The Nightstand Notes

By Gary Beggs

Airman Gary Beggs wanted to escape the hot desert of Libya where he was stationed in 1964, so he took a thirty-day leave to go to England.

While he wanted a break from the noise, sweat, and sand, what he looked forward to most was flirting with English-speaking women for a changepreferably good-looking ones.

By some type of godly intervention, he ended up in Denmark where he met a young Danish woman named Karin in a caf. Even though she was with another man, he knew he had to get to know her better.

When Karin suddenly disappeared, a frustrated Beggs decided to leave Denmark for good. After he went to the ship that would take him away, he saw a sign that read, Ferry to Malmo, but it should have read, You are leaving the land of fables and fairy tales by Hans Christian Anderson and are now entering the twilight zone.

Beggs looks back at a series of decisions that led to romance, intrigue, mystery, suspense, love, and every other emotion he could have imagined in The Nightstand Notesa true story filled with miracles, highs, and lows.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477268049

Gary Beggs

Gary Beggs served in the Air Force and met Karin, the love of his life, in 1964 in Copenhagen, Denmark, before moving to Washington State. He worked at Boeing, earned a degree in industrial arts education and a private pilot’s license, owned his own construction company, and was a building inspector.

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© 2012 by Gary Beggs. All rights reserved.

Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

All net proceeds from this publication will be donated to Christian charitable organizations.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV).

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/20/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4772-6806-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-6805-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-6804-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012916735

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

In memory of my wonderful loving wife who put up with me for many years and lived to glorify her Savior.

To all my family, friends and others into whose hands this true love story might find its way …

Gary Beggs

Summer, 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Ch. 1.   The Disappearing Mermaid

Ch. 2.   The Coffee is Not Strong Enough

Ch. 3.   Big Decisions Ahead

Ch. 4.   The Discharge

Ch. 5.   The Journey Home

Ch. 6.   Hurried Dangerous Drive All In Vain

Ch. 7.   The Maple Valley Ventures

Ch. 8.   Settling In at the New Digs

Ch. 9.   Business Pressures

Ch. 10.   Lost the Rudder and Hit the Iceberg

Ch. 11.   The Store, Jobs and Triple Troubles

Ch. 12.   Taking on New Challenges

Ch. 13.   Hold On Tight

Ch. 14.   Mission Trips, Trials and Travels

Ch. 15.   Bad Back and More Accidents

Ch. 16.   Property and Town Disputes

Ch. 17.   Facing the Biggest Storm of Our Lives

Ch. 18.   Our Move to Oregon

Chapter 1

The Disappearing Mermaid

The incessant roar of the F-105 and F-4 afterburners of the fighter jets’ engines made my head buzz and jarred every bone in my body. I laid on my bunk dripping wet with sweat, my ears stuffed with cotton and a pillow over my head to muffle the ever present screaming roar, to try and get some desperately needed sleep. I generally pulled the night shift, so I had to put up with all the normal, noisy day activities when I hit the bunk. Very few of the buildings on the base had any air conditioning, so the heat was stifling in the fall of 1964 at this isolated, miserable, noisy, sandy base on the edge of the scorched Libyan Desert. As I laid on my bunk sheet, stripped down to just my skivvies, the pillow covering my head added to my sweating even more, but without it, sleep would have been impossible. The active takeoff runway was less than seven hundred feet from my concrete block barracks which acted like a megaphone to amplify all the noisy activity. Fighter planes from all over the NATO nations used Wheelus Air Base in Libya as their main fighter training base year round. The ear piercing roar of the jets ricocheting around on the bare concrete block walls rarely subsided for any length of time.

