“Almost 5000 years ago, ancient Egypt was the first known culture where people would exchange “rings of love” often made of woven reeds or leather. It is said that the Egyptians saw the ring, a circle, as a powerful symbol. The band with no end representing eternal life and love, and its opening representing a gateway to worlds unknown.”

        -From The History of the Wedding Band

I tell those who ask I can count the total number of memories I have of my father with my fingers and toes. I guess that’s a primary reason why I have always been fascinated with learning all I can about him. Even today, over half a century after his mysterious death in Vietnam whose circumstances are still classified by the CIA, I recognize and value things he may have been in personal contact with. Perhaps this fascination is due to what may be considered a common interest that the living has with the dead. Then again, there may be something to the belief that many have, especially other cultures and some religions, that the aura, vibrations, or energy of a deceased person can somehow remain in their possessions they leave behind.

My father had a little workshop and an office in our unfinished basement at our brick, ranch-style house in College Park, Georgia. His workshop, located in the far corner of the basement, consisted of two heavy-duty workbenches and two large worktables. My father salvaged all four items from Fort McPherson, the large U.S. Army base in Atlanta. From the very light film of dirty grease on all of the workbench surfaces, whose dingy smell and unique, oily feel I can still recall today, I suspect the workbenches came from the military base’s machine shop. The two large worktables, which I still have and use in my barn in Lexington, Kentucky, are made from smooth, 10’ long, 3” wide, and 1” thick hard rock maple boards, lined up side by side like a cutting board, and bolted together. I recall hearing from my mother that at one time they were part of the floor at the old bowling alley at the Army base. My father was the stockade commander at Fort McPherson before going on his first tour to Vietnam, and I assume he was aware of old buildings undergoing demolition and items within them being surplused or simply thrown out. I guess I’m a lot like him, when it comes to salvaging items worthy of recycling.

My father’s home office consisted of a large oak desk that sat near the basement fireplace and stairway. The heavy, sturdy desk, which I now use in my own home office in a bonus room over our garage, is made of both solid oak and oak veneer panels. The desk has six drawers, each with handcrafted, dovetailed corners, and three or four dividers within some of them to store paper and other items. In slots above the top drawers on both the right and left side of the desk, there are two pull-out writing surfaces. Both the pull-out writing surfaces and the paneled sides of the desk are made from “tiger” oak veneer. Tiger oak, a common veneer pattern on older oak furniture, has what appears to be bands of thick, wide grain, a result of the quarter saw cutting method that reveals pockets of irregular grain that looks like the stripes on a tiger.

I have a bond with that old oak desk. Over the decades I have worked on countless papers and projects on it, including a thesis, dissertation, and now a memoir. When at it, I have always felt a connection between it and my father. Knowing how much he regretted not having a good education, I like to think that in some strange way, he has been involved in my many accomplishments made at his desk.

Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I would often go down in our cool, musty-smelling basement to tinker with my father’s tools or explore items or his desk. I sometimes spent hours down there, and my mother often frowned on me doing that for fear I would get hurt. I would touch and hold some of my father’s tools, including wrenches, chisels, screwdrivers, planes, and handsaws, noting how their wooden handles were worn smooth by his hands, and perhaps even the hands of his father, and his father’s father. Even today, when I pick up one of his tools, my first thought is that my father and I are somehow greeting each other once again, with our own unique, symbolic handshake, and expressing our mutual fondness in working with our hands and getting them dirty. I like to think he would be proud of me for taking after him in that regard.

I would often sit at his desk and explore the various items on its top.  I sometimes played with the heavy-duty solid metal, “Tatum Secretary” stapler that sits atop the same desk today and still makes its reliable, unique “ca-chunk” sound that modern plastic staplers just can’t emulate. I think I can recall the day I went a step further and explored once again the contents of the desk’s drawers. I found something new in the bottom, deep drawer on the right side of the desk that I can’t help but now think was perhaps the initial precipitating event that has been partly responsible for guiding my thoughts, actions, and desires for the last half-century.  

