‘How’d You Sleep’

By the time the sailor pulled into a little town, every hotel room was taken.

He searched everywhere to no avail…

Finally he reached the last hotel at the end of the town…

"You've got to have a room somewhere!"

… he pleaded…

"Or just a bed, I don't care where."

"Well, I do have a double room with one occupant… an Air Force guy!"

… admitted the manager…

"And he might be glad to split the cost. But to tell you the truth, he snores so loudly that people in adjoining rooms have complained in the past. I'm not sure it'd be worth it to you."

"No problem!"

… the tired Navy man assured him…

"I'll take it."

The next morning the sailor came down to breakfast bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

"How'd you sleep?"

… asked the manager…

"Never better."

The manager was impressed.

"No problem with the other guy snoring?"

"Nope, I shut him up in no time"

… said the Navy guy…

"How'd you manage that?"

"He was already in bed, snoring away, when I came in the room,"

"I went over, gave him a kiss on the cheek, and said, 'Goodnight, beautiful,' and he sat up all night watching me!" 

'Sea Legs'

Remember over the 1MC “Standby for Heavy Rolls” or “Batten down the  Hatches” and “Tie down all unnecessary Missile Hazards and Secure for Sea?!?”  Imagine coming out of the rodeo chute on a Bucking Bull Ride in an 8.0 Earth Quake!! Yeah, it can get that way at times!!! 

Sometimes the sea can be a soft lullaby and other times she can pitch and roll something fierce! Bouncing around from trough to swell could take its toll on the feet… like a gauddamned jackhammer!! But you know what they say…

“Smooth Seas Never Made for Good Sailors!”

I loved bouncing around in a bust your ass kind of storm! There isn’t a roller coaster out there that can come anywhere near the ride of a sea state of five!! No one could invent a ride like a heavy weather storm… imagine the meanest amusement park ride coupled with the tilt-a-whirl and a high gear running rapids water ride all rolled in to one!! Anyone with an inclination toward motion sickness would take one look and shoot their lunch!!!

Like a master chess player, a true Crackerjack hones his skills of meandering about the deck like an ol’ salt… Always figuring the angles! In heavy swells when the boat was jumping all over the place sometimes pitching so deeply you could go forward near anchor windless and jump a foot or two in the air and fly like superman!! Just to earn your sea legs you had to be tossed around in the storm for a couple of weeks!!!

On my first ship, the old man loved to ride the trough in stormy weather! This was not your granny’s recipe for domestic tranquility… in the apparent disregard for the laws of gravity we’d find ourselves soaring down into the trough, then suddenly rollicking in the waves up above!! If you like insane gyrations of the third degree, you get it in big heavy doses!!!

I spent many a day and night in the MK68 Director as I watched a wall of green water come a smashing down over the bow and crashing above into the signal shack overhead! We’d become damned near subsurface!! It was like being a flea on a hula hooper’s ass!!!

You can imagine you could move through the passageway pretty gauddamned fast at this rate… except when you ran across one of them secured spaces with the taped jigsaw maze… It’s like tap dancing through flypaper!! And we had our fun with the weather… yes we did!! The crew would have soap box derbies with torn up pieces of tri-wall in the port and starboard passageways of the maindeck!! When plowing through heavy swells jumping all over the place… you had to make the best out of it for a couple of days!!!

In rough seas, rubber mats were form fitted over the mess tables to keep trays from doing some salsa, mambo, merengue, Rumba Tango onto the deck! Hell, I remember loud crashes from the vicinity of the galley followed by loud cursing and swearing!!!

You also got rocked to sleep like a lullaby in those formative years! All you had to do was find a cubby hole and lay back!! The ship rocked and rolled in a tender motion that put you right into some ZZZZs’!!!

After a month or more underway you just didn’t feel quite normal with solid ground under your heels & toes! And guaddamned it wouldn't you know it.... that was the time to pull in and hit the beach!! As soon as the brow hit the pier we’d be inclined to offer Grade AAA American US Crackerjack stud services to the local ladies!!!