I had been isolated in this sweaty, fly swarming, stinky camel and goat stop for nine hot, dusty, miserable months. The bone jarring roar of the jets jolted me into the realization that I really needed a break from the noise, sweat, and ever present sand that continually drifted into the concrete megaphone used as our sleeping quarters. My quarters were located on the sunny south side, where the blazing rays from the fall sun heated it up like a pizza oven. I shared this sweatbox with two other airmen; a young black kid from New Jersey and a quiet married white guy in his late twenties from San Diego, who I rarely saw and, when I did see him, he rarely started a conversation. The black kid had a chip on his shoulder as big as a Sahara sand-dune and literally despised all white people. He made it clear from the first day we met that it wasn’t his choice to be bunked with two white guys and would usually ignore me if I tried to speak with him. Quite often, he played basketball on a patch of asphalt near our barracks with a group of black guys, so I asked him if I could come and play with them. He was very reluctant and couldn’t understand why I would even want to. Well, I wasn’t exactly a novice at basketball and really liked to play, so I did my best and tried to show them that some white boys could do a few things with the ball too. I was the captain of my high school team that won the state championship my senior year and played in college for one year before dropping (actually flunking) out of school. He was quite impressed with my playing skills and always made a point of telling his friends that I was his roomy. After that, he opened up and we began to have some very spirited conversations about racial stereotyping. He was an excellent player and I tried to convince him to go to college and play ball when he got out of the service. I’m not quite sure if I ever convinced him that all white people didn’t hate blacks, but he did have a little better attitude toward me after a while.

There were very few Anglo women around and the few that were there, usually, were so homely that even King Kong would have been embarrassed to be seen cavorting with them. But, they pranced around like they were the queen bees. Sand, sun, sweat, screaming jets, odd-ball roomies, unbelievable work hours, and homely girls were really taking their toll on me. And then, there were the Muslim women with their heads and bodies completely covered, so you had no idea what they looked like. It really didn’t matter, because we were informed to never turn our heads to look at any Muslim woman, unless we wanted to lose our heads or some other unspeakable personal body part. The nomadic ones with the sheep and goat herders that I saw out in the desert, who didn’t cover their faces, made it pretty obvious that they weren’t hiding anything worth losing any part of my body over; most of them had been grotesquely tattooed all over their faces. I really needed a long break from all this, so I put in for a thirty day leave. I hadn’t taken any leave in over one and a half years and was way overdue to get away from everything concerning the military.

We had a small fleet of C-130 Hercules turbo prop cargo planes headed somewhere in the world to pick up supplies for the Base, so I jumped on one headed for France, where I had been stationed for a year before being shipped off to Libya. Going back to France was not where I wanted to go, for some pretty good reasons; for one thing, I had slipped out of France without so much as a goodbye to a couple of French girls that I knew. I also didn’t want to run into a couple of other airmen that had caused me a lot of grief and problems, while I was stationed there, but at least it got me back to Europe. I figured I could get a hop to England fairly easily from there since this Base had a large fleet of C-130 cargo planes going someplace all the time. Anyway, that was my plan. I wanted to be able to sit down and have a conversation in English with some decent female species. However, nothing seemed to be headed that way. While waiting in the flight dispatcher’s terminal, a pilot walked by and asked where I was trying to get to. I said, I want to go to England, so I can talk to some girls in English for a change.

He replied, Well, I’m not going to England, but I’m headed up to Denmark with a stopover in Germany, and all the young women in Denmark speak pretty good English. Hey, that was good enough for me. So I hopped on his little C-47 (a military DC-3) that was a supply plane for all the American Embassies around Europe and hit the skies for Frankfurt, and then, on to Copenhagen…. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that it would end up being the flight that changed the course of my entire life.

We stayed over-night in Frankfurt and then took off for Copenhagen early the next morning. We had picked up another passenger who was a young kid in the army. I was an old timer at twenty four and a half years of age. He seemed like a half decent guy, so we decided to chum around together when we got there, because an unfamiliar large foreign city of more than a million people can seem pretty overwhelming, daunting, and lonely at times. Copenhagen, in the late fall, is not where you would likely go to have fun in the sun, but I wasn’t looking for sun. I’d had my fill of the sun and was looking for a little cooler weather for a change.

