Where in the World is Neela Duncan*?

Synopsis

I left Atlanta sometime after the winter term at DeKalb College. The 1957 oval VW broke down somewhere in Georgia between Atlanta and Jacksonville. It seems like it was in South Georgia. I think I called Dad and he got someone to fix it. I hitchhiked the rest of the way to the beach and hitchhiked back a week later to pick it up. The points had gone out and I didn't know enough at the time to troubleshoot it. From 1966 to 1968, it's difficult for me to pin down exact dates sometimes. A lot happened in these years and it's been a long time ago. I will keep asking my friends and family for help with times and events. I joined the US Navy Reserve on April 3rd to keep from getting drafted in the army. I already had friends come home dead from Viet Nam, and I did not want to go there. I was 20 years old, just beginning my life, and I wasn't convinced that the war was necessary. I met the mother of my daughter (Chris) in March of that year too, Bonnie Allen. She was and is one of the nicest people I know. We dated for about 6 weeks, to the best of my memory. I went to boot camp in Great Lakes, Wisconsin for 2 weeks in the late Spring. When I came back, Doug Cueny had snagged a girl I was dating, Debbie Landrum. I was extremely depressed in boot camp when all the other guys got letters from their girls. Debbie never wrote. It turned out ok later when I started dating Debbie's best friend, Lark Sasso. Lark liked me more than Debbie did.

At some point in the Spring, I hitchhiked back to Atlanta to see Mother and Dad. I had a bad experience with 2 Atlanta rednecks, who picked me up in a white 1960 hardtop Chevrolet convertible outside Atlanta, drove 100 mph on the freeway, bummed $3 from me for gas, and dropped me off further from Tucker than when they picked me up. I think I called Dad to come pick me up then. Anyway, when I was ready to go back to Jacksonville, I thought about taking the bus until I saw a 1952 2 door Oldsmobile for sale for $50 at a gas station in Tucker. I bought this car and drove it back to Jacksonville. I drove it for a while and then sold it to Carl McKenny. He painted it with a brush in the boat room at the Lifeguard Station an Easter Egg blue color. I had previously painted my '57 oval VW sedan, metallic siver-gray in the boat room with a brush. I later added two large flat black racing stripes on the hood, top, and engine compartment.

I lived with Annette Garcia for a while when I first arrived back from Atlanta. I had a job as a shipfitter's helper at Bellinger Shipyards*, west of the Atlantic Boulevard Bridge on the Intracoastal waterwy. It paid pretty good, but was hard and dirty work. I started working Jacksonville Beach Patrol in May or June. Before I went to Navy boot camp in Great Lakes, Wisconsin, brother George and I had an apartment on South Street between 1st and 2nd in Neptune Beach. When I got home we had been kicked out for having a party. I remember the bathtub being stained purple from mixing up purple passion in it for a party before I left, maybe my going away party. When I got back from boot camp, I took a cab from the airport back to the apartment at South Street. The door was locked (we never locked our doors) and as I peered in the window, I could see that it was vacant. I think the cab was still there or I may have hitchhiked to the lifeguard station in Jax Beach with my seabag. I was still in my white uniform. When I got there, Doug Cueny (former star quarterback at Wolfson High) informed me humbly, "Debbie and I are going together now". I can still see him shuffling his feet in the boat room and not looking at me. I forgave him, and we remained friends. I got in touch with George (he was lifeguarding at the Atlantic Beach Hotel) and found out about our new apartment on 1st Street in Jax Beach across from the Ramada Inn. We had a lot of fun there and the landlord (Townsend Hawkes) never bothered us. George had sold his VW convertible and bought a turquoise VW van from wild man Glen Wiggins. I blew up the 40 horse motor on a scuba diving trip out by Lake City. We hitch hiked back to the beach, or maybe called someone for a ride. I borrowed Ken Hutchinson's big Buick sedan and corralled someone from the lifeguard station to help me tow it back to the beach with a rope. I paid somebody to put another motor in for George.

