‘Open Your Eyes & Ears And Listen Up’

I came across this picture today while on the ol’ internet and found myself reminiscing…

When good ol’ fashioned sailors get together, it doesn't take long for the sea stories to reduce to who did what to how many girls while drink’n so many bottles of some substitute for turpentine to remember that gal with the mole on her ass and that tranny with a five dollar foot long between its legs… You remember… who couldn’t remember that kind’a crap!!!

Yep… big titties, fast women, 99’ bottles of beer on the wall, and even more dames than you got fingers for short time no shit in 72’ hour liberty ports are what your typical sea tales end up all about...

At some juncture, the bullshit gets outt’a hand… and it’s on! The major ‘So there I was’ and ‘You ain’t gonna believe this shit’ kind’a stuff comes out of the wood work!!!

Don’t get me wrong… I’ve told some tales of grandeur and I’ve had some great memories in my day… you spend all your days learning how to be a ‘crackerjack’… the pride, the vernacular identity, camaraderie… liv’n like a pirate ‘two hundred years too late’… then the gaudamned Navy turns all politically correct and you wonder… ‘Who gives a damn anymore…   

But somewhere along the line… something or someone can surprise you… sometimes it’s just the little things. Back on the ‘Mighty Momsen’ I was privileged to serve with a fellow Chief named Javier Perez…

Javier was one of them kind’a fellas who epitomized the ol’ adage “Say what you mean… mean what you say” kind of thing… He was a hard work’n honest to God’ kind’a fellow.

On the way down the East Coast to Panama City, Florida for our big Commissioning Ceremony we took a detour to the good ol’ Naval Base in Norfolk, Virginia… gotta tell you, after all my years in the Navy that one overnight stay was the only time I ever visited the so called biggest naval base in the world… but I regress…

While the mighty Momsen was import over night Javier took me to a local Mexican Cantina for some good grub and a few Tecate beers. As we were seated I took notice to a beautiful mural on the wall of an Aztec Warrior perched over a lovely woman on what looked to be a bed of flowers…

“Javi, that looks like a Mexican makeover of Romeo & Juliet!” 

“Well, in a sense it sort’a is.”

Javier then proceeded to explain the finer side of Mexican culture and Aztec Mythology…

“They say the mountains were once a princess and a prince who were deeply in love with one another. The prince was a brave warrior but the princess’ father insisted he engage in battle with their enemy and come back with the head of their king!  As the princess lie in wait for her beloved prince, a messenger came back with false reports the prince had died in battle. There the princess lay succumbed by her despair and died of a broken heart.  When the prince returned to find his beloved had died, he was grief stricken to the point he took her body to the mountains to lay beside her and breathe his last breath so they could be together for eternity. They remain still today as Iztacchuatl and Popocatpetl  overlooking the valley of Mexico City.  Occasionally Popactpetl will bellow ash to remind those watching… he still lies watching over his beloved Iztcchuatl!!!”

Now a know a lot about sea stories and good ol’ fashioned bullshit but that ain’t no gaudamned horse manure that Javier was feeding me… he knew a little something about what he was tell’n me and I still hold a great appreciation for that story…

It just goes to show you what you can learn from somebody if you open your eyes and ears and listen up to what they’ve got to tell you!!!

In the short time I knew Javier he showed me how to dish up a good Salsa and a few other things too… I’m sure if I hung around long enough he would’a revealed the proper way to down a Tequila Popper or had I been single the appropriate way to sequester a fine young Mexican Maiden… always found’m to be damned pretty & hell’a sassy…

I have no idea where he was earlier in my career, only that it’s a damn shame we rode different ships at different times… Holy Shit Conniptions if I’d met him earlier in my ‘Crackerjack’ days, one-tenth of the stuff in my epic stories of bullshit might not of happened… maybe it’s fortunate I hadn’t or you might not be reading this silly crap right now!!!

So as I take a drink tonight, I say to you Javier…

“Salud and Gracias to my good friend!”

‘A Young Aussie Joins The Navy’

A young Aussie joins the navy. On the day he is about to go to sea, his father warned him to be aware of gay sailors.

