1972 - The Blue Angels

Postings have been a bummer all week - time to perk it up a little. This actually predates the last so it is a good indication of how boundless optimism can turn sour.

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1972 – The Blue Angels Have To Practice, Too

It had been a cold winter. I had returned from the Navy in January ‘72 to a typical Illinois winter where it was “the coldest winter in memory,” as it always seemed to be every year of my childhood. After a couple of weeks with mom in Iowa City with her new husband, Gene, I got tired of living under her rules in a town in with which I felt completely unfamiliar. I caught a Greyhound to Southern Illinois where my dad lived, in Olney. I had a completely miserable ride with the bus seeming to stop at every drugstore and remote village along the way. The bus was packed so I took the last available seat next to a smelly bum who insisted on either sleeping with his head on my shoulder or talking nonsense non-stop.

In Olney, after 4-weeks of no work and a location with which I was even more unfamiliar than I was with Iowa City, I decided it was time to head north where I had friends that would put me up for a while until I found a job and got established. I set off with a suitcase, which contained mostly a waterbed mattress, and a couple of changes of clothes. I also carried my guitar. Standing by the side of the highway on a brisk but sunny day I quickly caught a ride several miles north to an exit near Effingham, Illinois. A light snow began as we rode the side roads and country highways, many of which slowed through each village we came to. After about 2-hours we got on the interstate and made good time but this ride stopped after only about a half-hour to drop me at a particularly barren exit ramp. I remember the location of this exit because several years later I would be managing theatres in this town and would find out the exit where I had been dropped was the worst possible location as it was a mile short of a main highway crossroads east-west/south-north with a steady stream of vehicles.

I stood with my thumb out for 8-hours that day while the weather turned to sleet and blowing snow. I had a six-inch snowdrift on my boots when I finally got a ride around dusk from a long-haired dude that was returning from Marti Gras in New Orleans. He was talking a mile-a-minute and, after a few minutes confessed to being “…fried from the 3 hits of Sunshine I did this morning.” Sunshine was a type of particularly pure but very potent LSD. I volunteered to drive which he eventually took me up on after several miles of convincing, during which time I weighted my safety between an ice storm, that had grown progressively worse, and a buzzed out-of-his-skull acid–freak. He was headed for Milwaukee but he volunteered to go several miles out-of-his-way to deliver me in front of Robin’s house where I would stay for the next week-and-a-half. He was mind-blasted and rambling but seemed essentially a good guy that had indulged himself way too much. As he was completely concerned with my welfare and the weather I hope he arrived at his destination safely.

After a week with Rob and, Nancy, his absolutely miserable wife who was less than pleasant to either him or me, Rob helped me find a job driving a cab in North Chicago and I moved to a room downtown Waukegan upstairs from the Genesee Theatre and several blocks from work. I ran into Kevin during this period and we bonded as closely as we had been before either of us had joined the service. In high school we had played in a garage-band in high school. After several months we broke the band up…of course…over a girl. It was good to have my old friend back. Kevin, a couple of roadies, Ray and David, and I moved in together and we played rock ’n roll evenings and weekends the rest of that year and on into the new year with John and Donnie.

After 2-months of driving a cab I switched jobs to Nursing Aide at Downey Hospital on advice from Rory a high-school friend and acquaintance. I served in a capacity of a Nursing Aide for 9-months through the winter and left this position as soon as it looked like winter was over and the snow was gone. I wanted to move back to San Diego. After all: I was destined to become the next rock n’ roll star. I gave notice hoping to leave almost immediately but found I had a 6-week wait for my retirement account check. I was very anxious to leave this weather behind and head back to warmer climes but counted on the retirement account from the hospital to finance my trip to the west coast. While awaiting my last check I worked as a School Bus Driver for the 6-weeks for various Waukegan schools including Jack Benny Junior High, the roughest kids on the route. Upon arrival of the retirement account check arrival I hit the road despite predicted bad weather. Rent had run out and although the guys in the band did not want me to go, I was determined. The other guys or their families, all of whom were going to move with me originally, one by one had changed their minds and were staying behind. Their concerns turned out to be well founded as I found out years later this move broke up what was on it’s way to becoming a successful Illinois band and sent the remaining members on a completely different musical path. Contemporary Illinois groups at time were Styx & REO Speedwagon neither yet past small recording contracts and mostly local-area sales. Their big gigs were still on the horizon. They stayed together. We didn’t. Sorry, guys.

Although there was a seasonably late snowstorm starting I was confident in my ability to get through the snow to my first stop in Iowa City at mom’s where I had planned to spend the rest of the week. My second day there I was very pleasantly surprised when Kevin, Smitty, Tina, Mary, Marilyn and Ken showed up so I could spend my last week in the Midwest with my closest friends. On Thursday we were going to watch the Wizard of Oz which was still an annual TV event. That evening the storm took a turn for the worse and all highways and freeways out of Iowa City were closed. We were snowed in for the next 2-days. On Sunday morning we all got hugs and kisses and struck out for our destinations, they leaving for Illinois and me for California.

Later that same day I heard that the storm had re-buried Iowa City and all roads in or out were re-closed by 10 AM. That was fine with me but this felt a bit like the Midwest had me by the collar and the belt and was throwing me bodily out of the area. “And stay out!” rang in my head. I drove straight through with only a couple of stops for an hour or so at a rest-stop or two and crossed into California through Yuma early dawn on Tuesday, the third day. It was a beautiful clear winter day in Yuma with Santa Anna winds was warming the morning air comfortably. I was in heaven! After leaving the Midwest with such a kick-in-the-seat this was a perfect welcome to California that could barely be improved upon…or so I thought.

The windows were wide open and Pink Floyd’s Meddle was playing at top volume on the 8-track as the sun rose over the horizon behind me. Absolutely no traffic was on the highway at that hour and I was enjoying the new day and my seclusion. I was enjoying the new day when I noticed the sunspots in my rearview mirror. I had, of course, heard of sunspots but had never noticed one before so as I drove I kept glancing back at the view. After just a few seconds I noticed there was more than 1 spot…in fact the longer I looked the more it appeared the there were 5 sunspots and they were even arranged in a V-formation. As I glanced back trying to drive while trying to pick up more detail on these spots they suddenly grew in size and zoomed over my head. Immediately in front of my van the five jets, in an obviously closely rehearsed move hit red, white and blue smoke and shot straight up into the sky. It all happened so fast I had no opportunity to even react before they were gone and I was through the smoke, the only evidence of their passing being the 3 clouds of multicolored smoke drifting slowly in my wake. I drove on automatic…surprised, doubting my own sanity and wondering if it was all real. After a minute or so I saw a brilliant blue jet coming straight at me flying fast and low over the desert floor fairly skimming the tops of the cactus. It quickly became apparent it would pass directly in front of me perhaps a hundred feet or so off my nose. Following the flight with growing expectation of an impressive sight I was again surprised when, just before reaching the freeway it flipped on its side the pilot’s helmet clearly visible in the cockpit. I fairly jumped out of my skin when the other jet which I hadn’t even suspected to be in the area, and traveling in the opposite direction, crossed simultaneously with the other directly in front of me. It, too, was turned on its side so the bottom side of the jet was all I glimpsed before they both disappeared from sight. Now scanning the desert I saw the remaining jets flying a high formation with gaps in the formation appeared to be headed on a path that would take them directly overhead when the other 2 jets joined the formation. Upon the re-join the formation immediately heeled over into a high-speed dive toward the desert floor appearing to plan to impact the surface of the highway a 1/4-mile ahead when, just before impact they all turned in concert and headed out from the center all spouting smoke and red fire from the afterburners. One of their numbers passed directly over my head causing the van to shake and vibrate with the buffing of the sound and sudden windy draft from its high-speed passing. This show continued for about the next 15-minutes after which they disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared. I drove on in a daze.

I arrived in San Diego a couple of hours later and proceeded directly to a friends house who greeted me with “Hey, How’re‘yadoin’doyouwannajoinaband?” This, being the main reason for my return to San Diego was the perfect ending to the perfect day. I related the events of my trip to eyes that showed some doubt when I spoke of my greeting that morning at the wings of the Blue Angels. His doubt was just fine with me as I knew what I had experienced.

Several months later I was reading a Sunset Magazine when I came across an article about the Blue Angles who wintered in Yuma and often practiced early in the morning or in the early evening as the air is calmer during those times and allows them to better practice their maneuvers with very little interference from wind or heat. They stated in the article that on some mornings when it is particularly still and there is only one lonely car on the road they would hold station ahead of that car and run through their practice using the car as a reference point. I kept that article for years in my wallet so I could prove the likelihood of my story eventually throwing it away when it was too worn to read anymore. Over the years I’ve seen doubt in more than one pair of eyes which in the long run barely matters to me anymore as I’ll never forget my greeting on that warm December day.

“Welcome to California!!”