‘Navy Big Eyed Peep’n Tom’

Before I retired from the Ol’ Canoe Club I saw a piece of crackerjack history disappear I thought would never find its way to the scrap heap along with other oxidized, radiated & over rotated pieces of Naval Paraphenalia…

You knew once the Navy ceased to teach Morse Code it was all over... With all the marvelous electronic techno gizmos like GPS, Super Far Out Frequency Satellite Comms and your everyday basic e’mail, I suppose the ol’ flashes and dashes just became ancient history!!!

And in another move to socially engineer this organization into the ‘PC’ world of the 21st Century our illustrious Canoe Club decided to get rid of the ol’ Skivvy Wavers and mix’m up with the Quartermasters… all in the name of efficiency… smart ship… work smarter not harder or any of the other cosmetic sigma lean kind’a Bull Shit they’ve been feed’n us!!! 

Just like when they decided to put the women on the ships expecting the Salty Horn Dogs not to be doing the fan room hanky-panky in the name of professionalism!?!? You know I never had a problem with women on ships… it’s just how the Big Brass went about it!!! Half those women didn’t even want to be there… and they expect the ‘Crackerjacks’ to behave like boyscout Leave it to Beaver types… it’s a big fantasy!!! Anyway, I regress…

You could always count on good conversation late at night on the Signal Bridge… the Skivvy Wavers were good for that! You could always count on the placid shudder of the Signal Lights in the calm wind of a warm night underway…

“What’s he say’n over there Sigs?”

“He wants to know the going rate of a good pair of soiled panties over here!” 

Yes this was your typical line of ship to ship long range bullshitt’n sessions between the float’n cans… those damned Skivvy Wavers were a bunch’a skates… but they say pick your rate pick your fate…

I remember nights sitt’n out on the Signal Bridge… a chance to air out the ol’ armpits and shoot the shit!! Always look’n forward to that cup of joe… bullshitt’n under the red light… leaning over the side observing the phosphorescent shimmer cascading off the bow… watch’n some silly Ensign reporting to observe a ‘Sea Bat’…  look’n through the Big Eyes… awwww yes, the ‘’‘Big Eyes’’’!!!

There was something about the ‘Big Eyes’ that brought the boy outta’ every man aboard ship… the girls too!!!

You couldn’t help but play with the damned things like you’re on top of the Grand Canyon taking a looksee!!!

And it was about this time in my young ‘Crackerjack’ career that I remember doing ‘Ops’ off the coast of ‘San Dog’!!!

Late at night about three or four thousand yards off the beach from Coronado… fresh coffee brewed… look’n through the Big Eyes!!!

While taking in the Salt air and perfumed scents of the lazy beach, your mind begins to go wily as you peer into the balconies and windows of the Coronado Shore Condos and hotels… ever so often you’d get a glimpse of some young gal doing the butt nekkitt fly’n Watusi… or a sexually rabid couple try’n a nudie version of Barnum & Bailey’s Flying Trapeze Act… or ever so often a couple a genuine skinny dippers outside the Hotel Del!!!

“Whattya see out there?”

“I’m a work’n two contacts… both three thousand yards at 280 degrees… both big and round and size Double Deeees!!!”

“Aww wait… message back… I intend to Ram you with my Yokohamas…sound the collision alarm!!!”

“Aww you Big Eyed Peep’n Tom… let me get a looksee!!!”

This was typical boy’s club type behavior… a real ‘Navy Tradition’!!! Since then we’ve discounted this type of ‘tomfoolery’ as indecent and less than honorable… A young man can lose his mojo over someth’n like this and end up with a less than honorable discharge… Hell they’re kick’n boys & girls out just for not being in the right rate and paygrade these days!!!

But hey, I’m trying to portray the nostalgia of the Ol’ Canoe Club… before all the ‘PC’ stuff!!! Maybe that’s why they did away with the ol’ Skivvy Wavers… there was too much skylarking and shoot’n the shit!!! They had to get rid of any gathering place for horseplay and silly stuff goin’ on!!! They’d better weld those fan rooms shut… plenty of hanky-panky going on there…

Things that were so much a normal part of our daily routine you could’a printed it in the Plan Of The Day… now it’s gone, a figment of history!!!

Everything is being replaced by some electronic whazzu intergalactic verbulator that makes it easy for everyone to understand… even the enemy!!!

The Navy used to pride itself on the ‘Adventures of a Girl at every Port’… beer… broads… and dames… and more beer… with exotic ports-o-call… ‘Let the Adventure Begin’… ‘Full Steam Ahead’!!!

Skivvy Wavers and Big Eyes… never would’a figured otherwise…

‘Sailor Walks Into a Bar’

The bartender immediately notices that this is a pretty well built
guy but he has the tiniest little pinhead.