"But dad, how will I know?"

"Trust me son, you will know.

After 6 months at sea, the ship comes into port. The father was on the dock waiting for his son. The son, seeing his father, got off the ship and shook his fathers hand.

"Well son,how did it go?"

"Dad, I found out what you ment about gay sailors. One night I was out on deck all alone when a man came by and put his hand on my shoulder so I threw him overboard."

"But how could you tell he was gay?"

"Well, for 3 days he swam behind the boat yelling "THROW ME A BOUY, THROW ME A BOUY"

‘Humor In The Face Of Defeat’

Joe’ Sailor was deployed on a long overseas tour. While he was away he received a letter from his girlfriend. In the letter she explained how she had slept with two other fellas while he had been away and she wanted to break up with him… oh, and she wanted the pictures of herself she gave him back.  So the good ol’ Joe’ Sailor did what any good ‘Crackerjack’ would do…  he went around to his shipmates and collected all the unwanted photos of women he could muster… He then mailed about twenty-five of them pictures (some clothed… some not so much) to his girlfriend with the following note,

“I don’t remember which one you are. Please remove your picture and send the rest back!”

'Anthony Buncum... Another Lost Shipmate'

As we get older one thing rings clear to all of us. At some point… you know you’re gonna have to come face to face with the problematic revelation of your own demise. Now I don’t plan on meeting my maker anytime soon so don’t get your panties all in a wad!!!

It just seems pretty dog-gone evident as the years blow on past a lot of family and friends seem to be crowding up God’s waiting room standing in line for their one way ticket to the other side.  In the past year my mother had gone… my wife’s mother… as well as a few shipmates I had lost touch with over the years…

One in particular shipmate has come up in recent days… not sure how he passed but its’ a shame someone of such fine young vintage and diligence to duty had to expire so soon.  Anthony Buncum was his name… didn’t know him as well as others but he was a helluva shipmate I can assure you!!!

I remember seeing Buncum, Merrill, Shulke and Magner bouncing off the passageways of the ol’ Rainier Lucky No. 7 back in the day… they all seemed like pretty cozy shipmates… swapping sea stories, hang’n out on the mess decks, doing what sailors do best…

I asked a couple of those shipmates if they could let me know of some of their fondest memories of Anthony, this is what I got and it’s word for word, beautifully written and no need to adlib…

“I met Tony a long, long time ago… during the Westpac of 96-97. We became good friends, whether I was working in the pit, or doing some temp duty up in Hazmat. And while we had the occasional disagreement, we always managed to get over it and be buds again. I remember tooling around in the old Chevy pickup he had, listening to whatever passed for music in those days. There are stories of things happening that can never be told in detail. Buncum, Magner, and I eventually got an apartment together off base... the world’s worst bachelor pad. A lamp with no shade next to the front door, a couch we picked up on a roadside. But it was ours, and we partied. Then came the time when he started dating a gal living in Vancouver, WA. So, plenty of road trips down there on the weekends, venturing out to explore Portland during the Rose Festival. Eventually, he married her just prior to Westpac 98-99. And it was just a month or so into deployment when he found out he was going to be a father. He couldn't have been happier. And even after I left the ship, I still kept in contact, as much as I could. I had the good fortune to talk to him on the phone just a month ago on Sept 4th. We just BS'ed like it was the good old days. Sure, things had changed in his life, as it does in anyone's. But it was good to talk to my old shipmate, a man I could call my brother. And in the end, I can only hope that his heart found peace. We all must go, sometime. Sometimes, that time comes too early. But I have to believe that it brings an end to those things that hurt ones soul. I'm sad that I won't have the opportunity to talk to my shipmate again, but take solace in knowing that his pain is over, and hope that his heart is at peace now. Life is not an easy road to travel by any means, and it's even harder to travel it feeling alone. But, now he has a new road, with others that have gone before him. Thank you Tony, for being one of a few friends I had back then.”

Jeremy Shulke wrote those breathtaking words as he remembered our shipmate.  I read in his obituary that he was a proud young American who loved his family and his country… and will be sorely missed by all!!!

