Dayy XLlII

Return to sender

       “Da boat ride, da boat ride!”

     The freaking ads were on the radio every ten minutes, it seems, with some Crazy Eddie type of guy screaming at the top of his lungs:

     “Da boat ride, da boat ride!”

     They were a big deal, because there were always at least two major bands on board. We danced, drank, and had great fun. The boat left some pier on the west side, and would sail up the Hudson to Bear Mountain, those were during day. But there were moon light rides, and those romantic sailings went to an amusement park, like Coney Island at Rye park. They were really cool. We really had a grand summer, but it went by so fast. I met her dad, who was a really cool dude, and I also met the aunts. There’s such a thing as love at first sight; there’s also such a thing as dislike at first sight too; and well, the aunts fell into the latter. That summer just kind of flashed by, and I remember going with her dad to the bus depot when she went off to college.

     My senior year went just as fast, and before I went off to boot camp, she begged me to write, and I promised I would. As a matter of fact from day one, from the freaking airplane, I wrote everyday.

     So when mail call came, I waited with anguish for letters that never came. When finally the Air Force got my mail fixed up, I got a stack of letters that took me days to read. But all my letters to her came back marked, return to sender. So I lit up to overcome the anguish, and became a chain smoker.