I advertently snuck someone onto the grounds of West Point past security. I didn’t mean it. As a tour guide at the United States Military Academy, after 911, I should’ve known better. The woman could’ve been a terrorist. Unless there was a specific reason to be there like working on post, visiting someone, living there or going to a hockey game, the average person, especially without identification, was to be politely turned away. Hence, the guided tours gained in popularity. As an active military post with off limit areas, West Point had to be careful.
A forty something mother born at the tail end of the baby boom years from New York City, I moved to the Hudson Valley post divorce. I had gone from living with my mother to my husband to being on my own. Finally, here was my chance to screw up my life all by myself. Besides having a part time job showing tourists, businessmen, students and senior citizens General Douglas MacArthur‘s statue and the Cadet Chapel, I was a nanny to an army officer’s family, aided a driver on a school bus run, lugged luggage over at the Thayer Hotel and hawked souvenirs during football games. With my tired muscles, I loved the place. It was pretty enough to be called the Stepford town of the military world. I felt safe enough there to walk around at midnight after selling sweatshirts all day to out of towners at Michie Stadium.
Security at Thayer Gate, one of the entrances, knew me. Sometimes, I would be start the day as early as 6 am. The guards would converse and flirt with me. They tried to make me feel beautiful, even when I really didn’t think it could be possible. There was no stable dating history to prove my prettiness. Although determined to be independent, I was addicted to their kind, polite sexy talk of how could I look so hot on a cold day so early in the morning. I used to kid that I was at the USMA more than I was home, trying to pull together something that looked like a salary. It was a good thing my son was grown up. I, also, took religion and sociology courses at night through Mount St. Mary College at their extension site where during the day the cadets, who called me ma’am, were learning military history.
The guards, knowing how difficult it was to make a buck, suggested they could get me a job as one of them at entrances that had once been manned by enlisted men and women who instead were in Afghanistan and Iraq. I laughed thinking about the gun I would carry against my five foot one inch body dressed in blue uniform. I imagined myself pulling a pistol wearing my mothers diamond ring on my finger, thinking my nail polish would chip. I might’ve been required to wear a bullet proof vest, would it chafe up against my chest? I heard they were heavy and not too comfortable in the summer. I thought the sweat could never mix well with my Imari perfumed lotion that I wore in abundance. With long black hair and brown eyes that danced in the sunlight, I never believed in my credibility for anything beyond thinking a man would want me only for a one night stand so why would he want me as backup to protect an army population. I felt I could only trust the Avon catalogue and a chocolate bar.
One day I had to be on post to drop off some paper work. West Point is a post, and not a base, because it is the army. As I approached Thayer Gate in my 1979 Chevy, a Spanish speaking woman walked over to my car saying in a bit of English she was late for her cleaning job at the library and could she get a lift through security and to the building. If she had to walk, it would’ve taken too long to show the required identification. The hike to the building might’ve taken a half hour. It was very warm outside. I felt bad. I let her into the passenger side of my ancient non air conditioned Caprice. She slunk down in the seat. We went through security. The regular guard knew me. He trusted me. I didn’t need to show id or open the trunk of my car for inspection. He waved me through without a thought that I hid anything in the back of the auto besides some dirty laundry. I had deceived him by bringing someone in with me who was a stranger to me. I believed there was no threat to my safety because the guys always looked after me. Once on post, the little lady, she was shorter than me, pointed to a back way around some brick buildings I’d never seen before. She asked me to stop the car in an area of the military grounds that was unfamiliar to me. She got out and said she had to run to make it on time. I never did see the library.
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Comments
I read very slow and enjoyed!
Then - I noticed - EP! Yahoo!
`
Ya no 'closed comments' Oho!
I have old archive photos saved.
My cousin William (Bill) is a Oz.
huh?
He has computer skills. Hi Bill.
I sometimes browse `Howitzer.
That's West Point's `Yearbook.
`
It was my Grandfather's yearbook.
Uncle Bernard James died in 1948.
He went to West Point and crashed.
On Thanksgiving Day Bernard died.
He was killed in a airplane accident.
I was one month old. I forget it tho.
My Father held me and saw a crash.
Honest.
Memory.
Three-weeks to the day near West Point,
on a cold icy night, my Grandmother died.
My Grandfather and Grandmother wrecked.
Granny was thrown from the car, She bled...
artery was sliced...
It was a tragic 1948 year for my family. Sigh.
My Grandma died in my Grandpas two arms.
Dad was a wreck on every Thanksgiving Day.
I sensed he had PTSD (naturally-normal too).
Dad was always afraid someone get a boo boo.
I could boar to death if I go on and on and`off.
I Love the wedding photos etc., at West Point.
(the photos of my background ref West Point)
I was drafted. I knew three who died in `Nam.
I literally saw LT Conners get shot with a AK47.
He was Texan. He fell in sow motion. I still see.
The West Point LT who patched me up died too.
While I was in the VAMC former LT shot his skull.
Gross.
A drafted PFC Gerry Martin did a suicide in the 70's.
He was from Silver Spring, Md., and we's talk of war.
PFC and LT - years apart and rank - blew de`head off.
That's a terrible way to 'kick-a-bucket. I'd goose a mule.
No get into a kick-match contest with a mule-arse, okay.
I Loved the read - sigh - Memories are good and sad ay.
We 'aim' to transcend.
What else can one do?
Hop in a well ay haiku!
I wish I could hush up.
I'll find a mop or saw.
Go chop chewing gum.
Chop sassafras roots.
It's a illegal tree tea.
No make root beer.
The Amish still do.
Sip Adam's Wine.
Just Pure Water.
Cousin Bill sent a 'hard-drive' I have at a farm.
The pageantry 'scares' - worries me. Hoopla?
But, this isn't a 'negative' critique. Thank you.
The crash happened at Andrews Field.
It's called Andrews ir Force Base Today.
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It doesn't take 'forever' to show a gate pass; workers pass through gates on military posts every day so that doesn't make sense.
So, to make yourself feel a little charitable, you smuggled someone on post. Perhaps the chances that your cleaning lady was there to do any wrong were small but that was not your call.
Lady, you are twice a jerk. Once to do it and twice to brag about it.
Attended an all girl's Catholic college next to West Point which no longer exists. The WP Tourist Center now stands where I attended college. Loved sunbathing behind the dorms, above the Hudson River.
Those were the days! Great post and thanks for the memories!