Today marks the day that I saw California in my rearview mirror for the last time. It also happened to be the very day that my buddy Ralph died.
I first posted this story on my old blog 4-5 years ago, but Ralph's been heavy on my mind this past week, so today's Ralph's Day instead of a Fuck California Day.
*
Me and my buddy Tim were seniors in high school, and we were out cruising the backroads of Ft Benning in his father’s car, drinking rotgut whiskey and smoking dope and listening to music. Now, Ft Benning’s main post and admin area is in Georgia, but most of the drop zones and training areas were on the Alabama side. That’s where we were.
So here we are, way out in the middle of nowhere, and Tim’s lights land on a guy walking along the road, shoulders back and stepping out smartly, so naturally he pulls over and asks if everything’s okay. The guy comes up to the car and starts talking and whips out a monster joint of what he called “High-waiin”. So we’re passing around this joint and our bottle and Tim asks again just what in the fuck was he doing all the way out here, and the dude says he’s going to look at some dead Indians and would we be interested in seeing them too? Well hell yeah, who wouldn’t want to look at some dead Indians?
It turns out that the army was doing some work at one of the training areas and had uncovered some Indian remains. They knew they were Indians by the artifacts and shit in the grave, so they posted a guard until they could get somebody out there to excavate the site properly. There was a big write-up in the paper a few months later. Anyways, this guy had heard about it and decided to go take a look for himself so he set out walking and that’s when we hooked up.
We jumped in the car and found the grave, got the guards high and looked at some bones, then we drove back to Main Post and dropped the guy off at some out of the way barracks. It had been dark the entire time so I didn’t get a real good look at his face, but he was a good sized Texas boy, longer-than-regulation haircut and a bushy mustache. He had a big booming voice and sounded exactly like Sam Elliot who I had never heard of at the time.
Flash forward a couple years and I’m in the army. I’d been in the unit about two or three months but had been out in the field with them so the only people I knew were pretty much the guys that I shared a GP Medium with. Hell, I’d been on the company’s roster for 2 months before I ever got a chance to go to the kaserne’s snack bar which was about 100 yards thataway.
There’s a shitload of us sitting out in front of the barracks drinking beer and talking and this guy walks up and immediately steals the show. Everybody stops what they’re doing and hollers out their hellos to this guy and he’s laughing and smiling and working the crowd like a Chicago Democrat. We’re introduced to each other and the guy’s name is Ralph, and I instantly recognized the voice. I ask him if he’d ever been to Benning and he acknowledged yeah, a couple years back to attend some school. I asked him if he remembered going to the Indian grave and he said yeah, that kinda rings a bell, so I asked him if he remembered the kids that gave him a ride and he says no, he don’t remember that. Trying to prod his memory along, I told him that we had a jug of Imperial whiskey and he had some killer High-waiin weed.
AHA! He remembered scoring a quarter pound of the weed when he first got there – Maui Wowie. That’s all he remembered.
Ralph was a Vietnam era draftee that reenlisted and stayed in and worked as a radio technician and repairman over at EMS which probably stands for Electronics Maintenance Shop. Ralph was a Spec 6 which was the same pay grade as a Staff Sergeant but without the headache of herding cats, and had been at that kaserne longer than 99% of the rest of us. He’d been there so long he knew everybody and everybody knew him. Fuck, I remember one time me and Ralph were walking towards the motor pool and here comes the 26th Sig Bn Commander, a full bird colonel, with all of his attached staff walking right towards us. Colonels can be real dicks sometimes so I made sure all my pockets were buttoned, I was all tucked in and my gig line was straight, and when they got close enough I flipped up a nice regulation salute with the proper “Good Afternoon Sir!” greeting and ol’ Ralph kinda waves a salute in his general direction and goes “How ya doin’ Colonel?” and the Colonel grins and waves back “Hiya, Ralph!”
Ralph was one of those guys that had his fingers into a little bit of everything. He had his black market thing going on (as we all did) with tobacco, coffee and liquor, but he was also doing record albums, women's make-up, mogas and motor oil, and he was black marketing women’s Levis before he turned that over to me. If he could make a few quick bucks, he’d be all over it.
