Reinke Faces Life

John,

I just wanted to offer you my deepest sympathies and condolences at this time. I’ve not seen this sooner otherwise I would have replied earlier.

I’ll always have very fond memories and even though we only met and knew each other for a short time, I will certainly always remember the way she welcomed me into her home and life.

With sympathy,
Matt

# – # – # – # – # 2011-Mar-26 @ 07:58

In going thru her jewelry box, I found “my” id bracelet. Boy did that bring back memories.

Remember I was in college when we met, the “meat grinder” in Viet Nam was in full operation. All college students were automatically granted a student deferment. So I was given that deferment when I entered Manhattan College.

As a result of arm twisting by both our mothers, she “decided” that she wanted to wait to marry until I graduated. I wasn’t overjoyed at that, but it was 3 against 1. And these were all “pig headed” Irish women. You might convince one; three, never!

I graduated in 1968.

But, since MC offered, I took advanced electronics courses which extended my deferment until June, 1969. Minutes after my fifth year (automatic) deferment extension expired, I was drafted. Based on the “meat grinder”, I wanted to wait to marry until we understood what my military obligation would be. It wouldn’t be fair to her to make her a young widow. She had girl friends, who had that happen to them, and they were destroyed. If something happened to me, it would be bad. (Especially bad from my point of view.) If we were married, it would be far harder. Maybe even with children? I had options in the military — get drafted into the Army (And off to the Republic of.), Naval Aviator (Yeah, with my eyesight, they’d give me a plane? Over Viet Nam!), and USAF with no promises at all (But a lot less percentage involvement in the “meat grinder”?).

We talked about it. I volunteered for the USAF and took my chances. They gave me a report date of 2/1/70. Hey, six months of partying! And, I could continue to work at AT&T to pay for it.

Long story short, she wasn’t happy about waiting. I egotistically thought that she thought I was being a reluctant groom having second thoughts. Even after I reassured her that she had me “hooked”, she was still on edge. She really understood why I wanted to wait but never shared her fears. Maybe I was stupid, but I really hadn’t thought about it at all. I thought it would be a good six months; what did I know. She was zoned on the news reports from “Republic of”. I didn’t know it then, but I did later that she was imagining the worst. And the long six months took a terrible toll on her.

We’d already been saving for the wedding and starting a new life. So, during this six month extension, “we decided” to accelerate that savings. She “would help me” manage “our” money. (And I had no prenup.) Each payday, all my overtime and a good chunk of my pay went into the “wedding” passbook savings account at Pramapo Bank. Every Friday, she’d take her paycheck and also make a deposit. (I was never privy to that bit of “high finance”. And, would tease her mercilessly about it. But, she never let me see the bank book. For fear I’d want to spend some?) The six months just flew. Thanksgiving, Christmas, my birthday, we just lived. The uncertainty was never discussed.

Finally it was January 31st, I was bunking over on her Mom’s couch. We spent that night just holding on. Neither of us slept much. As the dawn broke, I got ready to leave. I was taking the PATH to the Subway to the Brooklyn Induction Center on Jay Street. Had to report at 10AM. We had adopted “Leaving on a Jet Plane” as our song and had agreed that my first leave after finding that I wasn’t going to “Republic of” we’d wed. As I was ready to go, she gave me a present.

I opened it and it was the afore mentioned ID bracelet.

She made me promise to wear it so that she would know for sure. She didn’t have say sure of what, but that was obvious as the MIA counts went up daily. I knew that I couldn’t wear it on duty, but I humored her. She spent very little money on it. It was obviously very cheap. She told me she did that deliberately so that it wouldn’t be stolen by a body robber. That was grim. We were grim. She left me at the landing. She wasn’t crying. My allergies were acting up when I hit the street for my cab up to Journal Square.

Fast forward.

After basic training, I got the word that I was going to be assigned to Maryland for Language School for a year, then some schools, and then assigned to USAFSS in Laurel MD. I called her collect; she was ecstatic. (Would not be so happy when she got the phone bill!)

I hit language school 01 October and they gave us the schedule. It stated we were on mandatory leave at Christmas time. Another collect call and she went crazy. Not about the future phone bill, but the time interval. I told her we could wait until I got another leave in June. She wasn’t hearing that and pulled together a great wedding in record time.

