'KNOTS'

An old, retired sailor puts on his old uniform and heads for the docksonce more for old time's sake. He engages a prostitute and takes her upto a room.

He's soon going at it as well as he can for a guy his age, but needingsome reassurance, asks "How am I doing Darlin?"

The prostitute replies, "Well old sailor, you're doing about three
knots."

"Three knots?" he asks, "What's that supposed to mean?"


She replies, "You're knot hard, you're knot in, and you're knot
getting your money back."

Radio_Bridge: Keep playing with it until you get it UP!!!

‘Steel Beach Picnics and Swim Calls’

Boys and Girls, do you recall how beautiful and peaceful the water was on sunny days in the Indian Ocean with seas as smooth as glass as far as the eyeballs could see? The freshest air you could ever breathe with seagulls circling overhead, porpoises at the bow and fly’n fish pass’n by ever so gracefully… Remember Steel Beach Picnics and Swim Call in the Deep Blue where the nearest land was only a few miles underneath your feet???

In an environment devoid of civilized influence, restless sailors begin to get vocal and well… vocabulary degenerates to the four letter two step and the  worthless sons-a-bitches start losing sleep over why we were operating wire brushes, chipping hammers, needle guns and knuckle busters under that hot… hot sun...

After jackassing Five Inch rounds, missiles & small arms to their proper magazines... wrestling the big monster oil booms and spam wire using all our sweat and muscle, standing port and report watches eyeballing surface contacts, air contacts… radar contacts… ‘Oh Shit’… MAN OVERBOARD!!! Not to mention some of the most fouled mouth cussing ever invented by man.

This was the type of thing that made us what we were... a real team. A bunch’a  sweat soaked sons-a-bitches cussing like a whore in church and running hard 24/7... It was tough times...

But after days of hard work and lots’a character building we were always looking forward to a day with a light breeze that made the mid-summer heat bearable. . Everyone had been working extremely hard and it would be a great time to throw a shindig on the flight deck…

We dubbed such a celebration ‘The Ol’ Steel Beach Picnic’… It provided a break in life regulated by countless hours of monotony and continuous watch cycles.

Perhaps on a Sunday at about noon… the ship stopped all engines and went dead in the water…  the Messenger Of The Watch got on the 1MC,

 “Attention All Hands… Steel Beach Picnic on the Flight Deck ”

The fiesta was now underway... an event that would make any outdoor party fanatic proud (without beer as the exception).

It was a time for the crew to lay back, relax and enjoy… there was bouncy boxing,  put-put golf, volleyball, water balloon fights, tricycle races, karaoke, a ship’s band with the Baglady’s ‘Randy Hanson’ as the lead singer… thought he started the Hansen Brothers when they came out!!!  There was also fishing off the fantail, bobbing-for-apples, hula-hooping, pie and hot dog eat’n contests, basketball competitions, wiffle ball tournaments. sumo wrestling, where Sailors don larger-than-life size sumo suits… and last but not least my favorite, talent shows with skits of buffoonery!!!

Couple of Butter Bars thought it funny watching me hit the elliptical in the ship’s Gym and apparently reminded them of ‘Tony Little’ and his Gazelle Commercials… so there it was… ‘Chief Swing’ doing the Gazelle thanks to Ensign Kip Wilkins for the fun times… or watching Ensign Cooper’s video of dancing like a rodeo clown on the missile deck for the whole crew to see!!!

Then there was the Kiddie Pool!! You can’t have a Steel Beach Picnic without a kiddie pool!! This was usually supplied by the local air wing onboard… and if you got the pool you can’t forget the Beach Chairs. We always had Beach Chairs!!! Oh, and the Cabana Umbrella we liberated from some fancy restaurant at our last foreign port visit!!!

And if we were out long enough… somewhere in the area of forty or fifty days without a port call… beer was acually served in limited quantities…. I think it was two to a ‘Crackerjack’ or something of the sorts…

At some point, if we were really lucky the ol’ man or the XO would put out ‘Swim Call’ over the 1MC… Remember how high it was off the flight deck? We’d do big cannonballs and blow depth charge holes with a big splash...

