Debauchery on the Amalfi Coast: Chapter 1

Writing the beginning of any story telling is always the most difficult part. Where do I start? I suppose there is no better way than to reach way back in my childhood, to a time when I was eight years old and the world, back then was a much bigger place. You see, this book is about Italy and it was when I was a pudgy, poorly dressed eight year old kid that I was first introduced to Italy. I am one quarter Italian and back when I was eight, my parents along with my older brother Jason, took our very own European vacation. Initially, we set up our home base in Germany staying with my Aunt and Uncle, Delana and Ivan. Ivan, at the time was in the US Air Force and stationed in Germany, so it was all very convenient. Enough about Germany though...As I was saying earlier, I am one quarter Italian, with family actually still living there today in the vicinity of Genova, on the northwest coast, also home to Christopher Columbus. Once again, my family found convenience in visiting our distant relatives in Italy, and the ability to take in some of the beautiful countryside while we were at it.

From what all my memories tell me, I had a wonderful time, ate some terrific food, met some wonderful people, and saw some beautiful sites. Sounds pretty much like Heaven on Earth right? The vacation ended, and we all went home where I would carry on with school, grow up a little, and move on into the real world and a lot of irresponsibility.

I never really considered going back to Italy throughout all those years, but still held some of that Italian pride close to my heart. I felt more proud to be partially Italian than I did my three other consecutive bits of makeup which are English, Irish, and Native American. Hell, even my freshman year at Eastern Kentucky University I bought an Italian flag and hung it proudly in my dorm room, alongside my buddies very own Confederate flag; we were in Kentucky.

Not to mention I owned the entire Rocky box set on VHS, my buddies called me a WOP, and if you would've asked me who I thought was the greatest boxer of all time I would tell you that it was none other than Rocky Marciano, 49-0 and of Italian descent. So for me leaving small town Kentucky and transitioning into a freshman in college there was a whole lot of pride, just not much drive or ambition to ever go back to this land that I savored so dearly.

As college wore on my thoughts became focused elsewhere, namely on women and booze. I became pretty handy with the latter and looked like a monkey trying to fuck a football when attempting to pick up women, although occasionally even a blind squirrel finds a nut. I was most certainly nobody's prize, I had no grooming knowledge, an empty hole where my sense of style should've been, absolutely no game, and it surely didn't help that I was a fat kid.

At my fattest, I peaked out at a plump 245 pounds, and standing at a towering 5'7", I looked like a big bag of ass, and this was not good for boosting my confidence. I had to take control, so into my sophomore year I decided to take the necessary action, and I had found the right channel for my ambition;, I joined the United States Marine Corps.

I actually joined the Marine Reserves so that I would be able to finish college, plus learn a little self discipline, drop the fat and ultimately pick up women. There was most definitely a method to my madness. After roughly three and a half months I lost 50 pounds. This weight change came as a result of spending countless hours in the gym looking like the stereotypical fat guy sweating profusely on a treadmill, in a matching sweat suit. All of the embarrassment would be worth the payoff.

I shipped out to Parris Island at 195 pounds and came out on graduation day at a slim but a little POW looking 165. A little more training and it would be back to college surrounded by hordes of gorgeous Kentucky girls. I finally got back into school and had a great time, but I'll get into that in another book. When I joined the Reserves my Mom threw a fit, she thought her baby boy would go off to war and surely die. Of course I told her a huge lie, although in my defense in my mind at the time it was the truth. I explained to my Mother, "Mom, Reservists never get deployed." I couldn't have been more sadly mistaken.

My unit was activated in January of 2003 for the beginning of the Iraq war and we flew out of the US bound for combat and the unknown on February 9, 2003. However, on the way we stopped for a refueling at Aviano Air Force Base, in no other place than Italy. Standing on that air strip with pins and needles in my backside due to the long flight and the jet lag settling around my brain, with a cool dry wind whipping around me, I stared up at the Italian Alps and had a reawakening of my interest in the land of my ancestors.