He was pretty generous about it too. If he saw an opportunity for somebody else to make money, he had no problem at all turning them on to it and introducing them to the right people. I’d gone in on several of his deals, all made in gasthauses and bars, and made a few bucks and after a while I gained his trust.
We always got along real well. I think it was because of the fact that I didn’t hang around the barracks much, preferring to spend most of my time in town or exploring the countryside. Most GIs were pretty much barracks rats because it’s easier to hang around other GIs than it is to actually go out and fucking learn something. I was perfectly comfortable in Germany having already spent 7 years over there, and Ralph had spent so much time there that when he got really fucked up about half the time he talk to you in German. I spoke German pretty good back then myself, so that made any business dealings a lot easier on Ralph – he didn’t have to interpret and he didn’t have to handle all the details himself anymore.
One day he invited me up to his off-post apartment for the first time to discuss one thing or another, I don’t remember what it was but we were both sitting there passing this big bowl of hash back and forth and working out the details of this deal and all of a sudden the front door flies open and this female MP comes walking into the room. Oh shit oh dear. I damned near had a heart attack right there on the spot until she walked over and planted a big ol' wet kiss on Ralph and then took a toke off the pipe.
“Ralph, you could’ve warned me that your old lady’s a cop, man.”
Ralph was a hard, hard drinker. His thing was when he opened a bottle of alcohol, he’d throw the cap away. He didn’t make a big deal about it, he just chucked it in the trash. When he opened a quart, you were gonna get a buzz. A half gallon and you were gonna be there all damned day and into the night. His fucking apartment looked like a liquor store. I knew he moved liquor on the side but damn, I don’t know how he got all that shit up there without a delivery truck and I’m not entirely sure that was his selling stock.
I remember one time I was supposed to meet my buddy Greg at Stube’s, the first gasthaus right outside the main gate, for a beer and then go downtown to meet some white wimmens. As soon as I walked into the place Mama, the owner, came up and told me that Ralph was too drunk and could I please take him home? She points over to his table and sure enough, there he is with his head on the table, eyes wide open. “What’s happenin’? You fucked up or what? Blink once for yes, twice for no.”
I got a “Fuck you, I can still talk.”
I looked over at Mama and said, “He’s still got a little ways to go. I’ll take him home after Greg shows up.” I turned back to Ralph. “Hey man, you want a beer or something to eat?”
“Why, thankee. I am hongry.”
I ordered 2 beers and a plate of pomme fritz for Ralph. He manages to raise his head high enough to drink his beer but he can’t keep it up, so he’s sitting there with his head on the table when Greg walks in. “Hey Lane, hey Ralph,” and then Greg reaches past Ralph and grabs one of his french fries. Ralph, in a blur, snatches a fork off the table and stabs Greg right in the back of the hand. Fuck me, I ain’t never seen Ralph move so fast, even sober. Greg drops the fry and Ralph snatches it up and shoves it in his mouth.
Greg holds his hand up and then jumps up and starts hollering. Now when I say that Ralph stabbed him, I don’t mean the fork was dangling from his hand. Nossir. That motherfucker was standing straight up and quivering. Everybody’s hollering. The french fry thief is hollering because he got stuck, Ralph’s hollering because when Greg jumped up he knocked over all our beers, Mama’s hollering because of the mess, I’m hollering because everybody else was.
Ralph’s big excuse? He was raised up with 4 brothers and 4 sisters and learned at an early age to protect his food. After seeing him in action, I believed it.
I ended up putting Ralph in my barracks rack while I took Greg to the dispensary to have his eating utensil removed. We never did make it downtown to meet them white wimmens.
Ralph’s last extension didn’t get approved, so he said fuck it and got out of the army in 1980. He took his sweet ass time hitch hiking across the states heading west, wanting to eventually hook back up with his old girlfriend the MP but somehow missed Arizona where she was stationed at Ft Huachuca. He says he got as far west as he possibly could and was standing at the end of a pier in Monterey California when he felt a tap on his shoulder and somebody saying “Ralph, what the fuck are you doing here?” It was one of his buddies, somebody that he worked with in Heilbronn for a few years. Talk about a small fucking world.
