Free Purple Daze by Sherry Shahan Page A

no!

Cheryl
    Hi Ziggy,
    Â 
    I got your letter and I can’t believe I’m writing back, but so much bad
stuff has happened, and our country is in such a mess, but mostly I can’t
stand the thought of losing you, and I miss you and everything about
you, even puking in my popcorn. Ha! Ha! I don’t blame you the same
way I blame Don because I know you were stoned out of your mind and
crazy nuts after losing the baby, but I don’t understand why Don did it?
Not if he really loved me, like he kept saying. Now I know he never did.
Not really . And I’ll never forgive him. Never. But you’re still my best
friend, and I had to tell you before someone drops a bomb on us. Girls
rock! Girls rule!
    Â 
    Love, Cheryl

Phil
    Pages of the new testament fill my pillow,
gospels on a recon in search of a soul.

Mickey
    USS Hermitage LSD-34 World Traveler
    Â 
    Dear Cheryl,
    Â 
    Look at all the places I’ve been
since hooking up with the Navy:
    Â 
    Boston
Miami
Virginia
New York
Washington, DC
Halifax
Cuba
Jamaica
Puerto Rico
Virgin Islands
    Â 
    I’ll double that next year when we make
a Mediterranean cruise—Unless we go to
Vietnam which is a definite possibility.
    Â 
    Love, “The Mick”

Ziggy
    Fat tits + quick wit
    Â 
    does not = stupidity
    Â 
    if that’s what you think.

Phil
    Dear Cheryl,
    Â 
    Sarge just strolled in.
Told me to get my shit together.
A truck’s leaving for the airport in Pleiku in 30 minutes.
He snatched my M-16 and walked out,
not another word.
    Â 
    Fuck it! I’m gone! I’m coming home, baby!
    Â 
    Love ya, Phil

Cheryl
    I’m wiggin’ out over Dr. Kildare , that dimple
in his chin and those dreamy blue eyes, humming
the theme song “Three Stars Will Shine Tonight.”
    Â 
    Ziggy storms in like the good old days,
hair in soup can rollers,
    Â 
    â€œBob Dylan crashed his motorcycle.
Broken neck.
Concussion.
Critical condition. ”
    Â 
    We sob listening to his album Highway 61 Revisited ,
singing “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry.”
    Â 
    I unpin her rollers, brush out her hair.
She irons mine. “Let’s go cruisin’.”
    Â 
    We drag Van Nuys Boulevard in Bubba’s beater,
flirting with bleached blond surfers in a woodie.
    Â 
    Ziggy peels out, ditching them for Bob’s Big Boy,
cranking The Lovin’ Spoonful, “Do You Believe in Magic?”
    Â 
    We share a banana split, extra whip cream and cherries,
celebrating 2 hours, 43 minutes without talking about the
two you-know-whos.
    Â 
    â€œWho needs them?”

It’s 1966
    and
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
breaks bookselling records
and
Johnson says, “To know war
is to know that there is still
madness in this world”
and
the Beatles top the charts,
“We Can Work It Out”
and
American troops in Vietnam
double in size to 400,000
and
correspondent Bill Rowley
travels with a patrol in Vietnam
giving a vivid account, “GIs holding the
rifles above their heads ... one just fell.”
and
80,000 Americans are killed
or wounded in Vietnam
and
the president’s daughter,
Luci Baines Johnson, gets married
with a 13-tier 300-pound cake
decorated with swans
and
Captain Kangaroo is the only
live-action show on TV.

1965 Timeline
    January 2. The Selma Voting Rights Movement officially begins when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks at a meeting in Brown Chapel, which becomes the starting point for the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965. The gathering is in direct defiance of an anti-meeting ordinance.
    Â 
    Â 
    January 20. Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as President of the United States. He remarks, “We can never again stand aside, prideful in isolation. Terrific dangers and troubles that we once called ‘foreign’ now constantly live among us.”
    Â 
    Â 
    January 27. National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara