‘Dear John’

Now that I’ve become a retired hemp covered, barnacle encrusted, ancient mariner of the ol’ Canoe Club, I thought I’d speak a bit about the ol’ Dear John Letter…

It all started way back when… some GIs’ in WWII learned that long periods of separation from the hometown honeys could lead to the ill-fated expiration of that long awaited reunion back home. This is where the ol’ ‘Dear John’ letter came into play. The subject of a typical Dear John memo would read something like this...

"I fell on your best friend’s penis since you've been gone and I believe it would be best if you and I went our separate ways!!!"

The practice of writing ‘Dear John’ letters became so common… some ladies didn't bother to write more than ‘Dear John’ on the damn thing! When fellow shipmates pushed for more details, many retorted…

"That's all she wrote."

This is said to be how the phrase ‘that’s all she wrote’ came about!!!

At Nineteen and right outta High School we were all young… dumb… and full of too much sexual angst to be pull’n our puds for just one gal!! But what the hell did we know… you fall in love and all you could think about was that ‘Suzie Rotten Crotch’ back home!!!

Hell, I was one of the lucky ones… I got my start as soon as I got hitched to the ol’ Canoe Club!! On a daily basis in Boot Camp we were educated on the importance of ‘Mail Call’ as we waited for letters from the civil side of society… and it never failed when I would get mine from my sweetheart back home…

"Holy Shit… perfumed calligraphy and lipstick to match… This shit would turn an embalmed monk horny… Gaudamn man… get that shit outta here!!"

Hell, eight weeks of them letters during basic training and I was having one nocturnal emission after another…

But it didn’t take long for things to transpire and it all went awry! Before you knew it… I got the ol’ Dear John Letter…

"Dear John… I don't know quite how to tell you this, but… our romance is over!  I think I first knew it while ‘yaffling’ your best friend’s Yogurt Cannon in the car after a date and a movie!! I'm sure you're man enough to see how miserable I've been and the back seat of your Datsun sucks!!  I’m returning your love letters and want you to know I’ll be a lot better off without you… as a matter of fact… I never really loved you… I’m sending you a tape of Sam Kenison’s ‘Wild Thing’ for you to remember me by!!!”

Eat your heart out,

'Your now Ex-Girlfriend’

But not all ‘Crackerjacks’ are so fortunate…

On my first ship, the ‘Baglady’ we had a fella down in Ops we’ll call Derek… muscle bound, cocky, thought he owned the gaudamn place! Derek had a gal’ out in Las Vegas who had a set of knockers that couldn’t go unnoticed!! She’d write him letters like…

"I miss you so much… If you were here, I would ride the …"

We’d all get worked up… but predictably she got tired of waiting and ended up letting some other fella paste her winking eye shut… if you know what I mean!!!

He ended up drunk in every liberty port and often spoke of suicide… it never happened but it left a bitter taste in his mouth and he inevitably did something stupid that got him kicked off the boat… You just never know the effect it can have on a young fella!!!

When I left the Baglady I went to CIWS school and a fella in class had married his hometown sweetheart from up in Oregon!  She wrote memos that read like pages torn from a nymphomaniac's memoires!! After two or three letters of read’n what could be more appropriately published in a Hustler Forum and intended for ‘His’ eyes only but read aloud to a devoted fan club for a theatrical speech at each installment... She finally sent him a lustful letter of how she’d been letting the neighbor’s son part her like the ‘Red Sea’ until she called him ‘Moses!!!’

Needless to say… he wasn’t a happy camper…

Then there’s my old time buddy off of the ol’ Chucky ‘V’ I recently ran into…

His first wife had left him while on deployment after hooking up with a bowling pro… We used to make wise cracks of how she liked the way he’d hold her like a bowling ball … Two in the pink & one in the stink!!!

But when it came to relationships this fella could fall in a barrel of titties and come out sucking his thumb… He got married a second time and damned near the same story!! He’s married again and I gotta figure the third time is gonna be a charm!! At least he’s retired now and not away from home long enough for the neighbor to come over so he can spend time bang’n the ol’ screen door!!!

Then there was the fella who’d sent his wife back to their hometown while the ship was on Westpac and they’d had a long marriage of fidelity with a couple of kids… but wouldn’t you know it… While he was gone, she decided she was to become a Vagitarian after she met a Lickalotopus she went to High School with! I mean, how do you compete with that?!?! You go on Deployment and your wife decides to Air the ol’ Orchid with a female ‘Carpet Munching Rug Doctor’…

"Chief, I knew something was wrong when I’d go for the honeypot and there was no honey… I was dry docked like a son-of-a-bitch!!!”

At least their divorce was amicable and the kids weren’t horribly effected!!!

Then there was the fella who worked for me on the ‘Mighty Momsen!’ He said his wife was a well-meaning sweet young thing whose panties had passed her knees in numerous backseat convertibles several hundred times before he married her… she gave him herpes after messing around during Westpac…  Her meat curtains were so worn out they had holes in them…

"Chief, She was running around like a blind dog in a meat house!”

Every time he’d call her she was out fish’n… for Trouser trout!! He said he’d be afraid to go back to that gal cause she was like a box of assorted creams… a ‘Municipal Cock Wash’ he called her!!!

Yes… when a ‘Crackerjack is deployed overseas far from home it’s pretty traumatic to get that obligatory ‘Dear John’ letter… it clouds his judgment and makes it hard to focus on the mission… but it happens to the best of us!!

So I leave you with a ‘Dear John’ letter from a supposed ‘AA’ meeting written by a fella who’d got drunk one too many times after his experience…

Dear Johnnie Walker,

“There is so much about our stint together that I’m thankful for, but sadly, the time has come for us to go our separate ways. I wish I could say we’ll still be friends, but it’s just too dangerous for me!”

P.S. Trust me, this hurts me more than it hurts you.

Good-bye forever,
‘Drunken Sailor’