'Cumshaw And The Art Of Horse Trade'

Back in the days of the OL’ Canoe Club… when crackerjacks still cussed like sailors and many ships still had wooden decks there was a form of Horse Trade known as ‘Cumshaw!’ I know many of you ol’ coots remember that phrase!!  Won’t hear of it in todays ‘PC’ no time for monkey business light in the loafer kinda’ Navy!! But back in the day… Cumshaw was the barter system involving all forms of unofficial trade encompassing smokes, chewing tobacco, cinnamon buns, tools, and nekkit lady books!!    Yep… that big heaping grey hull filled with seamen was noth’n more than a floating utopia of repair shops, supply centers, store rooms, hospital facilities, food stores & refers and just about anything else under the sun needed for a ‘Cumshaw Artist’ to get the job done!!!

Yes… procurement of required goods outside the supply chain was usually done by swap, barter, trade… mutual backscratching and robbing Peter to Pay Paul kinda’ thing!! Most unauthorized work was contemplated, capitulated and carried on using this primitive form of bartering with a small degree of larceny involved! Sometimes a can of coffee, carton of cigarettes or a log of Copenhagen could go a long way… especially far away from homeport!!

The best in the business could go out to the shipyard and get a large ‘thousand’ ton crane to haul hookers across the forecastle if the price was right!  One fella comes to mind off the ol’ Chucky ‘V’!! FC2 Allen was his name… quite the sly fox… he knew more methods to getting his way than a room full of lawyers I tell you!!! If you needed an extra pair of flight deck boots, he knew where to find them… an old gear head or vacuum tube they don’t make any more… he had a ready spare tucked away somewhere!! If it wasn’t in supply or it was too hard to get he knew somebody somewhere… a tender, MOTU, SIMA… that could hook us up!!

He always got away with it like a fat rat with cheese! I asked him how he got so good at the hookup game…

“I started out with nothing and still have most of it left... but favors for favors is better than money any day!”

Then there was the Pneumatic Chain Hoist Caper on the pier… while on the Ol’ Lucky No 7 we needed a new winch’n system as ours in the CIWS magazine had some internal problems! Well low and behold, there was a nice shiny Ingersoll Rand Two Tonner sitt’n right there on the pier just waiting for the taking!! Never figured out who it belonged too, just put a rag in my pocket… grabbed a junior shipmate… wiped it down… we picked it up… and we had a beautiful brand new air ran chain pulley!! And with a little bit of barter here and there the next thing you know we had it load tested and ready to go!!!  

Yep… I had to do a lot of cumshaw trad’n in my earlier years… especially when it came to gett’n paint, primer, some forms of hazmat before they invented the shipwide MSDS dickity doo! Usually the ship’s paint locker operated outside its own scheduled hours… never in a consistent manner and if you really needed something fierce, you’d better be willing to hook up the Boatswain Locker Bureaucrats because nothing was leaving their locker without their authorization!!!

Sometimes it was easier to go to the shipyard and get what you needed! Usually they had some shop that could and would help out for a minor fee!  Other times they had a warehouse that just wasn’t fully secure… in the case of the Puget Sound CIA area, you know right next to where they tear all the old subs apart?!? There was a fenced in area with noth’n but half empty paint cans and other stuff that could de-oxidize the Brooklyn Bridge… it all became useful!! We’d been grinding away at our decks and sponsons on the Chucky ‘V’ and found out about this paraphernalia called rust inhibitor worked wonders on cancerous corroded surfaces!! This stuff looked like it had been incubated in the farthest corners of a rhinoceros’s nasal cavity… all slimy and gooey!! We’d sneak into the fence late at night and siphon off two or three coffee cans of that treasured lubricated specimen making sure not to take too much ‘cause even silly hungover yardbirds can figure out when they’d been hoodwinked over time!!!

Funny thing is, we’d often get those same fellas to do some trade for powder coating and chroming of hand rails, lifelines and chains! Didn’t take much… just some empty shell casings, tool bags, ammo cans, an extra pair of boots or some yummy cinnamon buns!! 

And overseas… bartering was the law of the land, especially in Hong Kong! Any scrap metal, especially brass was like gold over there!! An ol’ Sea Daddy used to tell me…

“A port without trade is like a fish’n boat without nets!”

