"Sign Right Here"

By 1965, Dad was making enough money to buy a small house about 50 miles south, in San Jose. For the folks, it meant not having to pay a landlord for a bottom floor flat, and being able to build up some equity in something of their own. It also meant commuting back & forth to his job in San Francisco, but that was ok with him too.

For ME, it came at a pretty awkward time. I was only about 3 months away from graduation, and I would have to finish school in San Jose, where I knew NOBODY, but the move may have saved me from jail, as I was by this time, a walking "attitude problem." I missed Potrero Hill. My Mom & Dad did not.

A further potential complication was that the San Francisco school system started kids in Kindergarten as soon as we were five. So you might start public school in September OR January...........depending on how close your birthday was. I started school sometime in 1953, and was scheduled to graduate in January of 1966.

San Jose was strictly September start-up and June graduation, but in a RARE break in my school life, they said there was no need for me to put in another five months beyond my 12 year limit. They would issue me a diploma in January (when I actually DID complete my 12 years..........and then..........if I wanted to, I could come back in June and graduate with my "new" SAN JOSE graduating class.

Well, there was nobody there I knew, and with only about 11 weeks, who cared? Another unexpected break was that there wasn't really gonna be enough time for me to achieve any meaningful grades, so basically, all I had to do was "show up" everyday and either participate (or at least make it LOOK like I was). All my teachers knew my status, and nobody really pressed me for anything. There was no point, really.

For me, these next 3 months was like living in the "Twilight Zone." San Jose was a nice place to live back then; warm, sunny, spread out. We lived in a DECENT neighborhood for once. I wasn't used to that. I had no "hooligan friends." I wasn't used to that, either. After all those years on Potrero Hill, I felt like San Jose was some foreign country, even as nice and sunny as it was. I didn't belong there, and I wanted OUT as soon as I got my diploma in January.

Knowing I'd eventually be drafted, my "tough guy from the Hill" image pushed me toward the Marine Corps. I'd seen the movies, heard the hype. The Marine Corps has forever had the reputation as the roughest way to go, an outfit you join if you feel you have "something to prove."

I already had an incentive through my own family. The Bradbury clan has a military background. Dad was in the Coast Guard during World War II. I had uncles on both sides who had served in the Navy, the Army and the Army Air Corps (now the USAF). No Marines anywhere in our history. If I could make it through boot camp (and not everybody does), I would be the first EVER, in our family.

There were comments from people I knew, about how the "street punk from Potrero Hill" who could always "dish it out", wouldn't be able to "take it" in a MAN's outfit. I was "just talkin' big, but when the time came, I would just get into the Air Force line with everybody else, or wait for the Army to draft me.

The more I got prodded, the more determined I got. "Who do these people think they're talking to?......I'm MIKE BRADBURY..........of the "Black Bart" bunch From Potrero Hill. We ruled everything from Mariposa St to Rhode Island Ave. I can handle ANYTHING, even the MARINES!"

The huge Post Office in San Jose also housed the recruiters from all branches. I strolled into that building with that "Richard Pryor/Gene Wilder" strut from "Stir Crazy"............"Yeah, uh-huh......that's right........we're BAD........uh-huh."

I was a punk. I really was.

The last recruiting office I came to was the Marine recruiter's. He was sitting in there by himself........great! No waiting..........(that fact that every OTHER office had guys waiting, didn't really register with me at the time). "I guess I'm the only one here today with any guts!", I thought to myself. I was feeding my own attitude and ego.

Gunnery Sgt Fury.

His eyes almost open in surprise, like he hadn't had a "live one" in awhile, sprang to his feet, we shook hands, and the discussion began. The Corps had to be hurting for volunteers, because this guy could sell ice cubes to Eskimos! Truth be known, he was probably way behind on filling quotas.

I particularly remember that big "in-color brochure."........

If there's a better looking uniform than the Marine Corps Dress Blues, I've never seen it. Sgt Fury was flipping pages, showing photos of parades & such. One photo showed a Marine (in Blues of course) standing outside of Buckingham Palace in England, with a beautiful chick standing beside him. Another photo showed ANOTHER Marine in Paris, with the Eiffel Tower in the background, and TWO little "hotties" standing with HIM!

......"Oh, these are just a FEW of the places you could go......and just a FEW of the assignments that are available............".............................................................(two years later I'd be waist-deep in leech & mosquito-infested rice paddies loaded down like a mule, holding my M-14 over my head, and the only "chicks" I saw, were the old "mama-sans" picking at themselves and chewing beetlenut.)--------------I thought about old Gunny Fury OFTEN!

Back to 1966........

"WOW...............how do I join up??............"

"Just sign right here!"

I'd have my high school diploma in about a week, and then we'd finish the paperwork. When I told my folks I was enlisting, Mom cried but Dad was fairly neutral. He told me many years later that my enlistment bothered him, with Vietnam going on----------but he ALSO knew that the Marine Corps was probably just the ticket to straighten my butt out. He was right.

Gunny Fury drove me and 2 other guys to the Induction Center across the Bay in Oakland for our physicals, and if we passed THAT, we'd be sworn-in. It was there, that I got my first taste of culture outside of my own neighborhood.

At one point during the physical, we all had to go into this big room and strip down for the "cough" test (which I won't go into on this blog, but you GUYS out there know the one I'm talking about.

There were 20 or 30 of us in there, most of us bound for different service branches, and they'd come to Oakland from different parts of Northern California.

Well......they lined us all up in two lines facing each other, for what was next gonna be the "orifice exam." The doctor walks in and loudly orders, "OK guys------bend over and spread your cheeks!"...........but as we all cooperated, the doctor walked up to one guy across from us and yelled "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"................

This one dude had bent over, put his left & right forefingers in his MOUTH, spread THOSE cheeks outward and was waiting for something to happen!

"Oh crap" I thought..........I hope this guy ain't goin' to San Diego with US!"