The rest was history. Since it’s purpose was past, I returned the ID Bracelet to her when I outprocessed from USAF in December 1973. (Maryland was never invaded while I was on duty.) She was happy to take it back. I hadn’t seen that bracelet until the other day when I was cleaning out the jewelry box.

I’ll carry that from now on.

# # # # #

As most reading this will know, we affectionately refer to Evlynn as ‘our girl’ … most everyone does when referring to her.  It’s like a badge of honor, being allowed to say “she was our girl” … proud to have had the opportunity to know her.

My relationship with Ev goes way back to 1971, when I was working at NSA while in the Navy, and I had met this great guy John who was in the Air Force at the time, and also working at NSA.  We hit it off quite well, and he even helped me learn how to program in FORTRAN … which proved to be quite valuable, as I am working on 40 years now in Information Technology.  If I didn’t thank you back then buddy, I certainly do now!

But back to Ev … I found out that my new buddy John was pretty smart, because he had married Evlynn! John had invited Marge (my wife) and I to a ‘hootenanny’ (don’t ask, it was a 70’s phenomenon … and that’s a whole other story in itself!) with he and his new bride. We had both gotten married around the same time it turns out, and John wanted us to meet ‘his Evlynn’. Well we had a blast at that hootenanny, and then at several other times with John and Ev…at their apartment, and at ours … young military newlyweds with a lot in common (we liked board games and card games, except John won all the time!).  We also liked an adult beverage on occasion, and sometimes on several occasions!  [You know how those young people are.]

I could write tons about “our girl” Evy, about how caring she always was, how super generous she was, and just someone that you wanted to be around … she made you feel good.

But for this memory moment, for this time of thinking about Ev … I have decided to comment on something that John mentioned on his blog … about Ev and her basketball prowess, and how she humiliated several of his ‘macho’ buddies.

One weekend we all decided to head out to Williamsburg, VA, and we stayed at a beautiful golf resort called Kingsmill on the James (nothing but the best for us!). I think we went to Busch Gardens and then maybe to dinner one night … when we got back to the ‘condo’ it was still light out so we decided to take a walk around the resort property. Well we stumbled upon a huge building and were curious about what was inside … we peeked in and it was a full gymnasium!  Complete with basketballs laying around, and open nets waiting to be ‘swished’.  We started fooling around, shooting some shots and passing the balls around … and Ev says, “Hey Frenchy (my nickname), want to shoot a game of HORSE?”

My first reaction was to laugh … and I think I did, something like “Are you kidding?  Play HORSE against me?”  And Ev said, “Sure, why not?”

I wasn’t any superstar by the longest shot, but I played some intramural basketball in high school, and I had a pretty good shot.  I think I asked if she wanted ‘a spot’, you know…like I have to play until I get HORSE, but she only had to get to HOR to win…something like that.  I think I insulted her … because she said “NO, just shoot”, and passed me the ball.  Well the rest is a short story, I think she beat me “H” to “HORSE” … in other words she spanked me bad.  I recall asking for a rematch, since that had to be a fluke.  But then I think she shut me out the second game … HORSE to zero!

So now my new buddy’s wife, who was also fast becoming our best buddy too … had a whole new level of respect from me! Not only was she a great person, by gosh, she could play some hoops too!

I recall her husband John watching all this with a smug look on his face … he knew how it was going to turn out. Of course it wasn’t until later that I found out how good she was on her high school team, and then also played some semi-pro ball as well!

On some of our later visits to their house in NJ, we used to watch Ev coach “her girls” … at St. A’s where her teams were always sharp in their play, whether they were highly skilled or not. You could see how good a coach she was too … I think one year they only lost one game. So … you can see, “our girl” was something else … multi-talented and a good sport too, I don’t think she rubbed it in too much after my embarrassing defeat.
And it wouldn’t have been so embarrassing if I hadn’t tried to give her a spot at the beginning … that probably just made her mad.  :-)   We love you and miss you girl … just one of the many stories I could tell about Ev, as Marge and I were blessed all these years by knowing her.

Thanks for the memories Ev.