We hope to meet again on that great ship in the sky… until then we’ll have to keep each other company down here while your keep’n the decks swabbed and the boat in ship shape condition for our arrival… fair winds and following seas dear friend… we hope to meet up again someday soon!!!

‘Naïve As A Dofelmire Weiner’

I was digg’n through a box of old stuff from my younger years the other day and found quite a bit of monumental recollection pact away in them ol’ boxes… mostly  from high school and my ol’ Canoe Club days! Some ol’ letters from a girl telling me she was true... loved me more than anything and would wait a million years just to feel my arms around her again... Boy I was dog-gone naïve in those days!!!

It didn't matter, because no nineteen-year-old in his right mind had any business knowing what was good for him… If he did, he’d never get to experience the kind’a shit I did in my day… when I didn’t have a care in the world and felt like I’d live forever with every beat of that young heart!!!

I remember back in Boot Camp not to use stall number four in the Mess Hall during service week cause you’ll catch a case of the crabs off the toilet if you go there… Anybody in their right mind should know that you’d been sanitized, immunized, deloused, scrubbed down and bleached over within the first three gaudamned days in that asylum… but what did we know at nineteen!!!

I keep thinking back in ‘A’ school learning about motors & generators and our instructor introducing himself with a speech about the ol’ days in the Mekong Delta… asked him if he’d ever killed anybody in Vietnam!!! At the time I didn’t realize what an ‘asshole’ question that was… It wasn’t crass or judgemental… just a dumb young fella’ who was a little too damned naïve to know any better…

Then there was the gal I had a few one night flings with down in San Diego… she led me to believe she was pregnant and having an abortion… if I didn’t give her Two-hundred and Fifty dollars she was gonna go to my Commanding Officer… growing up Catholic I spent seventeen years feel’n guilty about that whole abortion debacle… As the years flashed by, I became one of the Chiefs of the fella who set me up with that gal… He told me a story how an ol’ gal friend he used to have would fake ex-boyfriends in believing she was pregnant and needed money for abortions… son-of-a-bitch must’a forgot about me… Oooh, that son-of-a-bitch was Gene Blystone… if anyone wants to know… but he got his in the end… some of you out there know what I mean…

Soooo, it’s not any wonder a young whipper snapper gets to the fleet and they play all sorts of tricks and banter… like the mail buoy watch!!!

You stood there in the ice splitt’n wind in your trusty, worn out ol’ foul weather jacket donned with a weathered raggedy-ass watchcap, overlook’n God's great ocean for that golden buoy one-thousand nautical miles in the middle of nowhere…  

Come on now… who should’nt know any better… but it happens again and again with the BT punch, Bucket O’ Steam, Thousand yards of gig line, or a gallon of relative bearing grease…

But the worst lessons were the ones learned on liberty…

As you know from previous stories… I had my L-o-L-a moment… almost got pummeled in the PI… got suckered outta some beer money now and again…

But noth’n was ever quite like the ‘Doubled Down Dofelmire experience’!!!

We had this young Crackerjack named Dofelmire back on the ol’ Baglady… not many quite as naïve as this fella! He was short and two inches too round for your average Crackerjack Seaman… and smiled all the gaudamned time. Being short & dumpy with a name like Dofelmire to rhyme with Oscar Meyer… he naturally got the shitty end of the nickname scale…

♪♪“OOOh, I wish I were a Dofelmire Weiner… Then everyone would be in love with  me!!!”♪♪

One weekend liberty on the town in San Dog and poor Dofelmire ran into a so called ‘merchant seaman from Yakistan’ who was looking for Hotel San Diego so he could buy a big tittied hooker with the wad of cash he pulled outt’a his pocket!!!

He promised our young protagonist to let him hold on to his wad of cash while he went to the hotel so the young hooker could not steal his money… oh but in kind, the young Dofelmire would have to give him his shiny wrist watch to make sure  he didn’t run off…

About this time myself and a fellow shipmate showed up smell’n something fishy… as we investigated with a bit of good ol’ American Navy force… the so called wad of cash was nothing more than a few bills rolled up on top of a bunch’a bullshit newspaper clippings to look like a real load of mullah!!!

