I just heard from "Over Yonder'

Who is a retired tug skipper I went round and round with because he was a lousy communicator. He's doing well as far as I can tell and that's fine by me. I have no animosity toward him although he was once a frustrating person to work with.

The nickname he earned by referring to someplace as 'over yonder' which means everything to him but nothing to anybody else.

He'd shout "Catch a line over yonder!" and nobody had an inkling of where he wanted the line.

I solved the problem by defining where 'over yonder' was. It was the midships timberheads. Every single time he said 'over yonder' I would go straight to the timberheads. I made this clear to him that I would do this every single time.

He could tell us to go one, two or ten cleats ahead of over yonder or one, two or ten cleats aft over yonder if he wanted to but 'over yonder' actually meant something. It had a specific value.

He could still use the term but at least it actually meant something.

Things quickly got better after some frustration on his part.

He actually would say something like "Two cleats ahead of over yonder." My shipmate was amused but did the same thing I did simply because it worked.

Chesty Puller once had a similar thing happen in Korea. Some ROK Koreans reported "Many many North Koreans in open field."

He asked how many and got "Many, many" as an answer.

He got on the horn and asked an American lieutenant who replied "A whole Goddam pisspot full, Sir!"

Puller turned to his S-3 and said, "Thank God someone out there can count!" and ordered the artillery to open fire on them.

Apparently Puller knew how many North Koreans fit into a piss pot.

I learned that particular trick of assigning a value from a Marine officer that was serving in Vietnam where the general term 'beaucoup', meaning many, was often used. The officer didn't tell his people they couldn't use the cool term of the day. He simply assigned it the numerical value of seven. Beaucoup plus three was ten.

Three beaucoup was 21 and beaucoup beaucoup was 49. It worked.

I suppose he did this because he figured they would use the beaucoup term when they were nervous and under fire. Looking at it, it made sense.

Sometimes you gotta think outside of the box.

Anyway I saw Good Old Over Yonder and he looks pretty good for a guy about 80+ years old. 



To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY