Stories From College Days

I've been writing a memoir of college days. Hard to write some of these stories - they strike a little too close to home sometimes.

Here's one story of when I was working at the Air Force Weapons Lab (AFWL) at Kirtland Air Force Base (AFB) in Albuquerque, circa 1978:

In order to reach the AFWL, we’d have to pass through one of the Kirtland AFB guard posts, typically the one on Carlisle Blvd. I remember one day, waiting second-in-line in my VW Bug as the guard talked to the driver of a camper vehicle in front of me.

To my surprise, there was a small boy in the back of the camper vehicle. He would wave his hand out the back window, duck, hide, and then reappear to wave again. He was so cute! I scrunched down behind my steering wheel, held my hand close to my face, flapped my fingers with a tiny, vigorous motion, and ducked as well. We played our little hide-and-seek game as the adult conversation dragged on.

Suddenly, the camper vehicle pulled away. The little boy reappeared and waved as the vehicle drove away. I continued scrunching down behind my steering wheel, holding my hand close to my face and flapping my fingers vigorously as the camper receded into the distance.

Snap back to reality. The guard was attentively watching me, apropos of nothing, scrunching down behind my steering wheel and flapping my fingers close to my face. He walked out and authoritatively stood in front of my vehicle, hands on hips. He looked around, abruptly bent his knees, scrunched down, and by holding his hand very close to his face, waved me through with the tiniest of waves.