I remember Swim Call over Mariana’s Trench or there abouts on the Mighty Momsen… imagine losing your keys down that ditch!!! I guess the only thing that can live down in them depths would have to look someth’n in the way of the ‘Cracken’ or some other Leviathan of the deeps of lore!!!

Yep, swim call was exactly what it sounds like..  A bunch’a rowdy squidoos jump’n off the side into the DEEP BLUE SEA... and there ain’t noth’n like crawling up the cargo net so you can take another twenty-foot plunge…  It’s pretty scary to jump off as your adrenaline is pumping, but once you get there it feels good, and the water is really salty, but it’s a great time...

There were always lookouts posted... shark watch lookouts...  with M-14 sharp shoot’n Seargent Yourk type rifles…  cause there was mean stuff out there swimming about…  Great big nasty mean stuff that came with dreadful teeth… was hungry and could eat you. No one told me everytime I hopped off the fantail, I was a down home fish’n lure for Jabber Jaw the Great White!!! I thought sharks only ate girls in bikinis… Nobody said they ate Navy Sailors!!!

Sharks are mean sons-a-bitches. I saw one on Discovery’s Shark Week… they’ll chew chunks outt’a the side of a twenty-five foot bayliner!!!  Losing body parts is just a light desert for those bigg’ns!! It would take one hell of a chunk outt’a your liberty plans…

 After a day of hot sun and plenty of fun… you had those summer nights to sit on the fantail and enjoy the glowing moon... calm seas... phosphorescent aqua suds gliding past the water line floating aft into the glow of the moons reflection off the surface of that great big ocean... Soft, light cracking sound made by the ensign flying above the yardarms... It doesn't get any better than that.

We were forming lifelong friendships with our crews… we were teams of hardworking fun loving ‘Crackerjacks’!!!

“Hey you gut bandit Stew Burners outdid yourselves… That was some Great Chow!!!”

'Love Them Fishnets'

'Hope & Change'

There is an old sea story about a ship's Captain who inspected his sailors, and afterward told the first mate that his men smelled bad.

The Captain suggested perhaps it would help if the sailors would change underwear occasionally.

The first mate responded, "Aye, aye sir, I'll see to it immediately!"

The first mate went straight to the sailors berth deck and announced, "The Captain thinks you guys smell bad and wants you to change your underwear." He continued:

"Pittman, you change with Jones, McCarthy, you change with Witkowski, and Brown, you change with Schultz."

THE MORAL OF THE STORY: Someone may come along and promise "Change" but don't count on things smelling any better.

‘Oh What A Heavenly Rack’

Back in the days of the ol’ Canoe Club it could get pretty mundane at times wait’n for the sum of noth’n to happen… And other times it could be hell on wheels, balls to the wall with Chief yell’n in one ear and some gaudamned butter bar yell’n in your other!

But there was always a place onboard the ol’ rust bucket you could find some serenity… a place for comfort and peace of mind!! Racked out in the middle of berthing, preferably a middle rack if your salty enough… riding the waves as the ship rocked & rolled from side to side, fore to aft… reading a nekkit girlie magazine and scratch’n your stinky feet upon the towel hinge nestled three blankets deep with the AC chilling the place out keep’n the odiferous fragrances of eighty snoring shipmates from mak’n the place uninhabitable!! Underway that’s as good as it gets... unless someone could figure out how to run aground a beach full of stark-naked beach bunnies!!!

There were nights standing aft look out where it was cold & miserable, encrusted in two layers of foul weather gear, long john undies and a watch cap doing not a gaudamn thing for you but mak’n your head itch like ya got the damn cooties… sneak’n a peek at the ol’ wrist watch wondering where the hell that son-of-a-bitch is at who was supposed to relieve you twenty minutes ago…

When you’ve got ice cycles grow’n on your nose and brow groveling over the wretched wind chill, feel’n nothing but the burning pain in your fingertips as the cold slices through the layers of clothing … gazing through a dark night see’n nothing but the white from crested waves… that’s when you learn to appreciate the haven you call your rack!!!