A few weeks went by and young Dofelmire didn’t fare so well on his next incident…

Sometime after liberty went down he headed off the ship to the base laundry connected to the McDonalds/NEX… after two or three hours the young Dofelmire headed back to the ship…

After a night on the town I got back to the boat to find Dofelmire in the Crews Lounge with a ‘Big ol’ Black Eye’…

“What the hell happened to you Dofelweiner???”

“I got pummeled and my clothes got stolen on the way back from doing laundry!”

“You got mugged doing your laundry on base??”

“Yeah, the guy asked for money and when I didn’t have any he punched me in the face and took my laundry!!”

That poor bastard… you know, we gave him a lot of shit as all loving shipmates do… but to get an eye full and your laundry taken too… poor bastard had to buy new skivvies and uniform items… if I remember, we all pitched in… cause that’s what shipmates do!!!

I’ll bet Dofelmire, where ever he’s at now, isn’t so gaudamned gullible nowadays… but I feel ya brother… we were all dumb and happy at one point in our silly lives!!!

Rest assured with what I know now… I’d want to forget it all and relive it again… NO REGRETTS!!!

♪♪“OOOh, I wish I were a Dofelmire Weiner… Then everyone would be in love with  me!!!”♪♪

'Why Don't You Two Go Out And Screw'

It's the Spring of 1957 and a sailor goes to pick up his date. When he goes to the front door, the girl's father answers and inviteshim in. "Carrie's not ready yet, so why don't you have a seat?," he says.

"That's cool" says the sailor.

Carrie's father asks the sailor what they're planning to do.

The sailor replies politely that they will probably just go to the soda shop or a movie.

Carrie's father responds "why don't you two go out and screw? I hear all the kids are doing it."

Naturally, this comes as a quite a surprise to the young sailor - so he asks Carrie's Dad to repeat it.

"Yeah," says Carrie's father, "Carrie really likes to screw; she'll screw all night if we let her!"

Well, this just made the sailor's eyes light up, and his plan for the evening was beginning to look pretty good.

A few minutes later, Carrie comes downstairs in her little poodle skirt and announces that she's ready to go. Almost breathless with anticipation, the young sailor escorts his date out the front door.

About 20 minutes later, Carrie rushes back into the house, slams the door behind
her, and screams at her father:

" DAMMIT DADDY! IT'S CALLED THE TWIST!!!"

‘Nights Coming Back’

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!

‘Making A Mess By The Mess’

Before I get started… don’t get me wrong! There’s nothing more attracting to the ladies than a handsome young American Sailor decked out in his summer whites!! And nothing could make you feel more proud and cocky than walk’n with that good ol’ American swagger in a fresh crisp uniform…

But boys & girls I gotta tell ya… going anyplace in that gaudamned uniform can be hell!!! Nothing like walking around in a dirt magnet, every gaudamned thing you touch, lean against or sit on makes you look like you’d been in a mud rastl’n contest in the local strip joint!!! Though that wouldn’t be a bad thing… but sure as hell wouldn’t of wanted to have to explain that to Chief when you got back off liberty… if he’d even believe that shit!!!

Hell, the damn things were see through as well… once saw a female Corpsman standing at attention in her dress whites right across from our division during a Command Inspection… She was wear’n them cute panties with red hearts all over in the San Diego sunlight… couldn’t believe she survived that inspection… go figure!!!

Which brings me to the point of this damned story…

For the most part this particular day started out like any other day, with the exception that I had problems with my bowel movements over the last few days. Usually over the course of a dozen different types of unruly lubricants such as beer and other intoxicating libations I didn’t’ have such a problem… maybe it was from eat’n too damn much red meat!! I couldn't seem to take a decent dump, so I had taken a dose of Ex-Lax earlier in the day.

I was going to CIWS Phanlanx Weapons school taking evening classes and spent most of the morning trying to push out a bit of relief with noth’n more than a bit of flatulence now and again.  After an hour or so of taking the ol Ex-Lax the pain in my intestinal track had subsided, and I started to feel a bit better… So, I got on with the day as I got all dressed in my uniform and ready for class.  Occasionally I’d get that odd pain again and a few farts would slip out, but no poop.