Throughout the war and once I got back home, the thoughts of Italy haunted me. I would daydream about going back and visiting on my own accord, not just one measly hour standing on an airstrip smoking cigarettes with the fear of the unknown looming over me. I wanted to see Italy as a civilian and have the ability to do as I pleased while there.

At this time in my life I only needed one more semester to graduate but we arrived home just a little too late to enroll in that particular Fall semester. I had a pocket full of money for the first time in my life and I decided to do what I did best which was too unwind with all the debauchery I could handle, and this meant a lot of drinking and chasing women. Little did I know that I was about to get into the first serious relationship of my life.

While tailgating one crisp fall days as the leaves turned orange before an EKU football game, and drinking heavily I met my now, ex-girlfriend Caron. We dove right into the epitome of a serious relationship like a couple of high school love birds and it felt like the right thing to do at that time, so we both went with it. Occasionally throughout the relationship I told her of my dreams of going back to Italy. Caron was right on board with me and expressed some similar interest so we configured some very loose plans for a future trip to Italy, together. First however, I had to go back to Iraq, one final time.

As my time to depart came, I fell back into my old bad habits of drinking and chasing women, although I never really quit drinking, Caron simply tolerated my behavior. I was training at Camp Pendleton, California and Caron was in her home state of Arizona, so we hadn't seen each other in some time and I was longing to stray. Not to mention that I had lost interest in our relationship and wanted out. Instead of leaving her back home waiting for me, when in my heart I knew the relationship was dying, I ended our fiasco. Breaking up with her was extremely difficult because she had been nothing but good to me. After the breakup I was able to squeeze in a few pre-deployment weeks of unhealthy living and two trips to Vegas which really opened my eyes as to why the place is dubbed "Sin City".

After all that business was taken care of I climbed aboard yet another plane bound for the Middle East and ultimately Iraq. When I arrived I was armed with my M-16, M-203 grenade launcher, an M-9 pistol and for the most part plenty of ammunition, but I was also armed with something else that would plant the seed which is now making this story a reality.

Prior to my government paid vacation, I bought a travel guide on Italy, a nice book full of gorgeous pictures and for the most part, an all-encompassing education session of the entire country from top to bottom. At any rate, I packed this book into my sea bag (duffel bag) with the intentions of reading it overseas. Believe it or not, a lot of time at war is spent anguishing in extreme boredom and broken by the occasional, sporadic rush of adrenaline and heart pounding excitement. I planned on beating the boredom by reading.

Typically, I prefer to read, or at least back at this time, preferred to read military history, non-fiction, and books on military leadership. The only problem was that some of the books that I brought with me were extremely boring, so I would often set a book down, unfinished and move onto another. Fed up with all the military non-fiction, including what we were actually doing at the time...more military stuff, I needed a break. The break came in the form of my Italian travel book. One night before going to work, I grabbed my travel book, stuffed it deep in my pack and stepped out into that cool Iraqi night to catch my humvee to work. At this point of the war I worked from midnight to noon at the Camp Fallujah detention facility as a prison guard and we typically got a break every two hours or so.

Throughout the next two weeks I read through the book, determined to finish a book, no matter how dry the material. To say this book wasn't the most captivating would be a vast understatement, but my determination prevailed, no matter how many times I began to nod off, at least for a few more days. I had read much on the history and culture of this country in which I so wanted to be a part of. I read about the fine Italian dining and wished to God that I would've appreciated all of it when I was in Italy as an unappreciative eight year old kid. Inevitably in due time even as I used reading as a means to extinguish boredom and enhance my own knowledge, I once again was overtaken by more boredom while attempting to finish this book on Italy.

