BY CLYDE B. "BUD" RUE
- 1969 -
Note: The author was born 2 August 1934 in Detroit, Michigan; married B. Ann Rue on 8 September 1956 in Bound Brook, New Jersey; and died 24 October 1993 in Milanville, Penna. The following manuscript was typed sometime around 1969 and appears to be a relatively rough, unfinished work, written for self-reflection. Part I, which was written as part of a job application, focuses more on later professional development than the period described below, is available here - TSR
A website for Bud Rue To begin a story implies that there is a point at which you can measure to start. This story seems to have been going on forever. For the sake of understanding I will almost arbitrarily choose a point in time. The time is when Ann and I first met.
She was a freshman and I a first-term sophomore at Michigan State. She was living in Williams girls' dorm. I was living at College House. College House was a large old home owned and operated by the local Y.M.C.A. The first floor and basement were used for social activities; the third for housing a few needy students.
I really don't remember much about our first meeting except after bounding down the stairs I found myself in a sizable group of people. She was one of several girls. The first things I remember noticing were: she was quiet, pretty, a little ill-at-ease, and had a case of pimply face. Who knows the cause of the pimples, probably her period.
I dated her a few times and felt that I had enjoyed myself. As to how much enjoyment it was I guess it was good. I really hadn't dated much in my life and don't know what it meant to feel at ease with a girl. With a girl hell. I didn't know what it meant to feel at ease with anyone.
I dropped out of school half-way through fall term. I told people that the reason was money. Maybe it was. Maybe it was I didn't feel I could do the work. Maybe it was because I felt so alone in the group of people I lived with that I wanted to escape. Whatever it was, I told those who asked that it was money. My brother Bill had just returned from Korea and started to school on the G.I Bill. I joined the navy supposedly so that when I was discharged, my schooling could be paid for by the government. I wonder now what my reasons for joining were. Escape? Probably. I think the prospective of making an irreversible decision appealed to me. I remember how my parents took it. Mom was completely broken up, but this was nothing new. She seemed to completely break up over anything, no matter how trivial. This really didn't bother me. My father shook the hell out of me. Instead of ranting and raving as he usually did, he cried quietly. I knew it meant a lot to him that I go to college. He had wanted me to go to West Point very much. I had decided I was going to show my independence -- I got an appointment to Annapolis but during football season of my senior year in high school I dislocated my elbow. The way that it mended prohibited me from passing the physical exam. Here I was dropping out of school completely. Why was I disappointing him so? I didn't want to hurt him. I didn't want to hurt Mom either, but it didn't really bother me when I did because I couldn't tell if was real or not. I'm sure I really hurt her many times and for those times I even now feel bad, but she seemed to lie so often with the overt display of emotions, I couldn't believe her at all. I resented not knowing really how she felt.
Loneliness, Christ I thought I had been lonely before. It seemed now that I was alone in a sea of people. At least at the Y-House, and at home, people seemed to pretend to care. Here in boot camp not only didn't they care, they didn't pretend. Like the chief said, "We don't give a fuck how any of you guys feel. Just act like sailors." Things were bad. I tried to write a few letters to Mom, Dad and Bill and became discouraged of this when I received few or no replies. I got a card from Bill saying he had posted my letter on the bulletin board with a note, "He wants someone to write to him." The bastard. He hung my feeling of despair out for everyone to mock. During boot camp I was appointed chief peon or whatever the title. It was like Junior Assistant Scoutmaster. I guess they picked me because I had a year in college ROTC or some other stupid reason like that. This loneliness thing sure wasn't helped a bit by this role. As unsure as I was with people-- then I'm told to be responsible for the actions of others. I didn't feel very responsible even for my own actions. Actually, at the time they told me I was to be chief peon, I felt good. I think I believed that people would look to me for leadership-- be my friend and all that rot. Man, what a disappointment. They all hated me and I knew it. How did I know it? Little ways like taking my fartsack off my pad before inspection and tromping it into the mud, like talking me into getting into the ring to represent them in a boxing tournament and cheering like hell when I was kicked on my ass. Great to be one of the chosen ones, eh? Anyhow, when I begged to be relieved of my position and the request was granted, I thought things would have to be better. I couldn't have been more wrong. Now I was a thing to be pitied, ridiculed and all that. I really felt like doing something to myself, anything, just to be removed from the scene. I used to report to sick bay just in hopes that they might find something wrong and confine me long enough to be transferred to another company. If only I could start over.
When the time came to be interviewed as to the type of assignment I wanted I didn't know what the hell I wanted. They told me I could go to any school the navy had. Then they told me about 50 zillion different things I could do or places I could go. I remember one thing in particular that I had heard somewhere, "Sub duty is for people who must be able to work closely together." I didn't feel very able but I wanted to work closely so bad that I didn't give a shit about it being on the bottom of the sea. I was sent to New London to train for submarine duty. Scared? Oh man.
I arrived at the base in a blinding snowstorm. I had flown from Great Lakes to Providence in a transport with a bunch of other guys who also seemed scared. Funny, at the time I felt a kind of camaraderie with them, maybe realizing the common denominator -- fear. When I took the bus from Providence to New London, I was all alone. Getting off that bus at the gate, seabag on my shoulder, alone in this fantastic storm, created a feeling in me I will always remember. I was the only man on earth condemned to -- to God only knows.