I remember a night on liberty after a good stint underway… walking the track at Horton Plaza downtown San Dog! There I was on solid ground and I felt like I was rock’n & roll’n all over the place!! That’s when I realized I’d earned my sea legs!!!

When you’re out with a rowdy crowd of sea going idiots, you tend to get laid and get drunk… less of the first and more of the latter and never in that order! I remember late nights coming back to the ship still steering my sea legs and coming up the Quarterdeck, I could barely navigate the brow… all capsized drunk and ‘Pirate Eyed’…!!  My shipmates were all loud talking, good-natured men I shared shit shows, beer and plenty of stories with… and this was just how it was done!!!

Then there was the Chucky ‘V’!  While sharing coffee and trading lies with fellow dungaree wearing salty bastards some son-of-a-bitch got the wonderful idea to tackle the wind up on the CIWS Sponson!! So up the Mount ‘22’ ladderwell we went like a bunch of hellions!!!

The wind was hauling ass at 65 knots as the Chucky ‘V’ plowed through the waves and fellas in foul weather jackets and worse for wear dungaroos were hollering stupid comments back and forth as we leaned forward at a 45° angle, letting the wind keep us from falling on our faces! I realized long ago that when it comes to 'games of chance' your better to sit this one out… but when you’re young and dumb and full of shit… well, there wasn’t a challenge or dare we wouldn’t defy!!  If I knew then what I know now, I sure as hell would’ve saved a lot of time and embarrassment and a gross amount of ass whoop’ns!!!

One would take a fly’n leap in the air and wind up twenty feet back from where he’d started… trust me, when I say this was a dangerous game at forty to fifty feet above the foam and choppy waves below! When the ‘Big Brass’ was looking for a more serious ‘Leave It To Beaver’ kind of horseshit sailor they got us hormone active scallywags lighting off a hot foot or two keeping the ol’ Canoe Club alive and well!! We were stupid and sometimes borderline dangerous… but we survived another day to tell about it!!!

I guess the big lesson was being a sailor requires saltwater savvy of the seas that we must master on a daily basis… and boy did we! That’s just how it was back in the days of pissing up wind at 65 knots and rubbing shoulders with the best band of brothers you could ever wish for!! As a young’n I never fully understood what the big picture was... I was just along for the ride enjoying the experience!! It was part of wearing the rough edges off our horns!!!

In today’s Canoe Cabaret you don’t get to ride the storms like you used too with all the sophisticated, highly technical, state-of-the-art GPS and other storm chasing thing-a-majigs going on! Riding Stormy Weathers was about as close as it got… Ha-Ha… that’s a play on words for any who know ‘Stormy’!!  Yeah, it was the life we came to know and love… and look at us now… what great memories!!!  

‘Joe Shit the Ragman’

(Click On Image)

How a Sailor became ‘Joe Shit the Ragman’ under one year in the ‘PI’…!

'Joint Exercise'

Some Sailors were partaking in a joint exercise with Israeli Commando's. Part of the exercise required the group to infiltrate a public beach from the sea, and fit in while the security force attempted to find and capture them.

They made it to the beach, and actually went into a restaurant to eat undetected. A good looking Israeli Sergeant came into the restaurant and seated herself next to one of the Sailors. She said…

“Tag, you’re caught.”

 The Sailor asked…

“What do we do now?”

… and she said ordered lunch. Things looked good at this point and the security forces and the invaders had lunch. The Sailor asked one of the security guys about the Sargent. He was told that she was a recent widow. Upon returning to the table he expressed his condolences, and asked how he had died. She said…

“He died because of Gonorrhea!”

The Sailor replied…

“I’d never heard of that being fatal?!?”

… She replied…

 "When you give it to me it is!"  

'Another Bawdy Shanty'

Oh, they sent for the Navy to come to Tulagi,
The gallant Navy agreed.
With one thousand sections in different directions,
My God, what a fucked-up stampede.

Fuck 'em all, fuck 'em all
The long and the short and the tall.
Fuck all the admirals who give us the flak;
They don't give a shit if we ever come back.
So we're saying goodbye to them all,
As over the gangplank we crawl.
There'll be no promotion this side of the ocean,
So cheer up, my lads, fuck 'em all.

