Summer Wind

This story is based on, "Summer Wind." This was written by Grethe Ingmann; lyrics by Hans Bradtke.

"All summer long we sang a song.

And then we strolled that golden sand,

Two sweethearts and the summer wind.

Then softer than a piper man; one day, it called to you.

I lost you; I lost you to the summer wind."

A note of interest: I mention the movie, "A Bell for Adano" in the story. John Hersey won the Pulitzer Prize for the novel it was based on.

Thanks to RoustWriter for his editing help.

Regards, Jake

*****

Chapter One—The End of Something

"Like painted kites, those days and nights went flying by.

The world was new, beneath a blue umbrella sky."

I looked at the closed up cabin in the breaks under the Mogollon rim. It was located at the end of a dirt road, a trail really, only accessible by four wheel drive. It looked to be in fair shape, but I knew there would be a lot of cleanup and maintenance to make it ready for regular visits again. I had planned ahead and loaded the back of my truck with the "necessaries".

It had been a long three years in the Army, and I got out just in time to avoid duty in Vietnam. They gave me a choice of three years of active reserve or one year on call-up standby and two years of inactive reserve. Having had quite enough of military discipline, I chose to stay as far away from any military installations as possible, and chose the inactive reserve. The first year of standby was a risk, since I could be called to active duty at the Army's pleasure. In the end, I skated through with no problem.

Leaving the truck, I walked to a small rise and enjoyed the variegated sky to the west as the sun set over the bend in the Rim. Enjoying the last of the four cigarettes a day I was rigidly holding to, I thought about the article I had seen in the Scottsdale paper that morning:

Canova-Wells Wedding at historic St. Mary's Basilica

Martha Canova and Tom Wells were joined together in Holy Matrimony at St. Mary's Basilica yesterday afternoon. The reception was held at the Phoenix Country Club where many of the old guard of the city's society welcomed the newly married couple. Tom is, of course, the son of Mayor William "Billy" Wells, well known in the Phoenix area as a developer of new home communities.

Tom's new bride is the daughter of Joseph Canova, owner of the historic 6000 acre Canova ranch east of Flagstaff, and is noted for his philanthropic work, particularly his efforts and donations on behalf of the Community Chest, the precursor of The United Way. After a two-month vacation in Europe, the newlyweds will reside in the Wells estate in Scottsdale.

Ahh, Martha, I mused. That article might have had my name, Jerry Kinsolving, in it, except I doubted that they would have made much of my dad's being a History Professor at Arizona State University in Tempe, and living in a thirty year old three bedroom house near the campus. But, no, Martha decided to move on half-way through my thirteen month "sentence" at the US Army headquarters in Seoul. At least, that's exactly what her letter had said. Thank God it wasn't a "Dear John" letter (even though it was a "Dear Jerry" one):

Dear Jerry,

I've decided to move on. I'm sure that after you think about it, you will agree that it's for the best.

Love always, Martha

I thought at the time that always seemed to not be able to withstand the test of time or of absence very well, but I had to admire her conciseness. Though, just for old times' sake she could have written at least a paragraph.

Her loss to me, such as it was, had been more than offset by my assignment to learn the new GE computers installed at the Eighth Army headquarters for Korea. That experience led to my being hired after my separation from Uncle Sam's service by General Electric out northwest of Phoenix on Thunderbird Road.

Now, after only six months with the company, I was being assigned as a troubleshooter at the large GE installation in Pearl Harbor. It was to be a three month assignment, but my boss told me it could be significantly more or less time. I could still hear my division manager's words:

"I'll be frank with you, Jerry. We are in a tight competition with IBM for the next contract there, and we need to reduce the amount of down time we have been having. I don't know what the problem is, but we have to find it and fix it. You report directly to me, and I'm counting on you to take care of this and keep me informed. Go ahead and take two weeks off on me, and I'll have everything all set up for you."

We kicked it around some more and I agreed to stay for up to a year, if necessary. I knew what it was like to stay in a hotel indefinitely and wanted to rent a house as soon as possible. If it turned out to be a full year we could figure out then what our mutual needs were. He agreed to work with finance to get me a housing allowance.

