I graduated from college in 1965. The Vietnam War was in full swing, and any able-bodied male who was not being educated was being drafted. I could have gone to graduate school, but instead decided to take my chances. I moved in with a couple of old friends in Palo Alto, California. Having a fancy B.A. in English, I went to an unprepossessing flight school at the Oakland Airport and got work as a lineboy in exchange for commercial-license instruction and a pittance suitable only for a breatharian.
Technicalities: Two Bobs
Key Takeaways:
- The narrator recounts his early flying experiences in 1965, learning from flight school operator Bob Short, a talented jazz musician whose past was unknown to him at the time, before being drafted.
- Years later, the narrator received a .22-caliber revolver from a friend, Bob Long, for a challenging flight from Alaska across the Pacific to Japan.
- Upon arrival in Japan, declaring the firearm initiated a significant bureaucratic ordeal, as importing a gun without prior authorization was illegal and officials struggled to find a permissible solution.
- The perplexing situation was ultimately resolved when the local chief of police bent the rules, taking temporary custody of the gun and returning it ceremonially upon the narrator's departure three weeks later.
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