Author’s Notes

Chapter 1

Much of this at the start is actually paralleling my own experience of the time. I actually did report in to MEPS on 31 August 1983, and on the night of 1 September we were in the hotel in Inglewood and hearing the news that the Soviets did indeed shoot down a Korean Airlines 747 killing all on board. The next day, I left for boot camp.

And until 1994 with the base closures, Navy boot camp was also held in San Diego. It The Naval Training Center was right next door to the Marine boot camp, but we only saw them at the half way point of our 3 mile run PT test course, over a fence where they were doing the same thing on their side. Lots of laughing and yelling at each other at that point.

And indeed, right after returning from the range, the Marine Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon was attacked by a suicide bomber in a truck full of explosives. I know it was a Sunday, and things were quiet and somber, with some that worked in the chow hall crying. It was overcast but not raining, and only when I bought the newspaper after I ate (the Sunday paper being the only one we could buy) did I learn what had happened. There was also the invasion of Grenada, but that impacted us nowhere near as much as that event did.

Mount Motherfucker, or also known as “Reaper” in polite company. The Paris Island Marines talk about sand fleas, but at San Diego we had Mount Motherfucker. Over 700 feet in elevation (over 210 meters), it is near vertical in places, a dirt road covered with sand that we climbed at night. We had all heard of it by this time, but only the next morning when looking at it from the Area 54 range did we actually see what we had gone over for the first time. Then three days of firing courses, load up the packs, and go back over it again.

And yes, at this time there were no washing machines for us. Part of what we did each Sunday morning was going behind the barracks with a scrub brush, and washing our uniforms by hand. A bottle of Whisk detergent by our side.

Chapter 2

“Lussuria” is Italian for “lust”.

Chapter 3

Yes, the EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle was a GMC motorhome, the only motorhome built by an actual car company from the ground up as a motorhome. Which is why it looked so unlike any others (which were normally based on a box truck with the rest just added to the back). Specifically, this is what is known as “Floorplan 26-8”. Or number 8 in a 26 foot long unit. Table in the back that could be converted into a double bed, captains chairs in the front across from a dining table that could be converted to a bed, and a small kitchen. I had “Gunny” make some modifications to the original layout, adding in a small shower into the bathroom as he had originally used it for traveling in for long periods of time where he would have wanted at least a shower.

If any are interested in how it would have been laid out from the factory, do a google image search for “1975 GMC motorhome floorplans” and look at 26-8.

Yes, Hot Trax was a real club at this time, on Van Nuys Blvd. Just north of Victory. Open only to teens from roughly 1983-1985. It was a conventional club, but the owner lost their liquor license to turned it into a teen only club. I worked there at times in that era, as either a bouncer, or as a DJ.

Chapter 4

The game Pete of course is playing is the original “King’s Quest” game. The text adventure he mentions was originally released as “Softporn Adventure”. Then a few years later had graphics added and renamed to “Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards”.

A bit about the ragtime piano player. Anybody who visited Disneyland from the 1969 to 2006 might recognize the legendary Rod Miller. He truly was a legend, and played most days ragtime piano right there at Coke Corner. He had a regular following, and for two years I was one of them. An excellent player, who was self-taught, and never learned how to read music. He was most famous for playing the Scott Joplin standard “The Entertainer” with purposefully wrong notes. If anybody wants to be really entertained by one of the best piano players ever, just look on YouTube for “Disneyland Coke Corner Rod Miller”. There are several hours of clips of him from this era there.

And from 1984-1985 I was one of the regulars that would go to the park just to hang out with Rod for hour after hour and listen to his amazing playing. Even decades after he retired, he is still brought to do special concerts for Disney events, and is a legend among the entertainers there even decades after he retired.

Chapter 5

Of course, I will readily admit that the cover I describe is anachronistically based on one created almost a decade later. It is inspired by “Gentle Rogue”, by Johanna Lindsey. Published in 1990, it is iconic for having Fabio as the model in the painting.

