I got married to my high school sweetheart in 1967 at the young age of almost 18. Six months before we married John joined the U.S. Air Force as a ploy to avoid being drafted by the Army and then immediately shipped off to Vietnam. He was assigned to Nellis Air Force base in Las Vegas, Nevada, and that is where we lived from 1967-1970. The Vietnam War was full steam ahead, and to many folks it appeared that we might win. No one knew exactly what winning was supposed to look like, but we were assured it would be worth the effort. Vietnam was the first television war and the graphic coverage never meshed well with our daily dose of assurances and anti-war demonstrations were a natural outcome of this disparity, however, there were no anti-war demonstrations in Las Vegas. The thought of a demonstration never seriously occurred to anyone; not with the mafia, Nellis Air Force base and heavy-handed police force all at their visible apex of power. It was generally agreed that drawing attention to oneself as anti-establishment was a terrible idea almost certainly resulting in a violent outcome.
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| "Chaos Theory" 24 x 36 inches mixed media on canvas
John was never actually at Nellis itself. He instead took a daily 60 mile bus ride to Indian Springs, a tiny temporary auxiliary base in the middle of absolutely nowhere that coincidentally was also on the way to the Atomic Energy Commision's underground bomb site. The AEC had a nasty habit of exploding atomic bombs underground about every six months, which also frequently blew out the windows in John 's office about 40 miles away, and rocked every building in a 100 mile radius--including our apartment. The public was enthusiastically assured this was all entirely safe, except once when personnel at the military base were told not to drink milk from local cows. No one else in Las Vegas was supposed to know about that and it was not reported in any of the newspapers.
Anyway, the base had been established in 1945, and was designed to last five years. Not much happened there, ever, and it was considered semi-isolated. No one was supposed to be stationed there more than a year. John, however, had a friend in the transfer room at Nellis and every time his name came up, he would simply re-file John to the back of the list and so John stayed put for three years. As the base draftsman, boredom was John's chief emotional state because nothing had been drafted in many years except door signs and birthday party invitations, but it sure beat going to Vietnam. For that he was boringly grateful.
On weekends he got together and played music with friends. Eventually a band formed and some good songs were written. John was elected to manage the group as he was somewhat lacking in musical talent and everybody else was skimpy on discipline. The band played a lot in Las Vegas and opened for "Canned Heat" and the "Doors". This naturally meant that they should then go on a 1970 summer tour in Europe along with almost every other decent rock band in the U.S. So, John got out of the military and off they went with much fanfare and hope for international renown.
I was to follow three weeks later with two other friends, but there was one minor issue. The band's itinerary changed and no one knew where they were. All we could piece together was they were either in Osnabruck, Germany, or Copenhagen or somewhere in-between. So the departure date arrived, and with that information we left for London. Now it would be logical to ask, "What were you thinking" or "Did you have any kind of a plan?" The answers are I wasn't, and no. We fooled around and went to museums in London for a couple of days and then hopped a ferry leaving Dover. On the ferry we split-up because I wanted to go to Copenhagen and they felt drawn to Osnabruck. After landing in France, I hitch-hiked to Amsterdam having gotten a ride with a gentlemanly, Austrian, truck driver with a cargo of white wine. I flew the rest of the way to Copenhagen and then took a train from the airport to downtown and waited in the station for the local hostel to open. I had not slept since leaving London 48 hours earlier, and was literally asleep on my feet. I met some other English speaking kids who were also waiting for the hostel to open, so I simply followed them to it as I had lost all ability to function coherently. After sleeping for five hours, I went downtown. In 1970, people traveling could receive mail and leave messages for people at the American Express office, so I did that. Then I just wandered around for awhile wondering how I was going to find John in a city of one million people, if he was even there. Eventually, I went back to the train station and waited for the bus going to the hostel. It arrived and left, but I did not get on. I was not thinking of anything in particular, but I had a pull to go instead across the street to Tivoli Gardens. I went in, wandered around a bit and then stopped, turned left and stopped again directly in front of a bench. John was sitting there, and I said, "Hi." Stunned was hardly the word for the look on his face. What are the odds of that happening? I was in a city of one million people, plus we had to be in the same place at the same time, and... I didn't even know if he was in Denmark. It was astounding and still is. Even stranger, it happened again 10 days later with our friends who had gone instead to Osnabruck. John and I were sitting on a bench on the Stroget, a walking street in downtown Copenhagen. It was after business hours and no one else was on the street, then we saw them and sat quietly waiting for them to discover us. Literally, there was only the four of us on the entire street. They went berserk. They had bought a van and only just arrived in Copenhagen 10 minutes earlier. So this synchronicity happened not once, but twice. Even stranger than that, never once did it occur to me that I would not find John. It never occurred to our friends either. No family member taking us to the airport, or calling to wish us a safe trip questioned us about anything regarding our plans if we didn't find the band. Everything played out as if a meticulous travel agent had taken care of every detail for a successful trip to Europe. Of course, at the time I had no understanding at any level about how these kinds of things occur, but I knew for sure that reality was very very different than anything that had previously occurred to me. I realized I had no idea what reality actually was, nor did I understand almost anything about how it worked, or my place in it. I now know a little more, but it still isn't much considering what is possible that I am not yet aware of. The more I know, the less I know. Some of what I know is that reality can only show up in accordance with what I am being, or in some way have set in motion. That's obvious. For instance, my reality cannot show up as yours without a complete disconnect for you from everything you rely on as real. I have also come to know that we are to realize and merge with the context that awareness comes from. We are to realize we are all of what is, not just an aspect of it, or a part of it. There is so much more to us than just our personal experience, and there is more than the impersonal self. When we no longer experience, in any way, that we are just a part of something larger that instead we are all of it, then all separation melts away ever so gently and we are what we hold most dearly in our hearts. Then events like the above, finding someone on the other side of the planet becomes natural and not at all surprising. What formerly looked chaotic suddenly snaps into view with awesome clarity and we instantly see our place in the all of It. Peace and love.... |
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