'KNOTS'

An old, retired sailor puts on his old uniform and heads for the docksonce more for old time's sake. He engages a prostitute and takes her upto a room.

He's soon going at it as well as he can for a guy his age, but needingsome reassurance, asks "How am I doing Darlin?"

The prostitute replies, "Well old sailor, you're doing about three
knots."

"Three knots?" he asks, "What's that supposed to mean?"


She replies, "You're knot hard, you're knot in, and you're knot
getting your money back."

Radio_Bridge: Keep playing with it until you get it UP!!!

‘Steel Beach Picnics and Swim Calls’

Boys and Girls, do you recall how beautiful and peaceful the water was on sunny days in the Indian Ocean with seas as smooth as glass as far as the eyeballs could see? The freshest air you could ever breathe with seagulls circling overhead, porpoises at the bow and fly’n fish pass’n by ever so gracefully… Remember Steel Beach Picnics and Swim Call in the Deep Blue where the nearest land was only a few miles underneath your feet???

In an environment devoid of civilized influence, restless sailors begin to get vocal and well… vocabulary degenerates to the four letter two step and the  worthless sons-a-bitches start losing sleep over why we were operating wire brushes, chipping hammers, needle guns and knuckle busters under that hot… hot sun...

After jackassing Five Inch rounds, missiles & small arms to their proper magazines... wrestling the big monster oil booms and spam wire using all our sweat and muscle, standing port and report watches eyeballing surface contacts, air contacts… radar contacts… ‘Oh Shit’… MAN OVERBOARD!!! Not to mention some of the most fouled mouth cussing ever invented by man.

This was the type of thing that made us what we were... a real team. A bunch’a  sweat soaked sons-a-bitches cussing like a whore in church and running hard 24/7... It was tough times...

But after days of hard work and lots’a character building we were always looking forward to a day with a light breeze that made the mid-summer heat bearable. . Everyone had been working extremely hard and it would be a great time to throw a shindig on the flight deck…

We dubbed such a celebration ‘The Ol’ Steel Beach Picnic’… It provided a break in life regulated by countless hours of monotony and continuous watch cycles.

Perhaps on a Sunday at about noon… the ship stopped all engines and went dead in the water…  the Messenger Of The Watch got on the 1MC,

 “Attention All Hands… Steel Beach Picnic on the Flight Deck ”

The fiesta was now underway... an event that would make any outdoor party fanatic proud (without beer as the exception).

It was a time for the crew to lay back, relax and enjoy… there was bouncy boxing,  put-put golf, volleyball, water balloon fights, tricycle races, karaoke, a ship’s band with the Baglady’s ‘Randy Hanson’ as the lead singer… thought he started the Hansen Brothers when they came out!!!  There was also fishing off the fantail, bobbing-for-apples, hula-hooping, pie and hot dog eat’n contests, basketball competitions, wiffle ball tournaments. sumo wrestling, where Sailors don larger-than-life size sumo suits… and last but not least my favorite, talent shows with skits of buffoonery!!!

Couple of Butter Bars thought it funny watching me hit the elliptical in the ship’s Gym and apparently reminded them of ‘Tony Little’ and his Gazelle Commercials… so there it was… ‘Chief Swing’ doing the Gazelle thanks to Ensign Kip Wilkins for the fun times… or watching Ensign Cooper’s video of dancing like a rodeo clown on the missile deck for the whole crew to see!!!

Then there was the Kiddie Pool!! You can’t have a Steel Beach Picnic without a kiddie pool!! This was usually supplied by the local air wing onboard… and if you got the pool you can’t forget the Beach Chairs. We always had Beach Chairs!!! Oh, and the Cabana Umbrella we liberated from some fancy restaurant at our last foreign port visit!!!

And if we were out long enough… somewhere in the area of forty or fifty days without a port call… beer was acually served in limited quantities…. I think it was two to a ‘Crackerjack’ or something of the sorts…

At some point, if we were really lucky the ol’ man or the XO would put out ‘Swim Call’ over the 1MC… Remember how high it was off the flight deck? We’d do big cannonballs and blow depth charge holes with a big splash...