From the outside observer, the rack may seem like noth’n more than a casket with less foot room than a sardine can… hence the name coffin rack, and the smells of diesel fuel… two parts body odor one part ol’ spice… a stiff sock on deck, your guess is as good as mine… and smelly laundry bags with boondockers strewn across the deck at every turn…

But after a cold night on watch there was noth’n more rewarding than crawling into your bunk, burrito-wrapped in a wool blanket with your foul weather jacket and a boondocker tucked under the head of the mattress to give you that added extra comfort under that smelly down pillow…

You didn’t bother gett’n undressed. You just crawled in search’n for that perfect spot and cuddl’n up to the farthest corner being hypnotically tranquilized by the steady drip in the overhead from a leaky potable water pipe…

Every so often you could hear a shipmate foraging through his locker making sounds like he’s digg’n through a disorganized tool box... or the sporadic inane conversations through the false bulkhead into the head about Suzie Rotten Crotch and Seaman Sam in the back alley behind the bar…

Sometimes the deck watch might come in… flash the light in your eyes,

“Sorry, wrong rack…”

It was a gaudamn nocturnal Easter Egg Hunt try’n to find the son-of-a-bitch for the next watch relief... Seaman ass clown roaming around aimlessly shining a flashlight like a gaudamned floodlight in every rack down the aisle way.

Finally…

“Seaman Timmy, it’s time to get up!”

“Screw you and the horse you rode in on!”

I slammed a locker once on the ol’ Baglady… about got my underwear strap pulled over my scalp for that one…

“I’m up already!”

Then there was BM2 ‘Freddy Krueger’ Biddle com’n in stink’n drunk off liberty and pissed on STG3 ‘Bama’ in his rack… BM2 looked like the infamous Elm Street killer & I don’t remember STG3’s name… just that he was a good ol’ Southern boy from Alabama and he didn’t much like gett’n pissed on at 0300 hours of the morning sound asleep in his rack!!!

Just about had to call in the Master-At-Arms and Command Duty Officer to put that one to sleep… no pun intended…

There was a hierarchy to bunk reservation onboard Navy ships… as they were usually stacked three high…

Back in the day, the bottom rack was for the bottom feeders in the social pecking order of things… usually the rack was triced up on one end during the day and at night the curtains offer little to no privacy from looters and voyeurs during that midnight rendezvous with the ol’ sock… Besides, there ain’t nothing more humiliating than being triced up in the middle of the night with no one to offer a hand… only a snicker or two from a couple racks over!!!

The top rack was the next in line only because it had a bit more privacy and occasionally you’d get a little extra storage space between the upper angle irons and water pipes running fore and aft… but you got shit for locker space with an extra side locker to help with the lack of accommodations… unless you name was FC1 Needham…

Ol’ Needham had a middle rack with a big ol’ fat EEBD holder down on the foot end.  After standing a dreary 00-04 Keith would crawl deep into his warm rack all cozy and comfortable just about at rim sleep… That was before a wind up clock went clang’n away from within the EEBD holder and got him jump’n and holler’n all over the gaudamned place… Must’ve happened a dozen times before he knew what the hell was going on!!!

Like I said before… the middle rack was the best, unless you were an ol’ salt who’d been around these were usually taken by the most senior of the girls onboard!!!

The racks are small and don’t own up much to the king sized California you might brag about at home… unless you’re an anorexic midget swing’n the trapeze for Ringling Brothers… but they were heaven to a nineteen year old ‘Crackerjack’ spending long cold nights out at sea… 

And so it went falling fast asleep envisioning high school fantasies of young bosoms in your face doing the ‘Whiskey Tango Foxtrot’ in the backseat of Daddy’s car…

 "Reveille... Reveille... trice up and heave out... Smoking lamp is lit in all authorized smoking areas… now Reveille!”

