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Authors: Stephen Coonts
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Doubleday’s best-known editor, arrived. Every eye in the place went to her. She is the only true celebrity I know of—she doesn’t have to hire a publicist or call the reporters when she’s in Aspen to try to get her name in the papers. She doesn’t have to sing, dance, write, act, or do the Carson show. And until the day she dies every living soul who sees her will gawk. I did.
Mrs. O stayed for ten minutes or so as the television cameras ground and the crowd milled around her, then when I turned my head to look for a waiter bearing another scotch, she vanished. Everyone was craning to see where she went but she made her exit slick as a pickpocket. Later I heard she had been escorted there by a man. He’s the most anonymous guy on the planet. Nobody saw him.
I went over to the TV guys and watched them twiddle knobs and check lights. One of the cameramen and I mingled socially. “You here with the party?” he asked finally.
“Security.”
“Oh.”
“You see anybody pocketing the silverware, you let me know.”
When I left I saw actress Betty White waiting alone on the sidewalk for a limo or taxi. I said, “Hi.”
She said, “Hi.”
She’s a nice lady.
Pensacola, Florida, is one of my favorite cities. Here the dreams begin. When I first saw it in the summer of 1966, a month before my twentieth birthday, it was a small, sleepy southern town and my stay did not promise to be a good one. I arrived at the local airport at the end of my very first long trip on an airplane with a small suitcase and a set of mimeographed orders to report the following afternoon at 4 P.M. to Aviation Officers Candidate School (AOCS) at the Naval Air Station. The admirals had concluded that the Vietnam War might be long and bloody and trained pilots might become scarce, so they had resolved to increase the supply. I was to be a small morsel of their cannon fodder, although from my vantage point the Navy’s need for pilots looked like an opportunity to learn to fly and fulfill my military obligation. If I lived through it, fine. If I didn’t, well … the grim reaper was still a long way away and who could say how a man’s life would run?
I took a taxi from the airport, the first taxi ride of my life, and had the driver drop me in front of the biggest hotel in town—indeed, the only hotel in town. The San Carlos is gone now but in its day it was a beaut—six or seven stories, lots of velvet drapes and leather chairs and all in all, one hell of a fine place for a youngster who had just completed his sophomore year of college and was out adventuring for the first time.
I had read the orders word for word and made careful note of the hour of my required arrival. Instinctively I knew that it would be not wise to arrive early. After a fitful night’s sleep, I spent the next morning wandering the streets of Pensacola and looking at the trains in the yard and glancing through the windows of the sailors’ bars. It was hot that late June day in the deep south, with the heat rising in shimmering waves from the streets and a humidity that was truly oppressive to anyone not accustomed to it. Situated right on the Gulf of Mexico, Pensacola had its full share of humidity but was spared some of the heat that makes towns a hundred miles inland smoldering hells in late summer. But Pensacola was without doubt a southern town, full of loafers and farmers in bib overalls piloting pickup trucks. What it had that most towns didn’t were sailors and airplanes out at the base, but these weren’t very noticeable my first morning.
The day went too quickly as my mouth got dryer and dryer. At last I hailed a cab in front of the hotel and set off. Not very many minutes later I became rudely acquainted with my very first drill instructor, a U.S. Marine Corps staff sergeant. The officers candidate school received a supply of newly minted drill instructors every year from the drill instructor school at Parris Island, South Carolina. I thought it was
Mrs. O stayed for ten minutes or so as the television cameras ground and the crowd milled around her, then when I turned my head to look for a waiter bearing another scotch, she vanished. Everyone was craning to see where she went but she made her exit slick as a pickpocket. Later I heard she had been escorted there by a man. He’s the most anonymous guy on the planet. Nobody saw him.
I went over to the TV guys and watched them twiddle knobs and check lights. One of the cameramen and I mingled socially. “You here with the party?” he asked finally.
“Security.”
“Oh.”
“You see anybody pocketing the silverware, you let me know.”
When I left I saw actress Betty White waiting alone on the sidewalk for a limo or taxi. I said, “Hi.”
She said, “Hi.”
She’s a nice lady.
Pensacola, Florida, is one of my favorite cities. Here the dreams begin. When I first saw it in the summer of 1966, a month before my twentieth birthday, it was a small, sleepy southern town and my stay did not promise to be a good one. I arrived at the local airport at the end of my very first long trip on an airplane with a small suitcase and a set of mimeographed orders to report the following afternoon at 4 P.M. to Aviation Officers Candidate School (AOCS) at the Naval Air Station. The admirals had concluded that the Vietnam War might be long and bloody and trained pilots might become scarce, so they had resolved to increase the supply. I was to be a small morsel of their cannon fodder, although from my vantage point the Navy’s need for pilots looked like an opportunity to learn to fly and fulfill my military obligation. If I lived through it, fine. If I didn’t, well … the grim reaper was still a long way away and who could say how a man’s life would run?
I took a taxi from the airport, the first taxi ride of my life, and had the driver drop me in front of the biggest hotel in town—indeed, the only hotel in town. The San Carlos is gone now but in its day it was a beaut—six or seven stories, lots of velvet drapes and leather chairs and all in all, one hell of a fine place for a youngster who had just completed his sophomore year of college and was out adventuring for the first time.
I had read the orders word for word and made careful note of the hour of my required arrival. Instinctively I knew that it would be not wise to arrive early. After a fitful night’s sleep, I spent the next morning wandering the streets of Pensacola and looking at the trains in the yard and glancing through the windows of the sailors’ bars. It was hot that late June day in the deep south, with the heat rising in shimmering waves from the streets and a humidity that was truly oppressive to anyone not accustomed to it. Situated right on the Gulf of Mexico, Pensacola had its full share of humidity but was spared some of the heat that makes towns a hundred miles inland smoldering hells in late summer. But Pensacola was without doubt a southern town, full of loafers and farmers in bib overalls piloting pickup trucks. What it had that most towns didn’t were sailors and airplanes out at the base, but these weren’t very noticeable my first morning.
The day went too quickly as my mouth got dryer and dryer. At last I hailed a cab in front of the hotel and set off. Not very many minutes later I became rudely acquainted with my very first drill instructor, a U.S. Marine Corps staff sergeant. The officers candidate school received a supply of newly minted drill instructors every year from the drill instructor school at Parris Island, South Carolina. I thought it was
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