Shoplifter

In Junior High and High School we lived in Flora, the first big town I’d lived in. I was older, and so was allowed to walk to the local Dale Carnegie Library to browse and borrow books. For me, the best part of the library was the Sci-Fi and adventure section in the southwest corner on the first floor.

It was my first introduction to the pulp adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the Young Peoples books of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. The Sci-Fi section was small, but fun. It didn’t take me too long to go through the entire selection, and then I had the wait for new books to come in to feed my voracious reading habits.

I have always loved reading, ever since I was old enough to read, and I’d read anything available. I started with comic books, of course. I remember in Xenia, pointing to a word in a comic book and asking what it was. My brother told me, but for some reason, probably an early onset of paranoia, I did not believe him. I angrily voiced my feeling that I could NOT wait to be able to read and know all the words.

That happened soon enough, and away I went. In those days, my family was a fan of the paperback western, and so was I. What choice did I have? Zane Grey was a favorite. It wasn’t until later that I realized that what he wrote weren’t WESTERNS per se, but Romances in a western setting. That didn’t matter, in those days I was quite the romantic.

First Xenia, then Iuka, we didn’t live in town, and besides they were pretty small towns anyway. Iuka had a store with an atypical selection of comics, and of course, the schools did have libraries. The only thing close to science fiction was a couple of books by Ray Bradbury, and of course Jules Verne and H G Wells.

Moving to Flora was like hitting the big time. A town library that was a whole two-story collection of reading matter, and in a year, the actually pretty decent Flora Township High School library. Pretty decent for me anyway, farm boy that I was.

But as things go, I pretty quickly burned through all the what I considered “Good Stuff.” The Carnegie Library down town was certainly my favorite place to go. I remember once, coming home from the library and finding a $5 dollar bill that someone had lost, along one of the streets. When I got home, I had to show it off to my brother.

“Where did you get that?” he asked.

Feeling pretty good about the whole “found money” thing, I told him “The library was handing them out!” Without another word, Kenny put on his jacket and cap and headed off to the library. They were probably out of money by the time he got there! 😉

Like I said, went through all the lending books pretty quickly. But another thing Flora had was a Newsstand. On occasion I had some actual real life spending money, and I would rather spend it on books than candy or toys. So, my routine on Saturdays was first to the library, then to the newsstand. The newsstand was a long narrow room, with magazine racks all the way down on the west wall, the paperbacks on a long rack in the middle, and the east side with stuff I don’t remember, probably greeting cards, stationary, newspapers and the like. Stuff I wasn’t interested in.

The comic books were 4 or 5 spin-racks, two in the front between the counter, and the more popular news magazines, and a couple more spaced down along the paperback racks.

I loved that place, probably as much as the library.

The only problem was, I didn’t have a lot of loose change. I was too much of a non-assertive slacker doofus to attempt to get a job, and whatever money my mother gave me had to be saved for school supplies, and stuff like that, so it was never for me to spend like I wanted. My brother didn’t have that problem with doing stuff to get paid, and he was generous enough to give me some on occasion.

But there was so many books and magazines in the newsstand that called out to me begging for me to take them home. Especially the girly magazines on the last rack on the west wall.

So I did.

I was a fat, growing kid, so I tended to wear bulky clothes that I was supposed to grow into, and usually wore a jacket. It was pretty easy to tuck a magazine and a couple of paperbacks into my pants in the back, and a couple more in the front with my jacket zipped shut.

It was a miracle that I never got caught. I was a foolish kid, and often would get carried away with my thefts, and often walked out of the newsstand with a goodly amount of reading material tucked away. I’m sure at times I looked like one of those South Park kids bundled up to three times my size.

Sometimes, as a cover I guess, I’d actually BUY a book or magazine, when I had the money. Once I bought a book, and obviously had a paperback in my back pocket. It was a paperback from the Library, but it still looked suspicious, and the dealer gave me a really dirty look when I paid for the book I DID buy.

