A Healthy Laugh, For a Year and a Half

I really liked San Vito. If I'd known what all lay ahead in my Air Force career, I'd have EXTENDED over there for another 18 months, because I never had another assignment that was as good.

But I NEEDED to come back to the states, more than I WANTED to. I'd been receiving letters from back home that my son wasn't being taken care of as well as he should have, due to the lifestyle my ex was leading, so, hoping to get stationed as close to Medford as I could, I'd put in for Kingsley Field in Klamath Falls, Oregon, as my #1 "dreamsheet choice", with Mountain Home as #2.

You gotta KNOW which one I got! But that was ok. Mountain Home was "do-able", plenty of outdoor activity and only about a 10-hour run into Medford from here.

Meanwhile, I still had a little time left in Italy. The "Mad Crapper" had somehow vanished, but there was still some goofiness in our midst.

Kevin, our harmonica player, had just got out of the shower, and wrapped just in his bathtowel, he was trying to get back in his room, but his room-mate was messing with him, had locked the door from inside and wouldn't let Kevin in. Quickly tired of beating on the door, Kevin pulled one of the fire extinguishers off the wall, dropped to his knees and prepared to "fire". The room doors in our barracks all had these multi-tiered screened "ventilation" slats, (near the bottom of the door) that looked sort of like stationary "venetian blinds."

It was one of those BIG copper-plated extinguishers. He pulled the pin, stuck the hose in-between two of the vent slats and "Let 'er go!" As the extinguisher was emptying itself out, Kevin would wiggle the hose in every direction, knowing that sooner or later he would "get" his room-mate. But all his room-mate did, was jump off to the SIDE of the locked door, and Kevin accomplished NOTHING, but to soak the rest of the room down, including BOTH bunks, their stereo sets and the carpet!

His room-mate finally opened the door, and even with EVERYTHING in there SOAKED, including where they would have to sleep, they both had a good laugh over it, went to the BX, bought beer, and had a blast all evening with the door OPEN, hoping to "air-it-out" and "dry-it-out." It took several days!

Barracks life!

The band was by now, coming to an end. We were still getting the "gigs", but most of US would be leaving in the "July time-frame" of '76, and there didn't seem to be any new musicians around the base who wanted to come in behind us, so by mid-June, we pretty much wrapped it up. July of 1976 was our nation's 200th Birthday, and there was a big Bicentennial Day on base, and we played for THAT, outside on the soccer field. That was the last one.

For me, though, it was just the beginning, musically. I'd played on stage for about 16 of the 18 months I'd been there, and determined along the way that it was time to invest in a first class guitar, for when I got back to the states, because THIS is what I really wanted to do in my free time.

Most people who play an instrument in EARNEST, have a role model who gives them "inspiration." A lot of Sax players wanted to play like Boots Randolph. If you were a pianist, you might have a stack of Floyd Cramer albums lying around. For ME and lot of other aspiring young guitar players, it was Chet Atkins, George Benson, Wes Montgomery, Roy Clark, Les Paul---------THOSE guys, (depending on the style of music you liked to play).

MY music idol was Chet. Still is, although he's no longer with us. Well, I decided that if I had a guitar like HIS, I too could play and sound even better---------which is true to a degree. Any instrument of quality, is built to more exacting standards, is better balanced, easier to play and even MISTAKES sometimes sound pretty good!

Walk into any big music shop and you'll see more brand names and matching prices than you ever knew existed. You always start OUT with a guitar in the $50 to $100 range, especially for kids, most of whom do NOT stick with the instrument after the "new-ness" wears off and it starts turning into work. (You'd rather have a $125.00 "generic name" guitar sitting in the closet "collecting dust", than a thousand dollar Gibson). On the other hand, an old "beater" you might find for 25 bucks at a garage sale, is usually very poorly built, takes an APE to push the strings down, and quickly discourages practice.

I found myself at the "crossroads" after just a month or two on stage. The initial "stage fright" was gone, and I liked what I was doing. I do not sing well, never have, which is why I took it WAY beyond "chords" and learned to be a "picker." The little German-made Hofner electric (which I still have), was just fine for San Vito, but if I was gonna do this permanently stateside, I would need something better. Much better.

