I met you in the rain on the last day of 1972 - m4w (Old State House)

I met you in the rain on the last day of 1972, the same day I resolved to kill myself.

One week prior, at the behest of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, I'd flown four B-52 sorties over Hanoi. I dropped forty-eight bombs. How many homes I destroyed, how many lives I ended, I'll never know. But in the eyes of my superiors, I had served my country honorably, and I was thusly discharged with such distinction.

And so on the morning of that New Year's Eve, I found myself in a barren studio apartment on Beacon and Hereford with a fifth of Tennessee rye and the pang of shame permeating the recesses of my soul. When the bottle was empty, I made for the door and vowed, upon returning, that I would retrieve the Smith & Wesson Model 15 from the closet and give myself the discharge I deserved.

I walked for hours. I looped around the Fenway before snaking back past Symphony Hall and up to Trinity Church. Then I roamed through the Common, scaled the hill with its golden dome, and meandered into that charming labyrinth divided by Hanover Street. By the time I reached the waterfront, a charcoal sky had opened and a drizzle became a shower. That shower soon gave way to a deluge. While the other pedestrians darted for awnings and lobbies, I trudged into the rain. I suppose I thought, or rather hoped, that it might wash away the patina of guilt that had coagulated around my heart. It didn't, of course, so I started back to the apartment.

And then I saw you.

You'd taken shelter under the balcony of the Old State House. You were wearing a teal ball gown, which appeared to me both regal and ridiculous. Your brown hair was matted to the right side of your face, and a galaxy of freckles dusted your shoulders. I'd never seen anything so beautiful.

When I joined you under the balcony, you looked at me with your big green eyes, and I could tell that you'd been crying. I asked if you were okay. You said you'd been better. I asked if you'd like to have a cup of coffee. You said only if I would join you. Before I could smile, you snatched my hand and led me on a dash through Downtown Crossing and into Neisner's.

We sat at the counter of that five and dime and talked like old friends. We laughed as easily as we lamented, and you confessed over pecan pie that you were engaged to a man you didn't love, a banker from some line of Boston nobility. A Cabot, or maybe a Chaffee. Either way, his parents were hosting a soirée to ring in the New Year, hence the dress.

For my part, I shared more of myself than I could have imagined possible at that time. I didn't mention Vietnam, but I got the sense that you could see there was a war waging inside me. Still, your eyes offered no pity, and I loved you for it.

After an hour or so, I excused myself to use the restroom. I remember consulting my reflection in the mirror. Wondering if I should kiss you, if I should tell you what I'd done from the cockpit of that bomber a week before, if I should return to the Smith & Wesson that waited for me. I decided, ultimately, that I was unworthy of the resuscitation this stranger in the teal ball gown had given me, and to turn my back on such sweet serendipity would be the real disgrace.

On the way back to the counter, my heart thumped in my chest like an angry judge's gavel, and a future -- our future -- flickered in my mind. But when I reached the stools, you were gone. No phone number. No note. Nothing.

As strangely as our union had begun, so too had it ended. I was devastated. I went back to Neisner's every day for a year, but I never saw you again. Ironically, the torture of your abandonment seemed to swallow my self-loathing, and the prospect of suicide was suddenly less appealing than the prospect of discovering what had happened in that restaurant. The truth is I never really stopped wondering.

I'm an old man now, and only recently did I recount this story to someone for the first time, a friend from the VFW. He suggested I look for you on Facebook. I told him I didn't know anything about Facebook, and all I knew about you was your first name and that you had lived in Boston once. And even if by some miracle I happened upon your profile, I'm not sure I would recognize you. Time is cruel that way.

This same friend has a particularly sentimental daughter. She's the one who led me here to Craigslist and these Missed Connections. But as I cast this virtual coin into the wishing well of the cosmos, it occurs to me, after a million what-ifs and a lifetime of lost sleep, that our connection wasn't missed at all.

You see, in these intervening forty-two years I've lived a good life. I've loved a good woman. I've raised a good man. I've seen the world. And I've forgiven myself. And you were the source of all of it. You breathed your spirit into my lungs one rainy afternoon, and you can't possibly imagine my gratitude.

I have hard days, too. My wife passed four years ago. My son, the year after. I cry a lot. Sometimes from the loneliness, sometimes I don't know why. Sometimes I can still smell the smoke over Hanoi. And then, a few dozen times a year, I'll receive a gift. The sky will glower, and the clouds will hide the sun, and the rain will begin to fall. And I'll remember.

So wherever you've been, wherever you are, and wherever you're going, know this: you're with me still.