I do not know why he never acted on his suspicions about me, but he never did. Later, I figured that I was extremely lucky that I was not busted. If I had been, I can only guess what would have happened. I’d probably been ex-communicated from my family, or locked in the closet until graduation. But it was, and is, one of my dirty little secrets.

Speaking of “dirty,” the dirty magazines were an education for me, even the demure ones available back in those days of the early 60s. There was nowhere else I was going to get such an education, since kids were not taught about sex in those days, any more detailed than “Birds lay eggs, and bees pollinate flowers. Don’t you even THINK about it!”

(An aside ~ When we lived in Iuka, I came across an anatomy How To Draw book at the auction. Once I took it home, it was “borrowed” from me, and all the pages with naked ladies was removed. I don’t know if it was my grandmother “protecting” me, or my brother “helping himself out.” It took me a long time to figure out how to draw naked ladies, and I never did get the boobies right.)

Anyway, a lot of pictures of naked ladies came home with me from the newsstand. My method was to be really interested in the magazines in the rack right next to the Girlie Magazines, then reaching over, slipping one of “those” magazines down and into my pants.

I stole so many of those magazines, that my bed (where I “stored” them) developed a noticeable hump from the amount of magazines piled there. I don’t know why I never considered that they might be found. I mean, I DID notice the hump myself! I actually wasn’t much of a thinker in those days.

And it happened. One day I came home, and my bed was perfectly flat. I jerked up the mattress, and all that was there was the other mattress! The HORROR! On further inspection, I discovered that the bathroom wood stove had an inordinate amount of paper ash in it.

But nothing was ever said to me about it. I guess the shame was too much. I mean, what kind of teenage boy “reads” those kind of magazines, anyway?

My Roller Skating Experience!

Back in the last millennium, when I was married, Judy decided that we needed to do more of the young married activities. One of these activities was roller skating.

There was a skating rink in Granbury, and they rented skates. I was concerned that, being unsteady on wheeled feet, that I might fall down and hurt myself. As a person that is way too familiar with the act of falling down, I was justifiably concerned.

“Not to worry,” Judy proclaimed, “Just hold onto me, like young married couples do when they are out skating!” I figured that if she was willing to be pulled down with me if (when) I went down, I could at least try to stand on free wheeling wheels.

We dressed for the occasion, not in fancy dress-up cowboy fashion like I’d hoped, but rather 70’s Texas yuppie fashion. What that meant for me was some light-colored patterned bell bottomed pants, a flowery paisley shirt with HUGE collar, and my very fancy white belt, that matched my platform white shoes. We even fluffed up my hair over my combed-over forehead so that it would look fuller, and attempt to hide the fact that I was already in receding hairline mode. Has that EVER fooled anyone in the long history of men with receding hairline?

We got to the skating rink, obviously the place for young folks to be in Granbury Texas on a Saturday evening. So there were going to be plenty people to laugh and smirk at the new damnyankee husband of the former GHS star of the Girls Basketball team. Good. I was worried that no one would see me my very first time on the roller rink.

We quickly found a rented, freshly sprayed pair of skates for me, to go with Judy’s privately owned roller skates. While I struggled at putting them on and lacing them up, she continued telling me about what great fun we were going to have, and how we would have so much fun, that roller skating would soon be our very own Saturday night tradition, and on and on. I feared for my tender bottom.

Well, surprise, surprise! I was, of course, a little unsteady and wobbly, but I did NOT immediately fall down! Thank you, Judy for being my support!

We finally got out onto the rink, to the “elevator music” tune of some halfway remembered golden oldie, and the festivities were unsteadily underway! I quickly discovered that skating was quite a bit like skateboarding. For me, anyway.

What that meant was, just like my “expertise” on skateboarding those few years ago (my last time on my old skateboard just a few months in the past, back when I had FALLEN DOWN and broken my elbow), I quickly discovered if I guided my direction with one foot, and pushed off with the other, that I could actually move in a horizontal direction! And, of course, after the push-off, I could glide! As long as there were no steep hills in the roller rink, I should be OK!

