Forty-five years ago today, on August 29, 1967, I registered for the draft within the specified 10 days from my eighteenth birthday.
Later that day, after returning home my Hawthorne High School girlfriend, Angela McKay, called to inform me that my friend since 6th grade and her cousin, Warren Gorman, had committed suicide earlier that day, at her brothers rented beach house in Hermosa Beach.
Picking up my friend, Ed Lutz, we went to the house of our lead guitar player, Steve Rush to share the news with him. To our surprise, Gary Gorman, Warrens younger brother was there visiting his girlfriend, Pam Rush, Steve's younger sister. In private I told Steve and Pam's father about my phone call from Angela, and they called inside Gary and told him his parents called and that he should go home. I recall thinking, as he walked away, how his world was about to change.
That night I stopped by my flight instructor, Ralph Rina's apartment that he shared with Judy Tully on West 131St just East of Inglewood Ave. in Hawthorne. That night, the television series, 'The Fugitive', after several years, was going to conclude, with Dr. Kimbal finding the one armed man. This was a favorite program of Warren's.
In the day's to come, I half expected to get a letter in the mail, with some sort of explanation. It never came. His father, Herbert, blamed it drugs, and was interviewed by local newscaster George Putnan on his local news show. A month later my leg was ran over by a semi truck and trailer while working for Atlas Fabricator's in Paramount California. After a short hospital stay I recovered at home.
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