It was a three-story castle on the outskirts of Madrid in Aravaca. Mom had her pool, an above-ground ugliness that still got the wet job done. A giant yard the size of a city block was enclosed in a stone wall. Rose garden. Eucalyptus trees in the back. Grass.
Room enough for our German Shepherd, a black purebred. (Mom sold the pick of the litter one year to none other than King Juan Carlos’s family across town.) I still couldn’t mow the lawn or do yard work. Their gardener brought in a small herd of sheep now and then to mow and fertilize the yard.
Pop did, however, remember my mechanical inclinations. He bought me a little mini bike, which I enjoyed no end. My friend Eric, an Air Force brat whose folks were at Torrejon Air Force Base (now a Spanish Air Force and Space Force base) had a go-cart which he kept at my place. We raced around that yard so damn much the beautiful grass was worn down as thin as Pop’s ragged old dress pants (which were practically see-through). I spent many a happy hour working on the mini bike and go-cart engines. Mission accomplished, old man. Thanks.
The house had been headquarters of the resistance during the Spanish Civil War. Pop found a Nazi dagger in the basement. The owners demanded he return it. He didn’t (engineers can be SO stubborn). It’s on display in my house to this day – stubbornness and all.
There was a concrete pill box on the street right outside the front gate. I dug it out, fixed it up, and thereafter kept a bottle of Bacardi rum stashed there. Great house for parties. They even had postcards I could give out to my friends as invitations, with a map on back.
ASM was in Aravaca, on the other side of the small village from our house. Kelle and Leigh Erin went to the school with me for a year or two. Kelle ended up eloping to Morocco with one of her teachers (then disappeared back to the states after that). Leigh Erin got bad into drugs, too. Her room was a small room at the very top of the castle. Some guy pulled a knife on her, I recall. She disappeared back to the states as well.
Years later Leigh Erin pulled out of an alcoholic nose dive, got herself a degree in chemistry, and a good job with the State of Texas. Kelle roughed it with a draft dodger by the name of Dale Klimek, living on the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia, counting salmon for the fisheries. Got divorced. Married a Newfoundlander, and lived forever after in St. Johns, happy as a kitten in fresh litter.
And Regan? Steady as the rain Regan, she moved right along in college back home in Baton Rouge.
I grooved to the music, for the first time. Bob Dylan. Led Zepplin. Blind Faith. Santana. All I heard was the good vibes, though, not the dark social subtext behind the beats. Sure, I was the dutiful rebellious teenager. Smoked cigarettes a few times. Got a liter of beer at the Plaza Mayor bars once in a while with a side order of spicy hot papas (fries).
I stole thousand-peseta notes out of Pop’s billfold now and then so I could ride the Metro to my friend’s houses. Grab a hamburger at Woolworths with the gang. Take a taxi home when I got blitzed out of my mind. Even skipped school one day for a cerveza blowout with my friends Joey Martinez and Jose Ferrer. We all got suspended. But hey, that’s what kids do.
All of this thanks to – The American School of Madrid. For the very first time, I was surrounded by friends. Had a girlfriend or three. Connie. Angela, who was Spanish – I suppose it was prestigious for Spanish kids to attend an American high school. Leslie Brock from Houston Texas (my favorite until the bitter end), complete with a bronze peace sign on a string as a sign we’re going together. Making out. No hard-core sex. Just dancing to the music and hanging out.
We moved to Mirasierra after my sisters left, to a smaller house. This was an exclusive neighborhood on the north side of Madrid, much closer to Pop’s office – but an hours-long bus ride to ASM in Aravaca. Pop drove the same ol’ “This Car Sucks” Seat station wagon to work. Mom had a cute little two-door sporty car (you could operate the radio with a foot pedal). Both vehicles had manual transmissions. We had a pool in the back yard again.
No go-cart, but Jose kept his Bultaco dirt bike at the house for a while – ZOOMING around the hills just outside the neighborhood. Pepe Oulahan lived nearby with his Time magazine dad and an older brother. (Had my first – and last- scrambled eggs with katsup one hungover morning in their house.)
Pepe, Jose, Joey, and I tried to start up a band (I played organ, Jose base, Joey guitar). Pepe’s brother had a band set up in the basement, and we tried their equipment on for size. Not gonna happen.
