GETTING OUT OF LA

In October of 1945, the Japanese had been defeated and thousands upon thousands were being discharged from the many military organizations. So it was with me. I had gone into the Navy base in San Diego and found out that I had enough points to be released from active duty. That was a time of mixed emotions. Here I had spent 3 years learning my trade and now I would be unable to determine if I had learned it accurately. Oh, the flying of an airplane was not the greatest test, it was being over the Pacific Ocean and not knowing exactly where you were. You could be one degree and miss an island by several miles ---with nothing but ocean out in front of you. Navigation in those days was using a sextant to "shoot " the stars, guess what your ground speed was and having other very difficult aids to determine your position. However , it was a time to go home, be a husband and a father and learn a new trade--earning a living. Ah, but there is a problem. We were amongst those thousands I spoke of and how do we get back to our homes. I was with two of my buddies and we, somehow, got to Los Angeles where we needed a place to stay. Entering the first hotel we came to, I noticed a long line of other military people hoping they had reservations. In some kind of a slick move I found myself at the desk saying "This probably a stupid question but any chance you have a room for three of us"? He looked me and the other two Navy guys and said "Will you take a sample room"? I didn't know what a sample room was but I said "Of course". Wow! How easy was that? And we proceeded to the sample room which turned out to be a large room with four beds and tables set up for salesmen to display their goods. It had a bathroom with a shower and we were in Heaven. Ah, but now the trouble began. I started calling train stations, bus stations, any type of transportation that would allow us to leave L.A. All to no avail!! We were stuck. I called Louise to tell her, and I could tell by the tone of her voice she was skeptical of our inability to get out of town. "Honest honey, we're stuck". So O.K. L.A. isn't the the worst place in the world to be stuck but we were now anxious to get home and go about resuming our duties in a family. We did a little touring, a little visiting places we had never been to and, in general, accepting our plight as best we could. Somehow the word got out that we had bought flowers for the hotel floor ladies. In those days there were ladies that sat at a desk to be sure the people going into the rooms were indeed guests of the hotel. It seems that often ladies of the evening were known to attempt to go to a room. Can you imagine? 5 days late, after continuing to call the various forms of transportation, we were informed by the bus company that if two of us would stand until there was an empty seat they would sell us tickets to go east on a bus. We jumped at the offer and made plans. There were now four of us and we were all going to the Midwest except I was going to Buffalo N.Y. But stand we did, taking turns so that we rotated all the way to the eastern part of New Mexico. In Chicago we all took different trains to different cities and I parted, teary eyed, from the three guys I had been so very close to for most of three years. It was difficult and Louise never did fully believe the difficulty I had leaving L.A.Maybe when I get to the next page, I will be able to convince her. After all who could possibly lie in Heaven?