Morning sunshine, time to drop your cocks and grab your socks...

“Chow is now being served on the Messdecks!”

“No shit Sherlock, where else are they gonna serve shit on a shingle… in the shitcan I suppose!?!?”

Hot coffee, Bacon & Eggs and a side of Orange Juice... with a slice of blackened toast!!!

Another day in ol’ Canoe Club... C'mon you slackers MOVE IT... MOVE IT!!"

I Really Like This One!!!

‘Two Sailors And A Life Boat’

When their ship sank two Sailors, a Seaman and a Chief, were adrift in a lifeboat. While rummaging through the boat's provisions, the Seaman stumbled across an old lamp.  He rubbed the lamp vigorously and a genie came forth.
This genie, however, stated that he could only deliver one wish, not the standard three.

Without giving much thought to the matter, the Seaman blurted out, "Turn the entire ocean into beer. Make that Budweiser!!!"
The genie clapped his hands with a deafening crash, and immediately the sea turned into the hard-earned thirst quencher. The genie vanished. Only the gentle lapping of beer on the hull broke the stillness as the two men considered their circumstances. The Chief looked disgustedly at the Seaman whose wish had been granted.

After a long, tension-filled moment the Chief said, "Nice going Dipshit! Now we're going to have to piss in the boat."

‘Has Anyone Seen My ID Card’

Besides chasing wild dreams and look’n forward to gett’n a steady paycheck every two weeks to be a drunken sailor with a gal in every port, I joined the ol’ Canoe Club to take me away to exotic places with strange names… places you’d see in National Geographic magazines… I wanted to see stuff and do things beyond my wildest gauddamned dreams… All I needed was a US Navy I.D. card and a fresh set of Navy Blues!!!

Of course first thing’s first… you always got that two or three hour liberty stand down from the Chief and Divo…

"Okay now listen up girls… Check your I.D. Cards and make sure you have them on you at all times… that’s your passport and without it… your shit outta luck! Don’t spit on the sidewalks, don’t wink at any strange ladies with an Adam’s apple, and don’t piss in the petunias… oh, and whatever you do, make sure you grab one of them Goodyears doc’s pass’n for prophylactics when you cross the Quarterdeck… If you end up with cold soars on your junk, don’t say I didn’t tell you so!!  Last boats will be leaving Fleet’s Landing at 2345 hours… Got that sweethearts? You ain't got your worthless asses on the launch by then you’d better have money for a water taxi or be one hell of an Olympic swimmer… Gott it???

If you were a Petty Officer… you got overnight liberty… at least with an approved request chit, an act of God, and possibly your first born…

From there it was off on liberty… someone let loose of the hounds… ‘Liberty Hounds’… every damned one of them!!! 

“I wonder where all the women are at… I hear they like American Cowboy types… Let’s find a place to grab a few cold ones!”

That was the usual colloquial speech of a ‘Crackerjack’ head’n out on liberty! Five minutes off the boat and the first cantina, tavern, pub, or humble abode that served alcohol away from the landing was home sweet home to a dozen or so squidoos…

After a few too many beers, you damn near forgot everything to do outside the here & now and socially acceptable... ‘three sheets to the wind’ you were piss’n off the roof tops and balconies of some South Pacific Hotel or sleep’n with anything found suitable through your beer goggles planted firmly on your nogg’n!!! 

If you don't remember the good times then you must be absolutely brain dead. There was nothing like a bunch’a fun loving, hardworking sailors laughing like deranged lunatics about all the crazy, exotic and erotic places and things they’d encountered…

I recall nights of play’n ‘Jack the Jaw’ with Brit Sailors and fellow shipmates only to wake up feel’n like my jaw bone had been sewn shut… I recollect a certain lunatic E-3 streak’n butt nekkit through the dirty streets only to run smack into a jeepney with his ding-a-ling splattered to the windshield… I conjure up images of Go-Go Girls in faraway places dancing in pools with water sharks in a place somewhere called ‘Caligulas’ shoot’n darts out of their genitalia… or the buy me drink girls play’n a game called smiles under the table for pesos… or what about gett’n mugged or pickpocketed in a nasty little foreign place where the local constable would rather put a baton over your nogg’n then try to arrest one of his own!!!