On the plus side, it was closer to Woolworths (American-style burgers, which we SMASHED flat – a rum chaser, beers), our groovy hang-out spot, and only a short taxi drive away from the closest Metro station.
A taxi with its green “available” light was never more than a wave away, safe as can be, and very inexpensive. The Metro was clean, fast, safe, dependable, and even cheaper. Loved the Metro.
Eva Peron, the wife of Jose Peron (by now deceased, the evil dictator of Argentina) lived in the same Mirasierra area. Another fascist, like Franco – the world was not friendly to their type anymore. The liberals were by now fighting to yank funding from our war against the Communists in Viet Nam. Fighting for gay rights. For the whole free-sex-and-drugs agenda. They had the balderdash to mix in Civil Rights to that whole mess – which was the one reasonable “rights” among the lot.
It makes me melancholy, to think back on those waning days of my youth. Moreso, how they were the scourge of the liberals, even back then. How DARE you have a happy youth!
They were safe and healthy days. Normal. Hearty. Plenty rebellious enough but still full of love and stability at home and in the community. I owe my sanity and the good life that followed to Franco and his “fascist” Spain.
Reading Hitler’s Table Talk conversations recently, I believe Franco’s Spain was the kind of Europe that would have come to pass if the Nazis had won. Hitler had no desire to impose democracy or fascism or any other form of government on people. The Fuhrer supported religion and Christianity and Islam and any practice of faith.
Hitler’s role model was Rome and the “Pax Romana,” maintaining law and order for nations, prohibiting wars between and among them, and recognizing every form of government and religion so long as it fostered peace and happiness, and moved a nation towards a common destiny.
I know they did the Holocaust. I wonder, though – if their rage wasn’t against the elites and the wealthy manipulators. Many of the super-rich of the day were Jews. Caught up in the movement, the Nazis wrongfully swept all Jews into the mix. I still think the Allies knew about the work camps from the very beginning. Later during the carpet bombing campaigns, they never hit a single camp nor the rail lines serving them. Why not?
Somebody should investigate that, rigorously.
More and more, I think the liberal West WANTED the Holocaust to continue. Facilitated it. Burned the flames of racism to move it along. What a wonderful opportunity to obliterate conservative values, by forevermore associating it with Hitler and the Nazis. That’s certainly what has happened. It’s still happening, today as much as ever. The liberals will never let it go. Never let the world move beyond it. Why should they? It’s the perfect foil to their own nefarious ends.
Yes, I know adults despise Franco. He’s second only to Hitler in the lexicon of evil leaders. He’s even worse than Mussolini, who after all had the panache to stand tall before a firing squad. I’m not judging them as an adult though, but as a child.
Liberals, more and more, want every child to grow up in an incubator. Bombarded with Sesame Street propaganda. Molded into a materialist, consuming machine. Devoid of personality. Sexuality. Happiness. Ambition (other than to work like a slave in a world of Amazon-esque factories run by A.I. and robots with ruthless precision.)
I think building a wall around our youth is the way to go. Tactful isolation is healthy. Freedom. Tons of exercise. Let things happen when they happen (love, lust, sex) naturally. Turn off the TV. Take away their smartphones. Burst their social media bubble. Give them a pencil and paper. A basketball. Chalk. A BB gun. A single-speed bicycle.
I say again: You can’t ask for a better environment for a kid growing up than Franco’s Spain. All that revolutionary chaos was kept out of sight and out of mind. There was space to mature and grow into adulthood in a natural, healthy way. I was strong, active, personable, tolerant, and mature.
Kelle and Leigh Erin got blindsided by all that hippie sh*t. They lost many good years recovering. The rest of the world got sucked right in and never recovered. We’re in a tailspin to this very day. Down the drain. Into darkness. Round and round. More darkness. Faster and faster. (A dark recurring nightmare from my younger years.)
Anyway, off the soap box. Feet back on the ground in sunny Spain.
I had two almost normal high school years. A flourishing social life. I didn’t play any sports like I probably would have done back in the States, but I had a steady girlfriend for a while. Then another. I probably would have had a muscle car back home. (When we returned for my senior year, Pop bought an Opel – a little, very energy-efficient sedan.)
