Pre Obituary for a buddy that''s not dead yet

 

DUANES PRE-OBIT written as of March 2014

As the time of my life has gone on and I've related experiences with those that were there I've learned to preface my memories with "Well, the way I remember it was..."  The following falls into those parameters.

TEEN YEARS

I have known Duane Warner since I was just about 14 and he almost a year older.  When my family bought a Dairy Queen in Ann Arbor Michigan about 1955 or 56, we moved there from the Detroit area and had a house built about a block away from where Duane lived.

My memory is vague exactly where we first met but we did ride the bus to the high school.  The bus would pick us up at the grade school, which will be mentioned again shortly, and drop us at the high school.

We never had any classes together because I was taking college prep courses while he was taking shop classes.  Neither of us benefited from those choices.  Duane told me his dad was doctor at the University of Michigan and he didn't care to become a professional.  Much later I learned his dad was a custodian in the medical department.

Duane had a Cushman scooter and I had a Harley Davidson 125cc motorbike.  One day he challenged me to a loudness test of our respective machines.  We took off the mufflers and met in a field between our two houses, cranked up the rpms and probably damaged our hearing for the next 15 minutes trying to over come the others bike's sound.  I think his won.  In fact, I'm sure his did.

The spring of my 16th year, Duane had gotten a hold of some boxing gloves.  "Wanna learn how to box?" he asked.  My boxing class was getting my nose punched repeatedly.  He never mentioned anything about blocking, or ducking or weaving.  I gave him back his gloves and told him I didn't want to learn anymore.

My mother suggested I didn't hang out with Duane.

The school bus driver had her hands full of the two of us.  There was constant scuffling with me ending up on the middle of the aisle of seats on my back.  After stopping the bus twice, the bus driver made Duane get off.  I don't know if he got to school that day.  The following day, the driver had Duane sit in the front of the bus and me in the back.  That was the way we went to school until Duane dropped out.

That year, 1958, the song Peggy Sue by the Buddy Holly came out and was very popular with all of us teens.  The grade school where we caught the bus had dance parties on Saturday night for the teens in the neighborhood.  Parents chaperoned and supplied cakes and pop in the multi-use room where the grade school kids had lunch and an assembly room complete with a stage.

Duane and I came up with the idea to sing Peggy Sue on the stage at one of these dances.  We borrowed a Spanish guitar from someone, practiced the words until we figured out neither of us could sing a lick.  Decided to mime the words.  We did.  We were a hit.  The teenage girls went along with it, screaming as only teenage girls can do and tried to pull our clothes off for souvenirs.

Duane got a drivers license and was allowed to drive his mothers Plymouth once in awhile without riders.  Right.  Something happened on US23 one day that had something to do with driving way over the speed limit.  I think we outran a cop car.  Not too long after that, the four of us that hung out together, Norman, Jerry Ritz, Duane and me were driving around the Arboretum by the university when we caught the attention of some college students.  Words were exchanged, cars were swerved at one another and the chase was on.  Coca-Cola in glass bottles was the drink of choice in those days so we started throwing the empties out trying to blowout the tires of the college boys chasing us.  We must have gotten away since I don't remember being beaten up.

We were of the age where none of us had even seen a naked girl but were extremely interested.  The Blue Front was an early 7/11-type convenience store that had Playboy and other girlie mags of the day on racks without plastic covers.  Duane was our procurer of forbidden pictures when he wasn't squandering his money on pinball machines.

I was sweet on a girl whose family ran the Circus Drive-In.  The four of us would drive down there in Duane's mom's Plymouth and do what teenage boys do.  Hang out and look cool even if it was a mom's car.  None of us had much money and at that time and a cup of coke cost a nickel.  We ordered a nickel coke and four straws.  The coke came and we stripped off the paper from the straws and put them in the coke.  Plan was to count to three and then all of us suck in the coke.  My buddy Duane grabbed the other three straws, squeezed them closed and sucked in all in himself.  He left a fifty-cent tip!

 MARINE CORPS TIME

At about this time, I'm a freshman in high school; Duane has quit school and is working for a swimming pool builder.  His dad wanted him to "get a job of work."  Shortly there after he joins the Marine Corps and is gone from my life. 