But I also realized that if I was really going to have females writing “naughty games”, there was a good chance that instead of going with a porn trope, they might well instead use tropes from romance novels for the stories.

Chapter 7

A bit of a spoiler here, but by this time it should not be applicable as I assume any that read this had at least finished Book II.

As I was writing the early part of this story, I had a drive crash. And it was not until much later that I realized the backup copy I had of one chapter was an older one. Specifically the chapter where Pete and Linda actually got engaged. I only realized that when later on she sent him “both rings”, and people started to demand when he had actually given her an engagement ring.

And I realized that the crash had indeed deleted that chapter. So in this rewrite, I put it back in as best as I could remember. And it was rather interesting, having to step back over a year and a half and return to writing at a time when Linda was the love of Peter’s life, and both were looking forward to their life together. One thing I realized in this editing, was how differently the relationship was between those two, and his lovers to follow. But I will admit, that I still have a soft spot in my heart for Linda at this stage. And I added a new segment that will continue on, with specifically putting in whenever Peter celebrates a New Year, and specifically stating what the new year is. A lot of people later commented on how after time it became hard to keep track of exactly what year it was.

So in reading forward, this should be more obvious now. As this story really does take place over a very long period of time, well over a decade. This will make it more obvious as time passes of the changes in each of the characters.

And yes, The Federated Group was a major discount electronics chain in LA during that era. Mostly well known for having Shadoe Stevens using a giant sledgehammer to destroy expensive TVs, VCRs, and other electronics saying he was “Fred Rated” and “Smashing Prices”. Not unlike what the comedian Gallagher was doing with watermelons. The prices were almost always good, but they tended to stock mostly the lower ended products and not the more expensive but much better built ones. But there are also a ton of his old commercials on YouTube if any want a laugh at them.

MULE was an early game by Electronic Arts, and was one of the highest rated games of the era. It was the top selling game of the year, and has frequently appeared on lists of the best computer games of all time. And the theme song is equally addictive. And like most of the early EA games back when they were simply a publisher and other people and companies actually wrote the games, it will never really be made again.

Chapter 8

Yes, the line Holly reads out loud is actually from a dead tree dirty book called “Schoolgirl’s First Time”. And it is available here. I actually spent quite a bit of time in order to find the most horrible quote to use, and that one jumped out at me.

And yes, the centerfold in the issue of Penthouse with the nude photos of Vanessa Williams was indeed Traci Lords. And in the interview part she talked about wanting to get into porn, which she very shortly did thanks to the exposure. That was the largest selling issue of an adult magazine ever. And unknown to the industry, Miss Lords had just turned 16 when the photos were shot.

And yes, some at the time did speculate she might be underage. Her breasts at the start were indeed unusually cone shaped, with huge puffy areola. But she had managed to get a US passport with her fake name and birthdate, which is ultimately got the producers off the hook as she used an official US government ID with her photo on it as proof of age. Actress Kristara Barrington also had some of her earliest movies pulled because her breasts were similar in her earliest movies and the companies were gun shy by that time.

But with Kristara they realized that was simply how her breasts were. Even 5 years later when she was 28, they looked the same way. Perky, with puffy and distended areola.

Chapter 9

Yes, Orion is high in alcohol, and a common prank for Marines would be to take the boots and do exactly that to them. Offer to buy the first drink, and all others if the new guy could finish six of them. Most were trashed by the time they got to 4.

And yes, at that time “Networks” as we have now did not exist. Most used a small variant of the PDP system, with Admin, Supply, and Maintenance Management making changes on a local terminal. Those were put on an 8” disk, which was then picked up by a courier and taken to the computer center.

Overnight they would load in the disks, and combined with an update physically flown over from the US print off any reports needed, then sent back to the units with the updates for their local computer. It was not until 1991 when the old PDP systems were finally retired, and it was done on a PC with 5.25” disks until sometime in the late 1990’s when computer networks were finally common on military bases.