Well that's about the most poignant thing I've ever read in missed connections. I expected something so much more creepy but that left an impression

One week to go from flying combat missions halfway around the world to being discharged and having moved to and living in a cheap apartment in Boston??  Seems unlikely.

The event took place the evening of 31 Dec 1972.

He said he had been dropping bombs the previous week.

It would make sense that he could have wrapped up his tour and they try to get him to the U.S by Christmas - a tad less than one week before.

That still give 18-23 December where he could have bene participating in raids.

I don't get the . What am I missing?

Really?  You don't?

You seem to be suggesting his claim that he participated in those raids, and the dates he mentions, don't add up.

Yet, they do.

So, yeah, I guess I don't.

Great story. thanks OP

I'm guessing by this point you googled the dates and found out that there is nothing strange about those dates.

 

But if you were paying attention, the entire text you've quoted is directly from the Wikipedia page. That is way more suspect than the dates you highlighted.

Aircrew rotations stateside were suspended on December 15th in preparation for LBII with people who were supposed to be sent home in late December being told they might be there 'till February. Aside since he was an officer and not some grunt draftee I am dubious he could have gotten back, ETSed,  and gotten an apartment in under a week.

Makes sense, but that really has little to do with what QCMGR posted, or why.

Fact or fiction, it's still a story illustrative of the humanity of man.

Shit, leave it to GD . . .

Left wing poseur drivel .
Guy is playing the haunted damaged veteran card for sympathy and attention.
Probably never served a day in his entire life.

Why not?

You can go from Iraq to sleeping in your own bed in two days. You're telling me an officer during Vietnam wouldn't get back home in a week?

It sounds like New Years was his first(or second) day back.

I think he's saying it was more likely to get discharged that... unceremoniously back then.

The issue now appears to me not that so much, but whether A) there were even flights rotating out and B) that he was discharged, not just on leave.

Word.

High of 37 in Boston that day. And low of 27

I thinks it wasn't raining

And nobody's going to moping around outside in nothing but a dress in that weather.

There were aircrews that were in planes severely damaged in those raids. Some planes damaged so badly that they jumped/ejected back at base and the plane was destroyed. He may have been part of one of those crews and sent home.

http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KBOS/1972/12/31/DailyHistory.html?&reqdb.zip=&reqdb.magic=&reqdb.wmo=


Says there was fog and rain that day.

Well, it's the thought that counts.

powerful story.........for some odd reason I hope it's true.......

Found the hippy chick

I see .mil records that frequently show they were in Vietnam less than a week prior to discharge.

She was def smash able in that pic.

She was all he needed.

fake

Does she look like anyone you know?

 

I know who it is. And she was smash able in that pic.


And the funny thing is, my ex wife now (15 yrs after divorce) looks like the nasty version.

Dodged a bullet there

I'm just saying there is a lot in the story that doesn't pass the smell test.

Sounds like an up and coming author trying to cut his teeth, looks like it worked out.

It's fake

Written by a woman most likely

 

No doubt.

You can't stop, can you?

Nope

 

That's my sense of it. Read by members of a gun internet forum where there's centuries of collective military experience, the story gets researched and dissected by people that were active military at that time or can easily prove or refute the dates. Being read by others lacking that perspective, it just comes across as someone who has an idea for a chick-flick, and one that would likely do pretty well. A nice story, just seems a little too formulaic.

I feel badly for you.  I hope you'll get better soon.

Whether true or not....  It's a great story.  I can appreciate it on that basis alone.  

The fat girl sang, "I was his only need".

Sounds factious Like you think I'm a woman hater or something which could be farthest from the truth

I was wondering how hard it was to open the windows of a b52 at altitude so you could smell Hanoi burning.

Stilted prose overly heavy with adjectival description and melodrama; almost enough to distract from the story line. Obviously fictional.

Let's say it's real... Not to be harsh, but what it sounds like is that she decided that marrying a rich Boston banker sounded a hell of a lot better than hanging out with a soaking wet, suicidal, probably unemployed man who doesn't own a car, so she bailed as soon as he was out of sight.  Subsequently the man "with a war waging inside" him went into full stalker mode and staked out the diner for a full year based solely on her being a decent human being for about an hour.  So I'm thinking she probably made a good call on that, and he built 40 odd years on the life affirming force of being ditched by a depressed girl.

Not at all.  I was perfectly sincere.  You don't seem like a bad guy, and I do hope you get better.

That was well-written, fact or fiction.  Poignant even.

Better from what?you've peaked my curiosity M'lady


 

Seriously,I'd like to hear it and don't pull any punches....I can take it without crying