Nostalgia

Nostalgia
Nostalgia is great if you are old. It provides an excellent cover for only being able to remember things that happened a long time ago. I was out getting nostalgic over this past weekend.

I was taking a break from my dissertation project and I was sitting in the sun on the balcony. I wasn’t smoking because the break was not gong to be an hour and a half long. According to my medicine, I should avoid exposure to direct sunlight. That is almost impossible to do in Southern California. That also got me to thinking about another nurse in my life, Nurse Becky.

I met Nurse Becky when I was in the Navy and when my ship was home ported in Yokusuka, Japan. One of the officers’ wives in my duty section worked as a volunteer at the Naval Hospital.

Susie had a lot of time on her hands because the good ship USS Leonard F. Mason was at sea much of the time. Susie got to know all of the young, single nurses; she was always looking for a nurse to set up with one of the young officers in her husband’s duty section. Susie would bring one or two nurses along with her for dinner on the ship when we had the duty section. She said it made the meal much nicer and less male.

That was how I met Nurse Becky.

Nurse Becky was not the first nurse that I had met through Susie. My memory is not strong enough to tell me how attractive she was but I am guessing that she must have been attractive if I can remember her after almost forty years.

I was attracted to Nurse Becky because we were from the same relative area, Southern California. We shared a lot of common experiences growing up and we could have met when we were in high school. We started seeing each other and developed a nice relationship.

Nurse Becky and I were also getting out of the Navy around the same time and we both would be returning to Southern California to get on with our lives. This was close to perfect since neither one of us knew anyone socially at home anymore. Everything was coming together for my future civilian life.

Sometimes, I would swap duty with another officer so I could have more time off of the ship. Becky would come down to the ship for dinner when I had the duty in addition to when she was a regular dinner guest on my regular duty section day.

The enlisted men in my section all knew that I was seeing Nurse Becky. So when she came on board, they would take directly to the wardroom [officers’ dining area on the ship] and then come tell me that she was on board. One night, I was waiting at the gangway for Becky to show up when one of my own men started kidding me about Nurse Becky. I ended the running commentary by pointing out that Nurse Becky loved to give out shots and that I would make certain she was around when we had to go to the hospital for shots. My sailor suddenly changed his mind and found he had other work to do and no longer bother Mr. Reinhardt as he waited for Nurse Becky.

The Navy, as it is prone to do, complicated things for us.

I was transferred to the good ship USS Lucid. This did not affect when I would be released from active duty. It just meant that we would not be seeing each other for a while, a long while, a year or so. We were unhappy about leaving but life happens.

Then, the Navy uncomplicated our lives. The Navy decided to reduce the size of its personnel and release us from active duty early about ten to twelve months early.

Spectacular good fortune for us.

I would be released about two months before Nurse Becky. We planned our first meeting in Southern California when we both would be civilians. The date was in Pasadena because we knew the area and wanted to pretend that we were still young people.

As much as I can remember, we had a great time and planned to go out the next weekend.

Toward the middle of the week, Nurse Becky called to say that she wouldn’t be able to go out with me on Saturday or any other Saturdays or any other days. I was a Caucasian and Becky was a Latina and her parents forbid her to see young men who were not Latinos.

That pretty much ended things with Nurse Becky.

I never kept up with Nurse Becky. There was no reason to because there was no future for us together. I suspect that my parents would have strongly objected to her as well. The late 1960s were less tolerant for the older generation than today.

Oh well, I guess I can draw the by now obvious conclusion that perhaps I am not destined to date or marry a nurse.

Woman of the Moment
Nurse Becky did not look at all like Aiko Tanaka except for having a dark complexion, dark hair, and dark eyes. These photos seem like they belong together. I have no idea when they were taken.

anhttp://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=10505218&postID=115628759521490172#d stay happy.