Latest WC Party and Waikiki

So good to see Steve Bell even if he is quitting teaching to go into dentistry. Good party with lots of singing around a fire against a sunset, but seemed strange not to have guitars.--Chan, Kaitlin, and Jami tipped over my canoe, but they dragged it back in snow run-off water, instead of leaving it at the bottom of the river, bless their hearts (or I would have killed them).
I had a strange feeling as I watched the fire and their shadows against the twilight. I think this was our last party by the river. Don't know why I feel that way. And it made me sad, like the end of a part of my life--another end.
Sometimes (excuse self-pity), it seems I've had more ends than beginnings.

If I could go back and do something over again--make a new beginning--where would I go? Whew. Never mind. Too many answers to that question. But . . . were there simple, small beginnings I missed? Probably thousands.
. . . Tonight, I'd go to Waikiki (1967 or '68) when a soldier on RR (Rest & Relaxation--ha)from Vietnam stopped me on the street to ask where I was from. (Funny this memory should surface now? Wafting up from those romantic days when most everything was golden--and whatever wasn't gold, we'd throw away by morning.)
I remember I looked up into the most beautiful green eyes, shy, clear, and lonely, and I couldn't think of one cleaver thing to say; I just pulled away from him and walked toward the beach sunset. Later I saw him eating alone at a sidewalk table. His eyes were looking at something far away--maybe the war, his little brother, or a girl back home. He sat hunched over, wasn't interested in his Patty Melt sandwich, and barely glanced up when I sat down. Somewhere between the clouds rolling in and his shiny military shoes, he turned into a human being instead of a hustler. "When do you go back?"
His eyes focused in, but he didn't smile. "Two days, but it doesn't matter."
"Are you okay?"
He smiled, "I am now."
"OK, listen, I'm from Idaho, love the color gray, lobster, and registered quarter horses. I'm sorry, but I don't trust guys very much, and I won't sleep with you, but if you want, I can show you a ledge outside the Hawaiian Hilton where we can hear some good music and watch the surf?" It all came out in a rush of jumbled noise because he had these amazing green eyes that seemed to really SEE me when he looked at me. And I wasn't used to talking to soldiers; they were too hungry, too rushed, too scared. But he seemed so . . . I don't know. Familiar?
"Are you picking me up?" Now he was grinning.
As usual, a defensive irritation shot up my spine. "Geez, I've never picked up a guy--whatever that means--nor will I ever have to or want to pick up a guy. Excuse me; I read you wrong." I marched away and ducked down an alley and into the back door of a bar I knew about to lose him.
But what if I'd stayed? What if I hadn't grown up with a hair-trigger temper, and I'd just laughed along with his joke--which I'm sure it was now. I missed a walk along the beach, maybe a swim in the always-warm water--I could have shown him the thick yellow rope to swim under where we could check out the million dollar boats on the other side tied up in the harbor; we could have played at picking out the one we'd sail away in tomorrow morning. We could have strolled through the International Market where I would show him the knife with the elaborate carved Ivory handle I was saving up to buy. I could have shown him where we could buy broiled shrimp for a 50 cents. And when it got close to his curfew, maybe I would have kissed him, since he was flying back to jungle rot and hutches where they tried to stay sane by smoking MJ mixed with Jimmi Hendricks. And because he had green, very green eyes.
Yeah, I ended that one before it began. And what a nice walk down the beach that would have been. Sometimes we eat our bitter fears for breakfast, like burnt toast.
Or maybe he was a serial killer in disguise, who had just slit the throat of a poor RR soldier for his uniform and planned on chunking me up for shark bait.
Naaaw. I don't think so. Otherwise, I would have forgotten those green green eyes by now.