As I remember your eyes
Were bluer than robin's eggs
My poetry was lousy you said
Where are you calling from?
A booth in the midwest
Ten years ago
I bought you some cufflinks
You brought me something
We both know what memories can bring
They bring diamonds and rust

Speaking of lousy poetry, I’ve been rummaging some more in my memory box, and by golly, I’ve got some doozies!

That yellow envelope contains all the letters I had mailed to my soul mate Linda over the years (this was before email became a thing, if you can imagine that). I didn’t know she had kept them until she mailed them back to me shortly before she succumbed to cancer. I will confess to a fair amount of cowardice because I haven’t yet found the strength to read what I wrote to her all those years ago. The pain of losing her is still strong in my heart and soul. But, I seem to be rediscovering the person of my youth, and I’ll want to explore that portion of my life as well. So, stay tuned.

So, the poems I’m sharing today seem to be about unrequited love (hmm, sounds familiar) and my strong anti-war positions held during my high school years. It appears that being unlucky at love has always been in my genes. With that other thing in my jeans being a contributing factor. My views on the war in Vietnam have moderated quite a lot over the years. Now, I never disrespected the soldiers who served there (I disagreed with that spitting on returning vets in airports even in my most extreme days), but I have a better understanding of why we were there now and what we were fighting for. Well, there is the one about murdering an NCO, but it was meant as sarcasm. I still believe we were on a fool’s mission, and I think that if you are going to commit soldiers to sacrifice their lives, we should have gone “all-in” for victory. Anyway, that’s all history, but I wanted to provide some context for the poems.

Let’s do love first, shall we?

I warned you! I’m not sure of the timing on this one or who I was longing for, but if I had to guess, it would be Gail Weed around 1974.

I’ll decipher those hieroglyphics above for you:

Sometimes the emptiness seems
More than I can stand
I try to be strong and sure
But I can't always be that man
So when these lonely feelings
Become too much to bear
I close my eyes and think of you
I know you're always there

You'll be so understanding
You won't let me sink too low
And even when the words don't come
It seems somehow you know
It won't matter what I'm thinking
It won't matter what I feel
I'll see your smile and hear your voice
And I'll know our love is real

So I guess I'm never really alone
Even though I feel that way
I'll just drift back into my memories
And you won't seem so far away
I'll hold you close and hear you laugh
Then gaze at those loving eyes
I'll know inside that everything's right
And my love won't have to hide 

You know, it seems to me right now
That this pain is all in my mind
'Cause my heart is so full of love for you
And I know it's just a matter of time
Till I'll open my eyes and you'll be there
Then I won't have to pretend
You'll be everything I dreamed you'd be
My woman, my lover, my friend

Again, I’m not sure of this timing, but I suspect it may have been written for KaraLynne Pope. It didn’t change her mind.

The year I was scheduled to be drafted was when the war and draft ended. I can’t say my poetry had anything to do with that, but here’s a sample:

That was definitely written in high school; the war ended my senior year. If the rhyme seems off, it is because I pronounced it Viet-Namb, not Viet-Nomb.

Here’s another in the same vein:

Okay, I was a bleeding heart that wouldn’t or couldn’t see the big picture.

And then there is this gem:

Literati was our high school journal that published the “best” creative writing from the student body. I don’t think I submitted this poem; if I did, it wasn’t chosen for inclusion.

Thank you for your indulgence. There will be more to come as I bring these 50-year-old efforts back to life. And yes, I realize I should probably have let them rest in peace in the twentieth century.

Now you're telling me
You're not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague
Because I need some of that vagueness now
It's all come back too clearly
Yes I loved you dearly
And if you're offering me diamonds and rust
I've already paid

I found a few things in my “memories” box besides bad writing. Like these achievements on the road to where I am. Nothing all that special, really, but it did trigger remembrances of days long ago. I’m just posting here as a way to preserve them.

I guess, technically, it was middle school or junior high. Those were the days when I started learning my smart-ass ways. Like this encounter:

The other incident that is seared into my memory involves my 7th grade math teacher, Peter Boothroyd. I’m sure he’s dead by now so I won’t begrudge him. Much. I was being my usual smart ass self in class one day and he called me out on it by saying “Keep it up McCrarey and you’ll wind up selling jello out of a truck like your father”. Ouch. Well, as it turns out I did for a time wind up working in route sales (sandwiches, not jello). But I’m proud to say that I went on to bigger and better things, beyond anything a pea brain like Peter Boothroyd could have imagined possible. Hmm, I guess maybe I am still a little bitter.

Another teacher kicked me hard on the shin when I joked about his fat belly. Hmm. Maybe I was more of an asshole than a smart ass.

I was definitely high for most of it. I did well in my journalism and creative writing courses, did okay in history, and pretty much sucked at everything else. Mainly because I was preoccupied with sex and drugs and rock-n-roll. I had to take some night courses at the local community college to earn enough credits to get that diploma. I wrote about those high school daze here.

After high school, I floundered around in some dead-end jobs, fathered a child, and got married. Then in 1976, the Postal Service hired me as a letter carrier and thus began my career in government service. I delivered mail in Anaheim, CA, Prescott, AZ, and Fort Smith, AR, before I received this letter in 1985:

Another promotion a couple of years later took me to Columbia, SC. I decided it was in my best interest to earn that long-delayed bachelor’s degree to reach my full potential as a government bureaucrat, so I enrolled at the University of South Carolina.

USC added some degree requirements that I found unfair and overly burdensome, so I transferred to a smaller local college.

And the rest is history. Still, looking back from an end-of-life perspective, it was quite a ride.