Back to the mainland

As we approached our time to go back to the mainland we all got pretty excited. It was like nearing the end of a workout, everyone got a second wind. Travel plans were all set and once again I can’t remember who met us at the San Francisco airport. All I remember is we were all exhausted I actually don’t remember any of the trip. We went back to Reno before leaving to go back home for some time off. Susan was back in Reno with Shannon. I’ll spare you all the gory details but things were definitely not good between us. After getting some sleep I made arrangements to go see Shannon the next day around noon. At this time she was about six months old. I’m not sure how to describe the feeling of seeing your child for the first time. I picked her up and held her, she was beautiful I just kept staring at her. I sat and held her for a while. Susan and I talked and I told her my plan to go to Oklahoma to get my car and then to return to Reno. I’m not sure but I believe it was the next day Leon Gary and I left to drive to Oklahoma. I got home spent a few days and started making plans to head back. Ricki, Gary’s girlfriend now wife, had come to Oklahoma. She was scheduled to fly back to Reno onJuly fifth. I decided to leave driving back July fourth. I called her to try and convince her to ride back with me. No deal, she wouldn’t go for that so on the Fourth of July 1966 I left to return to Reno. Late that night, even though I had been taking NO-DOZ, I got extremely sleepy. I was somewhere in Arizona. I pulled over in a roadside rest, I didn’t have air conditioning in my car , I was lien down across the front seat for a nap. I had just fallen asleep when a car pulled up beside me. They were loud and rough talking so I just sat up started the car and off I. Went. When I drove into Sparks after driving for 30 hours I met Ricki and her aunt coming from the airport. I still had some time before we were to go back to work. I hung around Reno a couple of days to spend some time with Shannon and then drove to San Jose for a few days with my brother and sister in law. Their place was always one of my favorite places to go. They were extremely nice to me, it was very peaceful and the food was great. It came time to go back to work so we all reassembled in Reno.

We were booked into a new club there I believe it was the Peppermint Lounge. It was in a different part of town but we drew pretty much the same crowd as at the Driftwood. We rented the same apartment we had lived in before. We were only at the peppermint for a few weeks because we were set to appear at The Mapes Hotel downtown appearing with The Checkmates LTD. for two months. That’s the group I’ve told you about before. Susan and I were off and on. Gary and Ricki had become a couple and Even Leon had a serious girlfriend. At our apartment complex upstairs from us were three Showgirls. They came to borrow a cup of sugar, a quart of milk a loaf of bread it became obvious they were interested in more than grocery’s. Finally I talked to one them. It seems the apartment manager had told them that when we were there before we we were quite the partiers . She laughed and said we tried everything and got nowhere. I explained to her that everyone had gotten involved with someone. So that was the end of that.

Working with the Checkmates was great. We alternated sets. I loved to watch them. As I told you their front man looked like Sammy Davis Jr. one morning he came over to our apartment for something. Susan and Shannon was there. Shannon was crawling around in the floor. He bent over and picked her up. He started talking to her and she looked up into his face. She started screaming bloody murder. I felt awful and started apologizing. He laughed and said ” oh that’s ok I have that affect on lots of ladies”. First black person she had ever seen.

After our time at the Mapes we were booked into a brand new club in Sparks. Very nice place. It was actually the same building as the first club we ever worked in Reno. A guy we knew from Oregon had bought it,completely remodeled it and it soon became the place to be. We loved working there, it was nice. During this time Susan and I had gotten back together and had rented a house in Sparks. I loved being with Shannon, by now she was about 9 months old and we had a blast playing outside, just doing what you do with a small child. Sometime in September on my night off Susan and I went out. We had talked about getting married but still had not followed through. On this night probably around eleven pm. we decided to do it. We knew the place to get a marriage license in Reno was closed but we also knew that InCarson City they stayed open 24 hours a day. We took off to Carson. City and got a marriage license. We got back to Reno and started calling everyone. By the time we got everyone notified and got a chapel rented it was probably four am. I remember the preacher coming in with shaving cream behind his ear. All the other guys and girlfriends were there. We got married and as I recall everyone went home like nothing happened.

Somewhere during the last quarter of 1966 we were contacted about a return to Hawaii. At first we were hesitant but the money was good ,even better than before, so we agreed. This time it was to be for sixteen weeks, still seven nights a week but I guess we were greedy so we went for it. We were to start over there on January 2nd 1967. This time was gonna be different because everyone but Hoot would be taking someone with them.

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