Mars Bar '89

      It landed in a pile of other contraband pocket litter in the white canvas laundry basket on wheels, you know the infamous laundry baskets used on prison escape films.  "It" being a Mars Bar...  The time was around 10 PM, I think it was a Thursday night?, I don't know anymore.  It was 13 June 1989, at a place called Recruit Training Command Great Lakes, Il.  This was my very first day of my Military Service.  I was 18, as were the majority of the other 79 boys I would spend the next two months with.  I think one person was 21 and a couple others might have been 17, but the bulk of us could relate the fit successful single by Alice Cooper in 1971 ("I'm Eighteen" if you don't know your Rock n Roll history).

    We had just gotten off the bus from the Chicago Airport and were going through the infamous time honoured rite of passage of being screamed at, cussed at, donating a urine sample, etc...  This was very early in the game.  I honestly look back on this time as a blur, yet I remember so many details.  We were in a room where we were searched for contraband.  The only thing I had that remotely counted was a single Mars Bar.  I had a small Bible, a razor and blades, toothbrush, etc.  I knew we would be issued these things, but brought them anyway.

   The small group I was with left for the start to become Sailors in the USN from Cleveland was around five? (1989 is not all that long ago, but it is a long time ago).  Somewhere between leaving the MEPS in Cleveland and the Chicago O'Hare I managed to grab myself a bottle of Mt Dew (the 16 oz glass bottle with styrofoam label) and a pocket full of candy.  I forgot what all I grabbed, but it was a lot.  I knew that the weeks ahead would be devoid of such luxuries and I did not want to miss my last chance to eat the official food of the 1980's teenager.

   On the bus to Great Lakes I managed to drink all the Mt Dew and eat everything...but the last Mars Bar. I had reached my limit and could not force that down my gob.  So into the contraband cart it went.

    Over the next eight weeks I thought about that Mars Bar all the time.  To be honest I actually like most of the food they fed us in Boot Camp.  I have no complaints about the food in my whole time in the Service.  I came from a family where we were fed very bland food and had not been exposed to food with flavour, so getting to eat rice on a regular basis was pretty exciting.  

    But...there was no going to a convenience store and grabbing a Coke and chocolate bar when ever I wanted.  I fantasied about getting out of Boot Camp and walking into a shop for a Mt Dew.  That Mars Bar haunted me until August of 1989.  I graduated with Recruit Company 236 and got to spend two weeks leave at home and more than made up for my time without junk food.

   I can still feel myself tossing that Mars Bar away and hearing it hit the canvas of that laundry basket cart.  Mars Bars are no longer made*, but the Snickers Almond is a very close and every once in a while I have one of them.  If I take my time I can hear "I'm Eighteen" and I am the next Ricky Recruit  to get my head shaved...

*The US Mars Bar, as far as I know the British Mars Bar is till with us?

This story comes full circle and ends with...

https://tomcatpc.blogspot.com/2023/04/long-promised-road-aka-schools-out.html