Dilemma

Main Operations Complex, Sinop, Turkey

I spent a year in Sinop, Turkey around 1970 or so. My recollections of that experience are hazy, for the most part. Let’s just say I was “anesthetized” for the greatest part of my time there. At any rate, I spent a few hours perusing this web site and reminiscing about my misspent youth, particularly those times in Sinop and its environs. “Misspent” is too kind, perhaps. Other words or terms come to mind, such as “deviant,” “socially unacceptable,” and flat-out, break-all-the-rules, illicit behavior. I’m extremely fortunate to have made it through those times without…uh…coming to the attention of the authorities, in all their various permutations. I had a lot of deviant company during those days. It was, after all, the end of the ‘60s and the beginning of the ‘70s. Think sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. Plastic hippies. Different time, different place.

I digress.

But, O!, the stories from that era…debauchery, drunken nights, lazy days off spent on the beach, interspersed more than a few semi-serious explorations into the history, archaeology, and folkways of Turkey (even youthful deviants sometimes experience serious moments). And then there are the work-related stories, most of which I’m not sure I’m at liberty to relate, even 35 years after the fact. There are some things I took seriously then, and still take seriously now.

On the one hand, I’m thinking “it is what it is”…that was then, this is now, and other such rationalizations. I’m not the same person now, not even remotely, as I was back then. On the other hand, there’s no freakin’ way I’d tell the story I have in mind to, say, my grandchildren. I may or may not have shared this story with my boys (I think I have, actually); I know I’ve told the story to a few very close friends. The story always gets a lot of laughs when I’ve told it in the past. And it’s been quite a while since I’ve written an installment of “Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine.” The story I have in mind definitely fits the mold of those stories, I’m just agonizing about self-incrimination and all that.

Dilemma.