Travels With Cleo-The Gunner Chronicle Continues

I’m thinking I should probably feature Cleo a little more prominently since she has the title role on this esteemed blog segment, but I’ve been thinking about my buddy Gunner, too, The two weren’t exclusive, but by the time I got Cleo in my life Gunner was in the Navy, and he wasn’t out of the Navy long when he got married and our paths started to diverge.

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I mean really, how would Charlize Theron feel about taking the back seat on her own story?

We had plans, Gunner and I. The plan was to graduate from High School and run away from home. Sorta like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, but with motorcycles and not constrained to some stinking river. And no adults allowed.

Our plan was to work our way around the United States. One thing we had both learned was how to work, and we knew we could do back breaking labor sunup to sundown with anybody. We figured we could get by just fine.

Things changed after we had started to formulate the plan. I also started to formulate a plan to ride all the way round Australia. I haven’t gotten that done, either.

The draft came back to America in 1968. Uncle Sam needed lots of warm bodies to fill body bags in Vietnam and we were primary age, When I turned 18, the day I turned 18, I registered for the draft. I was duly given a draft card and sent on my way.

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By then, I had decided that my best effort was to go to college. I was certainly eligible and was granted admission to a regional state college. Gunney decided that he was going to just sit tight until he had to take his draft physical then join the Navy.

I wasn’t a very good college student. I liked beer and baseball and was sick to tears of school and education. Besides, there were lots of pretty girls that needed my company. I played at it for a couple of years before they invited me to go away and I lost my draft deferment. That would be spring 1971.

That year I had won the draft lottery. Slot #24 of 366 and they were predicting that they would go to #250. I got my physical notice the same week Gunner did, so we went to the city together for the cattle call that was a draft physical. We figured we had a couple months, so were in no rush to join the Navy which had become our new plan.

Gunner had a couple of months, I had a few days. I was off visiting a friend when my mom called (a long distance telephone call? It was a big deal) that I had received a certified letter from the Army, I didn’t even go home, and never ever did open that letter. I called Gunner and we enlisted in the Navy together on July 1, 1971.

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I don’t know that I can explain to young people the uncertainty and fears we faced as an entire generation through the draft. For those that don’t remember over 58,000 young men died in Vietnam. It wasn’t uniformly fatal, but your chances were way better than average if you were a grunt in a rifle company.

Burn your draft card and go to jail? A distinct possibility in my world. All you had to do was express the thought that you might do so and you would get laid almost automatically. Muhammed Ali was a hero in my eyes. I considered it, and rejected the idea. I am, and always have been, a free bird. The threat of jail has kept me way nearer the straight and narrow than my personality would have indicated.

Run to Canada? A very serious consideration in my life. I had Canadian relatives that would have given me shelter and work. The one thing that stopped me was the look on my father’s face. He raised his hand and went to WWII. How could I not?

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At the end, it was a compromise, and I sorta learned an adult lesson long before I wanted to. Mick Jagger had been singing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” for a couple of years and I can attest to the truth of that statement.

All photos in this post are properly sourced and licensed.

All words in this post are mine. For better or worse

You want some real motorcycle travel? Check out Velimir. That’s some kind of motorcycle writing.