He eventually made it down to Arizona, got back together with the girl, married her, divorced her and then settled in the LA area, remarrying and getting into financing, telling other folks how to spend their money.
I was on my way home from work one night when my truck phone went off. It was the very first cell phone I ever owned, and it was still a novelty when I actually got a call, so I answered it and the first thing I heard was "LEAVE THE CAP IN THE DAMNED TRASH!"
I laughed. It could only be one person. "Ralph! How the hell ya doin', man?"
"I'm fine and pleasantly surprised to see you're still alive."
He had somehow ran me down, called my house and talked to my ex who passed my cell number on to him. I hadn’t heard from him since he got out 12 or 13 years earlier, so I pulled over into a parking lot and spent the next hour catching up.
Talk about a turnaround, back when I knew him he was wild as hell, now he’s a deacon in his church.
Ralph always had a fondness for fine cigars and it caught up to him. He had cancer in his tongue and they treated that. He made it a few more years before it finally caught up to him again, this time spreading to the rest of his body.
I hadn’t emailed or spoke to him for a few months during our move out to Tennessee, so I decided to drop him a line and see how he was. I never got an answer so I went to his FB page to shoot him a “Hey, are you still alive?” message and saw that no, in fact, he wasn’t. There was a Happy Birthday message from his sister on his page wishing him a happy birthday, his first one with the Lord.
I cried. Now I’ll never know if that was Ralph we met in Ft Benning that night.
You can read Ralph's Obituary HERE
I am the reason that schools use plastic sports. It was '70-'71 and one of the guys would pick his nose and stick it in the whipped cream atop your jello. I had made my preference for eating my own food several times before so when I spied him working my way with a finger in his nose, I switched the fork in my hand to a better grip. Sure enough he started to reach and I beat him to it. That fork was stuck good. His face starts going grey as did the buddy he brought with him.
ReplyDeleteI reminded him that I didn't want his fingers in my food, as I was switching to a spoon to eat my jello. Funniest part was not hearing Anything from anyone. No punishment at all which was nice because the principal was prone to send me to deliver something to my old 3rd grade teacher. She would pinch my cheek and tell all the 3rd graders that if they ate their veggies they would grow up similarly tall.
ps: those cafeteria ladies are still alive. Preserved in my heart by countless acts of kindness and pretty good cooking.
Wirecutter,
ReplyDeleteI remember the first time I lost a close friend from my younger days. It brought tears to my eyes too. I think that is because a part of yourself dies then as well. I am almost 63, my oldest sibling is my brother that is 70, and with my twin and a sister and another brother in between, I am the youngest of 5. I have not lost any of my brothers or my sister yet. I am not prepared for that either. It would be a harsh reminder of my mortality, when I still feel young, in my mind.
Thankfully, I still have memories of my life held firmly in my mind, not having lost anything to dementia the way that so many people do. I have seen that with my wife's dad, and it has to be the worst way to go, via Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia. My dad's youngest sister had that for probably 5-7 years, with her husband taking care of her the entire time, until the very end. For those who don't know what that means, it means not just making sure that she is still able to attend family functions, and leaving if she gets confused or anxious, but also feeding her when she no longer can, or cleaning her when she loses control of her body, which is exactly what that sounds like.
I actually wrote in to our local newspaper when she passed away, thanking him for his show of love to my aunt. And I explained just the same things that he had done for her that I just did here. I had a couple of phone calls thanking me for writing that, from other people who had done the same thing for their loved ones, for sharing what they had gone through and just how tough it is, and why they did it. The love and devotion required is sometimes not enough, it takes true commitment and courage to do this, when the person no longer recognizes you or knows what you are doing.
Ralph sounds like a pretty great man, and an even better friend. I am sorry for your loss, but glad that you had such a friend.
Well, Ralph died only 7 years ago so he for sure wasn't even near the top of the list of friends that left this life before me, but he's the one I miss the most.
