‘How To Skate’

Having a positive attitude is important in the ol’ Canoe Club as all skaters seem to think the Navy sucks! That's why they always try to find new ways to skate… get away with stuff!!!

Despite the fact being on a boat sucks, you have to maintain a positive attitude! I know it's really hard sometimes!! Having a positive attitude directly affects your charm on other people!! If you're constantly negative, certain people will notice that and that will be the first thing they will pin on when you enter the room!!!

Remember Seaman Schmukatelli?!? So negative... and see how people react to him?!?

Then there is the old ‘excuse method’ of skating! Every skater knows how to utilize this tactic…

"I can't go and do activity A because I have to do activity B!”

Knowing that B would be the easier of the two activities!! This technique doesn't always work!! It's one of the oldest ways to skate and all Chiefs know about it!!
Some chiefs counter this by saying something along the lines…

"Well, activity A is higher priority… so go and do that… now!"

The advantages of working REALLY FUCKIN' SLOOOWWW...if you ever get caught in a situation import to, let’s say, fix something and liberty for everybody in your work center depends on it! If you work REALLY SLOW on purpose, eventually, people in your division will get anxious to go on liberty and help you out!! I wouldn't recommend this, if it's something easy to take care of... But, if you really have no clue whatsoever on how to fix it...then, use this method!!!

Using Medical and Dental to get out of work is pretty self-explanatory! Make an appointment with either department can get you out of work a while import!! This skate method is really easy to abuse!! Don't do it too much because people will notice after a while!! Plus, there's the UCMJ article that defines this… Malingering!! But, you're a skater remember?!? Who really cares about you enough to try and use the UCMJ against you!!!

The classics... Looking busy all the time is the most trusted of the classic methods of skating! Pretending to study for PQS or pretending to be cleaning something when Chief is around!! These stupid little tactics STILL work TODAY!!!

When you're underway... it's nice to know how your work center and division really operate! This is a must if you intend to exploits them!! You know certain times of the day when you can just straight up vanish with minimal impact on you!! This can only come with experience!! A good skater knows how his division operates inside and out!!!

Next is learning how to disable your Work center Supervisor! Say, you have a Work center Supervisor that you know, from experience, is the type of person that likes to tell you to do things as soon as he sees you!! Well, how do you counter this?!? Simple, you need to know what that person likes so when he walks in you can attempt to change the subject on him immediately (or, just straight up take over the conversation from the start) and make him totally forget that he wanted you to do something!! This is a really good skill to master as you can use this to get out of lots of situations, disable certain evil CPOs and officers when you see them in the p-ways!!! But do it fast before they even have a chance to get a word out at you!!!

Minimize the time spent around khakis! I used to use this method a lot!! This is really good if you suck at disabling them!! I'd go so far as to say, you shouldn't even joke around with the ‘Cool’ khakis in your duty section!! Because, if you're on duty, and something needs to be done ASAP, chances of him calling on you are significantly higher as he feels he knows you and uses this scheme to empower you… but don’t fall for it!!!

Well, that's all I can think of at the moment! Feel free to add in any Top Secret Skating Tactics that y'all might know about!! Remember, everybody in the Navy has some slacker in them… Yes, even Chiefs and Officers! You need to find ways to exploit that!!!

PQS is also a way to skate! It’s one of those insanely simple tasks as all you do is go around and ask for signatures!  You listen to the other guy rant about how much he knows… then you go to the next person!! It’s also a great way to pace the PQS!! You can get it done real quick which does you no favors, or you can slow it down over a really long period just before becoming delinquent!! If it gets to the point where there is so much focused on you completing your PQ, they don't think about anything else when they see you!! Just before you become delinquent you finish that PQS and start another simple, but required one that you can draw out for a really long time!! This is kind of risky, because you can get trapped in your own scheme!! However, with time and practice, you'll soon be able to master it!!!

Last but not Least… always have a decent or squared away uniform! It gives the appearance you know what you’re doing!! So good luck out there skaters… and next lesson we’ll discuss butt sharking and brown nosing… same but not same, same!!!

'SHE'

(Click Image)

With all that cigar-chomping, profanity-spouting Sailor talk and manly man machismo going on back in the day… it’s a wonder we called those big grey hulks a ‘She’…



‘North Pacific Deckpecker’

Most Crackerjack Yarns are legends, wearing truths disguise… just deep sea blue embroidery, and some are downright lies! But I'll tell you a true sea story, just the way it happened to me, on a windswept gun deck not far from the open sea!!!