It was rather cool when we arrived, and I was glad I had the foresight to have brought along my warm Air Force overcoat. We caught a taxi from the little Danish military airstrip into town and checked into an inexpensive (but clean) hotel not too far from the town center.

We were somewhat disappointed to discover that the famous Tivoli Garden Amusement Park had already closed down for the winter. If we could have just hung out there, it would have been a lot easier to strike up a conversation with some of the young women and offer to buy them some treats or rides on the various venues at the park. Since it was shut down, there weren’t a whole lot of other activities going on. Fortunately for me, he wasn’t interested in just hanging out in some bar and picking up a girl. That is usually not the type of girl I wanted to meet. We did a little flirting with a couple of the cute girls who worked at the hotel where we were staying, but they didn’t seem to show a whole lot of interest in us. Silly girls! We both just wanted to meet some clean cut girls to hang out with, talk to, and have a relaxing, fun time. We spent a few days going around visiting all the more touristy sights, enjoying ourselves, but it wasn’t exactly what we had hoped for. He only had a couple of days leave, while I had over three weeks yet to kill. Neither of us were very outgoing or extroverted, and it seemed impractical and increasingly difficult just to walk up to a strange girl and start a conversation.

On his last evening, a Sunday, we stopped in at the ABC Cafeteria, which was our favorite place to eat. You didn’t have to know Danish to order, and it was fairly inexpensive. They served all the typical smorgasbord open faced sandwiches and also had a lot of various good hot dishes. You just moved along the food line and pointed to what you wanted. The place was not fancy, but typically spotlessly Danish clean. There were cafeteria style tables around that seated 8-10 people and you could sit where you wanted to. We sat at a table in the middle of the room facing the windows looking out to the sidewalk, so we could eat and people watch at the same time. Without a great deal of imagination or adventure, that was the best thing we could come up with for a little entertainment.

It was a little early for most Danes to be eating dinner, so we were the only customers in the place. I sat at the left end of the table, facing the windows and entry door, with him sitting next to me just to my right. He was in a real talkative mood, complaining the whole time that this vacation had been a real bust for him since he had been unable to meet any girls in his short stay. While he was blabbing away, I noticed a young man enter the cafeteria accompanied by one of the most beautiful young women I had ever seen. She was the stereotypical Scandinavian beauty that you see in clothes modeling magazines, except that she wasn’t as thin and starving looking like most of them. She fit the image of the sexy young vixen that every normal hot blooded, testosterone loaded young male spends way too much time daydreaming about. Talk about rubbing salt in my already fragile, wounded ego, hopes and dreams! I was instantly irrationally jealous of the lucky bugger. Fortunately for me, after getting their food, they took a seat across from us at the other end of our table and she ended up only about four feet away from me. It was extremely difficult to keep from stealing glances her way. But, when I did try to sneak a quick glance in her direction, I almost hyperventilated when I noticed that her beautiful blue/green eyes were staring straight at me which seemed like several seconds. She was wearing a snug fitting deep blue cashmere sweater that complimented her gorgeous eyes. I also noticed that she had the loveliest full lips with a well-defined edge to them, but they weren’t exaggerated and all puffed up like the Botox gals who look all swollen as if they got tangled up with a swarm of bees. I also noticed that she wasn’t wearing a wedding band or ring on her right hand ring finger as is the European custom for married people.