I got a letter from him just after he graduated from boot camp telling me if I don't join the Marines, he'll kick my ass the next time he sees me.  Since I'm only 17, I can't join without parent's permission, which I can't get.  About this time I find out my parents also won't pay for my college education, so halfway through my senior year I take the last semester with 6 hours of study hall.  That lasts until the second month when I turn 18 and join the Marine Corps.

A year later I'm on Okinawa and discover Duane was still there although in the hospital recovering from jungle rot on his feet.  For the next three months Duane and I reprise our teenage years and run amuck on the island.  He had been there long enough to know the ins and outs of dealing with the women catering to the needs of young men and could tell I was being taken by the wiles of a young lady in the town of BC.  He went with me one night and called her out on her scam.  Drinks were tossed.  Curses in Japanese were voiced.  Salt was thrown.  I was no longer welcome in the Bar Hitching Post.

About this time, Duane came in possession of a human skull.  It may or may not have been purloined from a Japanese tomb but he had it in a paper bag.  We would go into the Ville; sit at a table, bar girls would slip in and ask us to buy them a drink. (This is the preview to seeing them naked.) Being a curious bunch, the girls would ask what was in the bag.  Duane would tell them they don't want to know which would only increase their curiosity.  After the pleading got to a crescendo, he would almost pull the skull out of the bag, put it back and let it build some more.  This would increase the crowd with the entire group of bar girls and even the bartender gathering around.  When the girls were to a point of almost wetting their pants with curiosity and begging to see what it was, he'd pull out the skull and hold it out at arms length.

This would pretty much empty the bar with much screaming.

Teddy Bear also known as Premature Ejaculation

I spent that year and another one a bit later never being able to enter a few bars without salt being thrown at me.  Some people have long memories.

My salute to Henoko Magi-Moon  (aka The ghost of Henoko)

(Salt is used to ban evil spirits in the Far East.)

A few years pass.  I'm back in Michigan planning to attend the UofM and really get an education.  Rekindling my friendship with Duane I find out he's been married, finished high school and has a daughter.  I'm also married with a daughter.  Go figure.

FAA TIME

On a whim, I apply to be an air traffic controller and invite Duane to take the test with me.  We're both hired and offered a job in Minneapolis.  We load up our respective vehicles, his, an underpowered Pinto or something like it, attach a u-hall trailer and take off for the prairie city.  Somewhere along the I-80 in Illinois or Indiana, Duane starts tailgating Semi's in order to zip along in their air stream to increase his speed.  This worked for about a mile before the driver noticed what he was doing and decided to teach him a lesson.  The one he was tailgating slowed while another semi pulled into the fast lane and matched speed with the first one.  Then the first one sped up causing Duane to drop back as the second semi pulled into the space left by the first one then back into the fast lane and the first one dropped back.  I'm watching all this from behind Duane and I back off real far.  Soon the semis are swapping lanes left and right as our little caravan dropped back even further.

We both became journeyman controllers at Minneapolis.

During the three years I was there, Duane taught me the fact that playing cards with him was the same as learning how to box.  Golf was not much different.  Dirt bike riding fell into the same category.  Competing with Duane means you are going to lose.  I came to accept that fact and won't try again.

One day, Duane found an old pick-up truck.  We have needed the use of a trailer from time to time since we seemed to move a lot, and figured that cutting off the bed of the pick-up would give us a cheap trailer.  The truck didn't run very well but we coaxed it down into a low area by the Minnetonka River.  I believe the Mall of America is there now.  Tipped it over on its side and began cutting the A-frame with a hand held blowtorch. As the morning turned into the afternoon and dark was approaching, we gave up after cutting a good inch into the A-frame.  The hacksaws we brought were useless.  Power tools in those days were mainly muscle power.  Most of our muscle was in our brains.