The two weeks off was the reason I was here finishing the cleanup of the cabin at ten o'clock that night. The next morning at daybreak I was already hiking up a dim trail east of Payson to the eastern end of Star Valley and up towards the rim. I'd packed food and a lightweight tent for a week's worth of getting lost in a rugged, empty country. On the third day, I was camped on a plateau half way to the top and relaxing with a cup of coffee, thinking about my upcoming trip, and whether or not to have bacon and beans for dinner once again.

I heard a noise, a rustling, and looked up to see a big Tom turkey about seventy-five feet away. My dad had written a book about the Pleasant Valley War (the Graham-Tewksbury Feud), one of the ugliest feuds in American history. In doing the research, he became a good friend of an ancient rancher near Alpine, who, knowing he was on death's door, gave my father an original 1893 Winchester lever action rifle. Dad gave it to me, his only son, and I felt strongly that the best homage I could give to this collector's piece was to use it rather than put it on a shelf or sell it.

When I was twelve I got my first deer, and I never hunted with any other rifle. When I saw that tom pecking around, I took aim without a conscious thought. At that range I couldn't miss, and I knew that there was no better eating than a wild turkey cooked right. Yeah, I ate too much of it, but damn, it was good.

The nights were still cold at that altitude, even though it was officially springtime. It made for good sleeping and pleasant weather for hiking, so I wasn't complaining.

Chapter Two—The Start of Something Else

After two weeks I was thinking more of Judy Canova than Martha Canova so I knew I was ready to go to Pearl Harbor and save the company ... well, if you can't laugh at yourself you might as well give up! I stopped by to see my sister Bess, she was five years older than me, and almost certainly a lot wiser.

"Gonna miss you Jer. I didn't want to say anything before, but I always thought Martha was a cold hearted bitch!"

"Jeez sis, just say what's on your mind."

"You want us to take care of the cabin for you?"

"Sure, though I'd rather not have anyone other than you guys stay there." I gave her the keys and left my truck (a 1952 Dodge - I drove one in the Army and loved it. I scrounged around and found a beater and spent six months and too many bucks restoring it) and she drove me to Sky Harbor Airport.

Flying United out of Terminal Two, I landed in Honolulu after a long flight. I stayed at the Ala Moana Hotel for two weeks while looking for a place to live. In a bit of luck I found a small house to lease in Ewa Beach. It was a very compact, a large bedroom with bath and two small rooms, about ten by ten each, and a small, but well equipped kitchen. I used one bedroom for an office and the other for storage.

The small house was a block from the beach, and my generous housing allowance covered maybe half of the lease. I'd told Roger, the division chief that I didn't want to go unless I could stay at least a year.

While I was at the Ala Moana I spent some time on the beach, and certainly, the bar. At that time the venerable hotel was a popular place for stewardesses to layover. One day in the middle of my stay, I made a feeble attempt to learn to surf. I quickly realized that while I had a lot of skills, standing on a board floating on the moving ocean was not one of them. Walking back across Waikiki beach to return the board to the rental place, I saw a girl sunning on the sand. She was lying on a towel on one of those woven roll-up mats and had on a bikini. I used the term bikini somewhat loosely ... what she had on was a bikini.

I had never really believed the old saw about clothes making the woman. That is, a woman is what she was; the clothes were just a decoration, not the essence of the woman. In this special case though, I was quick to concede that this woman was enhanced in all possible ways by what she was wearing, or in this case maybe not wearing.

She was long—she looked like she could look me in the eye and I was an inch shy of six feet—and she was lean. Not skinny by any means, the curves were all there and in the right places, but other than that she was quite trim, with a well-toned musculature emphasizing the curvy parts.

Her hair was that shade of dirty blond sometimes called, dishwater blond. I had never felt that was a particularly attractive description, to me she just had dark blond hair with light blond flecks. Rather attractive, actually. The suit, more accurately, the two tiny pieces of material masquerading as a real swimsuit, was an off shade of gold, perfectly complementing the bronzed skin she had so obviously worked hard to attain.

She was quite lovely; I would go so far as to say she had a classic beauty. She reminded me of Gene Tierney in "A Bell for Adano", a movie Gene played with her hair blond. In my quick glance (no more than a minute or two) as I passed by, I did see two slight mars in the face that so enchanted me. There was the tiniest crook in her nose, which I thought was cute, and her lips were a tad too pouty. Ah, but pouty or not I had the strongest impulse to kiss those lips to awaken the sleeping beauty.

By no means was I concerned with valor, but discretion ruled and I made my way on up the beach. After returning the board, I made my way back to my room for a shower and a nap. Several days later, on the eve of my move to Ewa Beach, I sat at the outside bar under the huge banyan tree. Thinking, of all things, of loneliness, I paid no notice when someone sat on the stool next to me, I just gave a slight body shift to allow more room.

Pulling my pack of Camels out of my shirt pocket, I carefully selected the last of my self-allowed daily smokes. Twirling the 'cancer pill' slowly, I thought back to Martha's "Dear Jerry" letter. Idly thinking about betrayal, I stared at the slowly turning white cylinder, flipping the lid of my Zippo with the 8^th Army insignia on it. Open, closed, open, closed, like a mantra: "betrayal, betrayal!"

A voice, low, sultry, breathed in my ear, "you gonna smoke that thing, or play with it all day."

Snapping out of my reverie, I saw the bikini girl sitting on the next stool, cigarette poised in her slim hand, waiting for a light. With a sudden show of complete calm, I dropped my Zippo on the floor, putting a nasty dent in the tip right corner, the first dent in the previously pristine lighter.

"Sorry about that, I was thinking."

Carefully, I opened the lid and flipped the thumb-wheel and ... nothing. Quickly I flipped it again, and again, and ... still nothing. I looked up to see the bartender lighting her cigarette with a book of bar matches.

Giving me a smile to die for, she said, "You're smooth, I'll give you that. Anyone else would have just lit my cigarette, but you actually have my attention. Now if I could just find something to drink I might be happy the rest of the evening."

Some have accused me of being slow, but never stupid. I waved to the bartender and when he got there the girl asked for a Mai Tai. That was way too sweet for me, so I said, "Scotch rocks is fine with me."

Waiting for the drinks, I leaned back and looked at her. Sure enough, it was the bikini girl in person. She had an army uniform on, and by the caduceus insignia with a large 'N" superimposed I deduced she was a nurse, and the silver bars on her shoulders meant she was a lieutenant. I had to admit she was almost as good looking with a uniform as she was with skimpy beach wear. Almost.

"I'm in the inactive reserve; does that mean I have to salute you?"

"Not indoors, and certainly not in a bar," she said, laughing.

The drinks came and we were quiet for a moment as we took a couple of sips. Seemingly as one, we turned to each other.

"I'm Jer..."

"I'm Angie..."

Smiling at her, I tried again, "I'm Jerry Kinsolving. I've been staying here for a couple of weeks, but I'm moving tomorrow."

"I'm Angie Brown. It looks like I'm moving tomorrow also, whether I want to or not."

I raised an eyebrow, so she continued, "My lease was up and my landlord wanted to raise my rent a huge amount. I've got a lead on a place between Tripler Army Medical Center and the Fort Shafter Golf Course. Three girls were sharing it but one of them is transferring to the VA Hospital in San Francisco."

Without thinking, but gallantly in retrospect, I offered, "If you need any help, let me know. I gave her one of my business cards that had the office number for GE in Pearl City.

We chatted for a bit, and then she gave me a clear smirk, and asked, "So I'm the Bikini Girl, huh?"

I stuttered for a bit, not making any sense, when she took pity on me.

"I overheard you talking to the bartender. I certainly noticed you lingering around me while I was getting some sun. I wasn't sure if you were a window shopper that was just looking or if you actually admired me as a person."

Finding my tongue at last, I offered, "There is no question of my interest. You are a lovely woman and I'd like to take you out to dinner after we both get moved and settled in." Wow, was I smooth!

