Books.

I have had two I wanted to read and just finished one of them. 

"The Filthy Thirteen" which was a memoir of a WW2 paratrooper. I finished it wondering how accurate it really was. Much of it sounded a little over the top to me regarding his run-ins with officers and NCOs.

The other one arriving soon is "The Simple Sounds of Freedom" which is about the only USGI ever to join the Russian Army.

He was captured a few days after D Day in France, escaped from the PW camp a couple of times, finally making good an escape where he worked his way east and met the Russian forces. 

Instead of asking the Russians for repatriation he simple joined the Soviet Army and fought alongside them for a while.  Later he was wounded and sent to a hospital. 

A Soviet general was visiting and found out the non-Russian was there and made arrangements to return him to the States.

I kind of like off the wall WW2 incidents. It makes for good reading. Especially when it's about ordinary people in extraordinary situations.

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After 50 years I realize I miss

my old coffee boiler.

For some reason I woke up with a hankering for Old School boiled coffee. I do not know why I would like such a nasty beverage as this upon wakeup but I do want a cup or three.

I had a real chuck wagon gallon boiler for a while when I lived in a tipi and would make up a batch every few days. Surprisingly it drew many favorable comments.

Later when I lived in more civilized housing I'd make a  basic 9 cup batch with a percolator I took the guts out of.

Today I think I'm going to go to Goodwill or maybe Walmart if I feel like getting dressed up and grab a stovetop percolator and use that.

Drip coffee is OK but I do believe it is time to build me a pot of Old School cowboy coffee.

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we have gotten too lax with criminals.

I just read where some clown with 54 arrests just got arrested for murdering someone. What was he doing out on the streets to begin with? It's obvious the system isn't working if that is the case.

Back in the early 60s there was an episode of a long forgotten television show 'Car 54 where are you?'

There was an episode where Car 54s beat was the lowest crime beat in the entire city. Police officials wanted to know why and discovered that Toody and Muldoon had endeared themselves and were so useful to the community that the locals decided they were too valuable to have to waste their time doing police work so they handled it themselves. Robbers and thieves woke up on an alley outside of Car 54's beat. Here's a link to the episode. The good part is the last third of it.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQEridEINzw 

Needless to say, if the locals did decide to  get rid of the police and police themselves it would soon reduce things to chaos. 

However the system doesn't seem to be doing it's job and because of that I am of the mind that there are circumstances that I would cover for someone that did take the law into their own hands.

People are getting sick and tired of catch and release judges and recently after someone murdered a rapist that raped his daughter and was given no prison time simply whacked the rapist and got off.

It wasn't long ago I would have wanted to see the killer get time because I don't generally believe in extra legal justice but that has been changing over the years. If the system fails something must be done to keep things from falling into chaos.

People think the police (and by extension the courts) only protect us from criminals. The fail to realize the police protect society from itself. 

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The heaving line

Early on in my career I worked on a bunker barge. We refueled ships.

Ships don't pull into the corner Sunoco and stick the nozzle in the tank filler. The fuel is delivered to them. A barge comes alongside and ties up alongside, a barge hose is sent up, normally a 6 inch in diameter hose. The hose gets bolted to the manifold and the barge pumps the fuel into the ship. 

Anyway, there was this Korean crewed ship and the crew was pretty lazy. They just wanted us to hang on with 2 lines which is illegal. we required at least six.  

Most ships would throw down a heaving line and pull our deck lines up.  These guys made us throw our heaving line up and then after they removed it they would throw the whole thing back instead of just the end with the weighted monkey's fist.

That angered me so I busted my ass to make them bust theirs by making them pull up at least 8 lines. The bastards could have tried to make it easier for both of us but tried to be lazy and wound up doing more work because of it.

They became a monthly customer and my pard and I decided that enough was enough. we decided to fix their ass good. We started to beg, borrow or steal all the 3/8s manila we could find and spliced into one long heaving line. It was at least an entire mile long but probably closer to a nautical mile of 6000 feet long. There was a monkey's fist on one end and the other end was back spliced. 