In spite of all this, this particular book had something that none of my other books possessed. Something so simple that was yet so pivotal, powerful enough for me to take that mystical vacation to Italy. This travel book on Italy had something that I mentioned earlier, something that is a child's favorite part of any book. Perhaps it is simply my uncultured self that found it all so appealing but in my final throes of boredom I gripped the book between my left thumb and forefinger, bent the middle of the book and let the pages fan first apart then together from the back cover to the front looking for a picture that might captivate my attention.

After thumbing through the book for a few minutes I found one picture on page 312 that caught my eye. This one picture would supply the motivation that I needed. As I recall, the picture showed nearly white-washed cliffs descending onto a small beach. On the beach were numerous sun chairs lying perfectly covered and aligned on those white sands. The sands blended almost perfectly with the cliff walls and topping off the cliffs were many green deciduous variations of vegetation with some small pastel colored villas strewn throughout. Also lying about on the beach were a few small boats. The water itself was breathtakingly beautiful, a clear teal closer to shore with the underwater plant life visible from above because the water was so clear. On the water were numerous small boats, some anchored in place and others moving about, and to cap this all off was a perfectly blue sky. This picture definitely got my attention. I couldn't help but thinking to myself that Jimmy Buffett has had it all wrong all of these years, not to mention the entire cadre of country music singers that have followed his lead into embracing a Caribbean lifestyle. This place looked like Heaven on Earth, and I sure didn't recall this beauty from my childhood trip to the Boot, and surely not on the airstrip at Aviano Air Force Base. No...this place was better than anything I had ever seen, and I had to go there.

At this point in time the seed had been sewn, I knew now that not only did I want to go and visit Italy in particular, but I wanted to go and immerse myself in the sunshine of the Amalfi Coast. As real as this all felt to me, I have never taken a foreign vacation by myself and I had no idea about the planning involved. In addition, I had to take someone with me right? I mean I couldn't go all the way over to Italy all by myself for namely two reasons; ONE: It is simply not safe to travel by yourself and TWO: I knew I would get bored as boredom is my worst enemy. As I lay in my rack trying to sleep but unable to due to the ambitious thoughts streaming through my mind that this dream wouldn't culminate into an actual vacation for over six more months. Yet I continued to dream of the possibilities and mull over different people I could possibly get to tag along with me. I no longer had a girlfriend so if I was to take a gal, who would it be? My mind was going everywhere.

Of course I thought that I could take my best friend Matt, but I quickly discounted those thoughts, because that would just be reeking of homosexuality. I needed to take a girl. I thought of a lot of possibilities or perhaps just getting home and sweeping some girl off her feet and then maybe she would go. My game by the way, at this point is not nearly as heinous as it was back when I was a 19 year old lard ass.

I never truly thought of one single person whom I could take. I must admit, I did have priorities, or girls I would rather take than the other girl, but if I was to take a girl to Italy that would mean something very serious...oh shit, I don't like serious, well I do, I just freak out at the thought of commitment. I was being indecisive, a horrible trait which I despise but I had only one shot, who could it be??? I never really came up with any particular girl and actually looked at some prices online regarding air fare, hotels etcetera and I finally came to the conclusion that there was no way I would be able to afford this trip that I so badly wanted to take.

I had other plans for my money when I got home this time, not just blowing it on booze; I was planning a move to Idaho. My folks split back in 2001 and Dad ended up moving to Boise, Idaho. Of course my first thought was to question just what in the hell does Idaho have to offer besides potatoes? On my first visit to see Dad following my first deployment I found out.

Idaho has it all, I mean everything. In the summer you can spend the days on the rivers kayaking, tubing, rafting, or canoeing to name a few. Water not your thing? Just head up into the hills for some mountain biking, trail running or hiking...the possibilities are endless. In the winter there are plenty of ski resorts, tubing, snowshoeing, and much more. In addition the majority of the people I have met there are some of the nicest to grace the face of this planet. Anyhow, this isn't a book about Idaho, this book is about Italy, so before I become too sidetracked, let me continue.