I got through the first part of class okay until it was dinner time. Gett’n back to the barracks I had to pass by the base galley… so naturally I had to go by once again on the way back to school. On the way back I had a sudden urge to fart just as I was passing the good ol’ chow hall... just then…

Oh Holy Mother of Jesus!

When the fart escaped my hiney hole I couldn’t believe how bad it smelled. I knew I must’ve had the ol’ hershey squirts in my shorts ‘cause it felt less like a fart and more like I’d lubed my ass in cooking oil... it was about this time I’d realized as I was emitting this rather foul odor that my butt crack was a bit more watery feeling than I was comfortable with…

Yep… somehow while eek’n out a fart I’d let out a small amount of poo… IN MY GAUDAMNED ‘ICE CREAM MAN’ NAVY WHITES!!!

No there was no way in hell I was walking to class in this mess… so I started squirming my way back to the barracks one foot at a time squeez’n my butt cheeks together so as to keep it from gett’n any worse!! When I got to the barracks there was a brown circle in the ass of my pants about the size of a Silver Dollar!!!

After a good pump-n-dump, five minute shower and a change of uniform I headed back to class about ten minutes too late while having to explain myself. I told my class counselor my story as he figured I couldn’t have been making this ‘shit’ up and let it be known that this would be strictly confidential…

Low and behold, five minutes after I was sitt’n in class the son-of-a-bitch walked in and mercilessly let the ol’ cat out of the bag… I was ridiculed and teased for months by my fellow shitmates… umm… shipmates!!! I let my wife know about this story and to this day she still teases me… guess some things should’a been kept to myself… but hell, nobodies perfect… we all have shitty moments in life!!!

In retrospect I guess I could've dropped that dinner time deuce in the flower-pot of the foyer outside the base galley… them sons-a-bitches would’a been less likely to give a poor fella a load of shit for his problems… no pun intended!!!

Just goes to show you how shit happens…

'Gun Barrel'

A Gunners Mate joins the crew of a ship. After a few days he gets restless and asks

 “What does one do about sex around here?”

The others direct him to a large gun barrel with a hole in it. At first he does not like the idea much but, when he tries it, he finds it surprisingly enjoyable.

He has another go the next day, and again the day after.

Then he asks,

“Can I do this every day?”

“Yes, every day, except Wednesdays”.

“Why not on Wednesdays?”

“Wednesdays is YOUR turn inside the barrel!” 

‘Navy Shoes’

As Camilla was making last-minute preparations to walk down the aisle, she found that her shoes were missing. She was forced to borrow her sister's, which were a bit on the small side.

When the day's festivities were finally over, Charles and Camilla retired to their room, right next door to the Queen's and Prince Phillip's. As soon as Charles and Camilla were inside their room, Camilla flopped on the bed and said,

"Darling, please get these shoes off, my feet are killing me."

The ever-obedient Prince of Wales attacked the right shoe with vigour, but it was stuck fast.

"Harder!" Camilla yelled. "Harder!"

"I'm trying, darling!" The Prince yelled back.

"It's just so bloody tight!"

"Come on! Give it all you've got!" There was a big groan from the Prince, and then Camilla exclaimed, "There! That's it! Oh that feels good! Oh that feels SOOO good!"

In the bedroom next door, the Queen turned to Prince Phillip and said, "See I told you, with a face like that she was still a virgin."

Back in the bridal suite, Charles was trying to pry off the left shoe.

"Oh, my God, darling! This one's even tighter!" exclaimed the heir to the throne. At which Prince Phillip turned to the Queen and said, "That's my boy. Once a Navy man, always a Navy man!"

Messdeck Garnishings

For those of you way back on the Rainier…  you probably noticed all along the mess line there were all sorts of little carved food - the gaudamned mess cooks spent more time carving roses, peacocks, etc. out of carrots, radishes and celery than they did cooking edible food for us.

At chow, I would load up my tray with all of that bullshit so that I had more garnished crap on my tray than food. Every once in a while, I'd get caught and have to feign ignorance that I didn't realize we weren't supposed to be eating that crap.

