Editor’ Note: Good trip so far. I like the neighborhood here, and my pals have a great extended family who were most welcoming. It has been added to the possibilities list for re-location after we know a little more about the nature of our collective fates in the Fall.

The Las Vegas Bucket list thus far:

Visit 24 hour Pub.
Play some video poker
Take multiple naps
Check vodka levels at neighborhood homes- satisfactory
Bonefish grill for fine dining
Smashburger for lunch

Incomplete:

Drive to Nellis AFB to check Commissary, Exchange and Class Six
Check Nevada Test Site to see if everything is as I left it.

I will get to everything except Nellis before departing tomorrow. Meanwhile, back in the South of France a lifetime ago….

-Vic

A Bold New Decade

31 DEC 1989:

The wife kicked me out of bed early the next morning, just as the sun was casting its soft golden rays through the window. “Go jog” she said. “I want to be able to eat later.” She rolled over and left me to consider my shorts and shoes.

Although the chill lingered in the air, the sun was welcome as I made it down to the promenade along the water. I ran down the seafront and as the sweat built, decided I would assault the summit of the headland above the town. The city was coming to life as I loped along, up the hill and around the Cathedral on the cobbled streets. By the time I got back, she was ready to go shopping.

Shopping early… wine for the trip tomorrow back to Paris, or wherever. We found a wonderful bakery just down the street and buy bread and enjoy cafe au lait. We have to find another shop for wine- funny how the contents of the bottles keep disappearing- and then walk down the strand in the brilliant fresh-laundered sunlight.

It may be New Year’s Eve but we decide to go to the beach. We find some sun worshipers who have staked out the sun-drenched space below the concrete overhang below the promenade. I gird my loins and go for the last swim of 1989, last of a tumultuous decade. I am trying hard not to ogle the unleashed breasts down the row.

There are two sets of withered dugs and one magnificent set of friendly brown winkies. My wife won’t take off her top to join the three. Well, it was a one-piece suit, anyway…

We bake for a while and then return to the hotel for an interlude of romance, a quick nap, and then begin the pre-ball pandemonium.

Everything is a disaster. The wife wishes she had gone to the hairdresser, her dress isn’t right and the curling iron nearly bursts into flame while tangled in her hair. We decide to go anyway. There is much merriment in the Lobby; the officers come down in groups in their Mess Dress and we raid the beer machine for a spontaneous pre-party near the reception desk.

Later, we catch a ride up the hill with Moose and Paula. The venue is an inauspicious one. We pull up in front of the address and it appears to be a junior high cafeteria. It turns out great, though, and the Navy League has knocked themselves out to transform the place from light industrial into quietly elegant. There are mountains of food and rivers of wine.

We mistake the hors d’oeuvres for the main course…and thus the turkey goes
largely uneaten. We mix and mingle with an astonishing bunch of people. I have a long discussion with the leading baritone of the National Opera Company. We nearly miss the change of a brand new decade in La Belle France, but someone checks their watch and we don absurd paper-hats hats and open dozens more bottles of champagne.

Some time around 0230, we leave with CAG, Jackie, Avery and the
Deputy Attorney General of France…my wife is on my lap…a relief…We are home by 0330, where we observe returning humanity in the lobby…

01 JAN 1990.

We awake moderately late on this first day of the new decade. I have a hard time rolling the term “1990” off my tongue. It feels like science fiction, like we are time travelers now entering the Twilight Zone.

We have to pack to blow this pop-stand. I decide to send my uniform and sport coat back to the boat with the early car, which must depart by 1000. I slap on my beret and stalk across town to Avery’s to meet the Boys. It is another wonderful morning, and by the time I get across town I am almost starting to feel human again.

Avery’s house is just starting to come alive. Toad looks great; he wasn’t drinking the night before. A beautiful Cote D’Azur sun floods in through the kitchen window. It is crisp and it is beautiful and one cup of coffee later my hangover starts to go away. When I return to the Bunk Bed Hotel and the wife has got us pretty well organized, and we start the checkout procedure.

There is a cold beer in the fridge and dammit, it goes against my better nature to allow things like that to go to waste. I drink it on the balcony and by golly i am feeling fit as a fiddle in no time and whattdaya know, I think I am going to like the ’90’s!

We stop by Avery’s house after a jaunt through the awakening town. People throng the streets. Nothing much is open, but everyone is out venting the vapors from the collective crania. We enjoy Champagne with Avery, CAG, Jackie and the Deputy Attorney General of France who speaks no English.

It is very surreal.

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com