So, there I was, out on the floor with everybody else, left foot guide, right foot push, glide! I was feeling pretty proud of myself, I’ll have you know! As I have always been, I found it easy to ignore all the other people, adults, teenagers and kids, all EXPERT skaters (at least compared to me), smirking, pointing and generally enjoying the awkwardness of my skating “style.” I was having fun, and I had yet to fall down!

I’m not so sure that Judy found it as easy to ignore the smirking, pointing and masked hilarity of the other skaters. After all, this WAS her home town, and I suppose most of the people knew her or at least who she was. So, I guess, all things considered, it wasn’t all that much fun for the two of us.

I don’t remember us going skating again, which is probably for the good. I am a fellow that has never been able to ignore the law of gravity. I didn’t fall down that time on the skating rink, but I can safely insist, it would have been only a matter of time!

Huh? What?

I must be an ongoing embarrassment to my old friend Skip. We hung out pretty drastically back in the good old days, in the early to mid 70s. Every once in a while, something will happen in his life today that reminds him of one of our adventures, and he’ll give me a call to reminisce.

“Dale! You remember that time that we all went to a DJ Dance, and the DJ, Alan Price, you remember him, played Blue Suede Shoes and everybody thought it was by Elvis, and you told me ‘No, that’s Carl Perkins,’ and I didn’t know who that was, but I shouted it out anyway, and the DJ said that I was RIGHT! You remember that, RIGHT?”

“Um.” At a loss for words, and drawing pretty much a blank, “I remember that you won a trivia contest, but don’t recall any details.”

“BRO! You knew that it was Carl Perkins, who I’d never heard of! And Allan Price, the DJ. Remember, he was in the service, too, and we knew him, and…”

“Allan who?” Still mystified. “I knew this guy in Spain that was a disk jockey…”

“Come on! You remember! The four of us went out, and we were drinking (first clue) and having a great time, and I would have never been able to SAY Carl Perkins if you hadn’t TOLD me!”

“If I had said Carl Perkins, it’s probably because of my brother. He knows all about those early rock and rollers…”

“Aw, man!” Clearly disappointed, Skip went on to other things, actors in television commercials and the like, while I was still trying desperately to remember a fun time that we enjoyed over 30 years and 30 million drinks ago.

I was so confused, that when he was hanging up, I almost called him FRITZ! I sure hope he didn’t catch that, but unfortunately, after all these years, Skip is still pretty sharp.

Not  ME, though! I’m sorry Skip!

 

Winter games

Growing up, I lived in Illinois. In Illinois in the wintertime, it snows. Every year, we got at least one Snow Day, when the snow was too deep for the kids to go to school. Of course, kids loved snow days, and being kids, we weren’t any different.

Snow was great fun to play in, and I always marveled that I could be sweating in my winter coat from all the fun. “But!” I thought to myself, “I’m in the SNOW! How could I be sweating.” I’m sure Kenny explained it to me along with a “Dummy!” and a swat on my head. He was pretty smart, like an older brother is required to be.

Snowmen, snow forts, snowball fights! The best was when we lived on the farm at Iuka. It was out in the country, maybe a mile from the main road, and another mile on the other side to Iuka. But right across the country road from the farm was a woods!

We spent a lot of time exploring that woods. The woods also had a creek that Uncle Bill liked to go hunting turtles. In the winter, of course, it was frozen. What the woods also had was one pretty big hill, that inclined down to the creek.

With lots of snow on the ground, we decided to give the sled that we had just got from Harry Michael’s Auction Barn a try. There were trees, of course, this being the woods, but they were small trees, and we figured that we could dodge them.

On a bright, snowy day, we headed out to the hill, with the sled in tow. Being the youngest, I’m sure it was my job to pull the sled all the way up the hill. We got to the top, and scouted around for a good place to sled down.

Kenny found a likely slope, and getting on the sled with me pushing, away he went down the hill. He got to the bottom, and enjoyed the ride. It was my turn. I pulled the sled back up the hill, and picked out another likely spot. MY likely spot.

It was the slope with the trees, but I figured, even though it was my first time on a sled, I knew what I was doing. After all, I had studied the subject in the old Boy Scouts Handbook that I had stolen from my brother. “How hard can it be to dodge a couple of trees?” I figured.