DeleteBeautiful story Ken. I was in the Army in Germany for two and half years. First with the 14th ACR then the 11th ACR and finally with the 84th Army Band. I don't play an instrument, but I good operate a typewriter with the best of them. This was all at Downs Barracks, Fulda, West Germany '71-'74. I met a lot of good people during this time. Only one contacted me afterwards and others I could not find.
ReplyDeleteI've reconnected with several of my old army friends, but I was the one that was doing the contacting. Ralph was the first and only guy to look me up.
DeleteLo, There do I see my Father
ReplyDeleteLo, There do I see my Mother and
My Brothers and my Sisters
Lo, There do I see the line of my people back to the beginning
Lo, They do call to me
They bid me take my place among them in the halls of Valhalla
Where thine enemies have been vanquished
Where the brave shall live Forever
Nor shall we mourn but rejoice for those that have died the glorious death.
May the road rise up to meet you.
ReplyDeleteMay the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
May the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
Thanks for sharing.....
In the Ominously Ultimate Conclusive Hereafter, I will certainly scan the horizon for Mr. Ralph.
ReplyDeleteYou can't miss him, just listen for the laughter.
Deletesorry for your loss bro,
ReplyDeletethat's the worst thing about getting old is burying your friends. i have lost so many over the years that i just don't make new ones anymore. it's just to hard for me to go to funerals now.
we will see them again one day.
me, i can't wait for the reunion that is to come. it's going to be epic. shit in heaven is going to get torn up. a busted up car on the pearly gates, halo's and feathers flying everywhere, yep i can see that.
take care
If you're fortunate in life, you might meet a handful of people that are so worth knowing, so interesting, so admirable, that you go out of your way to touch base with them. I've had the good fortune to have a few friends like this, and it sounds like you have, too. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteA few, yes. Lots of acquaintances, but a few really good friends.
DeleteGreat story man, I was stationed in Frankfurt back in the 70s and me and the Mrs lived on the economy. She couldn't speak a word of German and the landylady couldn't speak a word of English but that didn't stop the two women from making deals for cheap cigarettes and wiskey in exchange for cheaper rent. Memories, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteAh, corruption - the common language spoken by everyone.
DeleteOur most asked for things were mogas and engine oil from the POL point. It was a bitch getting that shit off post, though.
Sounds like when you call someone friend you mean it. Your friends are fortunate. Good story man.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteRIP Ralph. Thanks for another great story Ken.
ReplyDeleteWhen's the book you've been teasing us about for years coming out?
I had a buddy I spent a couple years with when I was in the Navy. 3 schools and our first permanent duty station, about two years or so before he got shipped out to his first ship. He married his HS sweetheart and brought her back with him. Wonderful woman. As happens sometimes we lost touch after awhile. I've been trying to locate him by searching around the web at different times for the last couple years to no avail. I've even searched the newspaper obituaries in the area he was from. No joy. it's like he vanished. Makes me a little sad if I dwell on it.
Nemo
I appreciate that story, wirecutter (even though there is no mule shooting in it ;-)). I think I know why Ralph didn't remember you. Maui Wowie indeed...
ReplyDeleteMy oldest friend (since kindergarten, 1960) moved to NM some years ago. We're still tight. I expect to visit him this summer.
ReplyDeleteMy best friend passed shortly after 9/11. Heart attack. A shocking loss.
Work colleagues are scattered now. I hear from a couple of them on occasion.
Happy Hour buddies are mostly gone. Only two of us left standing.
Mom, Dad and BIL have all passed away.
...and I ain't getting any younger.
One of my best firefighter/paramedic buddies had a massive heart attack worming his goats on the hottest day of a Kansas summer five years back. He went out like he wanted too, with two fire trucks full of his buddies doing chest compressions while 200 goats stood around and watched. We still tell stories about his epic escapades.
ReplyDeleteFireman Fred
I bet everyone that ever met him never forgot him. Gotta love the Ralphs in this world. Great story...as usual, Ken.
ReplyDeleteYou have to write the book. Maybe two. I don't know anyone who can tell your stories, and other people's stories, this way. I never knew this man, but through your writing, I felt as though I knew him (a little), and I felt your loss.
