Be All You Can Be, But What All Would That Be?

There are times in my professional life where I truly wonder if I chose the right career path.

When I was a kid playing little league baseball, I thought I would grow up to be a professional baseball player. A shortstop for the Detroit Tigers. I was scouted when I was fifteen. But at that same time, I fell in love with soccer. I picked the game up quick and found that I could easily dribble the ball in circles around my opposition.

When I went to try out for the baseball team the next spring, our soccer coach put the word out I would not be allowed to play baseball. So I was cut before I even tried out.

That sent my Dad through the roof. I think he wanted my brother Paul and I to grow up and be baseball players too. I'm not sure my Dad ever really forgave me for that decision. I regret it still today. No, I don't think I would have been a pro baseball player.

Our soccer team was pretty elite – and we did have a shot to win the state (of Georgia) championship next fall. We came close but it didn't pan out. But I did get scouted to play college soccer. Remember that in the U.S. the term College is almost synonymous with the term University in Canada. I played soccer in college and was hurt shortly after our first season, destroying my knee. At the same time, I was also journalism major and a political science minor. But the professor there said I should quit journalism as the written word is going to vanish and be replaced by television. And in his opinion I had no chance of being a television journalist. So I switched to Computer Science.

Shortly afterwards I withdrew.

I was there to play soccer – I thought. If I can't play, then I shouldn't be here. I still regret that decision too.

After that I did some wandering around trying to 'find myself'. I did take a crack at playing a higher level of Soccer – but the knee was just not ready yet. And I did try to go back to school, both in New Orleans and in Baton Rouge. But I kept running out of funding.

I enlisted into the United States Coast Guard after watching a documentary on TV about the rescue divers. "I'm a great swimmer", I thought to myself. "I could really be a great rescue diver too!"

So down to New Orleans I went to enlist.

One of the questions the recruitment officer asked me was my nationality. "Canadian", I replied. "That shouldn't be a problem", he stated as he signed my papers and set me up to ship out to Cape May, New Jersey for boot camp. And while the military style of life was both intimidating and difficult, I liked the Coast Guard and found there was nothing they could throw at me I couldn't do.

I aced the swimming tests. I aced the written tests. But when the running portions of the physical exam were held, I finished with a limp on my right leg. My knee was not quite ready for that kind of running.

Shortly after that I found myself in the office of the Admiral of the base. I wish I remember his name. I do have his signature – on my honorable discharge papers.

It seems they don't let Canadian's in the Coast guard reach a rank any higher than a Seaman Recruit. That translates to the lowest rank of Private in the Army. My Coast Guard career would have consisted of mopping floors at the hospital on base until I achieved U.S. citizenship. That would take about five years. I had enlisted for four.

"I don't know why you're here son?" Said the Admiral as I stood at attention.

"Sir, I want to be a rescue diver, sir!" I snapped back as my minimal training had taught me to always start a sentence with Sir, and you ended that sentence with Sir.

"At ease, boy", he replied.

"Sir, Permission to speak freely , Sir?" I requested, not quite so snappish this time.

"I think that would be in order, seaman."

"Sir, I am an excellent athlete, and an accomplished swimmer. I had a scholarship to play soccer. I know I could be an outstanding diver, Sir."

"Some think you came here to get free surgery on your knee, boy."

"Sir, I've had the surgery, and the knee gets stronger every day", I said – now in a normal speaking voice, with all the sincerity I could muster.

"You're a Canadian, son?" he asked.

"I am Sir."

"Why did you not apply for American Citizenship? Don't you want to be an American, boy?" he asked.

"Sir, it had never been an issue before, I guess I never really thought I wasn't one, Sir."

That man looked me up and down. And he told me the rules. And rules in the Military are most definitely rules. And he asked me for the name of my recruiting officer, which at the time I still remembered, and told him.

"You should never have gotten this far, Fred." He said. I was stunned to hear my name. No one had called me Fred for four whole weeks. But he called me Fred.

"Your recruiting officer will be disciplined. And I am sorry that I have to give you two options, and the decision must be made right now." He said. "You can either apply right now for American citizenship and spend the remainder of your time on base as a Seaman recruit, or I will sign this Honorable Discharge for you and you can leave in the morning." The Admiral was still sitting in his chair behind his beautiful cherry red wood desk, he sat back and looked at me. It was not a mean look. It was the look of a man who was being sincere with me.

"I can't be a rescue diver, can I sir."

"Not in this tour son."

"I can't serve on a ship either?"

"Sorry".

"I guess I am of little use here, Sir. I want to be useful."

"Then you should go home and be useful to your family."

"Aye-aye, Sir."