We chatted for a bit then she had to leave. The next morning I took my few bags and met the movers at my new home for the next year. I didn't have much, no furniture, mostly books and some personal stuff ... certainly no pictures of Martha. The fireplace at the cabin had neatly taken care of those.

One thing that hadn't worked out for me though—I had been positive that I could score with one of the ever-present Stews, but it never happened. Sure, I got some thanks for the drinks and a dinner or two, but it was chaste times on Waikiki Beach. Angie showed the promise of more than making up for it though.

----∞∞∞----

That Friday night I got a call from Angie, so I spent the better part of the weekend helping her get settled. It wasn't all work though, I got to know her much better and wound up with a date for the next Saturday night. For myself, well, I'd settled into a routine at work and at home.

At work I was working twelve hour days, four days a week. I didn't mind the hours but I was resolved and religious about, not working on weekends and on Fridays, I'd come in at six and take off at noon. After the first week it was clear that most of the problems resolved around operations. I worked with the computer operators different shifts during the second week. I called my boss and gave him a report.

"I see three major areas to be resolved along with a couple of less important items. The main problem is the training of the computer operators. I plan on doing some personal training while working with Navy staff on redoing their training program. The next problem in importance is that error messages are not always clear. There are too many spurious messages, which are just informational. These should be looked at by operator request, not by alerting the operator. There are no error messages for some major problems, and some are just hard to understand. The other key area I'd like to look at is their backup procedure. They don't have a good back-up process documented, which leads to inconsistent results. I can clear this up with them over the next couple of weeks.

"For the key items, I'd like to have a software designer out here for a month to work alongside the Navy operators. I think for the long term we need a fresh new look. The last item is the general area of performance problems. This is going to take some time and I'll need to get a couple of performance experts out to set up a measuring plan to see how severe the problems are and what steps need to be taken."

"Thanks, Jerry. I was fairly sure those were the types of problems you would find. Keep working them out and stay in touch. Could you put together a plan specifying dates and resources needed, and I'll get blanket approval for getting everything completed? I'll be out in a couple of months, around the middle of September. We can meet with some of the other naval division heads. Some good news from you might help us close some significant upgrades. By the way, I got approval to take care of all of your housing costs, and there just might be a pleasant surprise in your next paycheck. Keep up the good work."

On a personal level, I found a lot of time to spend at the beach. I'd always been a strong swimmer, and I really enjoyed swimming out beyond the surf. The surfing enthusiasts tended to congregate in several specific areas each day depending on wave action. I had no problem avoiding them and was in great shape in no time.

I enjoyed the weather. Summer days tended to be in the high eighties with almost constant trade winds blowing. I read that winter highs were usually in the low eighties, so it did sound like paradise, trite as that may sound. It could rain, but summers—June through September—were relatively dry.

I particularly liked the summer breezes. They kept it from getting too hot and were really refreshing when I got out of the water. The house I was leasing had a lanai across the back. It was really just a screened in porch but it did catch the breezes, and was very pleasant during the early morning and the evenings. I took to having my morning coffee there, and some meals. The back yard was beautifully decorated, and the lease included yard maintenance.

It worked out well with Angie. The first dinner—at a downtown steak place, she was a meat eater—turned into several more. It wasn't long before she was spending most of the weekends at my place. She had rotating weekend duty, so it wasn't every week that she shared my bed.

Best was the time we spent at the beach. She drew a lot of attention—more than a few men looked at me like they were wondering why such a babe would be with me instead of them. It was nice to spread lotion on her ... and to have her return the favor, while we lay on the sand with the cooling air coming of the surf gently caressing us. I would watch her hair fluff up as she napped on the beach, the breeze making it look alive. Angie had a lovely voice and at times as we would walk along the edge of the water the wind would swirl her words around, sometimes taking them from me, at other times seeming to send them directly into my mind.

We loved to sit in the lanai of an evening, the soft air fragrant with the heavy scent of too many flowers. We would hold hands and at times it seemed it would last forever. Each day would fly by like one of the colorful Chinese kite so common on the beach; the turbulent air off the ocean whipping the kites and days away as if the kites and days were without number.