Searching for Kokomo
“Off the Florida Keys, there’s a place called Kokomo,”
Roughly forever ago, I was an Army soldier stationed on the DMZ in Korea. It was freezing cold. Every step through icy mud seeped water into my combat boots. Our unit was into the second week of a month-long field exercise and like the 12,500 other soldiers in the infantry division, I stunk. Trips to the Korean bath house rotated and when it was time for our team to get clean, we piled onto a helicopter for the short flight.
My Army Days
To not aggravate North Korea, we flew low, extremely low, over fields of cabbage and rice. Korean farmers fertilize with night soil — human waste — and I gagged as fumes were sucked up by the rotors. It was far worse than even our own body odor. The pilot, immune to the stench, looked back with a pirate’s smile and played a catchy tune by the Beach Boys over the headsets.
…Off the Florida Keys, there’s a place called KokomoThat’s where you want to go to get away from it allBodies in the sand, tropical drink melting in your handWe’ll be falling in love to the rhythm of a steel drum bandDown in Kokomo…
Squeaky clean from the showers, my team ran out to the helicopter for a ride back to the field. As we lifted, I saw that the pilot had posted 3x5 cards spelling KOKOMO over Korean letters for bath house.
Everyone on the helicopter saw it at the same time, and uncontrollable laughter rippled over our headphones. We landed smiling and ready for whatever was required to accomplish the mission.
It was if some relief valve had been pulled — the pent-up anxiety, exhaustion and yes, fear, meant nothing. Yet, the only thing that had really changed was the way I saw things. Mentally, the words to the song had transported me to a place that sounded peaceful, safe and warm; Kokomo. Stepping off that helicopter I realized that I could visit that nice place whenever I wanted. Obviously my mind was in charge of the whole thing. I could be an exhausted female Army soldier serving in an Infantry division, and all that implied. Or I could do my job to the best of my ability and take my mind elsewhere when the pressure got too intense. Somewhere like Kokomo.
Flash Forward
Three decades later, I am in the Florida Keys living aboard a boat, traveling the Great Loop with my husband. The Beach Boys continue to bring good vibrations, because the song Kokomo is still on everyone’s playlist; local radio, grocery stores, families blast it on the beach. Something about Kokomo still resonates; there is a boat named Kokomo in our marina, a Kokomo tiki hut bar in Islamorada, hashtag Kokomo on social media and Kokomo Shrimp appetizer. But having studied the charts of the Keys closely, I am at a loss to find a real place called Kokomo.
The other day my husband saw me studying the map on the chart plotter in an obsessive way. I figured, well, we’re in the Florida Keys, I’ll find that little island called Kokomo. But I sat back on my heels at his words. “You won’t find it on the map. Kokomo isn’t a place — it’s a state of mind.”
Sitting here on our floating home with the love of my life I am so glad I never gave up looking for Kokomo. Hope you don’t either!