After serving the sailor a couple of drinks,

Curiosity finally gets the best of the bartender and he asks the
sailor why he had a normal sized body with such a tiny head.

The sailor tells him this story:

"I was involved in a naval battle where I was the only survivor.

I was stranded on a deserted island in the middle of
the ocean for months,

When I happened across a mermaid while I was walking on the
beach."

She was on the beach and couldn't get back in the water so I
helped her get back to the ocean,

She was so grateful she granted me three wishes.

I first asked to be rescued off that god forsaken island.

She told me that it was no problem, that the rescue ship was
on the way, and that I still had two more wishes."

"Next I asked for a never ending roll of twenty dollar bills."

Then the sailor reached into his pocket and kept pulling out 20s and
putting them on the bar.

"Finally I said to her,

'I've been on this island for quite some time without a woman and I'm quite horny,

She said

"As you can see from the waist down I'm a fish so I'm sorry but I can't help you there."

"Well I thought about it for a minute and said OK,

“How about a little head”.

''Stranded"...

‘The Ol’ Pucker Factor’

This story starts out before my ‘Canoe Club’ days…
You’ve all heard of, and some may have had, the phenomenon called ‘The Pucker Factor’!?!? You know the situation… something happens you’re smack dab in the middle of… a situation that scares the ‘Holy Ba-Jeezusss’ outta you!!! It’s that tightness in the ol’ sphincter after a close call… that,

"HOLY SHIT, that fella just jumped into a ‘GAUDAMNED ALLIGATOR FARM’ smothered in chicken gizzards!!!"

… that kind of not so fresh feel’n!!!

Yeah, I’ve had a few of those moments throughout my life… usually involved a gun pointed in my general direction!!!

The first instance of such a case I was only six years old!!!

You see my mother had married this fella named ‘Charlie Brown’… and Charlie had a brood of young’ns from a prior marriage he named after the Peanut Characters… yep, you guessed it… Chuck Jr… Linus and Lucy Brown!!! Indeed, and some would say that Charlie Brown, he’s a clown… cause he always had a way of bullshitt’n his way in and out of trouble!!!

Well Charlie’s ex-wife had a new man in her life named Leonard! Leonard had the temperament crossed between Darth Vader and Cujo!! To put it lightly… the son-of-a-bitch was half nutts!!!

In the likes of things Leonard insisted that instead of Charlie pick’n up the kids at their house, we must meet at a mutual gathering place… Wades in Lee’s Summit, Mo was the place in question… but after wait’n around for an hour or so Charlie became somewhat anxious and decided to take the kids to their house.

Well, need I tell you this was quite the bad idea… after dropping them off we went back to Wades for some dinner and just as we drove up the intersection head’n home Leonard pulled out in front of us blocking the road while slobber’n… yell’n… and cuss’n up a storm!!!

Now picture this… It’s the summer of 1974 ( I think)… I’m sitt’n in the center-cab of a pickup truck straddling the stick shift… we didn’t wear seatbelts back then… and Leonard pulls out the most terrify’n double barreled sawed off shotgun I’d ever seen… probably the only sawed off shotgun I’d ever seen, at the time, and shoots a round off in the air then points the gun at the cab of the truck!!! Yep, He was hell bent on shoving that two barreled menace right up Charlie Brown’s ass!!!

That was the first time I’d ever felt the tightness of the ol’ sphincter clenching uncontrollably scared outta my young mind… needless to say I pissed myself as I had absolutely no control of my bladder or bowel movements… sure it would’a been worse had I been full a shit!!!!

Look’n back, it was quite a traumatic experience for such a young fella to go through!!! But I survived to tell the story!!!

So the years past… and as I got older… in some ways I suppose I got dumber and started hang’n around with some real ‘Riff Raff’!!!

As a young teenager I’d moved to Florida to live with my real Pops… you know, the one who brought me into this world… and not gett’n the attention I was look’n for from him, I went elsewhere look’n for some sort’a acceptance!!

There was a fell’a named Larry ‘Bubby’ Dowd that took a liking to me. Now Bubby was about three years my senior but he seemed to enjoy my company… said me and him could really make a team pick’n up the gals!!! Now Bubby just bought a used beater he referred to as the ‘Chaka-Khan’ mobile so we could make a menace of things!!!

Now those of you read’n this who didn’t know Bubby at the time need to realize this fella thought he was a real outlaw… some sort’a modern day ‘Billy The Kid’ if you know what I mean…

The Bubby I knew would ride down Havendale Boulevard butt nekkitt on the back of a horse singing,

"Back in the saddle again"…  

Bubby encouraged, condoned and perpetuated friction between the conventional young man and the likes of any other fella look’n for trouble…  So as we drove around in the ‘Chaka-Khan’ mobile we went on in search of monkey business like nobody’s business as sort of a contest to liven things up. It sounded nuts, but everyone knew that Bubby was crazy enough to pull any screwball stunt there was to pull.