Idaho is important in this story because I thought I would need all of my deployment money to move there and get settled in comfortably. Once again, sadly, Italy fell by the wayside in my plans for the future, but I kept that page dog-eared and the book with me wherever we moved. Looking at that picture of the Amalfi Coast became my own little getaway to paradise; away from all the sand, dirt, trash, and all that other unfortunate business incorporated with Iraq.

As my tour passed by, my ambitions were soaring. I would be running marathons by year's end. I would be in a great relationship with an unknown beauty from Idaho. I would take up mountain biking, become a personal trainer and go for my Master's on the side. Then from somewhere over the horizon the Amalfi Coast crept back into the picture and now it was all so clear that an Italian vacation was on my 'to-do' list, even if I had to go by myself. Hell, I'd be just fine and I would probably appreciate it much more by myself soaking up that sunshine in a beach chair over a good book and ending the evening with some fine Italian cuisine.

By this time I had virtually sworn off alcohol, I think namely because we weren't around it...ever, okay maybe occasionally, and with my ambition level at this time I could do it all. I'd be lean and mean, no one would even mess with me and I could spend the entire trip doing just as I pleased. Yep, that was the plan, but plans most often get broken.

I had begun doing research once again looking for the best place to stay and investigating prices. In my mind, I only wanted to rent a small bed and breakfast and stay in one spot the entire week. I decided that I would even get in good with the locals, even though I don't speak the language and just have one picturesque, relaxing time on the beautiful Amalfi Coast. I would've still preferred to take somebody but due to my indecisiveness I made my mind up to go stag. A few nights later with my ambition peaking I had to tell somebody back home about my plans for the future Italian endeavor. I walked out of my barracks into the black Iraqi night to our command center, checked out our satellite phone and called my best friend in the world, Matt Roberts.

I believe the year was 1985 back when I was a mostly innocent five year old kid when I met Matt. I was taking swimming lessons at the Carroll County pool that summer and it was here at this magical place of warm clear water and bikinis that I met my buddy Matt. You see, he too was taking swimming lessons, and although I don't remember the details, we hit it off.

To date we've been pretty much best of friends since that day, a friendship to date that has lasted over twenty years. I now consider Matt more of a Brother than I do a friend. We used to spend the summers in the woods of Carrollton, Kentucky building forts outside of my home. As we grew older we'd sneak out of the house, egg cars together, and it seems as we grew older we began to delve into the evils of life. We began drinking together, we lost our virginity in about a five month time frame from each other, went to college together and were roommates for four years, minus the times that I was deployed or otherwise training. I'd say that it's safe to assume that best friends have many of the same stories to tell that Matt and I could.

Of the two of us Matt is definitely the more responsible, unless he gets extremely FUBAR'd. I am most definitely the irresponsible sidekick to the team that most of my newly married friends live vicariously through. Nowadays Matt is married and I am the last man standing out of our social network of friends and family.

Let me now get back to the phone call before I get too far off subject telling you all of the ridiculous things that we did growing up. As I stated earlier, I had to leak my idea and enthusiasm to somebody so I called Matt. In the midst of telling Matt all about the plans of the trip to Italy I intended to take Matt cut in and asked, "Well if you don't mind Dude,...I'll tag along?", so I replied, "Why not?"...power in numbers right. It seems my plans had changed yet again and that would've been assholish of me to tell my best buddy no. At this point in time the plans would really, physically begin to come together.

I suppose at this point I should divulge some more crucial information regarding our little trip to Italy and how it all transpired so eloquently. Before I deployed to Iraq the second time I took a final family vacation just prior to activation to Panama City Beach, Florida and invited Matt along so we could commit as much debauchery as possible...and commit debauchery we did. One night while out at my favorite bar in Panama City, Schooners Matt and I were trying our best hands at getting laid that night. We had been hunkered over the bar chatting it up with these two gals from Indiana and getting nowhere, I still think they were quite hip to the bartender, not us. Eventually we decided to cut our losses, break contact and regroup to look for some different women to work on before the night wore too late. I told Matt that I had to make a head call and then I would pick up a few shots afterwards and catch up with him.