After a few minutes, the guy got up and went to get something at the food counter, and I caught her glancing my way again. Well, as a healthy red blooded, testosterone loaded young man, I did the logical thing; I took several quick deep breaths, hyperventilated, everything went fuzzy and then black, as I passed out, sprawling all over the floor. Well, not quite, but I sure felt like I was going to. My heart was pounding in my ears and my head was buzzing, but I tried to keep calm by taking a slow, deep breath again, hoping to clear my head, gather my thoughts and regain my composure and sanity. Meanwhile, my army nit-wit blabbering buddy was totally oblivious to all the earth shaking events that were transpiring before our very eyes. Her companion came back to the table and sat down. My unrealistic dreams and fantasies instantly evaporated, as an unceasing blur of words from my friend bombarded my sensibilities and it was beginning to get on my nerves. Oh well, just imagine what could have been!!! I had all but given up on any rational hope. But, just then, I got another chance. Her companion got up again and went through the same routine. What luck, I thought! I tried to muster up enough courage to try to say something halfway coherent and intelligent to her, but all I could do was sit as if my tongue was paralyzed and stare at her like a mindless zombie while she stared back at me. Man, oh man, she must have thought I was some kind of weirdo. My brain was going 500 miles an hour, while my mouth was frozen shut and refused to cooperate. Nuts, back he came. Wow, what is the matter with me? I thought, I can usually say something, even if it is a stupid, silly, or non-sensible remark. I was sure her enticing eyes were sending me some very friendly glances, but I couldn’t think of a thing to say. My brain had slammed into a brick wall and was probably still suffering from being roasted by too much hot Libyan sun. And besides, I was definitely not used to just blurting out something to a totally strange girl, especially if she was with another guy. Also, I didn’t even know if she spoke any English.

This was not your ordinary everyday run of the mill woman or occurrence. I had blown my last chance for sure I thought, as the incessant MOUTH next to me droned on and on and was becoming increasingly obnoxious, not even letting up for a second to give me a chance to say something, if I could just get my mind and mouth to co-operate. The wind blew out of my sail. I really blew it and I knew it.

I thought This just isn’t fair. Even in baseball, a guy gets three strikes before he is out. But, this wasn’t baseball. This was the real deal! But wait!! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Unbelievably, the antsy pants bloke got up again! A straight fastball was heaved at me, and I wasn’t about to be called out on my third strike without even swinging. Immediately, I geared up for a home run swing! It’s now or never! a voice thundered in my head. Without a second’s hesitation, I turned to the non-stop MOUTH and quickly said, Hey, be quiet for a second and give me a pen and a piece of paper. He reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a pen and small piece of scrap paper and handed them to me. I immediately slid the pen and paper over to her and quietly stated, I would like your name and phone number.

She just calmly stared back at me with those beautiful Baltic blue/green eyes, reached out quickly, placed her hand gently on mine and slid my hand, the pen, and paper back and said, in very nice accented English, Forget that, just meet me in two hours at the Viking Club. I glanced at my nice, fairly new Bulova watch, very casually nodded and gave the pen and paper back to the stunned, now silent MOUTH. Her friend came back and she and I acted as if nothing had happened.

My buddy sat there for a minute with an incredibly shocked look on his face, as the ball sailed out of the park for a home run. Finally, he realized what just took place, caught his breath and mumbled, So, that’s how it’s done.

I very nonchalantly quietly replied, Yep, that’s how it’s done. Simple as Simon, easy as pie. I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest and I would die right there. I tried to appear very confident, calm and casual while I finished eating, then got up and nodded goodbye to the couple.

We went back to our hotel room where I freshened up, ditched him, to his disappointment and chagrin, and went out to meet up with this gorgeous gal. Oh boy, what if she was just having some fun flirting with me and pulling my leg and didn’t show up? I had never heard of the Viking Club before and didn’t even know where the joint was. I had to ask around to find out if the place even existed. I couldn’t help thinking if she was just trying to get rid of me in the quickest way she could before the guy returned to the table? Or maybe, she was unhappily married to him and just wanted to flirt a little, or even have a little fling? A million little doubts and questions plagued my mind, as I killed some time.

I discovered that the place really did exist and found where it was located, which gave me some hope. It wasn’t far from my hotel, so I could just walk the few blocks to get there. I didn’t want to seem overly anxious to meet her, so after a quick glance at my watch, I showed up a couple of minutes late. I entered the place, which seemed like a pretty nice joint, and saw her sitting at a booth with another attractive blond gal about the same age. I slid into the booth across from them and introduced myself. She introduced herself as Karin (pronounced Carr-een), and then, introduced her friend. I was pretty sure she brought her along for some added security, since she didn’t know if I were some kind of nutcase and she wouldn’t be too anxious to be alone with me if that were the case. I couldn’t blame her for that. It just showed me that she had a few smarts about her and didn’t want to take any foolhardy risks.

