A FRIENDSHIP NOW ENDED WITH DEATH.
THE HUMAN RACE (Written on August 15, 2014)
NO TEARS, BUT LOSING HOEF, WOW!
I just had a hunk of flesh bitten out of my soul. I
lost my old 10th Air Force buddy, Richard (Hoef)
Hoefferlin just a few hours ago. His wife Marilyn
called from Florissant, Missouri. Hoef died from
a lifetime of smoking cigarettes. Lung cancer was
the cause. We were both smoking when we became
bunkmates at our squadron’s barracks at Clark
Air Force Base in the Philippines. We’d flip a
spent smoke into the darkness and called the act
“Pulling a Bogie.” Humphrey Bogart used to do it
in movies. When I first met Hoef at the 6207th
AC&W Squadron, I had visited a brothel outside
the base at Angeles Pompanga. It was called the
Uno Bar. I was 19, had a few Manila Rums, went
upstairs with a gal who thought I was “adorable.”
During the heat of the night, a man hiding behind a
curtain, stole my wallet. The Air Police wouldn’t
let me back on base, but Hoef came to the rescue.
“You were rolled,” he told me the next morning. So
“Roll ‘Em!” for 60 consecutive years was (Besides
pulling a Boggie) one of our cherished code words we
used on the long-distant phone and ending letters
Knowing that Hoef was in deep trouble and the Hospice
was helping he and Marilyn, I called. But he was
in a hospital bed inside their home. Marilyn answered
the phone, whispered that his lungs just aren’t working
and he can’t get on the phone. So I told her, “Just
tell Hoef, Roll ‘Em!” She did just that. She told me
that when she delivered the brief message, Hoef smiled.
That smile was worth a thousand words. The memories
he took with him. Speaking on the phone a few months
ago, I asked, You know what’s doing you in?” “What
else… cigarettes,” he said. “But I’ve enjoyed every
smoke.” He knew that I had quit smoking over 40 years ago.
We talked long distance and wrote letters regularly,
usually signing off with “Roll ‘Em!” At Clark we shared
lower-bunk cots and weren’t the tidiest airmen. We kept
our dirty laundry in bags. We called our space, The
Cobra Den. We’d go to the non-com officers’ club and
get slightly stewed on 3.2 beer. Unlike a lot of airmen,
we never passed out. When that happened, guys would carry
the “cadavers” outside, line the bodies up on stretches of
grass and trucks and jeeps would transport then back to
their squadrons. Hoef talked me into trying out for the
Raiders, one of the base football teams that played at the
Clark AFB stadium. Clark was like a small town. When I
made the All Star team, he acted like a big brother. We
were supportive of each other. He was a clean liver. I
was experimenting with life. But we were anything but the
odd couple. Our friendship lasted more than 60 years.
Following our discharge, we both pursued life in different
ways. He lived in St. Louis; was a buyer for Emerison
Electric. I was reporter, a publicist and a free-lance
writer. We communicated by phone several times a year.
Every Christmas, he’d send JoAnne and I letters about life
in St. Louis. Many times, I told him he should’a been a
comedy writer. I can’t find his letters. But he made us
laugh many times. I had sent him many stories I had written
about ordinary people and celebrities. “My big brother”
seemed to really enjoy them. Hoef died at 84. Truly,
I’ll miss my old pal. Let me end with this meaningful
message: “Roll ‘Em!”
— Boots LeBaron —
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