How many of my ol’ Shipmates remember dabbl’n in the trade of bullshit & babe watching over a cold beer… only to find ourselves going back to the ship empty handed half the time!?!? Now that I think about it… what respectable young lady in her right mind would want to hook up with a broke, idiot, ‘Crackerjack’ who’s always underway and ends up chas’n tail at every port???
Those of us broke idiots going on liberty went topside, crossed the brow and disappeared into the night for a dozen or so buck fifty bottles of suds at the ol’ 32nd Street Naval Base EN Club in San Dog.
Any of you fellas out there remember the walk back from the ol’ Scuttlebutt EN Club… later updated and called ‘Club Metro???
Remember stopping at the Snack Shack next to Del Taco for cheap burritos, hostess cupcakes and a nekkit girlie magazine?!?! The kind of reading material that got passed around the mess decks and berthing compartments from shipmate to shipmate until the staples popped out and the pages got stuck together… the major publishers of said garbage were the likes of ‘Playboy’, ‘Penthouse’, ‘Hustler’, ‘Club’…etc… etc…
How many out there do you know who can voluntarily projectile vomit an Extra-Large strawberry shake fifteen feet across the pier at 0130 hours in the morning just for shits and giggles… Waddel & Rhodabarger, I know you remember…
Remember stumbl’n back so gaudamned drunk and full of draft beer you couldn’t remember what pier you were moored too??? FF 1069 in big white letters… That was my post mark back to the rack… God forbid you were tied up to another boat of the same make & model… you could find yourself waking up to a night stick and a possible security alert???
Remember stumbl’n across the pier… tak’n a midnight whiz next to the dumpster… here kitty, kitty, kitty…
“That ain’t no Cat Smithee… that’s a gaudamned Pier Rat!!!”
The biggest ones you ever saw!!!
Then it was time to navigate up the brow… you & your shipmate sing’n socially unacceptable songs of nautical lore…
“Rekkest pemission to coss the Patio Daddio!!!”
Noth’n pissed off a craggy ol’ Salt Lifer than disrespecting his Quarterdeck…
But nothing was funnier than shit to a young derelict Seaman…
“You shitheads gonna be okay, or am I gonna have to get the Duty Master-At-Arms and Corpsman to put your asses to bed?”
Never had to be put away wet in my rack… lucky I guess!!!
But three sheets to the wind and falling over my own damned feet, I had plenty of moments bouncing off bulkheads and tripping over knee knockers trying to find our way down to the crews lounge or the berthing head!!! Always making it in time for a late night with Arsenio Hall or the tail end of a good game of spades, gin-rummy… or whatever insanity the animals cooked up for the night… and if you got there early enough there might be some left over pizza waiting for whoever needed it…
It was always the same... loud exchanges of banter, ragging the duty rover while wandering about, some idiot praising the merits of Conseco and the Oakland A’s to a room full of drunk ass squids who could give a shit less...
Can’t remember how many nights we passed out on the lounge couch with pictures of big breasted women strung out on the table… ever so often a trip to the head blow’n chunks of last nights dinner… because too much draft beer can do that to a fella!!!
I remember waking up once while PCSN was burn’n a gaudamned hole in my forearm with a cigarette while I was passed out in the lounge!!! I think I still got that gaudamned scar!!! At least the son-of-a-bitch didn’t write “I’m Gay” with a sharpie on my forehead… them would’a been fight’n words at that point… cause nobody likes a wise ass!!!
We were coming up in the world from boyhood to manhood! Looking back I remember how much I thought I hated it… despised it… I wasn’t aware of it yet but I joined the best gaudamned brotherhood of a lifetime… Those were the days!!!
Great times to be sure! your musings should be entered into the record as historical fact. Literature passed down to the current generation and those to come as how the true navy was and should be. poor bastards dont know what they are being cheated out of.
ReplyDeleteYes the good old times and good old day. Those kind of nights you speak about really let you know who your real friends were and built friendships that last a life time
ReplyDeleteHavin' a few tonight makes me smile. Because I'd do it again with Waddell, Swing, Helms, Ribbing, Davis, and the rest of you loyal sumbeetches again in a heartbeat.
ReplyDeleteI'll never forget the first time I saw you puke a strawberry milkshake up... ON COMMAND even! What about those 1lb Del-Taco buriitos.. Geeze Us, you would regret that the next morning, but not near as much as the TJ Tacos. They always tasted so good at the time. Those days in Nassco, trips to the Trophy Lounge, down to the gaslamp district... Steve I won't mention our jaunt to TJ, ugh... Man, good times!
ReplyDeleteHaha. I learned that Zima, tequila and Del Taco=gut bomb!!
ReplyDeleteI'm on the IKE now... I know I didn't join the Navy that YOU did, but I still can relate. I'm just quieter about it, I guess.
ReplyDeleteI can't count the number of times I walked across the quarterdeck drunk (and underage for that matter).
And "Permission to Cross the Patio, Daddy-O" is all I asked during our last port visit to Bahrain. The Sailors laugh now and give you the salute, except for the Salty Chiefs, who seem to always hate it. Oh well, right?
I like your stories, though, because I find I'm making similar ones myself... maybe not to the same extremes (if so with more consequences)... all the same, though, they're stories that I'll take with me for a LONG time.
Nice page, by the way.
So funny, as if I wrote this myself!! I was stationed on the USS Fletcher DD-992, Mar 1984 - Nov 1985. We were moored either Pier 2 or Pier 7. Pier 7 was a good walk, across the dry dock. I also stopped on occasion at the Snack Shack, after eating a couple tacos or burritos at Del Taco. Thanks for the memories
ReplyDeleteI remember going to the Seven Seas Locker Club in 65 to change into civies. Back in those days an E-3 wasn't allowed to were civies off the ship so we had to join locker clubs to store them. After a good nights drunk it was back to the Quarter Snacher for the ferry ride back to North Island and the Big CVA-34.
ReplyDeleteYou must've been stationed @ 32nd St with my brother Dan "Rhodabarger", he passed away in 1998 but this made me smile. :)
ReplyDeleteHey, that was my dad. Dan Rhodabarger. May he rest in peace. Which uncle wrote this?
DeleteSorry friend, I wish I could say I knew your brother... the shipmate in question was a Steve Rhodabarger. But very well could have been the same time frame...
ReplyDeleteAH!!! Sandy Eggo in the 50's. Broadway looked like a damn cotton field with so many white hats. Old padre Stadium with it's old green wood fence at the foot of Broadway. Getting your cover stolen from a b girl in TJ and paying ransom for it. Good old days.
ReplyDeleteAny east coast guys remember Dirty Dick's outside the gate at the Brooklyn Navy yard? A clean glass was one that didn't have lipstick all the way around the rim. Last stop before going back. I remember getting a hand job in a bar off Times Square. Mid 50s.
ReplyDeleteThat would be Dirty Dans not Dicks
DeleteWhen you actually make it to the top of the brow on a bird farm parked at NAS North Island and the chief asks if your going to make it, telling him your fine and then puking on those brown shoes and falling forward and hitting the non skid with your forehead makes for interesting talk at muster the next morning. Seems most of Repair Division and the Flying Squad got a few free passes
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