Chanute Air Force Base is located in a town called Rantoul, Illinois, and was where the friendship between Airman "G" and I blossomed into a romance. He knew the exact day and time that I was to arrive, and as soon as I checked into my squadron, I headed for the nearest phone to let him know that I was there. We saw each other almost every day after school; and each and every weekend we headed into town. We would meet after classes on Friday evening, go to the base package store (liquor store), and make that short, wonderful walk into town, check in the Rantoul Holiday Inn, have some fun out on the town, and then go back to our room. We laughed, made loved, probably drank too much, and became what a I thought was the best of friends. Neither of us claimed to love each other. Not out loud, anyway. We knew that were FIRE together. We knew we had a lot of similar interests and a lot in commom. We both were very intelligent, and had dreams and plans for our individual futures. We were simply "kickin' it".

I recall the evening that I knew that I had fallen in love with him. It was a weekday, and we were staying on base. I was in my dorm room waiting for "G" to arrive. The normal procedure we used for receiving guests was for the airman on guard duty to let you know that someone was downstairs waiting for you. Well, unfortunately, that was the time in my life when I needed to feel anything but the real me. I didn't know it then, though. I've since learned that I didn't know who the "real me" was. As only an alcoholic/addict would do, I decided to use a trick that one of my past boyfriends taught me. I, with all of my intelligence, proceeded to drink a half bottle of cough syrup! You see, that was the last get-high craze that I knew about before I left Lexington Terrace. I had never done it before. I had only been around my boyfriend when he did it. The problem was that I couldn't stay awake to wait on "G". Thinking that I needed some air, I sat on the window sill, with the window wide open, legs hanging over the outward side of the window. It would have been a good idea, and it seemed innocent enough, but I started thinking that I could probably fly with little or no difficulty! Now, at the same time, somewhere in in my brain, I knew that it was the cough syrup, and that I COULD NOT FLY in reality, so I got my behind out of the window sill and lay down across my bed. Bigger mistake! Fortunately, before I could get too deep into that "nap" I heard a loud, persistant banging on my door. Suffice to say that if "G" had not come when he did, and if the airman-on-duty had not banged on my door when he did, I would have lapsed into a coma... a syrup-induced coma. But the banging and calling of my name woke me up. My brain was mush, and that walk down the hallway to the stairs was done in a complete fog. "G" must have seen that I wasn't fairing too well; and being the man that he was, he didn't say anything until we got out of earshot of the young man, and with his arm around me, he walked me outside and asked me what was wrong. I told him what I had done, and that I was way too high, and I was scared. He asked what he could do to make it better, and do you know that my stupid behind had never found out from that thug boyfriend what needed to be done to come down from a bad trip? I though I was toast! What happened next was another one of those Higher Power intervention things. "G" started to play with me. When I say play, I mean we got into a one-on-one touch football game right there on the manicured lawn of the Weather Training Squadron. He chased me around, and gently pushed me, and tackled me, and made me laugh until some of the fog rolled away from my brain. Apparently, he surmised that if I worked some of it off, it would get better. He was right; it did. In the midst of it all, I was thinking, "this man is saving my life. I think I love him". That was the same night that I heard Elton John's song, "Someone Saved My Life Tonight". From that night until this day, it's still one of my favorite songs. Later, we went to the NCO club on base, and I requested it from the dj and dedicated it to "G". I've often wondered if he remembered that incident throughout the years. That was the night that I fell in love with LCG, Jr.