ReplyDeleteThank you Kenny, for your ability to convey your friendships and life experiences. I spent all of my useful adult life wearing a pickle suit and made quite a few good friends that I would run into throughout my career and in my afterlife. So many things we did that the average man would not or could not understand. Quite a few have fallen along the way, Call me a nut, but I believe we will all meet again at some weird last roundup. It’s one of the few things I’ve got to look forward to! Hope to see you there too. Eod1sg Ret
ReplyDeleteMy condolences. It's hard to see a friend go too soon. May God Bless you and Ralph.
ReplyDeleteBack in my high school and college days Dirk was a very close friend. My best friend. In college we started to drift apart as he was starting to drink and use drugs, both very heavily. I was very big into sports, mostly skiing, baseball/softball, and soccer. On top of that I was nearly a full-time student and also worked to pay for books and lift tickets. Our drifting apart was NOT a judgmental issue on my part. It was just two dudes whose lives started taking different roads. We still got together on occasion, but not like the first several years of our friendship.
ReplyDeleteIn 1983 I joined the Air Force and left the Pacific Northwest behind, at least temporarily. After I retired I set up a fakebook account and started digging around for long lost friends. When I looked up Dirk's name there must have been 100's of hits. Most were either private pages or an account the user established then never used again. Both seemed like the Dirk I knew back in the day. I was able to find Steve and Willy, who were the other half of the Four Musketeers.
Steve broke the heartbreaking news that Dirk had passed just few years prior. He had lived a HARD life of drugs and alcohol. Willy and Steve, along with Dirk's ex and their son held an intervention. And it worked. He even came back to the Lord, according to Steve. But his previous life had taken huge toll on Dirk's body and despite being sober for several years, he passed away in his late forties, his body just giving up.
It was the first real cry I had had since my boys were born 18+ years prior. For a good four years Dirk was my best friend. I felt some guilt. I let our friendship dissolve rather than make the extra effort to maintain it. Of course, after I went into the service we would have lost contact anyways. But that still didn't ease the feeling that maybe, somehow, I had let down my friend. I still carry some of that guilt 12 years later although it has faded with time and reason.
I miss you my wild and crazy brother.
Seriously: SO Sorry for yer loss bro.. it's the ones that 'sneak up on ya' that suck the worst... that BIG BOOMING VOICE you spoke of? Ben silenced, 'cept in your memories. Got a similar circumstance... never realized how BIG an person dude was until he was gone.... hole like that in the mental/emotional/presence mode are ALWAYS the hardest to fill/realize/rationalize when they ack-chully do... Guys like your Ralph? Or my man McQueen?
ReplyDeleteYeah...
Long GOE
but NOT forgotten.. and if these days being left as a pleasant memory is what it takes to earn a slot in the "great beyond?" I'm allll aboot that now Aye... Stay well and Frosty bro,,,
BCE
Hey Kenny;
ReplyDeleteMan, Condolences, I was in Benning in the 70's as a dependent, my Dad was "el Cid". I joined the Army and went to Germany in 1986 until 1991, first was Cooke Barracks in Geoppingen, then was Stuttgart Army Airfield. I loved my time in Germany. I lost a good friend like that, what got him was cirrhosis of the liver. he got out after the Storm like I did, but couldn't seem to adapt to civilian life and drank himself to death. he was in another state and I didn't find this stuff out until after his passing, I never knew he had problems, I had my own for several years, he handled his with booze. He was my best man at my wedding, and I never had a clue he had issues until it was too late, he wouldn't talk to nobody.
Good writin'!
ReplyDeleteGreat tribute, Kenny. May he rest in peace, knowing he's gone to a better place. Yes, those we served with become our second (and closest) family. I'm still in touch with folks I served with in the 70s.
ReplyDeleteFinally got a spot of time to read this, Kenny. I've been saving it in my dock all these days.
ReplyDeleteI love how you love people. I love how you love pets. I love how it's always both plain and fancy at once... never snooty but also so rare, so valuable, so essential. I love how you tell about it too. Thanks. xoxox