We left the tail out of the humongous galvanized tub we coiled it up in and about 90 feet of the end with the monkey's fist out the other side. The tail we tied to the deck line and covered the tub the pile of line with a tarp to hide it from the ship's crew.

When we came alongside I threw the monkey's fist aloft and one of the deckhands caught it and started pulling it up. It went from the strange to the ridiculous to the sublime as they kept pulling more and more 3/8s inch line up. Finally they got well over a mile of heaving line up and the deck line came with it. They were rather exhausted.

They found the monkey's fist and threw it down and it was repeated that way until all six deck lines were made fast. They sure had a pile of manila line on deck. 

The fueling went efficiently and flawlessly.

After everything was finished and we sailed they dropped our deck lines and we snapped them and they landed on deck. We'd coil them after we sailed.

When the last line was off a deckhand threw us our monkey's fist back and the crew gathered to watch me have to haul all 6000 feet of line back aboard. 

I pulled back about 85 feet, pulled out my knife, cut it and we sailed off leaving them a huge rat's nest of line on their deck. Their jaws dropped.

A month later when we came up alongside them they threw a heaving line down to us made of the 3/8ths manila rat's nest we had left behind a month earlier and everything went smoothly thereafter. They probably had made about 50 to 60 heaving lines out of what we had left behind!

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Sad news.

My ex-wife just passed last night. I got the call from my former brother in law last night at 2240.

The animosity between us ended shortly after the divorce and we became friends afterwards so this is nothing to cheer about.

She passed as a result of the medications she was taking for depression which is actually what broke up our marriage in the first place. She had a choice between fighting depression at the cost of longevity and she chose to fight the depression. Personally I would have done the same thing.

She passed peacefully, thank God.

Maybe I'll eventually post part of it.

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A long term immigrant would pick up on this almost immediately.

One of my handful of immigrant friends some time back told me he learned British English in school. While he said he arrived in the States with a basic skill for communication he felt he didn't speak the American dialect as well as he should have. 

Now he speaks excellent unaccented American English. He's worked hard at it and because of that he says he's constantly still picking up little 'Americanisms' that go with the language and the culture.

I always say that when you pick up and see the humor in little things like I posted you've conquered Americanisms to the point beyond that of many native born Americans.

when an immigrant reads something like this and laughs themselves silly it's a damned good indicator that they have assimilated.

                                                       

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Shortly after the birth of our nation we fought the Barbary Pirates.

 

When the Barbary pirates were seizing our ships and ransoming their crews a hue and cry went up throughout the nation. "Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute." 

Our Sailors and Marines defeated the Barbary pirates and it is mentioned in the Marine's Hymn, 'to the shores of Tripoli'.

Somewhere along the line a couple of our presidents seemed to have skipped history class or failed to let all of this sink in because Obama and Biden paid tribute to Iran in the form of handing Iran pallets of cash and releasing frozen Iranian funds. 

The entire Iranian mess goes back to Jimmy carter who didn't have the balls to slap Iran silly and end things then and there. The can got kicked down the road for the next 47 years until our current POTUS decided to pick it up and deal with it.

Apparently the president remembered what Thomas Jefferson did. 

Iran has only managed to get more dangerous over time. 

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For those of you that are interested. Spread the word.

In a previous post I mentioned that the Japanese PM had acquired a taste for SKIPPY (brand specific) peanut butter and I am going to send her a jar.

Someone asked me for contact information. 

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi
1-6-1 Nagata-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8914, Japan.

I just thought of something. Maybe we can get something rolling. Spread the word and see if we can get a few more people to do this.

Maybe we can get something rolling. Spread the word.

If nothing else the Japanese security weenies will go nuts. 

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The fastest form of communication is Rumor Control.

Back in the 90s sometime the subject of rumor control was being discussed by a couple of us in tha parking lot before crew change. 

Alvin, John and I were talking about it. John and I were old salts. Alvin was sort of a newbie. John and I decided to show Alvin how well it worked. We made up a rumor and decided to spread it to see how fast it made the rounds.

The rumor was a corker. 'All barges are going to be issued sextants and navigation tools and all tankermen are being sent to the six week celestial navigation course at Piney Point.' 

