After the American Community School (ACS) in Beirut, Lebanon, there was still life but the distance from home in Dhahran became huge. Now, I was separated from my parents and sister by half a world including a vast ocean. At times, my home in Dhahran was more like a dream. Luckily, the Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad, California, was a strong school and the faculty understood the anxiety of a student separated from his family. Parents sent their boys to the Academy and hoped to get back men. EVERY MINUTE was structured and I must say that ACS had much more social latitude with girls and almost daily events. Of course, I say that in retrospect.
Also, my life with ARAMCO changed as well. As a member of the ACS-Beirut student body, I became a returning student, a dependent person whose ARAMCO family I could return to on vacations by company airplane. Beirut was just 1,200 miles up the Trans-Arabian Pipeline (TAPLine) from Dhahran. These weeks, of hometown reconnection with family and student colleagues who went off to different schools in Europe and the United States, were grand.
Of the many cherished things I left behind when I went away to school, one was the wherewithal to lean on my parents. At ACS, there just was not time nor were there telephones for a quick jingle back down the TAP Line to Dhahran. Who could afford 15 Lebanese Pounds a minute? I was getting four Lebanese a week allowance, just enough for a malt at Uncle Sam’s, a haircut, and a single feature film at the Revoli on Friday.
Pretty soon it hit me, ‘kid, you’ve got to solve your own problems; you’ve got to be shape up, take control! Since I stepped in stuff so often and since I had no practice at getting out of anything without my parents’ resolving shadow, I finally decided I’d just have to turn good. This thought caused a strange feeling of insecurity to creep up my neck and down into my bladder. I was in ultra denial.
In Beirut, my new safety net was just next door disguised as Bill Crays and Gary Cody. Actually, I thought they were my enemies. They were from Abqaiq and I was from Dhahran. We were sport rivals. We fought over the same women. We hissed at each other through squinty eyes! There was no way I was going to cavort with those desert rats! Then, as so many of you know of past friends, we discovered one another one afternoon down on the Corniche, just a few blocks from the Boarding Department (BD). It was a pleasant early evening before study time, and we were throwing rocks in the Mediterranean while literally hundreds of Lebanese family members took the evening promenade. We jumped down from the seawall onto the rugged rocks of the tidal table. We dodged the ebbing surf and with no rocks to throw there, we turned our attention to a rickety platform for amusement. We carried it to the edge and tossed it into the surf and congratulated one another as it floated off toward Ras Beirut.
The next day we were notified that each of us was to pay 150 Pounds Lebanese for the destruction and loss of a fishing station. We laughed and spouted, ‘it was just some junky wood! Nobody in his right mind would try to fish off that thing. We did the guy a favor by getting rid of it.’ One of the Lebanese staff negotiated on our behalf and we were each ‘allowed’ to contribute 15 pounds Lebanese. Never mind the money! I had found two friends and from that day forward when the stuff came down at ACS, Cody, Crays, and Christophersen were united in a way special to the human condition. We became known as The Three Cs.
And so for the next school year, we sneaked up to the Cedars, we rode motorcycles expressly against the rules, we enticed a limo driver to careen down the Corniche at top speed in reverse, we frolicked at Saint Simon, we harassed the tram ticket takers, and we took care of one another. For me it was a grand alliance. I loved those two guys; thoughts of my family only came up when I needed money.
I missed my two friends a great deal when I enrolled at the Army and Navy Academy (ANA) the following year. As I tied my tie, shined my shoes, and stood too long at attention on the parade field in my Class A uniform modeled after West Point, I relished the wonderful images that caused the corners of my mouth to spread in a grin. Lt. Rainier would glare at me with a slow burn; his eyes would narrow and I knew he was not happy to see me standing in the hot sun with a grin. This was not supposed to be fun.
And then on Spring holiday from ANA, my academy roommate, Phillip Fricker, took me to Disneyland. The theme park had just opened in southern California and Phil had gotten a job driving the Tom Sawyer raft back and forth to the island. He knew all the help and they slipped me in. After riding the raft a few times, I wandered around the rest of the day. It must have been the hand of fate that took me to the Mad Hatter’s Tea Cup ride.
I stood by the gate and watched the entrants spin their handle and turn the cups with such velocity that when the stage stopped revolving, they got up and could hardly keep balance. It was fun to watch the people stagger away from the scene. Two guys were outmatching others as they spun their teacup recklessly. Something about them seemed familiar. And slowly it came to me that some gift had radiated down for the vast beyond. When the ride stopped, they stood and I could see their faces and recognize their carriage- Cody and Crays!
I shouted their names and for an instant we stood transfixed, then bolted together in a jubilant, jumping hug as we chirped and celebrated the happiness of renewal. It is one of the special moments in my life.