There haven’t been any major updates to the CLOG situation lately and the CLOG-CNU page is doing its job of redirecting. I can kinda make this part of my blog my blog again. I’ll still hold off on the ’80s April for a few more days or so.
I haven’t been getting out lately. I think I got a little homesick for Richmond and sick of living 10 hours away from my girlfriend (could be worse as my best friend is 23 hours by car from his girlfriend and, in a couple of weeks, will be going to Afghanistan for nine months). Additionally, I’m been putting my money to more constructive use as of late instead of going to bars. I don’t know what’s wrong with me either. I don’t like this growing up thing.
I decided to change that this week. My goal is to be out of the house every day by noon, including the days I work, unless it’s raining and I don’t have spare money to be somewhere indoors that isn’t a library. Making friends is optional. I don’t need more friends and, no offense, but I don’t think I have an awful lot in common with the 19-year-old Marines running around here.
Speaking of Marines, I went to Wilmington today because it reminds me a lot of Richmond. I guess I should say Richmond reminds me a lot of Wilmington because I toured it more before I got to know Richmond and Jacksonville’s proximity to Wilmington was the biggest factor in applying to my current job.
I hadn’t been downtown in three months. I didn’t realize that much time had gone by. I eventually worked my way down to the Cape Fear River and sat down near the end of Market Street to read a book. A few moments later, an agitated man started packing back and forth and appeared to be trying to get Camp Lejeune on the phone. Eventually he managed to get through. He wanted to know if anyone had found Lance Cpl. John Pruitt. He had a strong Northern accent. I don’t know why it stuck out as I rarely hear Southern or stereotypical North Carolina accents.
“I’m standing about where he apparently went in,” the man eventually said after identifying himself as one of Pruitt’s extremely close friends.
Pruitt fell or jumped into the tea-colored, tannin-rich estuary Sunday at about 11 p.m. and hasn’t been seen since. He is 24. The man said Pruitt was supposed to be heading to Afghanistan soon.
I almost wanted to wait for him to get off the phone and talk to him as this story also involves my company’s newspaper’s coverage area and he probably would be good for quotes or background. Then I assessed the area: The wooden tables and chairs. The weathered planks suspended over the bank of the river that vibrated as a little girl ran past. The clanging of ship bells and their horns. The distant rumble of traffic over the bridges. The shade at the information booth that compelled me to pick the spot. The tranquility of the mostly sunny, breezy, low-80s day. The concern in his voice for his most likely dead friend mixed with the “Why?” that will be in his voice whenever he speaks of Pruitt for this point forward.
I wondered how long it took him to get to the foot of Market Street and from where, if he dropped his entire life to get into a near argument with a Marine official at the very spot his friend slipped into the water.
I thought about when I drove to the spot on U.S. Route 60 where one of my high school friends, Joe Tvelia, died and how I all but begged the public relations officer to give me the official account of what happened. I had the same “Why?” in my voice.
I thought of the despair I saw in my years as a reporter and an editor with reporting duties in Central Virginia. I wrote a lot of stories about tragic loss. I was good at it and writing articles in general but I didn’t like doing it. It reinforced my desire to be a copy editor and nothing more. A frustrated It who was about to be transferred to another military official and didn’t like the runaround was pacing a few feet in front of me.
Not this. Not today. Not now. Not again. Never again.
I closed my book, stood and left the scene.