Jose’s mom was the local distributor for Bacardi rum. “Cuba Libre!” They lived in an apartment downtown. Mostly we hung out at Woolworths. The parks. Hit the flea market sometimes. I had an old great coat, made me look like Sgt. Pepper on the cover of that Beatle’s album. Beer. Rum. Only got crazy drunk once. They stuffed me in a taxi and gave the driver directions to our house in Aravaca. He pulled up to the front door, knocked, and Pop hauled me in.
Only in Franco’s Spain.
My grades in Madrid were mediocre at best. Got a D in Santoro’s Spanish class. “Vete hacer punetas.” Which literally translates to go make cufflinks but really means “Go to hell.” My bete noir was language tenses. (On the plus side, four years later I placed out of three years of Spanish at the Naval Academy, so I must have learned something.)
Got blood blisters on my feet once playing basketball in my bare feet on the asphalt courts at ASM. Ouch! Always loved basketball – to a fault. The coach, Schwartz by name, gave me a Presidential Fitness Certificate one year. Not many American kids would qualify these days, not with 85% unable to even qualify for Army Basic Training. Sad.
Pop had to return to the Castellon refinery. They rented an amazing villa in Benicasim. It was right on the ocean. On a cliff above. There was a cave dug out at sea level. Pop bought a big orange raft row boat. I only took it out once. Stepped on a sea urchin. OUCH! My heel was stuffed full of spikes.
They rushed me to the Esso clinic at the refinery where the doctor attempted to YANK individual spikes out. Didn’t work so well. Then they took me to a Spanish clinic. Got a salve for the heel. In a few days, the white puss just pushed the spikes right on out. Painless. Brilliant.
I loved hanging out on the rough coastline below our villa residence in Benicasim. You could watch the octopuses in the surf. Very sneaky characters. Pretty speedy too, when you spook them.
I missed all my friends in Madrid, but not for long – off I went to boarding school in Rome, Italy. (Esso guarantees employees an education for their kids. If they couldn’t go to a local school, Esso paid all expenses to send the kids away.)
The Franciscan Brothers at Notre Dame International School For Boys got me into shape in zero time flat. I got straight A’s there and pretty much A’s for the rest of my academic career. I only remember Father Raymond. Taught religion. Always “tenting” his fingers.
The school hat great food. I especially enjoyed the music appreciation class. Watching Bart Star and the Green Bay Packers football highlight reels. Speed reading!
I was captain of our flag football team. Went out for the winning pass in the championship game – fumbled the ball. Story of my life. Oddly enough, I don’t recall a formal P.E. class.
Tommy and Daryl Arbor were at the school. We were friends again. Tag in the swimming pool. I tried out for track. Loved the fresh grapes at break time. Just not a track person.
I was a Roman. Packed up a brown bag lunch every weekend and disappeared into Rome. Took the busses everywhere. The Forum. The Spanish Steps. Had a tour book and ate it all up. Heaven on Earth. (Damned if I know how I still got such good grades.)
After Rome for a semester, it was back to Baton Rouge. I remember the trip back to the states from Rome, which I took alone. I had a stopover in Madrid. Went to see my old flame, Leslie Brock. I remember footsteps in the snow when I arrived at her place. I imagined she had been pacing, waiting for me.
We kept in touch by letter, Leslie and I. Maybe six months later I bought a nice gold ring (with a “C” for Clark) and sent it to her. Never heard back. Years later, I found the ring in Mom’s jewelry box. Not sure how that happened. Not sure if I want to know, either.
So, we’re back in the good ol’ U.S. of A now. While they painted and remodeled our house on Cottonwood, Mom, Pop, John, and I lived at our camp in St. Francisville. (Again, I don’t remember squat about John through this entire period.) Pop and I commuted to Baton Rouge in his bronze Opel (we drove a cranky old Ford Mustang loaner until the special-order Opel arrived – terrible car, Mustang.) I had to listen to his favorite New Orleans News radio station. WWL. I dropped Pop off at the refinery then drove to Robert E. Lee High School for classes.
Once we moved back into town, I rode my red Schwinn to school. This was my senior year, but I was a couple of years ahead of the curve because of my October birthday. I took a correspondence course in accounting and graduated a year early at the tender age of 16. With my October birthdate, this was numerically two years earlier than most kids. No wonder I didn’t have any friends to speak of.