The alleged reason was so anchored barge crews could check and see if their anchor was dragging.

Never mind the fact that celestial navigation isn't all that accurate. Few tankerman know anything about it.

The three of us set our watches as this was pre-cell phone. Most of us didn't have one then because they were terribly expensive. Tugs and barges did have fixed cell phones installed.

They were supposedly for official use only but like a lot of things that got stretched.

John, headed to New York Harbor, would start the rumor at exactly 1300. Alvin and I would log the time it got to us via the jungle telegraph. John would log when it got back to him which would cover his ass because he could now honestly say he had heard the rumor from someone else. There really was no way the office could trace it back to anyone.

At 1304 the barge cell phone rang and sure enough, the rumor was in full swing. By about 1308 people started calling their port captains asking "What's this $hit I heard about having to go to school at Piney Point for six weeks?"

By 1309 people had started calling their reliefs and passing the word. There were people at home that were living in places like Idaho.

About the only one of us that didn't get the word was Jimmy Beardsley because he was incommunicado because he had taken his family to see the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone or some damned thing and was out in space somewhere.

A couple of days later the tugs all got faxes denying everything which was really too late because the rumor died about as fast as it started. When the office denied it early on Rumor Control spread the denial almost instantly.

The next time I ran into Alvin he told me he was astonished. I told him to keep everything under his hat because if the office ever got wind of who started this there would be hell to pay. I didn't have to tell him twice.

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Trump's Pearl Harbor comment to the Japanese reporter

could probably be described as being so tasteless it was tasteful.

Fact it it was hilarious and the Japanese PM had a hard time keeping it together..

Time has passed and of the original 16.4 million American participants the estimate is that under 45,000 are still alive. The median age is about 98 years old. Estimates are that by 2030 under 8000 will be alive. For the Japanese the estimates are now under 1000. Don't ask me why this is. I believe about 7 million Japanese served.

The war has been long over and with the participants gone healing is pretty much complete.  

As a kid I brought home some anti German/Japanese things from school and my father sat me down and told me the war was long over and pointed out that the Axis military people were no different than our GIs. None of them wanted to be there. They just wanted to go home, marry the girl of their dreams and raise a few kids.

He also pointed out to me that a German that had gotten taken prisoner in North Africa and was sent to a stateside PW camp lived nearby. He had decided shortly after repatriation to Germany to move to the States because he saw it as a land of opportunity. IIRC his kids were a bit younger than me so I never hung out with them.

I'm reasonably sure that Sanae Takaichi, the Japanese Prime Minister took little or no offense to President Trump's comments whatsoever. From what I have seen she likes Americans.

In 1928 a (then) Japanese captain named Tadimichi Kuribayashi came to the States as a student/attache and lived here for about two years. He made many American friends. Kuribayashi is best known for his incredible defense of the Island of Iwo Jima. From what I have read about this man he's my favorite WW2 personality that I would want to have dinner and drinks with.

PM Takaichi has something in common with Kuribayashi. She, too spent two years in the States. She lived here working for a Colorado representative on a modest stipend and reportedly acquired a taste for Skippy peanut butter. I'm sure she knows how we are and much like Kuribayashi generally likes us. She broke both Japanese and American protocol when the President met her at the White House door. She neither bowed not took his offered hand. Instead she charged up to him and gave him a big hug. 

That tells me she know Americans when she abandoned protocol.

It would be interesting to find out what the general Japanese population thought about their PM breaking protocol. It would also be interesting to see what the average Japanese citizen thinks over his comment.

As for PM Takaichi, she obviously thought something was outright hilarious but tried to hide it. The question is what she found funny. Personally my best guess is she got hit with a double whammy. Still, I don't think she was so much amused with Trump's comment as she was watching the Japanese reporter ask a stupid question and get brought up short by President Trump. I'm sure she's more than aware that the President is a bull in a China shop and not too surprised to see him to give an answer like that.

I instinctively like that woman. I think I'll mail her a jar of Skippy peanut butter.   

  

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Circa 1970. Buying beer in New Hampshire on Sunday.

before MA repealed some of the Blue Laws in 2004.

