EXCERPTS from my new book, WITHOUT THE LAMPSHADE-How I Learned to Love my Brown Martini

My boss, a full [Navy] lieutenant, would make periodic trips to Anacostia Air Station in Virginia just outside D.C. and not far from where my wife and daughter were living with her sister. We were on our way to Anacostia one evening with the Lieutenant in the back seat, and me in the front of the SNJ trainer. It was already dark and about halfway to D.C. he lost the lights in his cockpit.

We were using the radio beacon for navigation so it was relatively easy for me to take over flying the aircraft, since he had given me some basic instructions in the past. Just before entering the approach to Anacostia, we lost the radio beacon, and due to my inexperience we veered off course and ended up in Pentagon air space. We were immediately welcomed by four military jets that escorted us down with one on each side. Nothing like an official welcome to the U.S. Capital.

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EXCERPTS from my new book, WITHOUT THE LAMPSHADE-And Free Books

I had to thank Braddock for saving my life once while I worked for him. On weekends I went to Washington, DC, where my wife was staying with her sister and brother in law until we could get a place in Norfolk. On one such weekend, I was scheduled to get a free ride to DC on a MATS (Military Air Transportation Service) plane. But Braddock had work for me to do, so I missed the plane ride and would leave later with friends by car.

I watched the MATS plane take off out my window thinking how easy it would have been to fly to Anacostia Naval airport and my wife living close by would pick me up. I watched this hulk in the sky, barely at the end of the runway, but about 300 feet airborne, shudder with no warning, turn slightly to the left and plunge to the ground where it was immediately engulfed in flames. No one survived, and it almost made me reconsider the religion business.

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EXCERPTS from my new book, WITHOUT THE LAMPSHADE-How I Learned to Love my Brown Martini

One thing that happened before I left [the Naval Station], a film company was making the film, “Beneath the 12-Mile Reef,” in Key West and contracted to use the church parsonage as the location for several scenes.

Robert Webb, director of the “12-Mile Reef,” whom I had met at the parsonage, was looking for extras for a scene where Gilbert Roland is brought up with the bends. He asked me and a couple of my Navy buddies to stand on the dock and display our shock when they rushed by with Roland on a stretcher. We did, but guess we weren’t horrified enough, since the scene was cut from the movie. Webb did hire me to clean up and put the parsonage back in its original condition. He paid me $84, big money in those days.

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EXCERPTS from my new book, WITHOUT THE LAMPSHADE-How I Learned to Love my Brown Martini

During my stay in Key West I tried all the bars, especially Kilroy’s, where a lot of the locals hung out and it was said that Ernest Hemingway sometime frequented. The writer had a home in Key West where he lived and wrote for ten years, producing books such as “A Farewell to Arms” and “To Have and Have Not,” whose locale was Key West. Hemingway’s cats were still at his home, leading me to believe, along with a later experience covered here, writers preferred the calming effect of felines.

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EXCERPTS from my new book, WITHOUT THE LAMPSHADE-How I Learned to Love my Brown Martini

Jacksonville [Florida) was uneventful except for an incident at a whorehouse. I met some friends at the Naval Air Base there from Jackson, Tennessee and naturally we had to go out and get plastered. I ended up obliterated, passed out in this den of iniquity, and don’t remember anything after that. But I do vaguely recall before the darkness settled several barely dressed women seductively walking around me. You can see how out of it I was because I don’t remember being the least bit aroused.

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EXCERPTS from my new book, WITHOUT THE LAMPSHADE-How I Learned to Love my Brown Martini

Jackson [Tenn.] was also the first place I ever smoked pot. I was with two older friends and we were working a roadhouse on the outside of town. One was the bouncer, the other was the doorman, and I was the photographer. All the men there were with someone else’s wife, so no one really wanted their picture taken but I persisted, coming up with a library of photographs I would later discover could have been very valuable.

I bummed a cigarette from one of my buddies and after a few minutes I was the happiest one there, except I didn’t know why. This was in the late 1940s when the street term for marijuana was “reefer,” and when they told me that’s what I had just smoked, I still didn’t know what it was. It would be several years before I tried that again.

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EXCERPTS from my new book, WITHOUT THE LAMPSHADE-How I Learned to Love my Brown Martini

Highway disasters around this small town [Jackson, Tenn.] were more numerous than you might expect, partly due to the fact that you weren’t able to go into a restaurant or bar and buy a drink. You had to buy a bottle, usually a fifth, and hide it while drinking, so most were inclined to finish it off before the end of the evening. It took years for these dry regions to realize they were killing off their citizens.

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EXCERPTS from my new book, WITHOUT THE LAMPSHADE-How I Learned to Love my Brown Martini

After several drinks, my dance floor agility improved dramatically and the two of us were even enjoying ourselves. [At fraternity dance] But once I get started with the booze, there is no slowing me down, so I was relatively plastered when the dance was over. My date and I were descending the steps of the Jackson Country Club when I, by then almost completely impaired with the wobblies, stepped on the back of her formal and pulled the front right off her boobs. 

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EXCERPTS from my new book, WITHOUT THE LAMPSHADE-How I Learned to Love my Brown Martini

I was so smashed when I returned home one night from an SPO [fraternity] party that I fell asleep on our space heater situated between the front door and my room. It was winter and in use. There were vents on the top much like those on air vents in current homes, and when I woke up the next morning in my bed, I looked like I had been barbecued. My dear mother had quietly moved me off what could have eventually produced 3rd degree burns.

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EXCERPTS from my new book, WITHOUT THE LAMPSHADE-How I Learned to Love my Brown Martini

It was, in fact, Des Moines, Iowa where I really learned to drink, working for a large publishing conglomerate. When first being interviewed for the job, having just been introduced to the martini and after my second one, they made me an offer. In my condition, it was necessary to excuse myself and go to the bathroom before answering. I had to sit on the “john,” without purpose, except to use my pen and a piece of toilet paper to figure whether they were offering me more money than I was making at the time. They were, just barely.

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EXCERPTS from my new book, WITHOUT THE LAMPSHADE-How I Learned to Love my Brown Martini

This is the first excerpt I've posted from my new book, "WITHOUT THE LAMPSHADE-How I Learned to Love my Brown Martini." I'll have random posts from the book in the future so keep an eye on The Dunning Letter.

The very first paragraph:

It all came to an abrupt halt one dreary Sunday morning almost 35 years ago. It was raining and I was looking out the window of our twelfth floor high-rise in College Park, Maryland, trying to settle my stomach after another night of non-stop drinking and smoking. This had been going on for over twenty years and I had gotten very good at it. Yes, booze and cigarettes had become my comfort zone. Nevertheless, I had just decided to give up both of these nasty habits…cold turkey.

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