They say there's a convoy that's leaving New York,
Bound for those Blighty shores;
Heavily laden with tanks and with planes,
Shit for old Adolf, of course.

Fuck 'em all, fuck 'em all
The long and the short and the tall.
Fuck all the captains and all the mates too,
Fuck the engineers and the whole God-damn crew.
So we're saying goodbye to them all,
As back to our rustpots we crawl.
We'll start a commotion that side of the ocean,
So cheer up, my lads, fuck 'em all.

They sent for the nurses to come overseas,
The reason was perfectly clear:
To make a good marriage and push a good carriage
While fucking all hands, my dear.

Fuck 'em all, fuck 'em all
The long and the short and the tall.
Fuck all the blond cunts and all the brunettes;
Don't be too choosey, just fuck all you gets.
So we're saying goodbye to them all,
As over back to our rustpots we crawl.
You'll et no erection at short-arm inspection,
So cheer up, my lads, fuck 'em all.

'Comshaw Of PreComm Load Outs'

When a ship is precommissioned it’s allotted a large load out of equipment prior to sea trials which is stored in the shipyard. In one shipyard warehouse, the equipment for each ship was segregated and stored in separate wire mesh cages with locked doors.

Ship's crew members were only allowed in the cages after being properly identified. However, warehousemen were far too busy to monitor activities, once proper authorization was established.

One Boatswain’s Mate peered through the cage wire mesh and noted that the cruiser's cage next door had a lot of equipment his ship could use as well as a beautiful, huge coil of mooring line whose diameter was much larger than authorized for a destroyer. He also noted that tile cage partitions did not extend all the way to the warehouse ceiling.

He and his crew then stacked equipment high enough to climb over the partition and into the cruiser's cage and equipment transfers were quickly made. The coil of mooring line, however, was another matter. It was much too heavy to move as a coil. This problem was solved by passing one end over the partition and coiling the line on the destroyer side.

All went well until halfway through the evolution. That’s when the Boatswain and a few other crewmen from the cruiser showed up about as welcome as a nut cutlet at a cannibal barbeque! Old Boats from the cruiser looked stonier than a biblical execution! Things got a little intense for a while but the cruiser's Boatswain seemingly realized they were a little outnumbered. So looking at the coil of line he wisely suggested…

"Could you just put it back and we’ll call it a day?!?"

The Tin Can Sailors did just that and nothing was made of it, including any of the rest of the equipment transfers that apparently went unnoticed! However, since that type of requisition works both ways, you can't help but wonder how much of the destroyer’s gear went to sea on that cruiser.

July's 'Riggin' Bill'

Just the semi-articulate account of a long ago Crackerjack and his troubles & tributes with women and the lost ways of life in those days!!!

Dear Lotta:

At first I did not understand your letter, but now I think I see it all. It is your sister Peachy’s fault!  All the time I thought I was dating you when it was really her!! Lotta, your sister Peachy has fooled us both… she was talking to one of the Marines at the gate when I was coming out two weeks ago and I thought it was you!!!

I walked up and said…“Come Baby, let’s go places!”

She should have told me she was Peachy as she knows how I feel about you, but I cannot tell you apart! Lotta, you have got to believe me and give that French Sailor the brush-off as he is not as dumb as you think!! Anyhow, your knee can get very callous that way!!!

Lotta, I will make up all this lost time to you! I can teach you all the sailors’ knots in a week and then you won’t have to worry about Peachy!! But first we have to get this situation solved so I can tell you and Peachy apart and not make the same mistake again!!!

Why don’t you dye your hair red?!?

In this way I could tell you from Peachy and what do we care if she copy’s you! There are a lot of colors in the rainbow and we can beat her at her own game!! If you don’t like this idea maybe you can come up with a new one, but in the mean time get rid of this new Frenchy… who does he think he is, Balzac?!?

Unfortunately I spent all my money on Peachy the last week thinking it was you, and pay-call is still a week away!  Would you like to go for a walk on the boardwalk at Coney Island on Sunday?!? We can listen to what the wild waves are saying, and I don’t mean those girls in uniform!!!

Yours,

Riggin Bill