We sat and talked for about five minutes before the storm hit. Through the entry door, flew the guy she had been with earlier. He spotted us and stormed over speaking to her rather angrily. I couldn’t understand a word they said, but it wasn’t hard to figure out that some pretty heated words were exchanged. I thought for a while that I was going to have to get up and clean his clock and re-arrange his nose, but Karin assured me that everything was okay, and that I didn’t need to worry about it. After a few more angry boisterous words from him, he turned and stomped away in a huff. Karin could tell that I was pretty bothered by the whole thing and quickly assured me that he was just an acquaintance, not a close friend, and that it was no big deal. He was just very upset that she had made up an excuse for him to take her home early, and then, she had left shortly after to meet up with me. He suspected something was up and had followed her here. I felt a little bad about the whole deal, but quickly brushed it aside. After that, the three of us had a good time together and talked for several hours. She told me that she was a secretary and part time model for a clothing manufacturer. I told her I was an American in the Air Force stationed in Libya. It was pretty obvious to her that I wasn’t from Denmark or England, as I had a tan that was about as dark as a baked bean.

When we were at the ABC, she said she kept trying to think of things to ask the guy to go back to the counter to get her, hoping I would say something to her. She thought I was interested and figured if she just kept asking him to get her something else, that I would eventually get the hint. Smart me, it only took her three tries!!! We really hit it off together and had a great time. It was easy to carry on an enjoyable and interesting conversation with her.

After a few hours of fun, entertaining conversation, and several sodas for me, it became time for us to leave. She said she had to get up early to be at her job the next day. Since it was pretty late, and she lived a few miles away and would have to take several streetcars home, I asked if she wanted me to accompany her on the ride to her place. I guess she felt pretty comfortable with me because she said goodbye to her girlfriend and let me take her home. She lived on the NW outskirts of the city, and we had to ride two different streetcars a couple miles to get there. It was a street lined on both sides with five and six story apartment buildings with storefronts on the first floor of most of them. She led me to one on a corner, where she supposedly lived (I’ll share more about that later), that had an entry foyer with a stairway that led to the various apartments. We made plans to meet the next evening at the ABC when she got off work. We said our goodbyes in the foyer, but I couldn’t resist giving those gorgeous, inviting luscious lips a quick goodnight kiss. She went up the stairs to her apartment that she mentioned was on the third floor. I crossed the street and caught the streetcars back to the city center, but I was feeling so high and giddy, I probably could have flapped my arms a little and just floated back. Wow, what a remarkable evening!

The next day of my new adventure, my disappointed army pal had to leave to go back to Germany. After he left, I needed a smaller, less expensive room, so I found a hotel that was a little cheaper and closer to where Karin lived. Other than moving to the new hotel, I don’t remember a great deal of how I spent the rest of the day, other than anxiously waiting with great anticipation for her to get off work and meeting again at the ABC. My head was in a hazy, heady, romantic fog. I have very little recollection of that evening, except that she did show up. I know we just strolled along many of the lovely quaint old streets of beautiful Copenhagen, talked, held hands, and kissed a little, but I actually recall very little of what really transpired that evening. I do know it was a beautiful and lovely time. I was in a real stupor! In the evening we took the streetcar back to her apartment, and again, we said our goodbyes in the entry foyer.

After that, for the next few days, we met every evening at the ABC when she got off work. She showed me lots of things around the city that I wasn’t familiar with. We went out to the harbor and observed the pretty Little Mermaid statue perched on a rock. On Thursday, she informed me that she had to go on a weekend modeling trip to the other side of Denmark and would be gone Saturday and Sunday, but would be back Sunday evening. I told her that I would like to visit Sweden, so I would go over there Saturday and Sunday while she was gone. I would be back Sunday evening and meet her at the ABC around six in the evening. We agreed to meet for a short evening the next day at our usual time to continue discussing our plans further for the following week.