Besides, the slope I had chosen was steeper, and longer than the one Kenny had used. It was a no-brainer for me. I had no other choice! I got on the sled, and with a slight shove from Kenny I was off! I was going good, too, until I discovered that trees were harder to dodge than I figured.

There is nothing like a tree to stop a kid on a sled! You stop suddenly and completely. I’m pretty sure that I broke the sled, but it was probably a cheapie, bought for a quarter or so. Our sled was finished, and along with it, our sledding adventure.

“Besides,” as Kenny pointed out, “if you had MISSED the trees, you would have probably slid all the way down to the overhang of the creek! With your weight and speed, you would have probably went INTO the creek, breaking the ice and drowning!”

Anyway, we called it quits, and decided to see if the pond in the “back 40” had frozen up enough to go skating. Well, foot sliding.

Ah! Winter (when you are a kid!)

A near death experience

As everybody should know, my balance while standing is TOTALLY gone. When I’m in an upright position, I am stumbling and staggering way worse than I ever did when I had the excuse of alcohol. At the very best of times, I sway like a slender tree in the wind.

This is something that is with me all the time, but occasionally it’s not as bad as other times. Perhaps I have gained a little inertia movement or something to steady me. But not often.

Usually, standing upright without falling is a problem for me. I am constantly  putting out my hand on something to steady myself. I would use both hands, but the other hand is occupied with keeping the oxygen umbilical cord from underneath my feet, so I don’t stumble over that. There is just more and more work that I have to do to just stand!

So, anyway, I was in the bathroom, as I often am during the daytime hours, doing what a man my age is constantly doing. As I put it, my major daily exercise. (Going, not doing!)

I finish, then, bending over, I reached for my sweatpants to pull them back up. As I did this (with BOTH hands), my imbalance shouted out “Hey dummy! Remember ME!?” and I started tipping forward in the direction of my bending body. DIRECTLY towards my bathtub.

Through some miraculous acrobatics, I was able to recover from my teetering, and bracing my head against a handy wall, I finished pulling up my pants while angrily shouting at the uncaring universe and its evil pranks. Stupid uncaring Universe!

I thought about the potentially disasterous fall that I had just avoided. If I hadn’t rescued myself, I would have likely pitched forward, head first into the bathtub, with my hands still jerking at my pants. I figured the end result could very easily have been, me, face and head smashed into the bathtub, with my bare a** sticking up over the edge of the tub, expiring as my life blood flowed from my head down the drain.

I would have really pitied the poor person that discovered my body in THAT awkward position! I’m sure I would have been automatically entered into the Funny Death contest.

But the mess would have been easy to clean up.

New Year at Alexander The Great’s Castle

Izmir, Turkey was built around the ruins of one of Alexander (the Greats) castles. It seems that if you started off, and kept going up the hill in town you would eventually get there. I had never actually been to the ruins but I knew that they were there.

One New Years Eve (probably 1968-69), I became rip-roaring drunk (as I tended to do in those days), and for whatever reason, I left the Izmir NCO Club (someone probably offended me. Or else I was feeling sorry for myself), but I didn’t feel like going back to the apartments. I’m pretty sure that I was glad that the old year was over with. The next year HAD to be better (a constant recurring thought of mine over the many new years I was to celebrate)!

I ignored all the taxicabs offering me rides; back to my apartment, to another club, to Girls Girls Girls! Nope. I knew where I was going, and by gum, I was walking there.

Somewhere along the way, I picked up a Turkish companion who struck up a conversation with me. He wanted me to go back to his place, where he would get us some Girls! That didn’t get my attention (I was in a MOOD), so then he offered up himself! I very nicely, and drunkenly, informed him that I had absolutely NO interest in “playing on that team,” and went on my way alone.

I thought about that encounter the next day, and I bet myself that the odds were good had I went back to his apartment, those girls he promised would more than likely have been supplied with extra, non-girl parts. I congratulated myself on not being taken in by the “happy” fellow.

