It is the hour before midnight, on the harsh, gray flat asphalt road along the banks of one of the Great Lakes . A truck races by like a shadow, the moon glowing behind a small house. The car swiftly goes on by, the dim light from the fogy night: --moon penetrating through the fog onto the tuck and house, where a man is standing by the road; -- music is heard coming from the car, Rock & Roll, as this stranger standing by the road, a man in a red plaid shirt, he stands erect, as if he was Paul Bunion; standing in-between the road and the house as a truck races by. Anyhow, I took the sergeant up on the deal he offered. After three months with the 101st in Dak To and Tuy Hoa, I was sent on a temporary duty assignment (TDY) near the DMZ to learn field station operations from the 8th Radio Research Unit at Trai Bac Station in Phu Bai. From there it was off to Pleiku where we worked first in support of the 25th Infantry Division and later the newly arrived 4th Infantry Division.

According to statistics, the average household income in 1970 was $8,734 and it rose to $16,461 in 1979. The unemployment rate was 3.5% in 1970 and up and down all decade landing at 8.5% in 1979. Heart disease was and still is the leading cause of death. Also, Aids and HIV was discovered in the seventies. There were many major medical break throughs in the 1970's. One of the most noted being the completion of the MRI scan in 1977. My mother recalls having medical insurance and being able to get a tooth pulled at the dentist for $15.00. http://www.answers.com/Q/What_late_model_truck_frame_will_a_1938_Chevy_truck_fit_on This didn't happen over night. My wife and I separated seven months before she filed for divorce. We stayed together though. We still had a sex life, we still did things with each other and we still took care of one another. Just like we did when we lived together. We both liked the option of having our own space though. Sure, we missed each other but it was nice for both of us to have the option of saying to the other, "I just want to chill at home alone tonight" and send the other home. As my eyeballs came back into focus, I watched him unfold the same pocket knife and as he bent to retrieve another chile from the plant, I prayed it wasn't for me. Realizing it wasn't I thanked the great capsicum god in the Hatch volcano and considered crying. Once there, Teddie stashed his bike in the storage shed and they mounted the front steps of their new apartment together. She fumbled in her pocket for the key, her hands shaking, some part of her expecting to see the man in his big truck xxl buy and sell pull up at any minute. He doesn't even know you're gone, she thought, and finally found the key. He tipped his hat a bit, raising it off is forehead and when he did I noticed steel eyes. Eagle eyes that I imagined could spot a leaf hopper miles away. He screwed up his mouth, flicked the straw out the window and opening the door, said, Well, let's go. It all came back to her then, how he'd lain sobbing in his room across from hers while the man raged in the livingroom, how she'd slipped into his twin bed with him and wrapped her arms around him until he was finally asleep, how she'd read chapters of "Charlotte's Web" to him each night, how he'd raced on his bike through the dark streets the night they'd finally made their escape. She'd let him in on it early on, told him all about her plan to find a new place where it would be just the two of them and how he wouldn't ever again have to lie awake at night afraid of what was going on in the livingroom or of what he'd see in the morning as he headed out for school. He'd told no one. It was their secret. A little later I waved my hand around in front of my face to clear some of the smoke and give myself a line of sight. I drained my beer and told Murphy that I had to bail. He slapped me on the back and headed toward the old scarred pool table. As I walked out into the sunlight I was thinking that I'd never have to see the inside of that place again.