I remember the typing class with a stern Black woman. I gave a rousing speech lauding J. Edgar Hoover for another class. (I’m sure THAT went over well.) Civics class (where my neighbor Rhett Lorio wore his Army ROTC uniform on dress-up days) was taught by our coach in a temporary building out back. Coach wanted me to be on his wrestling team. But I couldn’t do sports after school because Pop and I were commuting (at the time).
I took Latin all that year. President of the Latin Club (teacher’s favorite, which I’m sure went over well with my peers – what could “the most courteous camper” do? I’d just spent a semester in Rome itself). We had a Toga Party at the end of the semester. I went with a cute dark-haired girl. Brought her home afterward. Her family was Jehovah’s Witnesses and wouldn’t let us go out to a dance or club afterward. Evil rock and roll music. Dammit, struck out again.
I was nominated for the National Honors Society, but right before graduation they got hold of all my bad grades from ASM and wanted me to revoke it. I refused. Didn’t even attend graduation.
Pop bought me a Honda 175 motorcycle. (Something about a bet when the Dow Jones passed 1000.) I rode it to classes at LSU the following year. Made all A’s. A grad student taught trigonometry. Piece of cake. Psychology was okay. Not hard at all. Struggled mightily in physics (no-calculus physics even). I must have spent hours in the professor’s office (he was Dean of the Physics Department, too). Days. Weeks! Dropped out of an architecture class. Just could not do perspective drawings.
They asked if I wanted to rush Pop’s old fraternity. Didn’t interest me in the least. What DID interest me was a hardback book Gramm gave me on the U.S. Naval Academy. (Before that she softened me up with a John Wayne album, which I actually listened to – even liked.) I applied with my congressmen. Didn’t hear back by the end of spring semester.
I had a part-time job at a typewriter repair shop for a little while. Didn’t last more than a month or two. After that, Pop paid me a working wage for doing repairs around the house.
I spent the LSU year cleaning up and painting the outside of the house. We sold the place and packed everything up for one last move, to Aruba in the Netherlands Antilles. Right before we left town, I got a chance to be on a list to go to the Air Force Academy. Or a direct appointment to Annapolis. I took the latter.
The appointment was by Congressman John R. Rarick, later a Judge in East Baton Rouge Parish. Heaven knows why I was chosen (although I suspect Gramm used every ounce of influence she could muster. Thanks, Gramm. I love you.) The draft had just ended, only months before – so I imagine many better-qualified guys dropped out. Not me. I had no idea a war was even going on!
All I saw was the U.S. Naval Academy photos in the old book Gramm gave me. (Grandmothers can be SO sneaky.)
As an aside, John Rarick was cut from the same fabric as George Wallace. Reporters called him “the leading racist in Congress.” He regularly belittled Supreme Court Chief Justice Marshall and even Martin Luther King. Mostly he was worried about the Black Muslims, which turned out to be prescient.
Judge Rarick later ran for President under the American Independent Party ticket, Wallace’s old party. I didn’t know any of this, of course. Maybe his office called people at Robert E. Lee High School and heard about my lofty praise of J. Edgar Hoover. Maybe they liked that I grew up in Franco’s Spain. A kindred spirit. Whatever it was, I thank you. I did you proud, Sir. Oorahhh!
I tried to learn sailing in Town Lake (failed miserably). Pop bought a Sunfish when we got to Aruba, and I did better there. Then it was off to Annapolis Maryland. My first roommate, Miguel Beccerrel, was a Black fellow from Puerto Rico. We likely took the same flight to the Washington DC airport. Packed us into a bus. Carted us to Annapolis. Shaved our heads. Stood us up tall and give us the oath to “Defend and protect the Constitution of the United States.” Boom. It’s done.
(I take my oaths VERY seriously, by the way. That’s what this book is about.)
It was all downhill from there. Straight downhill. Down a very steep hill. Straight to Hell. How come?
I ended up in one of the two U.S. Marine Corp companies, 15th. So much for Gramm’s country club fantasy.
I was on Parris Island.
Boot camp on steroids.
Bummer.