Written by John McElligott
One of the best days of my life… Finding Sweet Charlotte.
Post Vietnam, I transferred from Odessa College to join my brother, Tom, at Baylor University. Tom was the “Wing Ding” and the supervisor for the athletic dorm at Baylor.
I transferred to Baylor trying to become a Bear and stayed at Tom’s place at the Residential Hall for all the athletes at Baylor.
At night I slept on the dorm floor and went to class (Pre Med) all day. I got a part-time job cleaning the science lab every day to pay for my meals in Waco and at night I worked with Tom to move outside air conditioners.
Since the dorm housed seniors who were eligible for the draft, most nights my floor bed was surrounded by terrified potential soldiers who wanted to know more about Vietnam. They were scared knowing they were headed for possible drafting into the military. Having just returned, I shared many stories with them. I had survived Vietnam in 1967 at Dong Ha South Vietnam. Just 3-4 miles from North Vietnam. This was the name of the most bombarded sites in the North border of South Vietnam. I was also well known at the house because I drove to the Texas coast regularly for bigger parties.
This went on until my brother’s social club was kicked off the campus. Despite being kicked off campus, it was a great opportunity to arrange for a new house for the seniors. It provided low rent and beautiful girls who helped us make the shithole a place for a cold beer and lots of X-athletes. This new site Tom selected was an old house that required every female at Baylor to help us paint. We got to watch hot girls in short shorts and nice butts paint the rooms.
After enjoying my time watching the girls paint, I managed to move one of the painter’s boyfriend out of the house. He said he would kick my ass if I tried to make her mine! Well, I did, and he figured that my military career was just too much to try and attack me since I was famous in Nam for being a good foxhole ass kicker.
So, Charlotte and I eventually married and had a very good time until we both went our separate ways… but only after having two wonderful sons and a satisfying time as parents. Our sons are both hard workers and now have kids of their own (my grandkids).
To this day, we are still friends. We still stay in touch and whenever I am in the area I take her out to eat and have a beer. (I don’t drink much beer anymore because it keeps me up all night peeing.)
