Hawkeye Pete Slept Here
This could be said of 45 states, and a district, in the U.S.
A cousin posted a list on facebook, of all the states in the U.S. You’re supposed to put an X beside the ones you’ve slept in. I didn’t think it would be this many, but I’ve actually slept in 45 of the 50 states, and a district. Of course, I need to do more than just list where I’ve slept. There’s a story behind every one of those states I slept in. These are some of those stories.
Alabama
I slept there five years ago when I went to a regional compliance investigators meeting in Orange Beach, Alabama, not far from Pensacola, Florida, when I was their boss. A very beautiful part of that state. Great seafood!
Alaska
We took a great cruise up there in 2013. So much beauty, and so much fun.
Arizona
We went to a wedding in Tucson once, and slept on a waterbed. I woke up from a dream screaming about badges. I’d gotten severe Charlie horses in both legs, and in the dream, was being stabbed in the calves with badges. Kathy kept screaming, “What’s wrong, Pete?” I kept screaming, “It’s the badges — it’s the badges! Don’t you understand? It’s the badges!” She had no idea what I was saying.
We spent a day down in Nogales, Mexico. When we returned to the apartment in Tucson, our friends’ roommate was filming a movie scene in the apartment. He was a key grip. We just wanted to make some dinner and eat after a long trip, but there were 35 people swarming all over the apartment, literally making a movie scene. We retreated to our bedroom with the waterbed and ate crackers until the scene was completed. We were not amused.
California
I went to Boot Camp in San Diego in ’73, slept in a barracks there for two months. It never rained once the entire time. I fell in love with California.
Near the end of my Navy career, while I was AWOL, I hitchhiked down from Portland, Oregon through northern California, past amazingly beautiful Mount Shasta, then got picked up by authorities in San Francisco and thrown in jail. I spent two nights sleeping in the SF felon tank (with one eye open!), then the next two months were spent on Treasure Island in the middle of the bay, awaiting my discharge. I loved it there.
We’ve been to a couple of weddings in California, visited my sister in San Diego a few times, and once got stranded at the Paradise Pier Hotel in Disneyland for a week, waiting out Hurricane Sandy on the east coast — couldn’t get a flight back all week, so we were stranded in Paradise, on our hurrication! Our son was living in West L.A. at the time, so we got to visit him several times, and visited sister Juli down in San Diego. Not a bad way to be stranded!
Connecticut
I lived in Windsor for 15 months in 1972 — ’73, and spent a lot of my leave time while in the Navy visiting friends there. I once got engaged in an alcoholic blackout, or so I’ve been told. The blackout lasted the entire five days I was there, and only later learned that I had gotten engaged. I didn’t believe it at first, but it soon became apparent. It didn’t last very long.
From 2013–2017, I went up to Woodstock twice a year for weekend AA retreats with my brother Jim. This was how I came to get involved with AA, after 33 years of sobriety.
Delaware
We got married in Wilmington. I slept the night before in my friend Bob Hyman’s sister’s pad in Wilmington, along with several of the male members of my wedding party. They wrote in marker pen on the bottom of my dress shoes “Help” on the one, and “Me” on the other, so these would be visible as I knelt at the altar to take my vows. Fortunately, the dark marker didn’t show up very well on my black soles. Also fortunately, they weren’t able to find any wite-out, which would have shown up.
Florida
I lived on my first ship in the Navy, a Destroyer ported in Mayport (near Jacksonville) for six months in ’73 — ’74, where I once got trapped in an engine room fire and nearly perished in it. For the next few months, my nights there were often marked by terrible nightmares in which me and my fellow sailors didn’t make it out of the burning engine room fire. Much later I learned that I was suffering from PTSD, as a result. I just drank more, and did more drugs. That worked, until it didn’t.
We’ve averaged at least one vacation a year to Disney World since 1993. Our last trip down was our 36th trip to Disney World. We’ve also boarded many cruises out of Cape Canaveral, and one out of Miami. It never gets old!
Georgia
I hitchhiked through Georgia on my way from Mayport to Charleston, SC, in 1973, and have made several business visits to our laboratory in Athens.
Hawaii
We took a cruise to Hawaii in 2012, and visited all four major islands. So beautiful! We want to go back.
Idaho
I hitchhiked back and forth across that entire state when I was AWOL from the Navy in 1977. I made love under the stars on a large, flat rock ledge high up on a mountain overlooking a lovely scenic river valley in a sleeping bag with a girl I’d met hitchhiking. Great, memorable night — when I awoke in the morning, she was gone - leaving me with nothing but a great memory, and an empty wine bottle.
Illinois
I went to the Navy’s Machinist’s Mate A School at Great Lakes for two months in 1973. I don’t remember a whole lot about my time there — I was usually drunk. Somehow, I managed to pass the tests, and became a machinist mate.
Indiana
I went to my oldest brother’s graduation from Notre Dame in 1967, in South Bend. We slept in the dorm rooms there. During his graduation ceremony, an older guy had a heart attack and died — the first time I ever saw someone die.
Iowa
I’ve made a number of business trips to our Financial Processing Center in Urbandale over the years, and several to our District Office in Des Moines. I helped to set up the Financial Processing Center there back in 1997, and was the director over that center for five months in 2011. I had to make three trips out there while I was director, two in the dead of winter — not fun. When you turned the window washers on, the washer fluid froze into ice chunks before it hit the windshield. It was not very effective.
Kansas
I went to a work meeting on the Kansas side of Kansas City back in 1995, when we were planning an agency reorganization. When Kathy called my room, the programmed voice mail greeting was still on there from the person who’d stayed there before me, apparently a girl named Maryanne, who spoke with a very sexy, sultry sounding voice. Kathy was not very amused. “Who the f*** is Maryanne?” I had some ‘splainin’ to do.
Kentucky
I participated in a wild search there once with two cousins, trying to track down one of the cousin’s long lost half-sister. It felt like an episode in a cop show. We were going into bars and hotels with her photo, where people would say she’d just been there the day or the week before. This also reminded me of Elvis’ song, “Kentucky Rain”.
One of the cousins I was with was a long-lost cousin that I had only recently met for the first time, ever. I was taking her around to meet all of her other cousins and uncles, all over the northeast.
I went to a business meeting in Covington once. That was when I actually slept in Kentucky.
Louisiana
I’ve made several trips to New Orleans, usually business-related — our National Finance Center is there — one of my favorite cities. Love that crawfish ettouffee, beignets at Café DuMonde, and that chickory in the coffee.
Maine
First time in Maine, me and a Navy buddy took the ferry from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to Bangor, at the end of a backpacking/hitchhiking journey throughout three provinces of Canada. Nova Scotia had been the highlight of the journey, and I was feeling very enlightened on the way home. I was also feeling lucky, as I’d hit the jackpot on a slot machine in the ferry’s little casino room, the first time I ever played a slot.
I attended a union-management meeting in Portland in ’95 or ’96, brought back three live lobsters to cook and have a meal with Kathy and J.B. They didn’t want to eat lobsters that were cooked alive, so I got to eat all three, myself. Good eatin’! (Poor lobsters).
We made a stop in Bangor on a cruise to Nova Scotia, and drove along the Arcadian Trail. It was too foggy that day to truly appreciate the spectacular views we’d heard about, but we still enjoyed what we could see.
I will cover Massachusetts to Wyoming in my next story.