And he signed my papers.

I am still a Canadian citizen still to this day. I am also loosely considered an American veteran, although I would never claim to be, nor expect any of the benefits of one.

When I returned to Baton Rouge, I found work. Hard work. Managing the night crew at a huge grocery store for a couple of years, and driving delivery trucks and warehouse work for an electrical supply company after that. And I learned that hard work means hard and work. And I knew that I had to get an education and figure out soon what it was I was supposed to do with my life.

When I came back to Canada to go to back to school, the Canadian Immigration officer at the Sarnia, Ontario port of entry said to me "Welcome home". I took that to heart. "They want me here!"

And since being back in Canada, I have always felt at home. Southern drawl or not, I am Canadian.

Since returning to Canada, I achieved my diploma, and for the past twenty-something years have been working in IT or IS - whichever you prefer – the last fifteen years at various levels of project management. And I have a pretty lengthy list of professional accomplishments, not to mention a wonderful family of a wife, two little girls, and now a cat and a dog, all living in what is still our dream home.

But I still sit and wonder about the decisions I made earlier in life. And I still regret I was never a rescue diver for the United States Coast Guard.

And tomorrow I'm getting this bloody knee fixed again.

My Little Mazda Mizer 808

I believe I had a mullet in the first half of the 1980s.

Up until when the Coast Guard shaved my head. But then they sent me home for being a Canadian. They actually accused me of trying to fool them.

I had as bare a scalp as I ever did. And I learned that I am not a man who looks good with a shaved head. I truly look like a pin head. The head of a pin. It took six months for my hair to grow back to even a punker cut.

But I digress.

Passing into adulthood in the Southeastern states of the U.S.; well, I was assimilated.

I had long hair halfway down my back. But it was cut over top of my ears. I pushed the hair on my forehead straight back.

I’m pretty sure that is what they call a mullet.

But we didn’t call it that back then.

I don’t think we called it anything?

I had a Mazda Mizer – an 808 – it was a four-cylinder two-door Datsun look-alike – it was the first Mazda sold in North America. It was a four-on-the-floor standard.

And it was a great little car.

I got it in high school, my Dad did help me buy it from a nurse. It had an AM Radio and 8-Track cassette player.

It was silver – and the hot Georgia sun had oxidized the paint so bad that I took it to Earl Schrieb’s and had them paint it metallic powder blue. They didn’t even take the old decal pinstripes off – they just painted right over them. So I repainted the pinstripes myself.

And you could tell.

The interior was black vinyl seats – splitting from the sun. and black rubber floor. The dash was all black. And when I would climb in that car in the summer – after lifeguarding – those seats burned. So the seats were usually covered by beach towels. And a trip to a carpet store for black remnants let me carpet my little car in black shag.

I took off my old gas pedal and put a chrome bare foot pedal down there.

My 8-track cassette case held the following jewels

• Styx – Grand Illusion
• Queen – News to the World
• SuperTramp – Breakfast in America
• Steve Miller – Fly like an eagle.
• Johnny Cash Live at San Quinton
  
• The Best of Hank Williams (not Jr.)
• Lynard Skynards Greatest Hits
• Frampton Comes Alive
• And a bootleg copy I got in Windsor on a summer vacation of the Best of The Beatles.

Pretty eclectic, eh?

I had no air-conditioning in that car. You wanted air conditioning? You drove a little faster with the windows rolled down.

And the faster you drove with the windows down, the louder you had to turn up the stereo.

That AM radio was quickly replaced with a Pioneer AM/FM radio. Cassettes had just come out – but had not yet caught on. We had no boom-boxes – no super-woofers. But we had four good speakers. And 96 Rock in Atlanta sounded great.

I drove that car through the remainder of my time in Georgia – through University – while we lived in Baton Rouge Louisiana.

For a brief time – one semester – I would drive into New Orleans from Baton Rouge everyday to attend courses. This meant driving on I-10 over all the bayou. On one day – coming home from New Orleans – my engine seized up.

I didn’t take care of that great little car. I didn’t bother to check the oil. And so it gave up on me.

I got out of my little car – lifted the smoking hood, and started walking the 20 mile bridge over the bayou. There were four lanes of expressway. Shortly along came two Coast Guard officers who stopped to help me; a man and a woman.

They were extremely kind, generous, and persons a mullet headed clod like me could look up to. They left an impression.

I wound up selling my Mazda Mizer 808 to the garage that towed it away for me. I couldn’t afford to fix it.

And that next February, in 1983, I joined the United States Coast Guard myself.

And that was the last I ever saw of my mullet.

But the next car I bought was a Mazda 626. That car I drove to Canada.