SQUELCHED

8 Squelched One trip that I’ll never forget was going to Scandinavia. I had heard that Sweden was the land of free love. It was a goal of mine to experience this dream. One night, at the Britannia Inn, in the heart of Copenhagen, I was playing darts, a game called 301. After drinking several beers, I struck up a conversation with a cute girl who lived 30 minutes outside of Copenhagen. A dream was fulfilled, to go home with a Swedish or a Danish girl. The following morning, I woke up in her bedroom, and as we opened the bed- room door, we were immediately in the kitchen. We joined her parents at the breakfast table. As I sipped my coffee and reflected over the experience of the last 12 hours, I thought, “I’m living the dream.” The following day, I left for Stockholm. At the train station, I bought a paperback book that one would never see back home at the newsstand. The book was entitled Flossie . I was so excited to read this sex and trash–filled book that I began to read excerpts of it out loud to my travel buddy, Gary Walden. As the train continued to chug along, I kept on reading the juicy pieces to Gary. We were sharing our trip from Copenhagen to Stockholm with three other travelers, local gals our age who were as cute as little but- tons. Finally, one gal said to me, “We understand English.” In a New York second, I turned red, too embarrassed to speak, and I bolted to another cabin. I lost any opportunity for us to hook up with these gals upon our arrival in Stockholm. Sex might be out in the open in this part of the world but being discreet was expected. This time I was benched for the right rea- sons. Lesson learned. It is during these years in the military that I learned the thrill and ex- citement of European travel. I fell in love with Paris. In December 1968, I was honorably separated from the US Army; like the rest of the troops during this period we received our discharge papers some six years later after our separation date. At the time of separation, we knew that we might be called back into active duty, given that there was a war going on in Southeast Asia. I could go on and on about my time on my government-sponsored two-year vacation in the US military, but now I knew that I was ready to go to school once I was separated from the US Army, and make something of my life.