Just as we were head’n down the main drag there was this blue 70’s Camaro rev’n his engine look’n all big and bad… Bubby said we oughta do something about this… and me being the dumb little do-dah I was thought I’d show off and try to make an impression for Bubby… so I stuck my head out the window and tapped on the Camaro’s driver side window just gett’n ready for something smart ass to say!!!

Well the fella in the Camaro didn’t take to kindly to my gesture as he rolled down his window and pulled what seemed to me like ‘Clint Eastwood’s’ .44 Magnum with a gaudamned three foot long barrel and pressed it right up to my forehead in between the eyes!!! I said…

 “Maybe I oughta get back into the car now!!”

As the fella in the bright blue Camaro replies…

“I think that’s the wisest decision you’d ever made!!!”

Maybe I’m exaggerating but at the heat at the moment… that was some kinda pucker factor!!! Thank God I had noth’n stored in the ol’ shit locker cause I surely would’a made a mess of things!!! If you don’t believe me… Steve Bush and Sonia Sutton were there… they can attest to it… this was a no shitter!!!

So a few years later… I still hadn’t learned my lessons in life… I joined the ol’ Canoe Club where the sharks ate the timid and it was strictly law of the jungle where you didn’t survive unless you walked softly and carried a heavy stick!!! In this type of society piss’n people off was entertaining… and I was noth’n more than just another single guy in search of some amusement and sexual gratification!!!

So I hooked up with this young gal down in San Diego named Amy! Now Amy was the kind of gal who was aiming to please and loved to shower her man with plenty of attention and gifts on a regular basis… you know, like trinkets, jewelry, little things of the sort…

Well I suppose it was fair to say I had lost interest in Amy after a month or so as she was too easy to please and there was just no game in the relationship… after all… I was just a 100% red blooded crackerjack wild man who loved to play hard and chase after good look’n young dames… so I gave her the boot and sent her away all broken hearted and pissed off!!!

However it wasn’t but a month or two later I had ran into Amy again at the local watering hole and realized she couldn’t help but notice me as well. Realizing she was nothing less than heated with me over our last affair I had to do some amazing things with the ol’ silver tongue… the type of situations where you turn bullshit into gold at a rate that would even amaze Bill Clinton!!!

So once I got her on the ropes it was back to my place for a bit of a nightcap for good old time-sake!!!

The next morning I showed her out to the car from my barracks room wearing a skivvy shirt, a pair of shorts and some flip flops… Amy said she had something to give me from inside her glove compartment… now knowing how giving Amy was I figured it safe to assume she had another gift of jewelry or someth’n or rather to give me… but as she bent down to reach in her car she came up and turn right into me with something rigid, hard, and cold pointed right at my groin area, something in the form of a 'Saturday Night Special'… you know, with bullets and all!!! She exclaims in a low and determined voice…

“If you ever screw with me again it will be the last you ever see of those jewels!!!”

I wasn’t only scared shitless but I couldn’t even get a word out I was shak’n in my britches so hard… I think my knees about buckled, and once again… that ol’ pucker factor came into play!!!

Once she left head’n off base I hurried into the barrack’s Quarterdeck to let the Duty Officer know what just happened!!!

 “Son, you need an interpreter to translate your gibberish into some kinda form of English we can all understand!!!”

But seriously folks … I had considered gett’n me some of those elephant tranquilizers to put me down and help me to relax after that… I was blown away for a good couple of days… never ran into Amy again as I ended up shipp'n out to Bremerton, Washington!!!

But one thing I did learn through all of this… if I had spent more time doing productive stuff and less in monkey business, I probably would have slept a hell of a lot better!!!

Today there’s research being done in some major educational institute in the likes of MIT in an attempt to find out how the hell I lived through all that silly bullshit I write about… It may be the miracle that saves us all from self-annihilation.

Many times, the only thing between me and 'Walking the Plank of Life' was a ‘Guardian Angel’ who had taken a chance with me butt nekkitt rid’n down Havendale Boulevard sing’n,

“Back in The Saddle Again…”

       I loved Popeye the cartoon... but man, this is ridiculous!!!!!!!

‘Skivvy Wavers’

In the old days there used to be a Signalman Rating in the ol’ Canoe Club… We called them Skivvy Wavers!!! Their job was to communicate to other ships using signal lights, semaphore with hand held flags as well as rigging flags and pennants to let other vessels know of our intentions and operations…  So during the ship’s family day cruise, a young Signalman gave a few demonstrations of semaphore in front of a young gal to show off his skills…

After a superb performance of his demonstration he flirtatiously asked the young gal,

“So now do you know what I do in the Navy?”

