Monthly Archives: August 2017

Longview

Longview Condo Is a Done Deal

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On her birthday in March of this year, Alice told me, “This year, don’t buy me anything.  Instead, please, please get me a house.”

Alice realized the bloom had fallen off the Portland Rose City.  We started looking around and found a two-story townhouse for sale in Longview, Washington, next to a public golf course.  The photo above shows the crown jewel of Longview: Lake Sacajawea, a former channel of the Cowlitz River turned into a picturesque manmade lake, surrounded by 67 manicured parkland acres.  Live music fills the air on six consecutive Thursday night concerts.

Alice and I were in a difficult spot, because we didn’t have money for a down payment.  We were caught up in Portland’s rent crisis, and each year an increasing amount of money was being squeezed from us to rent a tiny 900-square-foot apartment next to a major freeway.

Eddie McCormick was recently honored as a Navy Seal.

Mason Was a Navy Reservist

Thinking about my Uncle Eddie McCormick, though, led to an overdue realization.  During the early 1960s, Eddie convinced me into joining the Naval Air Reserve.  As far as the Armed Services were concerned, I was not a “man’s man.”  This was especially true after I took the Navy’s aptitude test and set a new record for LOWEST score in mechanical ability.  Eddie suggested I join the Naval Air Reserve’s six-month active duty group known as “Weekend Warriors.”

During that era, I was subject to the draft.  So I enlisted as a preventive move and served six months of active duty – from October 6, 1960 until April 5, 1961, followed by 5½ years of active reserve duty spending one weekend a month at Jacksonville (Fla.) Naval Air Station and serving two weeks active duty during the summer.  Most of those two-week tours took me to Guantanamo Bay, but my experience did not include combat, thank God.

After my discharge, I discovered legislation that disqualified 1960s reservists who served 180 or fewer days active duty from receiving VA benefits.  This was a strike against six-month reservists, and I harbored resentment about the limitation of opportunity and expressed it to Uncle Eddie a few times.

Embracing a Revelation

Eventually, I found my niche as a broadcaster turned journalist, and regarded my military service as irrelevant history.  My military history soon became relevant as I wracked my brain figuring out how to finance a condo purchase.  I don’t remember how a flash of brilliance overcame me, but somehow I started counting my days of active duty from October 6 through April 5.  That added up to more than 180 days, it was 182.

Oh my God, the commander at Jacksonville Naval Air Station must have mustered me out two days late.  I was qualified!

Alice is greeted by the condo association president. We would share this backyard common area with one other resident.

Realtor Tami Cheatley was super-skeptical about VA financing, though, shunning it with a passion, but the Veterans Administration proved it was there for us.  It recognized Alice and me as a married couple, and acknowledged my service.  Oh yes, the VA did exact their pound of flesh, requiring me to document numerous explanations of every black mark our credit suffered over the last seven years.

We needed to get files from years past, copies of court judgments, visit the IRS, give every possible explanation for any bump in the road we experienced in life.   But we did it, and today, on Eclipse Monday, we closed on the sale.

Mason and Alice celebrate with a cold bottle of sparkling wine, just itching to have its cork popped..

As we celebrate our hard-won victory today, I acknowledge what Uncle Eddie did for by getting me into the Naval Air Reserve.  And I dote on his memory.  So congratulate us, for today Alice and I became homeowners in a quiet, desirable neighborhood.

Happy Eclipse Monday.

 

sexual predators

American Boychoir School to Close

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I participated in the American Boychoir School’s 75th anniversary concert at Saint Joseph’s Seminary in 2013.

In a July 2016 post, I wrote about my unwanted encounter with a pedophile in this heart of cultural civility, Princeton, New Jersey, in the mid-1950s.  Anyone who wishes to read that post can find it here: sexual-predators.

The American Boychoir School never offered an open, frank discussion about rumors about its past.  People whispered and wondered what had gone on, and the School continued to stick its head in the sand.  I was there when a children’s show on Public Radio called “From the Top,” a showcase for young classical musicians, used the school as a setting for one of its young artists’ shows.

In 2014, Dustin Hoffman starred with Debra Winger in a movie called “Boychoir” that used the American Boychoir School as a backdrop; however, it only received limited release to tepid reviews.  Hallmark Cards bought the movie, retitled it “Hear My Song” for national exposure on CBS-TV until the company learned of the New York Times archived exposé of the school’s sordid history, and the showing was quietly shelved.  TV Week revealed the reasons Hallmark backed away in an article available online.

Here’s an update.  The school is coming to an ignoble end.  The American Boychoir School is abandoning its efforts to emerge from Chapter XI bankruptcy.  It will close down.  You can read about it here: boychoir school to close.

There is no joy in seeing the American Boychoir School go bust.  But there is a high degree of poetic justice.  This chapter of my childhood has reached its ultimate end.

C’est la vie.