The other day I overheard an 'almost joined' which is a peeve of mine.

I'm prett lax about what constitutes a veteran. For practical purposes simply signing on the dotted line gets a certain amount of credit. If someone says the flunked out at MEPS I give credit for joining. 

They don't get vets status but they get credit for joining because they committed themselves and that says a lot in my book.

On the other hand when someone says they 'almost joined' they go straight to the bottom of the pile with me. It's 100% total bull$hit.

I overheard someone saying that they 'almost joined' the Marines but it wasn't my conversation so I stayed quite. 

Still, it reminded me of a classmate that was an 'almost joined' when in fact he was at a liberal college protesting the Vietnam war. I tore him a new one for that crock.

Almost joined my a$$!

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An ATNO.

I just worked the Democratic Republic of Congo which is an All Time New One in my log.

I was confused when I looked it up I already had Congo and realized there are 2 Congos, Republic of the Congo and Peoples Republic of Congo.

Anyway there's an new one in my logbook.

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Cats are pests. It's just who they are.

Of course I would not have it any other way.

Someone or something has to keep me going.

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Internet advertising is a nuisance.

When i was looking for a radiator for the Miata I had to be careful to get what I wanted. 

Getting a radiator for an NA Miata is simple. Getting one specifically for a manual transmission is a little more difficult because the bulk of NA Miata radiators are dual purpose. They contain a cooler for an automatic transmission. To use said dual purpose radiators one simply plugs the transmission cooler inlet and outlet. It's a simple task.

Still, I hold with something that says that things that are designed to do two things don't do either thing as well as something designed to do one thing. I wanted a manual only radiator which I did find. It wasn't too hard.

Of course the minute you go looking for something ads for it pop up everywhere. Unfortunately they don't stop when you get what purchase were looking for. I'm still getting ads for Miata radiators (most of which are dual purpose but at least they are usable.)

Still, what makes no sense at all in advertising is when the ads start trying to peddle me things like a radiator for a Honda Accord or an F-150 pickup or other cars I don't own.

I'm not too upset over the advertising because that's what makes the internet free. Still it is somewhat mildly annoying to get advertising for things you have no earthly need for.

One time I snooped into a Turbo conversion for a Miata out of sheer simple curiosity and wound up getting ads for turbo kits for several weeks.

I would imagine that if some guy orders a sexy outfit for his SO he's going to start getting flooded with ads for sexy outfits. In fact if he chose one of certain outfits he's probably get bombarded with ads for whips and chains.

Try explaining that one to her if she looks over your shoulder when you're on line. (Maybe she'd be interested. Who knows?)

Oh well. 

Still, I think that over time advertisers will figure it out. 

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The last of the parts arrived for my radiator replacement

so it looks like that this weekend I'll get it completed.

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My friend swung by today.

We grabbed lunch and we spent much of the time playing what happened to who and I really didn't have a whole lot of answers because I left the area in 1973 and rarely returned to visit.

I've lost touch with all but a few. The whole thing was rather bittersweet. He's a couple of years older than I am and not in the best of health. His son was doing the driving.

I didn't ask him much about how he managed to disappear and he didn't say much.  

Of course we said we'd meet again but I seriously doubt it will happen. 

We parted as old friends, shook hands and he was off to Ohio to visit his brother.

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Regarding yesterday's post. It's always something simple.

Last night I got a call from my childhood friend telling me he'll drop by tomorrow on his way to visit his brother in Ohio. The call turned into an hour and a half long chat partly about how he had managed to vanish back in the early 70s.

What is amazing was how simple it was. He simply changed his name a bit and moved to Oklahoma. Thomas Louis Martin, or Thomas L. Martin simply became T. Lewis Martin and went by Lou.

He simply filled out forms with T. Lewis Martin and it was unquestioned. 

He said it really was pretty much that easy. His wife reported him as a missing person a few days later and his name was added to the list of missing persons. Thousands of people every year turn up missing and unless foul play is suspected the LE community doesn't do a lot about. They have better things to do than spend resources looking for someone that skipped town to avoid non criminal things.

He also told me he had an attorney on a small retainer that he quietly called annually to see what his legal status was. 

Five years later his wife had him declared legally dead in Massachusetts and remarried. When he told me that he laughed like hell.

He said that when that happened the last person that wanted to meet him was his now ex because that would make her a bigamist. 

While I suppose that could eventually get cleared up it certainly would have opened a real can of worms legally.

Anyway, he reunited with his family but never went back to MA while she was alive. She has passed a couple of years ago so everything is pretty much moot. 

Shortly after she remarried he moved in with a woman and lived common -law and they raised a couple of kids.

This whole thing sounds pretty whacked out but that's what he told me. 

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I have no idea what is going to happen next.

I just got word out of nowhere that a childhood friend is going to drop by on me in a week or so. He's on his way to Ohio to visit his sister.

In itself this is no big deal until you add to the fact that he vanished for about 50 years and this is the first time since he left he's emerging.

When I say vanish I mean he outright disappeared off the face of the earth. Last heard from getting on a plane headed for London. I suppose he took a ferry over to the mainland and disappeared.

The first thing I thought about was the French Foreign Legion but in real life things generally happen without as much drama as people think of.

This was in the 70s. Pre computer. He had married a woman that after two years of marriage blindsided him with a divorce suit. Normally this would not have been too bad but her entire family was a ringtailed passel of lawyers and judges. He figured he would likely wind up living under a bridge. This was Massachusetts and it was as corrupt as it is now. Think Lindsay Clancy corrupt.

Anyway a few days after he got hit with the divorce he asked me for a ride to Logan which I cheerfully did. He said work was sending him to London for a few days. I dropped him off and forgot about it.

A few months later someone told me he was missing. I mulled over saying anything but figured it wasn't my place. I said nothing and nobody ever asked me anything. A few months later his absence seemed to be forgotten. I just wanted to give the man his privacy. He was committing no crime.

Vanishing back in those days was a LOT easier than it is today. This was long before airport security, picture IDs and that sort of thing. The easiest way to vanish was to become someone else which was not hard to do. 

Move a couple of states over and establish an existence. Find a grave of a child that died in infancy that's about your age and write in for a copy of a birth certificate. If the grave was in a churchyard you could sometimes come up with a baptismal certificate that was almost as good and back them was generally proof of ID.

On the power of the birth/sometimes baptismal certificate get one's self a driver's license. This was before picture IDs. A driver's license and birth certificate could get you a passport. 

It's entirely possible he took a round trip to London and back and returned and disappeared. No telling.

Anyway net week I should know and when I find out I'll post it. It might prove to be interesting or it may be a total bust.

 

 

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