Yeah, they say 'A fool and his money are soon parted' must've been a sailor on Westpac who came up with that one!!!

I remember anchoring about a mile out in Melbourne Australia while on the Rainier… we were a deep draft and there was no way in hell we were gonna sit pier side in such a shallow lagoon…

Well, after a night on the town and a sleep in at a local hotel, I remember drink’n Australian beer and whatever could’a passed as crocodile piss while strolling up and down Victoria Street all night long from bar to bar… street to street!! At least this way I didn’t have to show up for morning quarters hitt’n the drunk parade!!!

Somewhere in the midst of regaining my senses the next morning, I had come to the realization that I was missing something… digging through my wallet, look’n under the bed, checking high and low throughout the room… bathroom… and balcony… where’s that damned DD Form 1172 I carry around on my ass cheek every day of the week???

“Has anyone seen my I.D. Card?”

Thank goodness one of our shipmates was half sober last night as we hiked up and down Victoria Street and its vicinity look’n for that piece of green they call an I.D. card!!!

We checked all the street vendors, museums, parks, restaurants, bars, ago-gos…
Just about the time sundown was about to hit all be damned if I was gonna go back to the ship. I’d surely be put on liberty risk for losing my damned I.D. Card… So we sat at a local whole in the wall pub and somewhere in the neighborhood of five or six beers one of my shipmates walked by and told me my I.D. Card was on the ship…

“How in the hell did it get on the ship?”

Sometime early the previous night I had stopped in of all places… a ‘Seven Eleven’ right down from the Melbourne version of Grand Central Station… I must’a left an impression as my trusty ol’ I.D. was left on the counter and the fella working realized I was one of them American types and gave it over to a fellow shipmate. He turned it into the Quarterdeck the next morning… so I had to go back to the ship anyway!!!

Lucky for me no questions were asked about how I got around without it… it was though it never happened!!! I thought to myself,

“How lucky can I be losing my I.D. in a faraway place like this… stunk drunk… just to have some unassuming fella behind a convenience store counter… turn it over to a shipmate… no harm no foul!?!?”

Don’t stair a gift horse in the mouth… just consider yourself lucky!!!

Yep, We were young… dumb… and bulletproof!!! Thought we could live forever… Drinking, Carousing, and Pollut’n the waters of foreign ports with kidney filtered beer and bits & pieces of last nights dinner… Noth’n was better than being youthful and bursting with unadulterated energy!!! And there was noth’n better than having liberty… a good escape from long underways and monotonous nights standing port and report…

The Navy Engineman

A gynecologist was getting sick of his job and decided that he needed a career change. He'd always enjoyed tinkering with engines so thought he'd join the Navy and become a marine diesel mechanic.

So he went through Boot Camp and along to Engineman ‘A’ school and the final test was to strip the diesel engine completely and reassemble it - obviously back into perfect working order. So our gynecologist friend did the test and anxiously awaited the result.

The day he received the results he got quite a surprise, he got 150%! He quickly went to the Chief instructor and queried the mark.

The Chief said, "No… no… that's right. First I gave you 50% for stripping down the engine-a very thorough job. Next I gave you 50% for reassembling it - a fantastic job really. Then I gave you a 50% bonus for doing it all through the exhaust port."

So is this what they mean by Trafficking in Persons???

‘Sea Daddy’

I remember on my first ship in the ‘Ol Canoe Club’ some old crusty and corroded bastard would sit around bitch’n and complaining about us young boots while tell’n bullshit sea stories from back in the old days. Before you knew it the bullshit started fly’n from one end of the compartment to the other… rookie debutantes need not apply!!!