 

To that she exclaims…

“Why yes, you’re the ships Cheerleader!!!”

‘What Crackerjacks Do For Amusement’

Without the senseless mayhem that we Crackerjacks brought to the table, life could become excessively mind-numbing in the ‘Ol’ Canoe Club’. There were times our existence became so gaudamned wretched you could actually get more excitement watch’n crickets mate on ‘The Discovery Channel!’

So… we concocted foolish crap. We spent times discerning ourselves with stupid shit to do. It was that or the rubber room. When you lived and worked in an institution devoid of tits & ass and had to deal with the testosterone of your shipmates… who can top who with the biggest amount of bullshit ever… the only three-ring jubilees we got were the ones we created of our own inspirational chaos. We had to prefabricate our own fun… it’s part of who we were!!!

Case in point… Only Sea going Crackerjacks will find such idiocy to be funny… Why? Because… it was part of the camaraderie, ‘esprit de corp’ that made us who we were!! If any pre ‘PC’ sea going sailor tells you different, he’s lying.

When Sailors were competing for bragg’n rights to see who’s the alpha male ‘Sea Daddy’ of the pack… a great challenge was concocted… one that stirred up the pot… forced young crackerjacks to choose right from wrong and provide us with enough amusement to keep our tiny intellects from overloading on coffee and stress!!! This was the only thing that kept us from becoming severely traumatized from months of intensive boredom!!!

And when we got into the nearest liberty port our crazy inept brains would always lead us to a particular type of establishment… No matter where we went, someone in the crowd had ‘Been there done that’ and knows of a great place… and after somewhere in the neighborhood of a half case or so of warm beer… women that looked like Rosie" O'Donnell started looking pretty good…

Then a challenge was made and the game was on!!!

Next came the crazy babble… silly banter… bullshit arguments, hooting & hollering… cuss’n and lay’n wagers… and the bait had been laid!!!

One particular memory comes to mind at the ‘Top Gun’ in Olongopo in the PI!!!

You see… after months trolling through the great Pacific blue there was noth’n more alluring than those cute tiny brown-eyed island girls called ‘LBFM’s…   with something under those bright colored skirts we were standing in line for… and after five minutes in that little watering hole we’d found ourselves shelling out as many hard-earned pesos as we could while we left our brains in our beer glasses…  

But it could never be that easy as one Squidoo would challenge another squidoo for the most iniquitous little honey in the cantina… the challenge you ask???

The most foul smell’n, rancid, vile looking thing you’d ever seen or smelled… unless your familiar with the ass end of a baboon… but the wafting odor of an evil-putrefied two week old chicken embryo curdled in its shell!! This rotten morsel is a delicacy in the Philippines best known as balut!!!

If the smell alone didn’t knock you on your ass then the crunch of a tiny rotten chicken embryo could bring tears to your eyes… cross that with the smell of shit river and the third world atmosphere we were surrounded with!!!

On a sober day I’d have to be seconds from death by starvation to intentionally put one of them gaudamned things in my mouth… but this wasn’t one of those times… and I fully intended on winning the prize!!!

After a large gulp of San Miguel’s finest and two fingers hold’n the ol’ snot locker shut, I ate balut for the first and last time… the end result… it damned near killed me as the last thing I ate prior found its way up through my esophagus and out my nose holes… guess my fingers didn’t help much!!! Death would’a been easier… living through it was rough… it damn near tore me inside out from both ends as I dashed for the nearest shitter knocking over people, buildings and villages that stood in my way!!!

It was these kind’a endurance type stunts we’d pull to prove our manhood… speed gulp’n a yard of beer… the infamous beer bong… even the truth serum of wog days and CPO’ initiations paled in comparison… but I don’t wanna give out too many secrets!!!

Then there was the notorious ‘Gallon Challenge’… it’s the process of gulping down a whole gaudamn gallon of milk as quickly as possible… never seen it done before without the recipient hurdl’n the curdle!! Apparently the lactic acid overdose is too much to handle!!!


As a Navy Recruiter out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, we had this fella in the office...  a great kid named Monte! He wore himself out trying to get the job done. There wasn't any lousy rotten snot nosed civilian on the street he wouldn’t approach… Busted his butt gett’n it done… And then pop up smiling asking if there was anyone else he could work on... The guy was damn good at his job!! So good that his good deeds couldn’t go unchallenged by his counterparts!!!


You see, Crackerjacks will sometimes go to great lengths to be a bunch’a rotten bastards.  They’ll go through no uncertain terms to entertain themselves through their fellow shipmates misery once a trap is set… so you should never let down your guard!!

Apparently someone had gotten the idea from an episode of ‘Jackass’ on MTV and Monte had no idea what he was getting himself into!