After my jaunt in the Men's room and dropping some cash at the bar coming away with far too many shots of Jim Beam I found Matt dancing among a group of older women, and when I say older, I am talking women in their forties. At this point I was game for anything so I sauntered right over into the group and made acquaintance. These women that we were dancing with turned out to be from Georgia and were down to Panama City to have a little fun themselves. Turns out that the girl Matt met that night is now his wife.

Sheri and Matt seemed to hit it off quite well that night while I made good friends with one of her friends that night. The next night we were off to another bar and we had the girls, which we dubbed, "The Sex in the City Girls" meet us there. These girls were great, they were nearly if not more lushes than Matt and I and we got along just fine. After that night they went on their way to do other things up the coast and Matt and I drank away the rest of the vacation with plenty of drunken stories to tell. The key is that now Matt and Sheri are married and Sheri just happens to be a very wealthy woman, wealthy enough and kind enough that she was willing to put up more than a few grand to pay for our trip to Italy. Keep in mind, Sheri did not intend to go with us, she was going to supply us with enough bread to go over there and have a good time in good faith, and for her, I am forever grateful. If it wasn't for Sheri, this book would likely not be a reality or as stupid.

Now, back to Iraq: My deployment was in its twilight and I no longer had to do any planning, Matt, in what I believe must've been his every spare moment was planning this trip, and doing it well. I would often call Matt to check on the progress and he would give me websites to check out to see if I concurred, and I most often did, I have known Matt long enough to trust his judgment. The only thing that threw me was that the places I was checking out were so unbelievably out of any realm of imagination that I could've thought of, but they were soon to become a reality. I would look at websites of fancy five star hotels lying up and down the Amalfi Coast from Napoli, to Capri, to Sorrento, to Positano, and I was completely on board. I had to do no work except get a passport and get on the plane.

Matt even purchased the plane tickets, set aside a rental car and all that I had to do was to cut him a check for my ticket and my half of the rental car. Before all the planning was done and everything was set in stone there would be one more setback on my part. One day while wasting the final bits of the deployment away in our trailer at Camp Fallujah, my buddy Corporal Steve Wheeler mentioned that I should go to Australia if I wanted to have a good time. Apparently Australian women love American men and getting laid there would not be an issue. Of course this was becoming quickly appealing to me, being nearly a born again virgin after seven months, so I decided to see if Matt would be on board with going to Australia instead. The e-mail I got in reply was not a pleasant one from Matt. I had no idea how much planning he had already actually put into the Italian vacation, and he also informed me that plane tickets alone would run us nearly a grand apiece.

Australia was a fleeting idea, and now I am thankful that I didn't pursue the issue more persistently. Finally in April of 2004 our plane's wheels touched down in Bangor, Maine and we were officially back on American soil. Just about a week and a half later we would land at the Bluegrass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky and reunite with our loved ones and friends. Finally, we were home, we had survived Iraq and it turned out that my contract with the Marine Corps was up, it was time to become a civilian again. The only thing holding me back now from going to Italy was to get my passport, so I tried to maintain some responsibility about myself and get on the ball, because in all honesty once I got home and off active duty, I fell right back into my old bad habits of drinking and women chasing.

I got my passport nearly two weeks before we were to head to Italy, and upon examination the people over at the Department of State had me being born in 1969, when I was really only 25 and born in '79. I didn't want to take any chances so I dropped another sixty dollars to have my passport quickly corrected and sent back. This is where the drama really began. We were to leave on a Friday afternoon and it was now Monday and I still didn't have my passport. I spent time I will never get back jockeying with these folks to get my passport in the mail and expedited to me, and I was becoming irate. After all this drama, planning and buildup my world was stuck in limbo at the hands of the US Postal Service and I needed a break for God's sake.