I remember Swim Call over Mariana’s Trench or there abouts on the Mighty Momsen… imagine losing your keys down that ditch!!! I guess the only thing that can live down in them depths would have to look someth’n in the way of the ‘Cracken’ or some other Leviathan of the deeps of lore!!!

Yep, swim call was exactly what it sounds like..  A bunch’a rowdy squidoos jump’n off the side into the DEEP BLUE SEA... and there ain’t noth’n like crawling up the cargo net so you can take another twenty-foot plunge…  It’s pretty scary to jump off as your adrenaline is pumping, but once you get there it feels good, and the water is really salty, but it’s a great time...

There were always lookouts posted... shark watch lookouts...  with M-14 sharp shoot’n Seargent Yourk type rifles…  cause there was mean stuff out there swimming about…  Great big nasty mean stuff that came with dreadful teeth… was hungry and could eat you. No one told me everytime I hopped off the fantail, I was a down home fish’n lure for Jabber Jaw the Great White!!! I thought sharks only ate girls in bikinis… Nobody said they ate Navy Sailors!!!

Sharks are mean sons-a-bitches. I saw one on Discovery’s Shark Week… they’ll chew chunks outt’a the side of a twenty-five foot bayliner!!!  Losing body parts is just a light desert for those bigg’ns!! It would take one hell of a chunk outt’a your liberty plans…

 After a day of hot sun and plenty of fun… you had those summer nights to sit on the fantail and enjoy the glowing moon... calm seas... phosphorescent aqua suds gliding past the water line floating aft into the glow of the moons reflection off the surface of that great big ocean... Soft, light cracking sound made by the ensign flying above the yardarms... It doesn't get any better than that.

We were forming lifelong friendships with our crews… we were teams of hardworking fun loving ‘Crackerjacks’!!!

“Hey you gut bandit Stew Burners outdid yourselves… That was some Great Chow!!!”

'Love Them Fishnets'

'Hope & Change'

There is an old sea story about a ship's Captain who inspected his sailors, and afterward told the first mate that his men smelled bad.

The Captain suggested perhaps it would help if the sailors would change underwear occasionally.

The first mate responded, "Aye, aye sir, I'll see to it immediately!"

The first mate went straight to the sailors berth deck and announced, "The Captain thinks you guys smell bad and wants you to change your underwear." He continued:

"Pittman, you change with Jones, McCarthy, you change with Witkowski, and Brown, you change with Schultz."

THE MORAL OF THE STORY: Someone may come along and promise "Change" but don't count on things smelling any better.

‘Oh What A Heavenly Rack’

Back in the days of the ol’ Canoe Club it could get pretty mundane at times wait’n for the sum of noth’n to happen… And other times it could be hell on wheels, balls to the wall with Chief yell’n in one ear and some gaudamned butter bar yell’n in your other!

But there was always a place onboard the ol’ rust bucket you could find some serenity… a place for comfort and peace of mind!! Racked out in the middle of berthing, preferably a middle rack if your salty enough… riding the waves as the ship rocked & rolled from side to side, fore to aft… reading a nekkit girlie magazine and scratch’n your stinky feet upon the towel hinge nestled three blankets deep with the AC chilling the place out keep’n the odiferous fragrances of eighty snoring shipmates from mak’n the place uninhabitable!! Underway that’s as good as it gets... unless someone could figure out how to run aground a beach full of stark-naked beach bunnies!!!

There were nights standing aft look out where it was cold & miserable, encrusted in two layers of foul weather gear, long john undies and a watch cap doing not a gaudamn thing for you but mak’n your head itch like ya got the damn cooties… sneak’n a peek at the ol’ wrist watch wondering where the hell that son-of-a-bitch is at who was supposed to relieve you twenty minutes ago…

When you’ve got ice cycles grow’n on your nose and brow groveling over the wretched wind chill, feel’n nothing but the burning pain in your fingertips as the cold slices through the layers of clothing … gazing through a dark night see’n nothing but the white from crested waves… that’s when you learn to appreciate the haven you call your rack!!!