Monte, being the sportsman that he is was in no mood to pass up this challenge…

First as the chugging commenced ol’ Monte was full of himself and seemed to enjoy what he thought was the ease of such a simple challenge… then we watched as his face started to contort out of its normal reddish glowing state… then his eyes would dart fervently from one side of the room to the other… suppose this was when he started to realize what a bad idea this was! You could see that his pea sized brain was reasoning the purpose of this idiot proof plan… his chest began to heave as he let out a disturbing and violent release of vomit!! By the way… this went on for five minutes at least!!!

Pictures were taken and the priceless look on ol’ Monte’s face was plastered on the bulletin board for all the new recruits so they can see how not to fall for the follies of other shipmates!! 

I think someone put a quote under one of the pictures that ‘excessive milk drinking could lead to the growth of udders’…

These were just some of the hair brain, underhanded scheming, diabolical plots we would get ourselves into… all in the name of camaraderie and brotherly love!!! Only Crackerjack Sailors can appreciate how entertaining this could be!!!  The typical civilian just wouldn’t understand the motivation of stressed and frustrated canoe club sailors who would often sink to such depths…  

Yes it might seem trivial, stupid, and even juvenile to the typical outsider… but you tend to remember the pranks and shenanigans!! They represent the good times and silly behavior of our youth!!! We were riding the fine line of needing legal representation for dumbass nonsensical activities that only a typical crackerjack would be guilty of…

These were the things they wrote sea shanties and lyrical ditties about… pure unadulterated bullshit… poking and prodding each other…  performing simulated sexual gestures… tell’ n socially unacceptable sea stories… making all sorts of bodily generated sounds… no wonder they said you couldn’t qualify to be a Chief unless you’d been to Skippy’s Mast at least a couple of times!!!

    ‘PFM’ Schematic from Navy BE/E School !!!!!!

Sailor at the Drugstore

 SAILOR: GIVE ME 3 PACKETS OF CONDOMS PLEASE.

CASHIER: DO YOU NEED A PAPER BAG WITH THAT SIR? SAILOR: NAH... SHE AIN'T THAT UGLY!!

‘Dude, Where’s My Car’

In the days of the ‘Ol’ Canoe Club’   we were sometimes a bit ragged around the edges… a bunch of bold & brassy scoundrels with the audacity to commit as much nonsense and mischief that’d make a group of gauddang  African Hyenas look tame...

On my first couple of ships… Baglady & Chucky ‘V’…  this disorganized boy’s club was a little short on tits and high on the hog when it came to foul mouthed business and tell’n dirty jokes at the round table… there are few quite as proficient and  accomplished at swearing as those swash buckl’n sailors of the past! There were no rules… and if there were, we made them up as we went along!! With most of us younger bottom feeders being single guys in search of amusement and gratification, we were fat, dumb and happy with the morsels of life that make up true memoires to pass on to future generations…

In those days we lived in our seabags… begged, barrowed, and swindled ‘cause we couldn’t afford much else!! We hung out in establishments intended explicitly to part Crackerjack types from their money. We rubbed shoulders, laughed at each other for amusement & tossed down the cheapest suds available while lying to each other about the size of our jewels and how many women we had in each and every port!!!

We were closer than brothers and shared each other’s money, cologne, beer… sometimes skivvies and in extreme times, women!!! You could borrow ten for twenty smoke a fella’s Marlboros and keep his beer cold & girl warm while he was on duty… talk about friends with benefits!! And sometimes we’d even share a car!!!

“Hey ‘Swing-a-ling’a-dingdong’… you going out tonight?”

"What’s it worth to ya Smithee??”

“If you are can you pick me up a pack a smokes and some twinkies?? Here’s the keys to my car!!”

“You got it Brother!!!”

“And while you’re at it bring back a pizza and see if you can sneak a six pack into gun plot!!”

“Now your push’n it!!!”

I don’t think we were ingenious enough to pull that last one off though I’m sure it’s been done a time or two…

I can’t remember the exact date but those involved would surely remember… this is a no Shitter!!!

Back in the days of the ‘Baglady’ my buddy and fellow cohort in crime ‘Smithee’ would often entise me to do questionable deeds while in use of his car!  So I headed out for an evening of mayhem in the likes of ‘Pacific Beach’ San Diego!!  It just so happened that I ran into Ed  the ‘Marlboro Man’ while on my jaunt into town… Now Smithee knew that anytime out on the town was a debacle that could possibly get his car impounded… but in the spirit of being a shipmate he let me on my way in good faith!!!

Long story short, Ed the ‘Marlboro Man’ and myself headed back to the base about 0200 hours in the morning half lit with no business being on the road… these were different times!! Wouldn’t you know it, when we got to the front gate we had one of them base DoD rent-a-cops that really got off on his job irritating us swabby types... figured he must’ve been a marine in his previous life!!! 