George and I both lifeguarded that summer. I worked Jacksonville Beach Beach Patrol and volunteered in Jax Bch. George lifeguarded the Atlantic Beach Hotel pool. They closed the pool on Mondays and emptied it. They would get down inside and scrub and pick up debris. Then they would refill it from an artesian well. Needless to say, like the Sandpiper Hotel pool, it was quite cold. I took my lifeguard pool test at the Atlantic Beach Hotel pool in the summer of 1964

We lived in our apartment on 1st Street until we drove to San Diego, pretty much on the spur of the moment, in October. I'm embarassed to say that we never called Townsend Hawkes to tell him we were leaving. We abandoned everything in the apartment, didn't clean anything, and left food in the refrigerator. Herman Brame told me he was going to quit Central Adult** and go to California. He had been in touch with one of our Fletcher classmates and surfer friends who lived there, George Nobbs. I told him I was going to go with him. I was Captain of Winter Beach Patrol at Jax Bch, which was a pretty cushy job. I left my Lieutenant, John Landon, a note, "Gone to California, You're in charge". I took George to Central Adult High one morning and told him Herman and I were going to California. George said "You're not going without me." I closed out my bank account with First Beach Bank (@$100), Herman had $150, and George had zip. Herman's mother, Alice Brame, rented us a small U-haul trailer, and gave George $50, I mean, George was ready to go with no $. We loaded the trailer with Herman's surfboard and Honda 90 motorcycle, my Honda 50 motorcycle (which I still owed Gary or Steve Maddox for; I left him my surfboard for payment). We took off for California in my 1957 oval 36 HP VW sedan and had to downshift to 3rd gear to get over the Beach Boulevard bridge. We actually made it to South Mission Beach in 53 hours by driving straight through. We hated each other by the time we got there, though. I had some cool pictures of the trip, but they burned up in the fire at the Farm in NC in 1985. Herman supposedly has copies, but I've never been able to get them from him.

Rusty Johnston taught me how to scuba dive that summer. We went to Lake Goldhead and he said "Don't come up faster than your air bubbles", and we went diving. You didn't have to be certified to buy air then. I had a tank and a single stage regulator (j valve) that I had had bought from the dive shop (US Divers ?) on Beach Boulevard. I later traded my diving gear for my 9'10" Allen noserider surfboard.

*I worked at Bellinger Shipyards as a shipfitter's helper. That meant holding plates of steel in place while the shipfitter welded them. I was assigned to Roger Spell, who had been my mortal enemy in the 7th and 8th grades. He was like Fonzie, only with an attitude, one of several, who picked on me mercilessly. They found a combination lock one day and locked my bicycle spokes to my front fork. I ripped out two spokes and rode home while Roger's brother, Larry, and his buddies stood by and laughed. Anyway, I figured I wasn't going to keep this job long, as I reported to Roger. Evidentally, he had grown up a lot in the past 5 years, and he was actually glad to see me. We never discussed our past, and got along great. I worked with Roger until I succumbed to the lure of Beach Patrol (about 6 weeks), which paid less, but was much more fun and less hard work. Roger later drowned with some friends, taking copper from the US Navy ships mothballed at Green Cove Springs. They were rowing (?) across the St. Johns River, and their boat was overloaded and sank. After World War II, the Navy stored a bunch of ships at Green Cove Springs in case they needed them again. They eventually sold them to other countries and for scrap.

** Central Adult High School was in downtown Jacksonville. It was where you went if you were expelled from regular high school or you just didn't fit in, or you just didn't like traditional high school. My wife, Karen, attended there for a while. She later went on to get a Masters degree. My good friend, Glenn Hayes went there too. My sister Rosemary quit Fletcher in April of her senior year, because she didn't like being treated like a 2nd class citizen. She got a diploma from FJC and went on to get a 4 year degree from Montreat College in North Carolina.

January 31, 2010