El Cid

by W. H. Payne

  

Danny O'Connor sat on an upholstered barstool in the cool dimness and stirred his third seven and seven of the evening. The air conditioner droned and Johnny Cash was telling how he had fallen into a ring of fire and how it burned, burned, burned.

On the wall behind the bar hung crossed AK-47 assault rifles and beneath them a red and blue Viet Cong flag with a yellow star in the middle. Beneath that was mounted the long, black, wicked-looking barrel of a Soviet-built recoilless rifle.

Souvenirs of the never-ending war, thought Danny.

He fired up another Lucky and looked around at the other sergeants talking quietly in small groups at the tables scattered across the floor of the little Quonset hut. He thought of how much he liked the Sergeants Club.

In this, his second tour in Viet Nam, he had become well acquainted with the NCO clubs in the Da Nang area. On his first tour, as a grunt with the 1st Marine Division, he had rarely seen the inside of a club. Now that he was assigned to the Air Wing, swinging with the Wing, he had become a connoisseur.

He liked the Sergeants Club because it was cool. Not just the air-conditioning, all the clubs had that, but because it was quiet and calm. It was for E-5 Sergeants only, not for corporals and sergeants like the 4-5 clubs, which were big and noisy, or the 1-2-3 clubs for the lowest three enlisted ranks; privates, PFCs and lance corporals, which featured 18 year-olds puking into big plastic garbage cans and slipping on spilled beer. He wasn't a staff NCO, so he didn't get to go to the clubs for the senior sergeants and didn't want to anyway as they were filled with old guys in their thirties and forties.

No, he thought; give me the Sergeants Club every time. The best club in the 1^st Marine Air Wing compound, except for the music. Danny preferred The Beatles, The Stones, Hendrix, Janis, The Doors, and The Temptations, not necessarily in that order. The Sergeants Club musical selections ran more often to country and western. But Johnny Cash was okay. 

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“Hair today... gone tomorrow”

by June T. Bassemir

Her hair had always been her crowing glory… like some girls have a cute nose; others have large blue eyes or a flawless complexion.  Her “glory” was her curly brown hair.  That was when curly hair was in fashion and envied.  “Oh you’re so lucky to have curly hair.” was the oft repeated phrase.  It carried her into marriage, motherhood and grandmother hood.  But as the years flew by, so did her brown locks and she was left with less than the desired amount.  There was no hair-do that brought back the satisfaction of looking in the mirror and no hat that gave her a mental lift.  The decision was made…. to get a wig. 

She told no one but on Easter Sunday she stood at the door to greet the family.  Their reaction came…. in double takes.  “Whoa”…said her son, and she herself couldn’t believe how ten years vanished while wearing the wig.  The puffy eyes were still there but the lovely hair style topped what people saw of her eyes and the smile did the rest.

It was time to face the public in her favorite supermarket and to be active in the guilds she belonged to but when she walked through the different doors she was quite embarrassed.  There were blank stares from those she knew best and she had to say:  ”It’s me… it’s a wig.”...  With that frank admission people seemed to relax  but weeks into the new hair style she noticed some changes.

Her contemporaries didn’t really like the change.  They didn’t say as much, but she could tell.  And then those kind drivers who used to stop traffic and let an old lady cross the street, now hurried by to catch the car ahead of them.  Strangers no longer held the door open for her or regarded her with concern.     

Even so, she was pleased with the wig and found it did something else. While wearing it she noticed that her step was lively, her stamina was stronger and her active life style returned.  She could forget that without it, all regarded her as a limited old woman.  In other words she lived up to what she was presenting to the world.  The mirror reflected a wonderful transformation.  Her advice to all her friends is: “If it becomes necessary to wear a wig, don’t worry.  It will improve your self image and self confidence.”

copyright June T. Bassemir, 2012

The Beautician

by Frank Beresheim

Ever since I can remember, I have always wanted to cut hair.  As a child I would make stick figure drawings, all with different hair styles, signing my name Iris, in all capital letters.  I always knew when someone got their haircut, and would always comment on how nice it was, and followed it with “did you ever notice how good you feel after getting your haircut?”  I liked to see the big smiles people would make when I told them.  I used to love to see the glamour pictures in the newspaper for all the star’s latest hairstyles.  I would cut the hair on my dolls, but the only thing was it didn’t grow back.  I had a very unusual childhood because of my obsession.

Aside from cutting the hair on my dolls, I would cut the hair on the family dog, Noodle, a really shaggy dog.  I managed to get him to sit still long enough so that I could cut his hair and style it.  It took a whole bag of his snacks, but I think in the end it was worth it.  I did the hair on his body very evenly, and on his head, he had a man’s haircut with the part on the side.  When Mom and Dad saw him, they both had a big smile, and commented on what a good job I had done.  They gave me the fee they would pay the dog groomer, and I was smiling like they were.   Hair started to affect my school life too.
All the girls in my class started to hang out with me because I would comb their hair differently, making them prettier.  My parents forbade me from cutting any of their hair so there would be no problems with other parents.  I was allowed to do nails, and I would do all the top nail styles, as well as putting extensions on their nails.  Some of their mothers started asking if I could do their nails too.  Big trouble was waiting for me in High School. Her name was Dana, but everyone called her Cruncher, she had short hair, and was a tall as well as wide girl, wasn’t fat.  She always dressed in jeans and button down shirts.  I thought she was a boy, because of her size and the way she dressed.  I knew the school was co-ed, but I didn’t think they allowed boys into the girls room, and when she walked into the girls room, I promptly told her this is the girls’ room, and she said “You bone head, I am a girl!”  I soon learned why they called her Cruncher, a boy was picking on her, and she grabbed him squeezing him so tight, she broke his ribs.  When I called her a boy, it opened a can of worms for me with her that I thought would never end.

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copyright by Frank Beresheim