We showed him our IDs and just about made it through the gate… that’s before he noted Ed the ‘Marlboro Man’ had a can of Budweiser square in his junk about half full… in my inebriated state of focus I didn’t even realize he had it… We were almost home free but Ed had to show off his can of suds!!! The Rent’a Policeman about flipped his lid and commenced to read us the riot act… never once did he ask me, the driver, if I had anything to drink!!!

I summoned up a quick line of bullshit about picking up my buddy at the bar ‘cause he had no way home and too much to drink…

 After a thorough butt chewing and pooring out any beer we had in the car, Mr Rent’a Policeman was gracious enough to let us go with a stern warning… inspite of our own stupidity!!!

Boy you know that would never happen in today’s day and age!!!

To make it worse we had another fella passed out in the backseat and ol’ Rent’a Cop in all of his squeal’n and squak’n never took notice… By the time we found a spot to park the jalopy the fella in the backseat started relieving his gut of its most recent contents all over the back floorboard!!  We did our best to clean it up and Smithee never complained so we must’ve done a pretty good job!!! Though he asked us sometime later about someone upchuck’n in his backseat…

Lesson learned here kids… don’t try this at home… nevermind it was twenty-two years ago and things were different then!!!  

But hey we were as close as a bunch’a seagoing running mates could be!!!

Then there was the Needham experience… this one beats them all!!!

Most of us had just made it onboard the USS ‘Lucky No. 7’ and it was the first ship many of us had been on with lady shipmates!!! Quite a different crowd when the fellas get a whiff of frenchy smell’n perfume on a female turd chaser with a firehose and watch’n all her male counterparts circling around like a hoard of buzzards in for the kill!!! 

These were just the facts…

Shortly after move aboard one of our lady twidgets had a fallout with her husband with full intent to leave him… that meant she was prime for the pick’ns and ready to be whisked away by some sort’a prince charming… if you get my drift!!

Well, I don’t know if you wanna call FC1 ,we’ll call him ‘Crisp with a Lisp,’ cause he had one hell of a lisp… and he was far from any ‘Prince Charming’ I ever knew… but I regress…

Mr. ‘Crisp with a Lisp’ conned our boy Keith Needham into borrowing his car for a deep saltwater fantasy to field test our lady twidget’s lingerie fastenings in the backseat of Needham’s car… though I’m sure Needham had no idea of the future outcome…

After a night of sympathizing her woes Mr ‘Crisp with a Lisp’ had a bit of midnight bliss in the backseat of his shipmates car in the middle of ‘Fleet Availability’ parking! Try say’n that five times fast… He could’a got a room at a cheap fleet motel but decided to use panty removal techniques with bright red lipstick and pungent body odor inner twined with bra hooks and elastic skivvies just to see how flexible our female twidget could really be!!!

He must’ve done the job… they ended up married less than a year later!!!
 The next morning ol’ Needham went out to his car…

“Holy Fucking, Fuck… Crisp, what did you do in my car last night??”

“Gauddamned seat adjustment’s out… windows won't work… footprints in the window… smells like ass ‘no literally’ it smells like ass in my car… and the felt is hanging from the ceiling… What the fuck happened???"

I knew straightaway he didn't want to hear the truth. ‘Lil’ Miss Twinkle Toes must’ve been pressing her feet up against the windows and gett’n them tangled in the felt overhead… Once Needham found the silk panties under the seat he never let ‘Crisp the Lisp’ and ‘Lil Miss Twinkle Toes’ borrow his pimp rod again!!!

Yes these testimonials happened long, long ago… in a time far, far away!! We produced more pandemonium and mayhem than most could witness in a lifetime!!!

And if you were there you should feel honored to have been a slight trivial insignificant part of it all!!! In Today’s Politically Correct environment  you couldn't duplicate that way of life if you had too... It's vanished… never to come back…

But someone once told me

“You can't miss what you never knew...”

Many a poet have written sailor tales

I didn’t write this but Thought it was worth posting…

Many a poet have written sailor tales

About South Sea Isles and furious gales
So, I'll not waste your time with a tale of this type
Rather, I'll write of the sweaty, greasy snipe.

He works in his hole when the temperature is right
When the thermometer reads one twenty Fahrenheit.
There's no salt water in his blood,
Just stinking fuel oil and slimey bilge crud.

He goes to sea with visions of bright sun, and wind swept spray
But there are no hours of this in his working day.
Four hours on and eight hours off, and between, turn to and watch relief
No matter whether a boot FA or a salty Chief.

He works all hours and never tires.
And he can fix anything wih permatex and bailing wire.
When the ship pulls into port with the crew all in whites
There's a standing order for him to stay out of sight.