In the meantime, I trudged onward and upward, and was soon in a residential part of town. I’m pretty sure that I was singing, “Should auld acquaintances be forgot…” and fairly regularly, loudly shouting out “HAPPY NEW YEAR!“

I pretty sure the residents probably thought that some foreign demon had invaded their neighborhood, roaming around screeching and screaming horribly in some alien language. I’m surprised that the Turkish Police didn’t come and haul me away. Maybe they didn’t respond to neighborhood disturbances in that part of town.

Eventually, I got to the top of the hill, and walked among what I ASSUME was the remnants of Great Alexander’s castle. Truthfully, even for a staggering drunk American tourist, it was pretty un-impressive. It was more like a construction site, or some other pile of nondescript rubble.

Of course, it very well might have been! I was drunk, and did not speak much Turkish, much less read any of it. After the evening that I had just spent at the NCO Club, I probably wouldn’t have been able to read any signs even if they had been in English.

I don’t know how I got home, but I did, how else would I be here to tell the tale?

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!

The Pencil, a Bah Humbug! Christmas story

 

It was PROBABLY more decorative than this

 

One year (somewhere in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade) we had a classroom Secret Santa Exchange. As the nicely wrapped presents were brought in, the teacher placed them in the metal storage locker at the side of the room for safekeeping until the last day of school before Christmas Vacation. I don’t remember whose name I had or what my gift was. I’m sure it was a dollar limit, and I certainly didn’t go over that amount. We were all pretty excited with the thought of taking home a present for the holiday.

The last day of school before Christmas Vacation finally came, and the teacher unlocked the locker, and started bringing out the pretty packages and handing them out. I awaited mine with EAGER anticipation. To no avail.

The teacher stood up and announced that was it, and turned to see my horrified face staring at her. She quickly turned back to the locker, and dug further for a while, finally retrieving a skinny, rod-shaped bit of wrapping paper.

She handed it to me, and I ripped it open and stared with dis-belief. A pencil. Granted, it was a holiday pencil, printed with holiday decorations (probably). But a (expletive deleted) pencil! I don’t remember what I had exchanged, but I KNOW it was more than a PENCIL.

I know what you must be thinking, small town, poor kids, probably couldn’t AFFORD more than that. You know what? That sentiment means NOTHING to such a young innocent as myself. IT WAS A PENCIL!

Bah, Humbug. The typical presents at home for Christmas were the usual, socks and underwear. Yep, I was one of those kids. (I seriously thought that the reason Santa never came to our house was because he couldn’t fit down the stovepipe! I KNEW that it wasn’t because I was a bad kid. I wasn’t THAT bad, not like some of the kids I knew)

I’m pretty sure that was the year I started becoming cynical about the whole Christmas thing. A couple of years later, when my grandfather took his shotgun out in the woods on Christmas Eve and shot it off, returning to the house to tell us that there would be no Santa for Christmas that year, I probably thought “Serves the fat b*stard right.”

For all you people that never received a pencil in a Secret Santa Exchange, or got nothing but underwear and socks under the tree, MERRY CHRISTMAS! 😉

The escalation of the Oxygen Umbilical War!

It is really pissing me off! I just do not believe how intensely that damned oxygen tube that connects me to the Oxygenator is screwing with me. It is a 50 ft piece of plastic tubing, that with all the twists and kinks averages no more than 20 ft, and, quite often, less.

For some reason, the tube is ALWAYS under my feet when I stand. ALWAYS! Usually stepped on upon starting to rise to my feet, which means I run out of distance from my foot to my nose WAY before I’m upright, with the gizmo threatening to pull out of my nose. It is similar to a running dog coming to the end of his leash.

I’ve developed a habit of gathering a length of the tube whenever I need to navigate, although, this isn’t always helpful. The entire length of the tube has twisty kinks in it, and there are SO MANY things for it to catch on, although, it seems to be going beyond physics on some of the stuff it catches so very securely to.

And even with the tube gathered up, it STILL manages to catch on stuff, or get stepped on, or looped around feet, caught on the couch, office chair, portable oxygen tanks, and the kitchen stool.