At the end of the meal it was very rewarding to have a tray loaded up with these insanely hideous carvings and take it to the scullery to dump it off... I can just picture how pissed a mess cook would be to walk by and see me chuck all of his precious carvings in to the shit can.

‘What’s In A Nickname’

The guys I steamed with will remember…

Back when I was a ‘Boot’ in this ol’ Canoe Club everybody had a nickname!! Nicknames were an earned privilege!!! You didn’t get to pick your own… it usually came to you from one of the saltier fellas in the crew…

Hell, with the last name of ‘Swing’ I’ve played pin the tail on the ‘Donkey’ with nicknames my whole gaudamned life… It didn’t help that I went by Dennis ‘The Menace’ and had a best friend named Joey… and it didn’t help that I had a stepdad named ‘Charlie Brown’ who named his kids by the Peanut characters… Chuck, Linus, & Lucy!!! That my friends, is a noooo shitter!!!

When I joined the Navy we had names like 'Shitty Smitty’, ‘Radarboy’, ‘Coondog’, ‘Ron-Ron’, ‘Girlie Man’, ‘Wingnut’… and one of my many ‘Swing Batta-Batta’ or ‘Swingalingadingdong!! Hell, I was even referred to as ‘Teetertotter Swing’ by one fella… still not sure what that was about, but it was all in fun. Kind of a way to show love for your shipmates!!!

We used to call the Boatswains ‘Deck Apes’, Hull Technicians ‘Turd Chasers’, Corpsman'Penis Machinist', Signalman'Skivvy Waver' & so on & so forth....

Back in those days if you got ‘Butt Hurt’ over your nickname your Chief or First Class might’a had to show you a little tough love in learn’n ya some thick skin!!! The Navy was no place for Pansy Asses and Homophobes!!!

We didn’t need to call the shitbirds any names other than the one their momma gave ‘em… We dealt with the worthless bastards in a different way!!!

Besides we gave each other plenty of horseshit just for fun as it was…  Don’t ever let one of your shipmates get a hold of one of them girlie love letters from the gal back home telling you they were your true blue, loved you more than anything and would wait ‘til the end of time for you to come home… so he can mock her in that girlie voice and how she used to love you but is now letting some other home Joe feel her up in the back seat of the car at a ‘Mugs & Movies’ kind’a joint!!!

That’s how life was… we spent our monotonous time standing long watches underway deprived of sleep while giving each other a load of shit… That’s why I carried my high school class ring all those years… show Chief when he called me an idiot with a third grade education!!! Of course he told me I must’a got the ‘Sumbitch’ out of a gaudamned ‘Crackerjack Box’!!!

But somewhere along the line the ol’ Canoe Club gave up its sacred traditions and shit canned something we all held close to our hearts. Nicknames and Banter are all a thing of the past… hell, just read my story ‘Stink’n Snipes’ and you’ll see a bunch a butt hurt whiners cry’n because I called somebody a ‘worthless son-of-a-bitch!! The fella in question probably would’a laughed!!! Nowadays you gotta spend three weeks in sensitivity training just to get by…

Try calling a Corpsman a ‘Pecker Checker’ or a ‘Dicksmith’ in front of the Master Chief nowadays and you’ll probably be gett’n a one way ticket to see the ol’ man!!! Never could’a figured… for an outfit that has a gaudamned nickname for every part of the ship… wall(bulkhead), door(hatch), floor(deck) etc, etc… it’s kind of ironic they make such a fuss about nicknames!!! You get corrected these days just for using a last name without a rank or rate attached to it… can’t call’m Bubbles anymore… but ‘Seaman Bubbles’ would be the correct lexicon in this politically correct pandemonium we have today!!!

Ain’t that some shit… Seaman Bubbles!!!

SAILORISMS

I didn't write this but it sure is a fun one...

Me and Willy were lollygagging by the scuttlebutt after being aloft to boy-butter up the antennas and were just perched on a bollard eyeballing a couple of bilge rats and flangeheads using crescent hammers to pack
monkey shit around a fitting on a handybilly.