No bronze skin for this oily stud,
He's only time for a soggy butt and a cup of mud.
He's got a leak to fix, and a pump to pack
Before he can hit his long empty rack.

When the ship's inport and the crew's ashore
He's still in his hole sweating from very pore.
While deckapes and radiogirls are filled with glee
He must again get his engines ready for sea.

But, he's not mad, and he don't cry
He's just glad that cows don't fly.
For the fact is known both far and near
That this is the life of an engineer.

Boat Ride

A young woman was so depressed that she decided to end her life by throwing herself into the ocean. She went down to the docks and was about to leap into the frigid water when a handsome young sailor saw her tottering on the edge of the pier crying. He took pity on her and said, "Look, you've got a lot to live for. I'm off to Europe in the morning, and if you like, I can stow you away on my ship. I'll take good care of you and bring you food every day." Moving closer he slipped his arm round her shoulder and added, "I'll keep you happy, and you'll keep me happy". The girl nodded yes. After all, what did she have to lose? That night, the sailor brought her aboard and hid her in a lifeboat. From then on every night he brought her three sandwiches and a piece of fruit, and they made passionate love until dawn. Three weeks later, during a routine inspection, she was discovered by the captain. "What are you doing here?" the Captain asked. "I have an arrangement with one of the sailors," she explained. "I get food and a trip to Europe, and he's screwing me." "He sure is, lady," the Captain said. "This is the Staten Island Ferry."
 
 

I Got this from a fellow Firecontrolman... It's the greatest!!!

‘Say’ns In The Ol’ Canoe Club’

In High School just before breaking into the ol’ Canoe Club, I used to carry an old proverb pamphlet in my back pocket… always loved those gaudamned things!!!
 

“Confucious say, man on pot get very High!!!”
 

Never knew all the sayings, colloquiums, proverbs, axioms… or whatever other kind’a vernacular horse manure you want to call it that we used in the Navy… Hell they’ve already got a vocabulary all on to itself…
 

It wasn’t long before I ended up in Boot Camp in Great Lakes learn’n  cadences  about some gal on the hill who wouldn’t do it but her sister will…
 

Two of the meanest sons-a-bitches in charge calling us everything from numb nuts to dip shits greeting us coming off the bus…
 

“OK, let us put you stupid bastards in sync with your current relationship with the rest of the universe… you volunteered for this Navy… Never Again Volunteer Yourself!!!”
 

And when you got in trouble…
 

“My name is Richard Cranium but you can call me Dickhead Sir!!!”
 

… that was in between the pushups!!!
 

I remember once gett’n caught bullshitt’n at the chow hall and the Company Commander walked up behind me…
 

“I'm gonna kick your ass so hard you're gonna be cough’n up dingleberries in your breaksfast if you don’t shut the fuck up recruit!!!”
 

I suppose they were preparing me to be the guy who threw the trash over the side in heavy seas… Rigg’n the rat guards on the mooring lines when we pulled in… doing tiger parties down in the ship’s bilges paint’n over oxidized poop and God knows what else… And several other amazing ventures the devil and this ol’ Canoe Club boiled up for us…
 

Yep, it was enough to make a young man hungry…
 

“Hey, does anybody know what's for chow?"
 

“Yeah, Cock and Cake, but we're all out of cake… your choice!!!"
 

So it was usually off the brow by 1600 hours hitt’n the ‘E’ club or some other local hole-in-the-wall outside of base…
 

Usually when you’d wake up in the morning it was like a pure living hell… slept in  your clothes… mouth like an ash tray… feel’n like old leather…  wreaking of alcohol… Chief would look at you at Quarters and say,
 

“If you’re gonna hoot with the owls at night you better learn to soar with the eagles in the morning!!!”
 

Then once down in ‘Gun Plot’ the conversations would begin about last nights trysts with the local dames… and how we usually ended up unlucky…
 

“Well… you can put roses on her piano… and then maybe you’ll get Tulips on your Organ!”
 

Some fellas would chime in on how hookers were cheaper because you always end up paying for it in the end… plus there were fringe benefits…
 

“Prostitution is the only profession in the world where new comers get paid more than the experienced ones!!!”
 

Of course by lunch time your ass was in your pit taking a nooner trying to sleep off all that poison from the night before… then Chief comes in and finds you in your rack thirtie minutes into work…
 

"They're gonna have to muster a 20 man working party to get my boot out of your ass.. now get up and get to work!!!"
 

Then you’d catch Chief up by the gun mount giving the Ensign a ration of shit for his troubles…
 

"Hoorahan, Do ya wanna know the difference between an Ensign and a Seaman? A Seaman has been promoted twice."
 

