I WAS in LOVE with KAY STARR..

I went through Navy Boot Camp at Great Lakes, Illinois. When I graduated from there, I went to Hospital Corps School just across the street, so to speak. You find your buddies by natural selection or some thing like that. I never remember how Buddy and Tim and I ever got together originally. I don’t even remember their last names and that’s okay. (chapters, remember?). Milwaukee was the closest liberty town. Just a short trip on the El. This was in 1950. There was this bar that sit on the corner about a block from the train station. I don’t remember the name of it, either. This was a Navy town. Shore Patrol (S.P.’s) were frequent in the streets to keep the military personnel from getting out of hand and help to keep the local police from getting involved. All three of us were underage. The bars weren’t allowed to serve anyone under 21. Go figure. We were in the military during the Korean War and were too young to drink? We, of course, found a way around this like good sailors would. The bar waitress’ never ever bothered asking for ID’s in the bar so we were served OK. We would always sit in a booth by the front window to watch for the SP’s as they frequently would come in the bars and randomly ask for ID’s from the military. When we saw them coming or someone saw them, we would just go in the women’s restroom until they left. Needless to say, we were regulars there. Every one knew us.

There was a Juke box just across from us. We would put nickel after nickel in it and listen to all the, what we now call, golden oldies. Theresa Brewer, Kay Starr, Patti Page, Frankie Laine, Mario Lanza, Johnny Ray and on.

A nickel a song, all day long. Any one remember Goodnight Irene, Be my Love, Tennessee Waltz, Cry or Wheel of Fortune. After 58 years, I can still see us sitting in there listening to that music and laughing and being with friends and girls and enjoying growing up. And I was only 17. We would sometimes stay there all night and into the morning when we had week-end liberty. They were only required to close from 5:30 AM until 6:00 AM so we would go outside and stand around for a while. OK, this only happened a couple time but I remember it well. Yeah, that was real music where you could actually understand the words. That’s why they call them the Golden Oldies. Memories were invented because there are no do-overs.