All of a sudden the dicksmith started hard-assing one of the deck apes for lifting his pogey bait. The pecker-checker was a sewer pipe sailor and the deckape was a gator. Maybe being blackshoes on a bird farm
surrounded by a gaggle of cans didn't set right with either of those gobs.

The deck ape ran through the nearest hatch and dogged it tight because he knew the penis machinist was going to lay below, catch him between decks and punch him in the snot locker. He'd probably wind up on the
binnacle list but Doc would find a way to gundeck the paper or give it the deep six to keep himself above board. We heard the skivvywaver announce over the bitch box that the breadburners had creamed foreskins on toast and SOS ready on the mess decks so we cut and run to avoid the clusterfuck when the twidgets and
cannon cockers knew chow was on.

We were balls to the wall for the barn and everyone was preparing to hit the beach as soon as we doubled-up and threw the brow over.

I had a ditty bag full of fufu juice that I was gonna spread on thick for the bar hogs with those sweet Bosnias. Sure beats the hell out of brown bagging. Might even hit the acey-duecy club and try to hook up with a Westpac widow. They were always leaving snail trails on the dance floor on amateur night.

If you understand this, you're true blue and gold!

‘Remember Black Tarred Navy Coffee’

Coffee… in its various forms has been the bastion of late night midwatches in the Navy for years!!

Latte, Cappuccino, Frappaccino, Mocha, Americano, with a dash of nutmeg or hazelnut!!! Don’t rightfully know where or when these fu-fu juiced caffeine hangover drinks came into play but I can remember a day before Starbucks, Seattle’s Best, or the Natte Latte… back when it was laced with hydraulic oil and JP5 for a little extra flavor!!!

Hell, we didn’t have the French Vanilla & the Amaretto Sweet stuff in the beginning… it was all straight ‘BLACK’!!!

Remember Black Tarred Navy Coffee??? That stuff must have been percolated from a dead witches ass...

Remember being asked how long you were in the ‘Navy’ and your response was supposed to be,

“All me bloom’n life!!!! – When I spits, I spits Tarrrrrrr!!!!”

It must’a been the gauddamned coffee they were talk’n about…

‘Straight Black’… full throttled, caffeine laden kind’a shit that arc welded your gauddamned eyelids to your eyebrows!!!

But one thing about that Navy Coffee… the first rule in the coffee mess was, don't clean the gauddamned coffee pot or any of the tar ridden cups! This was like committing the deadliest sin… might find yourself keelhauled or fed to the sharks for such a crime!!!

I remember once as a young ‘Crackerjack’ Boot, we had a mess down in gun plot on the good ol’ Baglady!!! I had noticed all the cups cumshawed from the messdecks were saturated with this nasty ass brown film… Sooo try’n to be a good shipmate I commenced to scrubb’n away with a green weenie and some steel wool.

OOOOOOHHHHH!! WTF… in not so settle terms came from every gauddamned direction like I’d just shot the Pope!!! 

“Listen you Fucking jackass… who the Fuck told you to wash the coffee cups?!?!

Numbnutts… Shit-fer-Brains… Jackass Boot… and about a half a dozen other names came flying my way at that point… made me feel about an inch tall!!!

You see, when you’re standing watch six on six off for weeks at a time… coffee becomes the life blood of what keeps most everyone of us shipmates going!!! So don’t F#@k with the cups… or the coffee pot for that matter… unless of course your using a dash of ol’ coffee grinds to put in your shipmates Coppenhagen!!! He-he… that’s right Neil… I think Marcus and I played that joke on you a couple of times!!!

You see… in the Navy, a good Cup-a-Joe has the thickness of a good can of 30W oil!!! Usually kinda smells like it too!!! If you wanted it sweet you might add a pound of sugar or some of that U.H.T. milk they used to give us… but adding whip on top with chocolate speckles was pretty guaddamned much unheard of!!!

The ol’ saying goes that Navy Ships run on fuel oil while the ship’s crew run on ‘Good ol’ Navy Coffee’!!!  Might not taste so good going down but it’ll keep ya going for weeks on end…