If overseas you might go to the Duty Corpsman to get some Vitamin ‘M’ for your swelling headache… of course you’d have to stand in line for the ‘short arm express’ that’s what the line was called for that basic shot of penicillin ‘Doc’ gave those who didn’t pay attention to the sign hang’n over his door…
 

“If it smells like cologne leave it alone… If it smells like fish ya know it’s a dish!!!”
 

ON the ol’ Chucky ‘V’ we had an FC3 named Driver who was proof of the inevitable truth that evolution can go in reverse… while replacing the search antenna on a CIWS mount we lowered down and handed him the egg shell fragile radome to put on the deck… the silly bastard dropped it upside down from about two feet leaving a dent square on the very top… FC1 Wintersteen yells…
 

"You’re about as useless as rubber lips on a woodpecker!!!"
 

“I didn’t realize it was so fragile…”
 

“Shipmate… I'm gonna tear you a new corn chute!!!”
 

“But you didn’t tell me to be careful…”
 

“I’m gonna hit you so hard your kids ‘ll be born dizzy!!!”
 

That was a typical day to day scenario with that fella… calling him stupid was an insult to stupid people…
 

Then there was the incident of Unauthorized Absence that cost my compadre and I a week of EMI stripping and waxing the Department Head’s office …  when Chief walks in and catches us screwing off…
 

“I'm gonna swab the floor with you assholes, then whoop your ass for not gett’n in the corners!!!”
 

Fun Times…
 

Then it was off to a brand new ship… USS Rainier!!! She was shiny and ship shape and the new Skipper wanted us to keep it that way so there was a new rule… ‘No Dipping onboard ship’… he didn’t wanna find Copenhagen flavored spitoons in the angle irons… So Chief gathers up all the ladies in the Division…
 

"Listen up shitheads I'm going to tell you the same thing I tell my girlfriend, if you put it in your mouth you better swallow!"
 

Yep… Chiefs really knew how to make poetry outta them words… like when Master Chief Oldknow called the bitch box to the Sparrow Director Room look’n for EW3 Heupel and I said…
 

“Is that ‘Oldnutts on the box?!?!”
 

Evidently he heard me and requested my presents in his office…
 

“You ever fucking disrespect me again like that… I'll rip out your wind pipe and use it as a fuck toy."
 

Boy them were some good ol’ times…
 

While onboard ship life could get pretty mundane and you wouldn’t wanna get caught skylark’n or screw’n the pooch… Being a crafty bastard you learn to manage your time in such a way you can perfect the tried and tested art of walking around the ship looking busy with a clipboard in hand... nobody questions the little bastard with numbers widdled into his note pad look’n up into the overhang and behind the angle irons… but eventually some wise ass Chief would catch ya, “Been there done that” kinda thing!!!

 

“Shipmate, if you don’t find something productive to do I’m gonna take that there dogg’n wrench and put so many gaudamn knots on your head the Quartemasters are gonna be able to use your nogg’n to navigate…

Do I Make Myself Clear!?!?!?”
 

“Yes Chief…”

“If I catch you fuck’n off again I'm gonna be on you like a wet fart in satin panties!!!”

And I’ll never forget when my ol’ buddy FCC Heath Ryan looked at the Weapons Officer on the Mighty Momsen after a ridiculously long briefing,

 "You know sir, for a guy who talks a lot, you sure don't have much to say… Why don't you send us an email, and we'll decide if it's worth putt’n out to our guys."

Weps… somewhat distress just got up and walked away.

Then on the same ship the shit hit the fan and a bunch of my brothers were put on the chopp’n block for fraternization and alcohol abuse… Chiefs were dropp’n like flies and no one knew what the hell was going on or who would be next to go… I remember Darrell Smalley say’n…

"We're so fuck’n unlucky, if it were raining pussy, we could all look up and get a dick in the mouth!!!”

At the time it probably wasn’t appropriate but I laughed my ass off… noth’n like break’n up the uncomfortable silence in the mess!!!

Sooo.. on my last tour of duty I did some shore time at the brig… I started Under Instruction with a GMC about to retire who drank like a sailor… cussed like a sailor… he was every bit a sailor!!! We got on the discussion of Three days bread and water and he tells me like this…

“You don't wanna be on bread and water... I tried that shit at home for the hell of it… had a loaf of bread and a glass of water for three days… I was constipated for a whole gaduamned week… it was like my asshole was dry heav’n!!!”

Hahaha… He used to tell the inmates…

“I’m gonna kick your ass so hard you’re gonna be able to cough and fart at the same time!!!”

For those of you who have been fortunate enough to have never been in this man’s Canoe Club… we had some great times… all the way to the end!!! We were far out at Sea in a place that could kill ya in a second… but we made the best of it… and you thought Chiefs don’t have a sense of humor….