Chet Atkins, who I personally consider the best EVER (and I'm definitely not alone there).....could play any guitar he wanted to, but his main concert and recording guitars were made by Gretsch. He also played Gibson guitars on occasion, and a few other brands of accoustic. But most of the albums you'll ever hear, when he's playing the electric, it's a Gretsch. They built an entire line of guitars around him, chiefly at the time, were the Gretsch "Nashville", the "Tennessean", and the top of the line, the "Country Gentleman."

THAT'S the one I wanted. I couldn't afford one, as an overseas Staff Sergeant, making child support payments. But the money we made at the Club was CASH and tax-free. I got out an envelope, marked "Gretsch" on the face of it, and every night that we played somewhere, I'd just put MY share into that envelope. When I'd stuffed 4 or 5 envelopes with enough money for the guitar I wanted, I deposited it in our credit union, and had it transferred to Mom & Dad's bank, back in Medford.

Dad sent me a Gretsch brochure from a big music store back there, and I circled the one I wanted. (the "Country Gentleman"). It was waiting for me when I got back to the states, and 35 years later, I'm still playing it occasionally, although not as much, because for our anniversary last year, Donna bought me a BRAND NEW Country Gentleman, that I've played a few shows with now. It sounds even BETTER than my old one--------which is hard for even ME to believe! But it DOES.

Whenever I get that old Hofner out today, I always think of it as the guitar I bought my first Gretsch with, 'cause I bought it strictly with my "stage money."

You get what you pay for. My original Country Gentleman was around $1,100 in 1976 dollars! A BIG jump from the little "BX" 144-buck Hofner, but when you KNOW it isn't going to end up in a closet, it's a safe "investment."

One of the last pranks I saw at San Vito, was down the hall on the bottom floor just past the latrine. There were a couple of guys living DIRECTLY across the hallway from each other. They sometimes had this habit of playing their music too loud, during hours when everyone was trying to sleep. We all used to get on them from time to time about it. Finally, one Saturday night on the eve of a big party scheduled at the club, SOMEBODY got even.

Whoever it was.............took some of that old Nylon Filiment Tape (if you can remember what that was-----I don't recall seeing any of it lately)............INCREDIBLY STRONG..........and made sure neither one of these jokers was going to the club that night!

The "music" was already going in both rooms, so they never heard our "mystery-man" with the roll of tape. He had wrapped it around the neck of the doorknob several times, adhering it to itself. THEN he stretched it across the hallway to the OTHER guy's door, and wrapped THAT end several times around the neck of THAT doorknob, leaving just a hair of slack.

As 4 or 5 of us started out the barracks door for the club, one of the guys beat on both doors. Directly one guy tried to fling his door open, but that tape quickly drew taut and stopped at at maybe an inch or so. A second or two later, the other guy got to HIS door, tried to open it, and pulled the FIRST guy's door SHUT again! There wasn't enough slack for EITHER of them to ease a pocketknife or scissors out through the crack and cut it! They started screaming profanities, and the rest of us just walked out of the barracks and headed over to the club!

If either of those boys NEEDED to get to the latrine, they'd have to crawl out of their windows and drop down onto the sidewalk. When I got back to the barracks several hours later, I had to make a "latrine stop", and noticed that nylon filiment tape was gone.......so either somebody had let them out, or ONE of them crawled out the window, came back in through the hallway, and cut that tape himself.

Despite the "shades of lunacy" from time to time, I will forever cherish that tour in San Vito as my best assignment ANYWHERE.

I'd discovered a few things about myself I never knew while I was there, and two things to this day I DON'T know.........what the heck I was carrying on some of those off-base supply runs..............and who the heck the "Mad Crapper" was!

Still, there was something very magical about those 18 months. For me, it was the right assignment at the right time, and I never felt that way again.

Next stop.....back to the states and tour number two at Mountain Home.

PS----------San Vito today is just a memory. The Air Force closed it down several years ago, the "elephant cage" has been dismantled and probably shipped back to the states in pieces. As I understand it, the Italians have made a civilian community out of the rest of it.

But at one time, it was sure a neat place to be stationed!