So long, Johnny Part 2

I'll never forget it. I was 21, in the Marines, home on a 96-hour pass. I was in our backyard washing my cool 1976 black Trans-Am. (with both an 8-track tape player AND a CB radio!)

I was having a lot of trouble in the Marines -- my first-born son was born with a birth defect that would require many surgeries by the time he was 2. I had flat feet and it hurt severely to run, march, or stand in place (very hard to be in the Marines without doing those things) In addition, my sister was having problems in school and things were tough with my first wife.

All in all, I loved the idea of being in the Marines, but the way it was working out was driving me crazy. I didn't like actually doing it. I felt like I was in a prison. It was a prison controlled by lifer jerks who had no skills and their only purpose was to torture me as much as they could before they killed me (Most of this turned out to be fantastical imaginings, but this is how I felt at the time -- if I could only go back!)

So I'm washing the car and up walks a little short guy. I know the walk. I have seen that walk a thousand times. Lifer dude.

"I'm John Fullerton, and I have been seeing your mother"

I told him that was nice. I shook hands and told him it was good to meet him.

"You know what your problem is?" he asked.

This seemed like an unusual way to get acquainted.

"No," puzzled, "what?"

What followed was a ten-minute speech, delivered by the numbers and in good military order, on how I was wasting my life by not staying in the Marines.

I don't remember how that conversation ended, but I remember him walking back into the house and my thinking "Huh!??!?!? Now these assholes are following me home?"

Johnny and mom kind of kept to themselves for the next few months. The Marines told me I was getting out honorably on a hardship discharge (which was a relief), and my wife and I took an apartment in the city.

One night mom and Johnny came by for a visit.

I don't remember the details of THAT night either, except for after they left my first wife let out a string of obscenities that I think is still orbiting somewhere over Tinker Creek Apartments.

The next day my mom called -- they were getting married.

Most of the family felt something like if Mother Theresa married Genghis Khan. We all didn't know what to do -- deer in the headlights.

Then my mother ran away from home, which was really a big disappointment all the way around.

I thought mom would get married and then, well, stay home. Like good grandmothers are supposed to do. I figured the new grandpa -- if there was one -- would be some guy with a pipe, maybe a tweed jacket. Ruffley white hair. Good with stories. Mom could play with the grandkids, be a babysitter, do things with the family. And mom thought that too. If mom had her way she would have given us all of her money each month and basically been on-call whenever we needed her. Mom would have been happy to shine the spotlight on us. And we would have been happy to have the spotlight shining on us. Sure, she wouldn't have had her own life, but it sure would have been convenient to the rest of us.

For some reason, Johnny did not see things this way.

They took off on the road and never looked back. My sister Joy was put into an apartment of her own. I was given a forwarding mail address to reach my mother. From time to time mom would call. One day it was Ohio, then Nebraska, then Washington, then Alaska. They went all over the place.

Now I see myself as a spoiled 20-something who just wanted to stay in the nest as long as he could, but at the time, boy, I was morally outraged! Outraged, I tell you! Some outside jackboot come into my family! Take away the last parent I have!

I think the nadir of our relationship came after my first wife left, and I was a single dad tending to my kids. My sister offered to help, which was great, but there were still problems from time-to-time. I remember one conversation very clearly.

"You need to stop calling your mother down here and worrying her with all your troubles," Johnny told me.

What I did not see -- what I did not know until much later -- was how good for each other these two people were. Johnny could fix anything, but he couldn't keep his big mouth shut. Mom would do anything for anybody, but she would really do anything for anybody. She could not draw lines to protect herself. So when people had problems that should have never happened, Johnny could fix it in a snap -- and mom would tell him to be careful to what he said.

His skills were in great demand. One time he had a engine blow up in the middle of Alaska. He found a farmer who let him use the barn, then he got on the phone and ordered the parts, FedEx. (for many years later he told the story of how amazed he was that those parts came the next day in the middle of Alaska)

Working by himself, and with just tools he could find, he pulled the engine from his pickup, rebuilt it, and put it back in.

In a barn.

In three days. (one of which was spent waiting on parts)

One time Johnny built his own parts to fix a problem. They were so far from anywhere, the best thing to do was improvise. And he did.

Wagonmasters (the guys who led the RV caravans) would go out with nobody except Johnny -- he could fix anything) But for all of those skills, if it hadn't been for mom, Johnny wouldn't have lasted one season. He was simply too blunt.

The wagonmaster led out of camp everyday. Johnny and mom took up the rear, looking for people to help along the journey. It was the best of both of them.

"I never knew there could be anybody like your mother," he told me a couple of months ago after mom died, "she never held a grudge, and she always just wanted to do the right thing."

I told Johnny back in April that sometimes, now that I am 45, I have problems remembering at the same level of detail that I did when I was 35.

"Oh I know exactly what you're saying," the 90-year-old told me, "At times I can't remember the timing adjustments and valve settings on all the 90 series of Ford engines like I once could.

Somebody told me once that Johnny's first wife would have never went on a caravan with him. She was adamantly opposed to traveling that much. I do not know if this is true, but I like to believe it. I like to believe that God took my dad and Johnny's wife and then opened up a beautiful new life for both of them where each of them complimented the other perfectly.

At the time I still didn't like him very much. The best I could come up with was that he was probably a good thing for mom.

But all of that changed.

Which is probably a story best left for the next blog entry. :)