Not to mention (and I almost didn’t) the way the gizmo on my face is. The gizmo is a loop of hose, with a couple of vampire teeth thingies sticking out. Those thingies are inserted into the nostrils for delivering the oxygen. It is held on to the face by the two pieces of the split tube looping around the ears, then coming back together under the chin, where is located a sliding bit that holds the whole thing snug, depending on the strength of the ears.

This bit has realized, “Hey! I’m a Barely Flexible bit of pipe!” It’s easy, when the whole thing is just sitting there all relaxed for the bit looped around one of the ears to just rise up off from around that ear, and slip out of the nose, thereby causing the need for constant attention.

One of these days, I swear I am going to take my knife, the one with the sharp blade, and start chopping and slicing at that damned hose. Especially if it continues to get pissy with me, catching so damned securely on imaginary protuberances on those times that I really, really to be in the bathroom NOW.

It will probably happen as an aftermath to the first time it catches me inattentive and cleverly trips me up,  causing me to fall, and probably wet my pants, because, dammit, I really needed to get there THEN!

Dammit.

A Christmas Carol

I come by my “Christmas Spirit Humbug” quite legitimately. When I was stationed in Zaragoza, Northern Spain, we had no television. There may have been Spanish TV, but nothing that we could see on our American equipment.

What we did have was RADIO, courtesy of AFRTS (Armed Forces Radio and Television Service). I know that the agency HAS television in its name, but not there in Zaragoza Spain, where we were a small USAF station on a portion of a larger, Spanish Air Base.

But we did have the Armed Forces Network, which sounded a lot like community radio found on college campuses around the USA, except, of course, much more conservative. It was supplied, programmed and manned by Air Force personnel, with news, weather and a “everything” mix of musical entertainment. Each hour was totally different programming from the one preceding it. Soul might follow country, with Big Band following that.

There were lots of syndicated shows that were delivered to the station on long play albums. Just put it on, and the disk jockey was done for 30 minutes, when it would be a short station break while the recorded program was turned over. 

Of course, there was the story of the AF DJ that put on one of those long play albums, and then left the station, for whatever reasons a young GI might have. As the story goes, about 5 or 10 minutes into the program, the record developed a skip, “…the next song goes KLIK …the next song goes KLIK …the next song goes KLIK…” until the DJ Airman NOTICED and hurried back to the station. 

As the story continues, the Base Commander, who was an invertebrate FAN of said syndicated show was waiting for him when he returned. I don’t know how much of that story was true, but it sounded good.

I was friends with the NCOIC of the Zaragoza AB Radio station, and top disk jockey, TSgt Thomas Connell (sp?), who, in the real world (USA) did something else, because few stateside AF Bases had radio stations, but usually had a part-time job at one of the local radio stations as the ever popular Thom Terrific. He was certainly a good disk jockey. He knew the talk and the music, and was a likable personality.

Thom (Tom) was a member of our theater group on the base, where we occasionally put on dinner theater for the Officers club. One October or November, Thom suggested to the group that our next presentation, in December, should be a Radio Play!

I’ve always been a big fan of radio drama, since listening to Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger and Johnny Dollar as a kid. AFRTS radio also played a lot of the old dramas, as well, so people knew what it was. Needless to say, I thought Thom’s idea was a GREAT one.

Due to Thom’s strength of personality, we all readily agreed, and turned to what our show should be. I would have loved to do “Sorry, Wrong Number,” or “The Hitchhiker,” but the scripts and rights to them were not free.

Someone with an eye for saving money suggested Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It was in the public domain, so we could use it, and all we would have to do is adapt it to our purposes, which a couple of our people were soon to do.

All we needed were voices and some easily done sound effects. The theater group was furnishing the voices, and Thom and AFN had a handle on whatever sound effects that might have been needed.

We started casting it, and prepare yourself, EVERYONE thought that I was the best possible choice for old Bah, Humbug, himself, Ebenezer Scrooge. This surprises no one, does it?

Soon we were going through the rough draft, ironing out rough spots, and getting down just what exactly that these old-time Englishmen and women were saying, and what we needed to make it sound believable.