From where I lived the NH border was about 2.5 hours, about 140 miles but gas was 19.9 cents a gallon at the Quincy Oil station the next town over. Five buck would pay for gas with some left over. a six pack was about $1.25. 

About 0930 I got a call from one of my running partners. "Hey! Let's go to NH and buy beer!"

Cool! The fact that I was as sick as a dog from Saturday night had nothing to do with it. we were going to NH to buy beer on Sunday. It was flouting a stupid MA law that made it interesting.

The state of NH had and still does have a monopoly on hard liquor sales but smaller stores sold beer. Most NH state liquor stores are on highways and there's one on I-95 just across the border. Back then the MA State police would often have an unmarked car sitting there recording license plate numbers of MA vehicles and would radio them in so the State Police could bust you for smuggling NH beer into MA. It was somewhat of a joke and one time I had been stopped and tossed. 

The whole thing was pretty much MA at it's finest. They had detailed the State Police to enforce Sunday beer smuggling. What was funny about it is that local cops along the border probably did this routinely if they had a Sunday off and wanted a beer. 

The tossing had been cursory as they were looking for a case or maybe a couple of six-packs. For some reason they didn't look under the spare where there was a GIQ, a Giant Imperial Quart. Still, it scared me into taking other action for future runs.

For you youngsters, a GIQ was the precursor to todays 40. It held 38.4 ounces.  

The run that comes to mind was pretty slick. we hadn't been caught and had no intention of spoiling a perfect record. Needless to say we avoided state stores not only because of the State Police parking there and writing down license tag numbers but because we were minors.

The state store checked IDs carefully. Of course this was well before the time of laminated picture IDs. They still issued cards. I had one I had scored at a U. Mass dorm for about $2 that was absolutely perfect. I scuffed it up by carrying it in a separate section of my wallet and actually had a fear of handing it to a cop if I was ever stopped because it was that good.

On top of that in the trunk I had a set of CA license plates scored when someone from CA moved into the neighborhood and had registered their car in MA. 

The whole thing wasn't really about the beer itself but telling the state go go to hell. Blue laws were a stupid leftover from about the time of the Pilgrims and had just been carried over. They made no sense and therefore were to be flouted. 

Anyway, the run I recall was simple. I drove. I snagged my friend and we took off after a quick refueling at the Quincy station filling the tank with Red Hat, the subgrade that ran pretty good in slant and inline 6 cylinder engines of the time. 

We wound through the side roads, grabbed the expressway and started north, connecting to I-95. The rhythm of the road felt good underneath us as the old crapcan Dodge hummed along. There was something about a Slant Six engine. They really were a good engine for the time.

We crossed the state line and shortly we saw the state liquor store and pulled in for a reconnoiter. Business was fairly slow and we only saw a couple of out of state vehicles, only one from MA and the driver's seat was empty. Most likely it was a guy inside buying a jug and his wife was sitting there. She looked fairly old IIRC. 

I saw no sign of a MA Statie looking around. We drove out and continued up I-95 for a short piece and got off the Interstate. 

In short order we saw a general store, predecessor to today's convenience stores with a Carling Black Label beer neon sign so we went down thee road about a half mile and covered our plates with CA plates, went back to the store and I bought a couple of GIQs and a big bag of ice. He didn't even ask for my license.

The GIQs went into a galvanized steel pail and were covered with ice  and wedged into the trunk in a way it would not tip over. There was already a hole in the trunk floor that was a drain from previous mishaps. Back in the day a serviceable automobile could be purchased for $50 or less, sometimes even gotten for free. Knocking a drain in the trunk was no big thing. The next place the car was likely to wind up was the boneyard. 

We pulled out of the general store and drove a quarter mile towards the Interstate and stopped. The CA plates went into the trunk and we were off and running for home. Actually it was more of a nice cruise. IIRC it was October and the leaves were turning so for a while we got off the Interstate and enjoyed the fall colors before going back into I-95. 

We then retraced our steps and as the sun was setting we enjoyed the fruits of our efforts as we swilled down a GIQ apiece in the early darkness of fall.

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