The next evening, a Friday, I went to the ABC, as usual, to meet her. I waited for about an hour, but she didn’t show up. I thought maybe she got delayed at work to finish up on some last minute planning for her upcoming trip, so I waited a little while longer, before I realized something was terribly wrong, and that she wasn’t coming. I didn’t know whether to feel foolish, angry, or to be really concerned that something terrible might have happened to her. It’s difficult to express all the emotions I was experiencing; foolishness, anger, confusion, sorrow, hurt, fear, anxiety and a whole lot more.

What could have happened to her? I thought. I was sure she liked me. Was she secretly married, just using me as some kind of exciting fling? Did her family not approve of her relationship with a foreigner and forbid her to see me? Maybe she got in an accident and couldn’t come. Did she have to leave on her trip sooner than she thought and had no way of informing me? Whatever the reason, I just couldn’t brush her aside and forget all about her. I had to know what was going on, one way or the other.

I decided to go to her apartment to see if I could find out the real answer, no matter how much the truth might hurt me, or embarrass her. But, this presented a slight problem. I knew where her apartment building was, but I didn’t know which apartment she lived in, since we always said our goodbyes in the entry foyer, and I didn’t even know her last name. Since she told me she lived on the third floor, I went there and began knocking on doors and inquiring about her. No one could even recognize her by the description I gave, and some of the older people couldn’t even speak English. But, everyone I spoke to insisted that no young lady like that lived in these apartments. I was getting frustrated and desperate, but finally, came to an apartment that seemed like it could be the right one. It housed a middle aged couple that had several young kids. I was convinced that they were her parents, but they insisted they didn’t have a clue who I was talking about. I just knew they were hiding her, so I demanded to be let in and look around for myself. They were very nice and somewhat hesitant of my actions, but were kind enough to let me in. I stormed through their doorway, but it soon became very apparent that I was completely mistaken and acting like a totally irrational fool. The looks on the kids’ faces left no doubt. It didn’t take long to realize that I had made a horribly idiotic mistake and immediately apologized, before anyone called the police and had me hauled off to the slammer.

Wow, I had never been hoodwinked so badly by anyone before. What a complete fool I had been!! Not only had she stood me up and skipped out on me, she didn’t even live where she said she did. She had played me like a fine fiddle and left me hanging with nothing but some horribly sour notes. I couldn’t believe I had been so gullible and stupid. Like they say…. love is truly blind and can make you do really stupid and irrational things sometimes. I had no idea where she really lived or worked, for that matter, and realized, that if she did exist (I was beginning to doubt my sanity) and wasn’t just some figment of my imagination, I would never see her again. I felt like someone had landed a big sucker punch to my stomach. I was devastated to say the least. The girl of my dreams had literally vanished into thin air just like the fairy tale mermaid disappears into the ocean forever and is never to be seen again.

I went across the street to catch the streetcar back to my hotel. I was hesitant to get on the streetcar, wondering if it was full of guys in white coats ready to slap me in a strait-jacket and haul me off to the funny farm. Fortunately, no one like that was on board, so I rode back to my hotel trying to make sense of the whole crazy thing, but nothing added up, as my confused mind refused to cooperate, and my thoughts spun out of control. I crawled into bed and tried to get some sleep, but after a very restless night, I was really depressed and in a total funk. In the morning, after taking a long hot shower to try and clear my head, I got dressed and wandered back to the ABC and just sat for a while drinking lots of strong coffee. I decided to go for a long walk, retracing our old walks, trying to gather my thoughts and figure things out, but it was useless, hopeless, and just plain foolish. Maybe all this was payback for the way I had quietly shipped out and disappeared on so many gals when I was stationed back in Louisiana and France, without so much as a good-bye, but I seriously doubted that I broke any of their