And it’s been my experience an ‘Old Salt’ could name a hundred different beers from as many different places… remember monkey meat and balut from the PI… make out the exchange rate of just about any funny money around the world… and show you the best places to pursue refined refreshment and xXx rated interaction with members of the opposite sex!!!

These fellas you could usually refer to as your Mentor… Deckplate Leader… or my favorite… Sea Daddy!!!  These were the fellas the Skipper would talk to in an ol’ so familiar way and say,

"Listen here you senior dipshits! Before we all step off the brow I expect you to look out for our younger shipmates and show them the ropes!! I don’t want anyone on liberty risk and for Christ sakes keep’m sober enough to get back on board… I don’t want anyone on the binnacle list forgett’n to wrap that rascal either... We got enough critters and nasty stuff crawl’n around this joint… Got it!?!?"

Somewhere down the road I became one of them ol’ salts…

And sometimes when look’n out for those young shipmates… it’s like raising a second family! Of course it ain’t like it used to be when I was growing up in this ol’ Canoe club… with all this political correctness B.S…

You see when I was a young boot… there were times when the Chief would chew your ass for spending all your money on liquor and whores then turn around and slip a twenty in your pocket so you could afford a couple pitchers of cheap beer off base… nowadays you’d be classified as an alcohol abuser and possibly administratively separated or get charged for Trafficking in Persons’!!! 

Had a fella in Hong Kong… ‘Goof Troop’… only reason he didn’t get restricted for Trafficking in Persons… The CMC caught his Liberty Buddy without him and called his ass in the middle of the action… He ran out on her before she could finish the job so she got no pay!!! But they still got him for ‘Sodomy’ as he admitted to letting her perform a bit of fellatio on his member… now sodomy is no longer a violation of the UCMJ thanks to the repeal of ‘DADT’… I’m just waiting for some new directive to allow cross dressing, wigs, and men in make-up!!! Equal Rights… right!?!?

It used to be early at morning Quarters showing up five minutes late still smelling like perfume and booze from the night before and Chief would look at you and say,

“It’s okay to hoot with the Owls at night but you better be gaudamned sure you’re able and ready to soar with the Eagles in the morning!”

Back in those days there was no such thing as ‘sensitivity training’ and when you got your ass chewed you got the stupid hammered outta you!!

When you were out there figuring out how to put on the rat guards you might have found your ‘Sea Daddy’ out there practically climbing the lines showing you how it’s done!!

"Hey Chief, you don’t have to do that we can figure out how to get it done."

"Listen here shipmate, I’m here to show you how to get’r done!”

 "Yeah, but you're old and fat, and might hurt yourself..."

"Shipmate, when I'm in a wheel chair, senile and decrepit I’ll still be able to kick your worthless ass so don’t give me no shit!!!”

“I didn’t realize…”

"There's a hell of a lot of stuff you don't realize, rookie… and that’s what I’m here for!!!"

And so it went… You could sit back and keep your mouth shut & listen to the wise exchange of banter while learn’n to be a part of the brotherhood of the crew… or become one of them piece ‘o shit whiners nobody can stand to be around... but these days it seems it’s the whiners who get all the glory!! If you give anyone a hard time or try to show any hard brotherly love you might find yourself on report for harassment or other PC’ BS!!!

Back in the day it seems Deckplate Leadership was based on ol’ salty experience that had been there and done that… the same can’t be said these days because the New Navy ain’t been there and done that…

These days Master Chiefs divide a line in the mess between the E-7, E-8 and E-9… Where it used to be a Chief’s Mess they make sure to let you know your place in the ways of Khaki politics and the pecking order… Too gaudamn many forcing social engineering down our throats with false bravado!!!

It’s a shame… everybody gets a medal and we’re all supposed to be one big happy family… Somewhere we forgot how to let our youngn’s figure out how to fail… cause if they don’t figure that out… they’ll never figure out how to succeed!!!