In November of 90’, I found myself posted to H.M.C.S. Huron, just in time for work-ups prior to going to the Arabian Gulf! Following an interesting two weeks of the usual fires, floods, and famines, we returned to our homeport of Esquimalt where a not-so-young bubblehead with an attitude joined us!! Mister Scarecrow (obviously not the name his mother had given him) was a typical know it all product of Ventures' Naval Officer Training Program!! Predictably, within twenty-four hours of boarding the ship, he succeeded in offending ninety percent of the lower deck and the wardroom was not far behind!!!

One day, he paid a memorable visit to the foc'sle as Smitty and I were carrying out routine maintenance on our five inch main armament! Wandering about, he complained about the state of the non-skid, scarred with rings exposing the metal below!! Listening to his tirade must have caused us both to momentarily throw discretion to the wind as his next comment set us off...

"Whatever could cause these unsightly rings?"

Smitty and I explained that it was the work of the North Pacific Deckpecker! The Deckpecker is a very large, dark grey bird with nocturnal habits!! It flies about the sea, searching for ships to land on at night!!!

This particular bird feeds on the parasites which burrow into the ship's paint! The parasites in turn live on the cordite residues which accumulate about the gun decks!! The rings on a warship’s deck are caused by the birds pecking about their feet before moving to another position. Because of the bird's unique habits and dark colour, it is very rarely seen!!!

As we described the Deckpecker, he became more fascinated at each revelation! Eventually, Smitty even demonstrated the bird's call… a raucous sound which drew more crew members about to listen as we contributed further details and corrected each other over minor points!!!

When our impromptu lecture had come to a close, he looked about at our rapt audience and said…

"You know, I read about this somewhere."

Within the hour, everyone from the lowest, greenest Ordinary Seaman to the Captain knew the story! Of course, you know that the real cause of the deck rings is the expended casings from the gun striking the deck!! But the North Pacific Deckpecker lives on in good ol’ Crackerjack mythology!!!

When every crewmember was a deputized bullshit artist… except that one guy!!!

'Day Sleepers'

This one here ought to drive some of you Ol’ Coots crazy! Remember late sleepers?!?

Now you have to understand that this here Canoe Club was one of the craziest, most bizarre institutes ever known to man! I know that’s a hefty boast… and sometimes it seems almost reasonable... It isn't!! You found yourself in floating grey steel hulls like aquatic trailer parks with lots of pointy missiles and huge guns, driven by last year's high school seniors and operating on World War II technology!! Usually nobody knew what the hell was going on… That's so the enemy hadn’t a damned clue as to what we were doing!!!

Underway watches were stood 24/7! It’s traditionally held that if you stood the balls to four you got late sleepers for an extra hour or two… but it ain’t no gauddamned picnic!! Shortly after Reveille it got louder than the Daytona Speedway & usually smelled like a boys locker room in the middle of Karachi, Pakistan!! If you’ve been to Karachi… you know what I’m talking about!!!

First it started with the 1MC at 0600 hours and a full fledge minute of that gauddamned Boatswain’s Whistle! Then it was lights on, radios and boob tubes a blaring in one ear and needle guns and every other existential noise making device going off like grand central station in the other!! If happiness was eradicated then corrective action was deemed effective!!!

"Knock off the bullshit and let a working sailor get some sleep!"

And by God don’t get caught in your rack without a late sleeper’s chit! It’d be like getting caught molesting a retarded Jewish girl at a Skinhead convention!! Sons-a-Bitches would lose their ever loving minds!!!

It’s usually some triple chevron wearing jughead with a list of all the fellas authorized extra zzzz’s! He’d pace the berthing verifying names while rais’n hell with anyone look’n for funny business!! It was like he was rousing up criminals, yank’n curtains open and yell’n…

“Time to get up… and welcome to the Real World Morning Glory!”

… or …

“Wakey… Wakey… Eggs & Bakey!”

… Every so often…

“I’ve met some real pricks in my time, but you’re a real cactus!”

“Aah… dissolve your sleepers and clear your eyes candy ass… It’s wake up time!”

… Yeah it was the kind of fella that made that Commie Chairman Mao look like a radical libertarian! They just had to make it more trouble than it was worth!!!

And when you just got done pulling Thirty-Six hours straight and now was your chance for late sleepers, the morning berthing cleaners were like a shipment of bouncing pork dildos with eyes ready to dick with you at any moment! They were like the human form of herpes… as soon as you thought they were gone, you had another flare up… a sore that wouldn’t go away!!! 

If you ever want to test a late sleeper’s patience, turn the gauddamned television up full blast while bang’n into everything humanly possible within earshot! Especially that gauddamned cadillac & swab... You get the same effect from swift kicking a yellow jackets nest!! It’s about as welcomed as a turd in the water supply!! Some Sons-a-Bitches can make more noise than a monsoon whistling up a badger’s ass!!!

I remember once a fella was try’n his damnedest to get a ghost turd in one of them metal dust pans… you know the ones, black and always bent all to hell!! This fella couldn’t direct a turd down a toilet he was so dumb!!