Of course, all I had to do was be my grouchy, grumpy self. It was pretty easy for me to handle! 😉

To make it special, and to stay true to the character of radio drama, we did it live Christmas Eve at the base station. It was one of the most enjoyable bits of drama I had ever done.

*************

I walked away from it with a cassette recording that Thom mastered and copied for all of us. Years later, I gave the cassette to Ken, who put it on CD for me. Somewhere around my “stuff” I still have that, as well as the really nice CD cover that I made for it.

I have not been able to put my hands on the CD, nor have I been able to find the artwork that I used. I suppose that I could redo the cover, but there was some really good visuals that I really wish I could track down.

I need to do some editing of the recording as well, since side one is one massive file, and side two is another. It sorely needs to be divided into chapters.

My hope is to locate the CD, do the needed work on it, and make it available to one and all, a 35th Anniversary Edition (once I get an internet connection that can handle that sort of thing).

The Compound

(This is my memories of a visit in the late 60’s to a Turkish Women’s Prison/Brothel while I was stationed in Izmir, Turkey and may not be suitable for all viewers. I have no independent corroboration for The Compound, other than what I saw with my own eyes, and the stories told to me by other GI’s.)

One of the places that we were practically REQUIRED to visit in Izmir, Turkey was a place called “The Compound.” It was a place to visit on a Friday evening, and in a group. That’s how we did it, a couple of the older guys that had been stationed in Turkey for a while, and about three of us late arrivals.

Izmir was a typical Turkish city, I suppose, with main streets pretty well lit, and the farther away from them on side streets, much darker.

The Compound was pretty dark. The entry was a gate between two buildings, with a couple of guards manning the entry. Mostly they chased off kids, and turned back any women that might have wandered up. But mostly kids, who are pretty much kids, no matter where they are in the world.

Our group was pretty obviously all men, and we didn’t even get much of a cursory glance as we passed through the entryway.

The gate opened onto a one block street, walled over at the other end. There were a couple of low powered dim street lights casting a murky glow over the street. The three story apartments lining both sides of the street had light shining from all the curtainless windows, as well as through the open entry doors, so even though it was murky and dim, you could still see. Sort of like a carnival at night.

There were no automobiles parked along the street, but there were a couple of street vendors selling cashews and kebab. But that wasn’t why all these men were here, crowding the street. All the men were here because of what else was in all these rooms looking out on the street.

The windows had women looking out, and quite often, calling down to the throng. I’m pretty sure that I saw some boobies! Unfortunately/fortunately, I was a young, still idealistic kid, and these woman were “not beautiful.” Perhaps one or two out of the whole throng MAY have been noticable, but that’s about it. No Turkish Delights here!.

But, what could I expect? This was a Turkish Women’s Prison/State Run Brothel. According to the old timers accompanying us, this was a program for some of the women prisoners to “work off” some time on their sentence! I actually saw an old fashioned shiny brass cash register right inside one of the entry halls!

I know that prostitution was illegal in Turkey, so I easily believed that the state might want to work out a deal with these prisoners. The way this was all set up, I really have to believe that participation in this “business” was voluntary, and probably made up of mostly arrested prostitutes.

Of course, there were many stories about the place, and more than likely, a couple of urban legends. I won’t go into them, some could be quite unsettling. However, according to “facts,” a prison doctor inspected the girls twice weekly.

I didn’t know what this all meant, but I did know that, as far as Moslem countries go, Turkey, thanks to the machinations of the heroic Attaturk, was a very liberal and secular country. Attaturk, the former leader of Turkey, had practically single-handedly dragged Turkey out of its 17th century third world situation, and made it into a functioning member of Europe.

So, Turkey had bars for tourists and non-practicing Moslems, and prostitutes, just like other modern European Countries.

For what it’s worth, myself and my companions strolled up and down the street of the Compound, and marveled at the sights that we saw. After we had seen everything worth seeing, we left (without partaking, thank you very much) and returned to our local Air Force NCO club to talk about what we had seen.

We knew that we were not in Kansas anymore, Toto!