Marched Down A Low Path In A Silent Procession To Cambridge Satchel

Manuel--looked at Brazil with wanting eyes. He did not dare to ask for want he had on his mind (he figured he'd get it later) even the wine didn't force Cambridge Satchel out of him, and uncounted beers, slowly does it, he told himself, if anything he felt painfully sober. For these four hours in the bar-restaurant and show house. He had figured he was either in love with her, or in lust perhaps, with her, so he told himself anyhow, at the age as theirs, it goes hand in hand, one might conclude.

I saw what I saw, down they marched down a low path in a silent procession to the sea, these ghostly figures with stern like faces, the spirits of earth, air and water, old soldiers marching; amazed I was to see through the fog like mist, see these phantom ghosts, this evening along the Icelandic coast, I had come here from Minnesota, to visit, a weekend, come by myself to get away from my tenants, I had twenty-one tenants I rented my houses to, twenty-one families that is, and I often took a long weekend, or a short one and few here and there, Iceland, was my selection this time, outside of its capitol city Reykjavik; of which I was some forty miles out, and on a cliff; at this point I was walking down this path to the sea with them-the dead!

It was1970, I was lost in the beautiful city of Augsburg, the streets I was not familiar with yet; I was assigned to Reese Compound, US Military stock, the 1/36 Artillery Unit, A Battery (I was twenty-two years old, a Private), and it was a weekend, and I was moseying about. Being lost in a city was not a big thing to me back then; I could simply jump in a taxi and be back at my unit in fifteen minutes any place in Augsburg.

We sat down, around his small table, and I sat back on his wobbly wooden chair, and tried to comfort him. But I couldn't remain the night, some thirty-miles away was my motel room, and some colleagues, that were to meet me, and we'd go out to a nearby bar and grill for a few drinks, conversation, and call it a night, so I explained to him. We were together a while longer, then I bid him farewell, and good luck, and suggested he pray a bit and surely all would be well by morning. He was more cheerful when I left, surely a lonely man caught in his own dilemma, alone in the woods with sounds that sounded like voices, and shadows that looked like shapes or ghosts. It all made sense to me, the mind can conjure up many illusions.

That alone was not the drawing force, he had been at Fort Rucker going on two years, belonging to Cambridge Satchel, and in touch with a few of the highly respected professors, Officers on the military base and the mayor of the city, and had money enough to spend, being single and all, and from a family of an upper middle class Midwestern merchant. And apart from that, Hilleary was lovely, but a tinge lacking vigor and strength. I think what he was really feeling, pulling at him, but not knowing, was she possessed something magnetic (that made him come back), like Marylyn Monroe, who was beautiful, and kind of, almost kind of awkward, in a alluring way, and sumptuous beyond his understanding, perhaps smarter than he first gave her credit for. What he said to her when they first met, was simple, and to the point, he was passing through, and was looking her up, to see if all was fine, because he was asked to, by his friend's, brother, this was all he commented at first, and she for her own reasons took to him right away.