YOU TWO KNOW, of course, that Bob Lewis lived across the street from us.  In Norwalk.  Long time ago.  Our daughters were same age - grew up together.  Started school together.  Barbie's Mom was the Teacher!  

Bob was Ex-Jarhead.  (Those who are Marines today - and their families - best look this one up in the books)...  

Saipan.  Tarawa. Okinawa....  

All of them.  Ever hear of them?  (He was there when the Mommies jumped off the Cliffs with babies in their arms.... Because of the 'Murican Monsters.  Know about that one?  Shit...)  

He and I drank and "rapped" together lotsa nights, back then - but we didn't call it "rapping" back then, either...  

New neighborhood - our houses built by same builder: water in both basements, etc.  I kept Bob from killing the builder (and he reciprocated) - who lived down the street.  (I was onetime Gravel-Pounder - so we had much to argue -and often agree! -  about).  He was a pisser: little guy - but tough.  Worked for A.C. Nielsen.  Pushed me night and day - I was floundering - couldn''t find my niche (still can't: never did): he shoved me into "marketing"  - tled to advertising - said, "Bernie, you are Nat'ural...."  

(To myself I thought... I still think... I was "Nat'ural ...Fuck Up":...)  

His Motorized Landing Craft drove ashore, you see, over the heads of wounded Jap ( if you are a Mod-ren who only thinks "Japanese" to be proper here: Go Fuck Yourself!)  soldiers dying on the beach under them.  Their heads "popped"  as they drove over them (Bob said).  I (later) noted same in a poem I wrote honoring (!) him after he died and all (how you gonna' honor a guy like this, anyhow?) - and the Marine Corps publication liked it - a lot! - but turned it down because they didn't "do" poetry... )  

LOL!  

So we  fought and drank and yarned and palled around for several years up there on Thistle Road.   

Damn!    

Then he got Lung Cancer from smoking.  Had to carry oxygen bottle around.   

Jean, my wife, had got lung cancer from smoking, too.   Couple years before. They operated. Same Chink doctor, in fact...  In eleven days, start to finish, she was dead (1979).  

Then Jeanne (Bob's wife... I know this gets hard to follow.  So does ... LIFE...) says to me:  

"Bernie, Bob just sits around house now on the O2 bottle.  Can you think of anything?"  

I said,  "You betcha!"  

So I took him in car and we drove down Merritt Parkway and West Side Drive  to Intrepid  (bet you thought Intrepid part never coming, right? LOL...!)  

In Hudson River.  One Sunday afternoon.  

I got us both On Board.  Intrepid was just come to her berth.  First time.  Weren't many "rules' or anyone watching...  

You "paid" whatever at Entrance - and went Aboard!  

We did the whole nine yards.  He was pretty short of breath - but we went all decks and all.  He explained what we were seeing: flight elevators;  the Brig (I knew about that!), the great kitchens, etc.

We wound up on Flight Deck.  They had some old WWII planes there - I think maybe B-52's...(What I know?  I was Gravel Pounder...).  

They had not yet "stabilized" these things or anything - and I found that the doors under the planes where you stoop down to enter, were open - and I said "Let's go inside!" to Bob...

I got him in and up into fuselage.  

He had always wanted to fly and be a flyer - not  Jarhead in the beach sand down below...  

I got him into Pilot's Seat!  (And me Co-Pilot... LOL!)  

He about wet his pants, he did!  Controls and all!  All kind of gear laying around - not checked out yet you see, etc.   

Now listen Up: on Windscreen in front of me was a sort of weird "skeletonized" graph sort of thing that showed in transparent fashion ( if you follow me) how far you were from dropping your bombs on the target you could see through the skeleton...  

And shit like that!  

So I pried it off the windshield and when we got home again I gave it to him.  It was his keepsake for the flyer he never was till he died.  

Which he did not long after - and I was leaving town forever that day (would you believe all this?  You can't make this shit up!) and I followed his hearse to Waterbury (long ways upstate) and I played Marine Corps hymn on my car radio while I drove,  and they never knew I was "interloper" in cortage..  

And cigarettes did for him like they did for Jean... but not an Arisaka ... as did for many of his buddies anyhow ... and he had one over his fireplace.  

And before he died I took him up to junkyard once,  and let him shoot at old cans and old TV sets and shit...  

After all he was a Jarhead and like Gravel-Pounders, in the end what Jarheads do best is shoot at ...things... an' Japs... an' stuff from down in the beach...  

Bob Lewis.  State of Mainer, he was.  Sixth Marines, maybe (I forget...).  Good Troops!  No more like him, an' that is a fact!  Just me and the ones that sweep up after the parade.  

Damn!  

bernie (aka...pop)  

ps-  

And for the record, I took him up to football game at West Point one time - and we went through Museum - and we saw George Armstrong's note written while the Sioux were coming down hard upon him:   

''Benteen. Come on. Big Village. Be Quick. Bring [ ammunition ] packs.''