Life at sub school was bearable, whatever that means. I studied and did reasonably well. Occasionally, I went into town with the guys. I still never felt any real bond between me and anyone else. The part that always seemed to bother me was how people would talk about their many and true friends. How were they able to find them? How true were they? How did they know they were true?
I was assigned to the U.S.S. Trout at New London. It was one of the last conventional boats built before the atomic era. A crew of 85 officers and men. Officers and men? What did that mean? I'm a man, at least they kept telling me so. If I'm a man, what were the officers?
My first assignment was to the sea-gang. This meant I had to chip paint, stand watches, paint, clean whatever got dirty, stand coolie duty in the galley, and anything else someone who wasn't a man dreamed up. Really, I didn't do all those things at once, and I had time to spend as I saw fit. The work assignments were simple and I didn't resent them -- sometimes. I was supposed to work at qualifying -- earning my Dolphins. This meant I was to learn as much as the non-men determined I was supposed to about the various systems on the boat. I was supposed to be able to operate any piece of equipment on the boat. Many things I was supposed to be able to repair in case of emergency. I learned many of the things I was supposed to with great difficulty. Some things I was credited for knowing I really didn't understanding. I believe the name of the game is, Learn What You Can and Bullshit What You Don't. There was one system I couldn't seem to either learn or bullshit my way through, so what did I do? I signed my own card. I got my Dolphins and was proud of them. I showed them off for all the hard work they represented. It was easy to put all the bullshit and lies out of my mind, but sometimes -- .
For the first two years in the navy I guess I was relatively happy. WHATever the hell that means. I met Jack. Jack was a goer. He seemed to want many of the same things that I wanted. He was devoutly Catholic, and showed it. He not only wanted many of the things that I wanted, he seemed to have the drive that I lacked to get them. He earned his Dolphins in a minimum amount of time. He earned the rate of first class electrician's mate in the three and a half years he was in the navy. Jack came from a very meager background financially speaking. His father was a drunk and his mother was very ill. He dropped out of high school in the ninth grade to work in a bakery to support his mother. When his mother died, he joined the navy on a kitty-cruise. It seemed to me that he felt he had to prove his worth to the world. He held himself to what to me to be very high and very good standards, but because of this very few people appeared to be close to him. I spent many liberties with Jack and enjoyed his presence as I had never with any other person. We drank together, worked together, ate together. I believe he felt for me some of what I felt for him, even though there were many times when his humor was at my expense. He use to make little digs as to my weight, my ability to do various things, that hurt. I would try and reciprocate with like humor but failed, probably because my heart was not in it. He was giving me too much for me to want to hurt him. I taught him how to play chess and before he was playing a year was beating the hell out of me. I minded this and I didn't. I thought I played a pretty good game, but not against him. If anybody had to beat me consistently I was glad it was Jack. Jack was my friend. What did he do? He seemed to care about the things I cared about and, more importantly, he seemed to care about me.
I had been in the navy about a year when I took leave to go home. I was anxious to go home to visit my parents and to visit Bill at College House. I really don't know why I was anxious to unless I had conjured up an unreal fantasy of what the old homestead was like. I certainly have a facility for focusing with nostalgia only on the good aspects. When I got home it was the same old shit; Mom and Dad fighting like hell and maneuvering me right into the middle of whatever it was. I called Bill and asked him to get me a ticket for the Notre Dame game. When I got up to school, he had not only done this but had arranged for me to take Ann with me. Oh man, I was in my glory! I hadn't earned my Dolphins yet, but who the hell would know if I wore them. "You're a submarine sailor?" people would ask. What a fantastic feeling, tinged with something way in the back of my mind saying, "There you go again claiming glory with bullshit." I would go into long speals recounting all that might look good, and stretching that sometimes almost to the breaking point. How I wished for those things to be true as I was relating them.
I liked Ann. She didn't come on strong, but she seemed to like me. I lied to her many times in our courtship. I wanted so much for her to want me, and how could she want me if I told her only the truth. I enjoyed my leave very much, I guess, because she seemed to enjoy me. I returned to East Lansing quite a few times on weekend passes, hitch-hiking both ways in 72 hours. They were good weekends. I guess I was being fed the things I thought I wanted, including feeling that she was too. I thought I was in love. Who knows, maybe I was. One thing is certain, I had never felt toward anyone the way I felt toward her. I made "improper" advances. She never let me go very far. I liked this, whatever the reasons, I liked this. Maybe it convinced me that she was a girl of high morals, whatever that means.
Ann invited me to spend Christmas vacation with her at her home in Bound Brook, New Jersey. She was bringing a girlfriend with her, and I brought Jack with me.
When I met Ann's family, I felt what more could anyone want than to come from a family like the Woldins. Her mother was vivacious, smooth-talking, and seemed to run the all-American home. Her father was quiet, enjoyed sports, and seemed very much engrossed in his work.
The Christmas week I spent at the Woldins was for me a very good one. There were a couple of occasions when things got tight. I really can't remember the whys. I know Jack and Ann's girlfriend started off well, but very quickly degenerated into a real bad thing. All I know about the details is that they hardly spoke to each other after the first day.
- Part I -
FAMILY WRITINGS