“Hey… someone’s trying to sleep over here!”

…If he were any dumber, he’d photosynthesize in the sunlight!!!

I mean, when you’re walking on egg shells, don’t hop! You get what I’m saying?!? It’s obvious as you’re lying there that this fellas IQ is so far below recognition you couldn’t reach him with a rope and a bucket!!!

“How the fuck do you exist?”

“HUH?!?”

“Have you thought about stopping?”

… Let me tell you, common sense ain’t no gift… it’s a gauddamned punishment when you have to deal with all the assholes around falling short!!!

I’ve been on the other end of that fuck stick as well! You've got berthing cleaners and this dumb son-of-a-bitch is in his rack way past his bedtime!! That’s when all the real fun begins!!!

There’s nothing like being triced up, bottom rack and involuntarily taking witness to a healthy set of Cat Brains! Just imagine ‘Bill the Cat’ from Bloom County… his cheeks!! You get the picture… scarred into your mind!!!

Or if you couldn’t resist, while the poor bastard is snoozing, move all his shit around! Put his boondockers in the overhead or in an empty kapok locker!! Even hide shit in the angle irons where the XO loves to dig around during Heads & Beds!!!

Sometimes you got one of them sick sons-a-bitches that like to sleep butt nekkit with their curtains open in the middle rack, occasionally battling the bishop in a game of command & control for everyone to see…

“What’s wrong… never seen anyone masturbate before? …Weirdo, you need to be slapped with a Dick!”

Of course you might have run into the occasional fella who’d roll outta his rack and out drops a boa constrictor! I won’t tell you it was a foot long, but it looked over a foot long… and I don’t feel gay say’n that either… it’s just the facts!! That’ll make you want to scratch your gauddamned eye balls out!! But Hey, the Navy ain’t your home away from some-place-in-North-East-Bible-Belt-Butt-Fuckville!!!

And I won’t even get into the sex toys and blow up dolls!!!

It went on and on… Young Crackerjacks totally lacking in social grace or considerate behavior! You remember that 'Rock-a-bye Baby' song your mother sung to you while you were still in training pants?!? Well… this ain’t it!!!

The worthless, good for nothing, inconsiderate, bastards… I miss every one of them! Didn’t think I would… but there it is and here I am journalizing just for you!! The ignorance of being young still possessed some innocent charm… it’s what made us men!!!

'Sailor Proofing'

So I work with Engineers sometimes in Development of things in the Space Industry and today one of them couldn’t figure out which telemetry file to use on a piece of software! I said…

“Now if an Engineer can screw this up, what do you think the technicians will do?”

… He looked at me funny…

“You should probably fix it so that doesn’t happen! In my Navy Days we called that Sailor Proofing!”

… He looks at the computer screen, then looks at me and says…

“I could strand two sailors on a Deserted Island with an anvil and in two weeks come back… the anvil would be broke in half, the two sailors would be drunk and both have the clap!”

Now how could I argue with that!!!

British Admiral Faux Pas info

Funny Thing about the Ol’ Canoe Club… We’ve got so many damned acronyms they pile up like dry leaves on a fire hydrant!!!

One day while working at US Navy Recruiting Headquarters I was asked to sit in a briefing with the Admiral and his COS of the British Navy Recruiting Command! They flew over to gain some ideas from us about how to recruit!! There were six of us in the conference room… two of which were female Captains!!!

The Admiral during one of his many questions said the word ‘Shit’ which was followed by dead silence! The Admiral looked embarrassed so as a Chief and the only enlisted in the room, with some disjointed type of ‘Sailor Speak’ I quickly spoke up…

"Sir, don't sweat it, Shit is a nautical term!"

Everyone in the room looked at me, my Captain rolling her eyes, I said…

"Yes Sir, back in the days of iron men & wooden ships, occasionally the cargo would be pressed cow manure stacked on pallets and placed in the hold. During the deployment the bilge would start to gain water and the hold would become very humid. The manure would start to decay and produce methane gas. When the Sailor would enter the space with a lantern the hold would explode. Once they realized the reason for these mysterious occurrences, they started to place banners on the sides of the pallets… ‘Store High In Transit!’ That Sir is the origin of the word, so feel free to express as much Shit as you want anytime you feel appropriate!"

… Everyone laughed and we got back to work!!!

'Here's To Knowing The Regs'

A Navy Admiral was being court-martialed for his actions at a hotel! He was caught chasing a young lady through the halls, both of them naked as a jail bird!! One of the charges was ‘Being out of Uniform!!!’

In his defense, his lawyer pointed out the Navy Uniform Regulations said that a serviceman must be properly attired for the activity he is engaged in!!!

…The Admiral was acquitted!!!