Don's Blackeye

emember when you were a kid and you broke your arm, got a deep cut, or got a black-eye you wanted to show it off in a subtle way, like “nothing to it!”? I know I did. This picture was my Navy friend Don Lash, on the outside stairs of our Navy baracks showing me his blackeye he received the night before. How it happened, we were station at NAS LAKEHURST, NJ 08733*, deep in the winter, literally snowed in. No one could come or go. People were getting stir-crazy and cabin fever. We couldn’t leave the base, even if they said we may, we still couldn’t. Too much snow. But we could walk to the EM Cllub! Back in the near mid 1960s all bars, it seemed, had video jukeboxes. The EM Club was no exceptions. The EM Club was full of drunk people. Many was irritable too. It seemed the Marines were louder and more irritable. One Marine were really dancing to the rock and roll music wildly. We started imitating him. One of his friends saw us and punched him and pointed to us. Mind-set he rushed over to us and smiling Don complemented him on his music moves. Then the guy floored him. That’s All Folks! *08733! Every time I type Lakehurst, NJ, I automatically type the zip code 08733. This is me bragging that I still remember the zip code there.