A remembered day...

After the funeral of my Mother Ann in April of 1962 I didn't immediately return to Keesler, instead I rode back to Selma with Harold and Mamacita (Hazel) to stay a few days and perhaps bring my great green Mercury back with me. I had only been in the Air Force since November and was about to graduate and be shipped out to somewhere in the US I thought. Having the car would make the adventure just that much bigger and more in my control instead of the USAF's. Little had changed since I had left in November, I had no active girlfriend when I left so that was a dead end road to interesting times there. I scouted out a few of my Reedley College buddies and visited Jay Bulls as he was the one who took me to the recruiter's office in Fresno that day. I found talking with him was just not as it used to be, somehow these last months had changed my mind and my direction in life and now we seemed not so sympatico. That first evening I drove alone to Fresno to visit DiCicco's Pizzeria on Blackstone Avenue and wound up like many other times there boxing pizzas and bullshiting with the guys and Maria who had been a dear friend as I grew through high school. The next day I walked around Selma reviewing the town after having been made familiar with Biloxi just outside Keesler AFB. Biloxi was truly "southern" in all that that meant, racial divides were common and the public fountain downtown had "Colored Only" signs on the public restroom nearby, it sure wasn't tired old Selma. I walked past the now closed theatre where I used to spend my Saturday afternoons at the movies paying 25 cents for the privilege. Popcorn was 10 cents and a coke was 15 so with 50 cents I could have a complete movie going experience. I walked to Selma Drug Store where I had worked for a while under Pat Patterson the owner. I walked inside and took a look but there was no one I knew so I left a few minutes later. I went across the street to the Toy store and visited with the owner Ros Bagdesarian the brother of the man who made The Chipmunks voices and tunes. He drove a huge Rolls Royce Sedan that always fascinated me. He asked me many questions and I gave him polite answers and soon I left to visit Kenneth Chow who was a long time friend and whose family owned the grocery store downtown. We chatted a while and took a short ride to the Foster's Freeze for an ice cream and I told him the story of my going into the AF out of sheer boredom.