… A few Five Inch Brass Shell casings and a few cartons of smokes would usually do the trick!!! Those Chinese boat people would come aside and white wash the hulls with the finest haze grey and finish out a space or two just in time for liberty call!! With that came max liberty and a great port-o-call!!!

But I found being stationed in Bremerton there was a treasure trough of cumshaw to be tapped into on the waterfront… especially all those decommissioning ships out there! The Pyro, Parche, Arkansas, Truxton, Independence, just to name a few were all pull’n in with skeleton crews just ready to be molested!! A bit of scouting around those decomm boats and you could find tools… spare parts… some old nudie mags and plenty more to pick over like seagoing termites on a wooden schooner!! 

“How bout stealing us some gauddamn tools… Pick up some ready spares as well and an extra gun barrel for the CIWS mount if you can lay your hands on one."

Re-appropriating stuff off a decomm had become second nature to anyone homeported in the Northwest! We procured lots of ready service spares, tools, DRT parts, foul weather jackets, T-wrenches, DC fittings, gaskets, nautical doo hickeys, and little electronic dippity doos we had no idea what they were for or how they worked… but if it could be used for trade it went with us… free of charge!! Hell those ships are still just sitt’n around mothballed for the last twenty or thirty years!! Even my very first ship, the Baglady, was sitt’n there oxidating in the cold water before she got sold for scrap!! Hell I think we’d even taken a bell from one of the Quarterdeck POOW Shacks… cross pier thievery to the thirty-third degree…

 "You can leave a fresh turd on the table and someone will walk off with it in ten seconds around here!"

Then again if you were really smart you’d learned that the Filipino Mafia was pretty much in control of all the goods and had all the connections to food, supplies, laundry and the Barbershop amongst many other things! If you got in real good with these fellas they could ensure a crackerjack’s quality of life was well tak’n care of with plenty of kickbacks!! To be connected to the Filipino Mafia was to get faster… better service than anyone else… needed your ears lowered… they took care of you… needed a specially pressed uniform… they invented that hocus-pocus!!

These silly sons-a-bitches siphoned off more cumshaw around the world than ‘Ali-Baba and the Forty Thieves!’ Yes… nepotism and corruption were rampant but these fellas had all the goods… plus the pansit, lumpia, and a girl named Rosa waiting just for you in Olongapo!! They were a tight group too!! Hell they even ran the Navy Exchange!!!

And if you didn’t want to deal with the mighty second hand slop served on the messdecks or the burnt out horsecock and hockey pucks being served for midrats with a side of buzzard balls tainted with lizard pheromone… and some old ‘East German Lady Olympian Gym Shorts’ it might behoove you to get real chummy with these guys!! Arnel was the Chief Culinary Specialist on my last boat… ‘King’ of the Filipino Mafia onboard!! He could get you just about anything you wanted… and made some killer Swedish Meatballs… but everybody was complaining…

“Arnel, what’s up with all the gauddamned rice you always feed us?  Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner… since when did rice become a staple in the US Navy? “

… another would say…

“I feel like one of them gauddamned  ‘Little Rascals’ eating mush all the damned time… enough is enough!”

“It’s cheap, cheap! You guys complain too much… I get rid of rice, you stop complaining!”

That son-of-a-bitch was slicker than a minnow’s dick! Next thing we knew the rice disappeared and the meatballs turned into porcupine balls and we’d plum been duped… he was putting the rice in the meatballs!! We were gonna shove that shit down our throats rather we wanted it or not!!!

But that ol’ art of cumshaw, sailor bargaining underhanded giveaways was just a delightful part of our evocative past! All those midnight requisitioninig cloak-n-dagger Paint Locker Raids… Now you See it Now you don’t kind of nonsense… You’d get a one way ticket to the ol’ Naval Consolidate Brig nowadays for hustling the Yeoman and swindling the midwatch in a game of cross pier transport pilfering!!!

     

The ol’ swashbuckl’n days are all over now! The salty ol’ coots from yesteryear would welcome you with a smile on their ugly mugs and regale you with bullshit at close inspection lacked anything certifiable or credible!! They’d have you decked out with relative bearing grease… the ‘Captain’s Crank,’ batteries for the sound powered phones and a ‘BT’ Punch all before the ensign was lowered at sunset!! These my friends were your very first important lessons in the art of horse trade & cumshaw while learning to be humble and not snitch on your watch captain!! Just remember the first thing they taught you before you left for Boot Camp… when in the showers, ‘NEVER… EVER’ drop the soap!!!