From the outside observer, the rack may seem like noth’n more than a casket with less foot room than a sardine can… hence the name coffin rack, and the smells of diesel fuel… two parts body odor one part ol’ spice… a stiff sock on deck, your guess is as good as mine… and smelly laundry bags with boondockers strewn across the deck at every turn…

But after a cold night on watch there was noth’n more rewarding than crawling into your bunk, burrito-wrapped in a wool blanket with your foul weather jacket and a boondocker tucked under the head of the mattress to give you that added extra comfort under that smelly down pillow…

You didn’t bother gett’n undressed. You just crawled in search’n for that perfect spot and cuddl’n up to the farthest corner being hypnotically tranquilized by the steady drip in the overhead from a leaky potable water pipe…

Every so often you could hear a shipmate foraging through his locker making sounds like he’s digg’n through a disorganized tool box... or the sporadic inane conversations through the false bulkhead into the head about Suzie Rotten Crotch and Seaman Sam in the back alley behind the bar…

Sometimes the deck watch might come in… flash the light in your eyes,

“Sorry, wrong rack…”

It was a gaudamn nocturnal Easter Egg Hunt try’n to find the son-of-a-bitch for the next watch relief... Seaman ass clown roaming around aimlessly shining a flashlight like a gaudamned floodlight in every rack down the aisle way.

Finally…

“Seaman Timmy, it’s time to get up!”

“Screw you and the horse you rode in on!”

I slammed a locker once on the ol’ Baglady… about got my underwear strap pulled over my scalp for that one…

“I’m up already!”

Then there was BM2 ‘Freddy Krueger’ Biddle com’n in stink’n drunk off liberty and pissed on STG3 ‘Bama’ in his rack… BM2 looked like the infamous Elm Street killer & I don’t remember STG3’s name… just that he was a good ol’ Southern boy from Alabama and he didn’t much like gett’n pissed on at 0300 hours of the morning sound asleep in his rack!!!

Just about had to call in the Master-At-Arms and Command Duty Officer to put that one to sleep… no pun intended…

There was a hierarchy to bunk reservation onboard Navy ships… as they were usually stacked three high…

Back in the day, the bottom rack was for the bottom feeders in the social pecking order of things… usually the rack was triced up on one end during the day and at night the curtains offer little to no privacy from looters and voyeurs during that midnight rendezvous with the ol’ sock… Besides, there ain’t nothing more humiliating than being triced up in the middle of the night with no one to offer a hand… only a snicker or two from a couple racks over!!!

The top rack was the next in line only because it had a bit more privacy and occasionally you’d get a little extra storage space between the upper angle irons and water pipes running fore and aft… but you got shit for locker space with an extra side locker to help with the lack of accommodations… unless you name was FC1 Needham…

Ol’ Needham had a middle rack with a big ol’ fat EEBD holder down on the foot end.  After standing a dreary 00-04 Keith would crawl deep into his warm rack all cozy and comfortable just about at rim sleep… That was before a wind up clock went clang’n away from within the EEBD holder and got him jump’n and holler’n all over the gaudamned place… Must’ve happened a dozen times before he knew what the hell was going on!!!

Like I said before… the middle rack was the best, unless you were an ol’ salt who’d been around these were usually taken by the most senior of the girls onboard!!!

The racks are small and don’t own up much to the king sized California you might brag about at home… unless you’re an anorexic midget swing’n the trapeze for Ringling Brothers… but they were heaven to a nineteen year old ‘Crackerjack’ spending long cold nights out at sea… 

And so it went falling fast asleep envisioning high school fantasies of young bosoms in your face doing the ‘Whiskey Tango Foxtrot’ in the backseat of Daddy’s car…

 "Reveille... Reveille... trice up and heave out... Smoking lamp is lit in all authorized smoking areas… now Reveille!”

Morning sunshine, time to drop your cocks and grab your socks...

“Chow is now being served on the Messdecks!”

“No shit Sherlock, where else are they gonna serve shit on a shingle… in the shitcan I suppose!?!?”

Hot coffee, Bacon & Eggs and a side of Orange Juice... with a slice of blackened toast!!!

Another day in ol’ Canoe Club... C'mon you slackers MOVE IT... MOVE IT!!"

I Really Like This One!!!