Summer, 1969

I open the deep drawer on the right side of my father’s desk and notice a large object that wasn’t there the last time I explored its contents. Given its mystique, I check the staircase behind me to make sure I’m alone as I retrieve it. I pick up the brown leather briefcase and lay it on the top of the desk with its zippered side facing me. The briefcase is unique. It has no handle and embossed on its front is a flag consisting of a yellow field and three horizontal red stripes. I recognize it to be the national flag of South Vietnam. I rub my fingers over the flag and feel some slight indentations. I look more closely. Underneath the flag is an embossed imprint containing some stamped wording. With some effort, I make out three lines of words: “Pilots Navigation Kit, Air Force, United States Army.” How odd, I think. This briefcase must have been re-purposed for the South Vietnam government.

I slowly unzip the briefcase and am immediately overwhelmed with the scent of its insides. It smells musty, with a hint of something that reminds me of burnt incense. I can’t identify it and imagine this is what Vietnam smells like. I realize the briefcase must have been delivered to my mother shortly after my father’s death, and she has put it in his desk for safekeeping.

The inside of the briefcase is made mostly of an olive drab canvas material that has several pockets, some large and some small. In the center of its opened top half is a framed leather sleeve that contains an identification tag. Typed on two of its three lines is: MR JACK J WELLS USOM PSD, 85 LE VAN DUYET ST SAIGON. Above the identification badge is a blue BIC ballpoint pen, held in a fabric slot. I take the pen out, hold it as my father would have, and feel a sense of gratification knowing I am holding something that he once held and perhaps wrote home with. I return it to its slot.

With unbridled enthusiasm, I thoroughly examine the contents of every pocket, anticipating what new treasure I might find. In the pockets I find several envelopes containing a dozen or so letters from family members, including myself, siblings, mother, my Uncle Ike, and my grandfather. All of the envelopes have either one eight-cent airmail stamp, two four-cent stamps, or two five-cent stamps. In addition to the letters, there are three small notepads, an address book, a church bulletin from our Episcopal church in College Park, and a small family photo album containing pictures of me, my siblings, my mother, and my father’s parents. One item stands out from the rest. It’s an odd-looking large brown tri-folded U.S. Government Messenger Envelope, the type that has the red string that loops around a button to close it. The envelope beckons me to open it and reveal what messages it might contain.

In the envelope, I find a folded piece of thin, translucent white paper, plus a white letter-sized envelope. I unfold the paper and discover it’s a carbon copy of a turn-in slip for items that must have been in my father’s apartment in Saigon. Across its top in black cursive writing, it indicates its contents are from “Apt. GB-85, Le-Van-Duyet” and are going to “USOM Warehouse (#4, Phan-Dinh-Phong).” The turn-in slip lists four items, including a “Philco” refrigerator with two ice trays and double door, a “Wedgewood-Holly” gas stove with butane gas bottle, and two butane bottles. The remarks section beside each item indicates the refrigerator and stove are “Old” and the two butane bottles “empty.” The form is signed by what looks like “Hanh” on October 10^th, 1965. I suspect Hanh is South Vietnamese and I wonder if he knew my father. I fold the turn-in slip back in the same shape I found it and set it on my father’s desk.

I turn my attention to the letter-sized envelope. As I lift it out of the larger messenger envelope, I notice from its weight it must have some metal objects in it. I open its closed flap, and my nostrils detect a burnt charcoal smell.  My first observation is that the inside of the envelope contains specks of black soot. I reach in and grab the largest object. It’s a keyring chain, with four blackened brass keys attached to it. I immediately realize that these keys must have been in my father’s possession when he died in the CIA-owned Air America plane crash, most likely in his pants pocket. I think I recognize two of the keys. The larger I suspect is the key to our house in College Park, the smaller a key to the trailer we have on a lake lot north of Atlanta. I figure the other two medium sized keys must be to his apartment in Saigon. I rub the blackened stain on the keys with my fingers and discover it will not come off. I suspect the heat of the fire that burned my father’s entire body must have tempered the brass to this blackened color. I set the keys aside.