Minnesota was largely rural back then.  Pre WWII marijuana was grown as a hemp product in that area. Even today there are acres and acres of wild hemp growing there.  Duane and I are driving down I-35 one day and see a 12-foot tall marijuana plant growing off the side of the freeway in the ditch.  We circle around to make sure it is what we think it is.  That night, we don our blackest clothing, darken our faces with black makeup and drive down I-35 looking for the 12-foot plant.  We see it, pull over to the side, turn off the interior dome light and I roll out of the car like a Seal team member off a zodiac rubber raft.  Down into the ditch I go and begin pulling at the weed.  It isn't coming out easily.  Duane has made two turns and pulling up again he whisper shouts what the hell is going on.  I tell him it's too big to uproot so he gives me his pocketknife to cut it.  Remember this thing is 12 feet tall with a 3-inch thick stalk.  With much bending and slashing with the dullest knife in the world, I break it loose.  Duane makes his 4th or 5th turn around and we stuff it into the car.  The Pinto is still in use so we are in a small car with 12 feet of plant bent around so he could see out the window.  Much laughter occurs as we drag this mammoth chunk of plant into the apartment we lived in.

By the way, the weed grown in Minnesota was and is known as "Ditch Weed."  Makes good rope and paper but cannot be smoked with out extreme headaches.

LIFETIME CHANGES

Life changes for both of us.  I get a divorce, transfer to California, and find a woman better suited for me. Duane is my best man at the wedding. We go out the night before for a last night of single-hoodness and have our pictures taken.

Duane the Frontiersman--Darrel the Yankee and me the Southern Gentleman

A FEW YEARS LATER

I make a flying trip back to Minneapolis to go to a retirement party for a supervisor we all hated.  We bought him a barbed wire toilet seat as a going away present because the way the wire was bent it looked like his name, Vic.  Duane is living on a lake with a boat and every thing.  We drink and enjoy seeing each other again.

Duane and Patti fly out to see us in California and we spend a long weekend at a cabin on Lake Tahoe near Reno.  Went horseback riding and had my first win at a craps table because I followed whatever Duane did.

Duane quits the FAA and becomes a resort hotelier in Ohio or Kentucky.  Did a gig at a Motel 6 in Elko Nevada.  I drove out one winter and we went up into the mountains to shoot our pistols.  I think he had a .357 Magnum and I a black powder .44 Old Army. We drank some water that had until only a moment ago been snow.  Both of us got oxygen high.  He then moves to Florida and begins a driving gig for Miss Daisy in her Rolls Royce.

From time to time I get letters from Duane regaling his exploits at the gambling dens in Biloxi.  I feel sorry for the casinos.

The 5th Marines had a reunion down in San Diego.  I flew down from the San Francisco area to meet Duane in LA and then drive on down to San Diego.  We attended a graduation of newly minted Marines at the Recruit Depot where we did our time and hung out with the guys Duane served with at a dinner.  We drank a lot, flirted with our Marine buddies wives, who were foolish enough to bring them, and relived old times.

A couple of years later I fly back to Michigan for something I can't remember why, drove up to see Duane and Patti at a cabin they bought in the middle of Michigan.  We ate some mushrooms I'd scored and watched the rain come down.  Nice rain.  I liked a bowler hat he had and he gave it to me.

TIME AFTER THE FAA

Pals

Fast forward to 2006: I was one of those fired by President Reagan in 1981.  Twenty-five later, I attend a reunion of fired controllers at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood Florida.  Duane drove down from Orlando and met up with me.  We drove down the state in a Mustang convertible to Key West just to see if I could pass at an Ernest Hemingway look a like beard contest.  Naw, couldn't.  We drank a lot.

Key West

A few years pass and it has become a long time since I've seen Duane so my lovely Margie and I are doing a tour of the United States with plans to stop in Orlando to see my pal.  By this time, he's divorced and has a lady fiend that he services when booty calls happen.  Being the ever-gracious local, he takes us to Wally World also known as Disney World.  Good God It's Hot In Florida.

THE END?

Well, now it has come to the end of a relationship with someone I call my best friend.  We were not born of the same parents but if I had a choice of who would have been my older brother it would have been Duane.  He was and is a good man.  Not perfect but none of us are.  I'm glad to have known him.  He has provided me with many laughs and taught me more things then I really needed to know but have had a better life because he was in it.