FanPost

Rememberance of Kinks Past

Just something to get us through this long week till Saturday                    

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    It was just about this time of the season, but the year was slighly different.  It was 1972 and my Army buddy and I, both conscripted with the last batch of guys ever drafted, were stationed in Fort Knocks for what the Army euphemistically referred to as Advanced Individual Training (AIT).  We were both assigned to Clerk School although neither of us could type
any better than DC could catch that soft bounce pass from T'WILL.  If anybody ever saw the movie, "Stripes," well, we were the most miserable, out of shape, sorry assed incompetents the Army had ever seen.  At least that's what Sergeant Major Elmer Gene Letendre of Pascagula, Mississippi, thought of us, and to be perfectly honest, he had a point.  Letendre was so muscle bound he looked like he could float over Central Park in the Macy's Day parade.  I once saw him clean and jerk a 1962 DeSoto.

    We were largely comprised of Yankees, guys from the northeast.  There was this one guy, a Jewish guy from New Jersey, named Paul Schwartz, who was also with me in basic training in Fort Dix, NJ.  Anyway, the day we arrived (typical Army, about 5:00 AM on a Sunday), we were soon called into formation outside the barracks.  There we all were, total strangers, standing at attention and this Bentley limosine pulls up next to the formation...Schwarts breaks ranks and trots over to the car...a chauffeur wearing one of those little caps hops out, opens the boot, and hands Schwartz a duffle bag.  Later we found out that the duffle bag contained Schwartz's collection of eight track tapes that he HAD to have at all times.  Later we found out that Schwartz's father owned some kind of holding company and was loaded.

    Anyway, after that day, every morning at five, Paul would play his 8 Tracks.  Alice Cooper, Mott The Hoople, Zep, King Crimson, and The Kinks.  One of the songs from the Kinks album, "Arthur", was called "Yes Sir, No Sir" about being in the Army, and of course we flocked to that.

    One Saturday, my buddy Smitty, from New Bedford, Mass, and I, took the bus into Louisville.  We did all the things you might expect, totally avoiding tawdry and red lit Fourth Street, and concentrating on seeing archetectural points of interest and museums (yeah, right!).  Anyway, the Kentucky Colonels had a matinee at the Convention Center.  It was great...colorful atmosphere...kind of a festive atmosphere, lots of families with kids.  The place was just about packed.  Dan Issell.  I think Louis Dampier.  Artis Gilmore.  Kentucky won big.  The team they played that day was named (and they must have paid big bucks to a consulting company to come up with this one) the Florida Floridians.  Mercy.

   After the game we stopped at a place called Teak's New York bar and had a drink or six served by a very healthy waitress who also served us the best bowl of chili we had ever tasted.  We stopped at a package store and brought back a few bottles of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill (Nov 1971...it was a very good month) to the barracks.

   We caught the last bus back to base that night and slept till revelry Monday morning.

   Well, sorry I labored so long.  Thought it would be interesting to the locals what an outsider's first impressions of the 'Ville would be.  Smitty is still my best friend even though he's a Red Sox fan.  Never saw Paul Schwarts after AIT.  And Ray Davies' new CD plays as I write this.

    OK, on to Washington for the cherry on the sundae.

Roz  
 

out of shape