I peer down in the envelope and see another smaller object. As I remove and immediately recognize it, a warm feeling rushes over me.  It’s the gold wedding band my father wore. Unlike the keys, its outer surface shows no blackened stain, no heat damage whatsoever. I suspect it’s a shiny as the day my mother placed it on my father’s hand. I try it on my ring finger on my left hand and notice it’s still way too large for me to safely wear without the danger of losing it. Nonetheless, I hold my hand at a distance so that I can marvel at the ring’s smoothness and brightness.

As I slide it off my finger, I notice the ring has left a broken trail of a few black specks. I wonder, What in the world?… I notice the ring’s interior is different from its exterior. Peering closer, I see the inner diameter of the ring is solid black with specks of red and contains what appears to be a thin coating of burnt residue. I bring the ring to my nose and detect a sweet smell that reminds me of charred steak. I think, This must be the smell of my dead father. My surprise and satisfaction with finding this deeply personal object holding onto part of my father overwhelms any sense of revulsion.

I insert my index finger in the ring and rub it back and forth across the inner perimeter of the ring. Some more of the residue has come off and has partially blackened my finger. I smell my finger. Same smell.

As I’m about to put the ring back in the envelope, I stop when I notice something odd. Where my index finger has wiped some of the residue off, I think I see an engraved letter. I peer more closely and detect what looks like a “c.” I reinsert my finger and rub it back and forth more briskly. When I look inside the ring again, I see “ca.” I stop and think for a moment, What could this possibly spell? My father’s name doesn’t contain the letters “ca.”

I look around the adjacent workshop for something that can speed up my efforts to uncover what the inscription in the ring says. I spot some light steel wool on a rack and tear off a piece and wrap it around my index finger. I twirl my finger around in back and forth circling motions as I try to scrub the inside of the ring. “Because” appears from my father’s remains. Although I have uncovered a complete word, I still can’t imagine what, if any, remaining inscription under the burnt residue might reveal. 

I break off a fresh piece of steel wool, wrap it around my finger, and clean the insides of the ring for what must be a full minute. Finally, “Jack Because Betty” emerges, engraved in cursive writing, over halfway around the ring’s inside diameter. Deeply satisfied with my discovery, how romantic, I think. My father is claiming his existence to my mother, Betty. I put the ring and key back in the lettered envelope and return it and the turn-in slip to the larger brown envelope. I zip up the case, return it to its drawer, and go back upstairs. I don’t remember mentioning my discovery to anyone.

It will be a full decade before I learn from my mother that the “Because” inscription engraved on the ring was the name of my parents’ favorite song from high school. It will be almost a quarter of a century before I see the word “Because” inscribed on countless more of my father’s personal objects. And it will be a full half-century before the word “Because” on that ring becomes the fifth key from my father that opens gateways to unknown worlds where I seek fulfillment of both his life and my own.

Source Notes

1. Quote about symbolism of rings from: The History of the Wedding Band (withtheseringshandmade.com/history-of-wedding-rings).
2. The date I discovered my father’s briefcase and wedding ring is a guesstimate. I know it was a few years after his death and before I began high school. I still have the briefcase. With the exception of the ring that has been removed, its contents have not changed.
3. During my trip to Vietnam, I was able to locate the building on March 5, 2017 where my father’s apartment was located. The United States Aid for International Development (USAID) Mission Headquarters Building was located at 85 Le Van Duyet Street in downtown Saigon. Although I knew this was the USAID Headquarters Building, I wasn’t confident this was also the location of my father’s apartment until I revisited and confirmed the address from the turn-in slip I discovered in his briefcase was the same. I know from his letters that given his busy schedule and two assigned provinces, he stayed at his apartment only one or two nights a week. The building is now a large gated luxury apartment complex, adjacent to a beautiful downtown Saigon park. Most mornings or evenings while in Saigon, I would make it a point to jog in the park, and look up at the building’s patios facing down below, and imagine my father there, looking down at me.