Yep… working in the Cumshaw Navy was at times like surviving a prison camp… eventually, it would turn the best of us to a life of acceptable crime... it was just a matter of time…

NAVTRA 50-CENT-DRAUGHT BEER TROUBLESHOOTING MANUAL

SYMPTOM: Feet cold and wet.
FAULT: Glass being held at incorrect angle.
ACTION: Rotate glass so that open end points toward ceiling.

SYMPTOM: Feet warm and wet.
FAULT: Improper bladder control.
ACTION: Stand next to nearest dog, complain about house training.

SYMPTOM: Beer unusually pale and tasteless.
FAULT: Glass empty.
ACTION: Get someone to buy you another beer.

SYMPTOM: Opposite wall covered with fluorescent lights.
FAULT: You have fallen over backward.
ACTION: Have yourself leashed to bar.

SYMPTOM: Mouth contains cigarette butts.
FAULT: You have fallen forward.
ACTION: See above.

SYMPTOM: Beer tasteless, front of your shirt is wet.
FAULT: Mouth not open, or glass applied to wrong part of face.
ACTION: Retire to restroom, practice in mirror.

SYMPTOM: Floor blurred.
FAULT: You are looking through bottom of empty glass.
ACTION: Get someone to buy you another beer.

SYMPTOM: Floor moving.
FAULT: You are being carried out.
ACTION: Find out if you are being taken to another bar.

SYMPTOM: Room seems unusually dark.
FAULT: Bar has closed.
ACTION: Confirm home address with bartender.

SYMPTOM: Taxi suddenly takes on colorful aspect and textures.
FAULT: Beer consumption has exceeded personal limitations.
ACTION: Cover mouth.

'What The Hell Are You Look'n At'

'How S#!t Happens'



… In the beginning was the Plan.
… And then came the Assumptions.
… And the Assumptions were without form.
… And the Plan was without Substance.
… And darkness was upon the face of the ship’s crew.
… And so the crew spoke among themselves saying…

 "It is a crock of shit, and it stinks."

… And so the crew went unto their Leading Petty Officers and said…

 "It is a crock of dung, and we cannot live with the smell."

…  And so the Leading Petty Officers went unto their Chiefs and said…

 "It is a container of organic waste, and it is very strong, such that none may abide by it."

… And so the Chiefs went unto their Department Heads and said…

 "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength."

… And the Department Heads spoke among themselves saying to one another…

 "It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong."

… And the Department Heads went to the Executive Officer and said…

 "It promotes growth, and it is very powerful."

... And so the Executive Officer went to the Skipper and said unto him…

"It has very powerful effects."

... And the Skipper looked upon the Plan and saw that it was good!
... And the Plan became Policy!!
... And that my friends is how shit happens!!!

'Nekkit Lady Nudie Mags, Skin Books & Your Average Smut'

While doing my Sunday deeds at the ol’ Navy Commissary I couldn’t help but notice the most recent Navy Times… ‘Fleet Wide Smut Inspections’… with pictures of ‘Men’s Health,’ ‘Maxim’ and many other lesser magazines the new  ‘PC’ Navy has deemed inappropriate!! I guess Navy Secretary, Ray Mabus has decided what is considered tasteful as opposed to tasteless for our sailors to stamp out what he considers smut!!!

I know this ain’t the first time I’d brought up the differences between today’s Navy and the ol’ Canoe Club we joined way back when… but as near as I can figure most of you old coots wouldn’t recognize today’s Navy! You’d look about as confused as a bunch of short bus riders in a house of fuck’n mirrors I tell ya!!!

Now I know we weren’t blessed with the greatest of brains way back when, and I can appreciate the much improved Wally Cleavers of the new ‘Crackerjack Navy’ but before all the ‘PC’ hoopla… Women’s Rights… and ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ it was the last vestige of the ol’ boys club! It was a hospitable community where young ‘Crackerjacks’ convened to swear, tell dirty jokes, bullshit about lady asses & legs… the ups & downs of large breastess’s and boob jobs, what’s better… the Ford Mustang or the Chevy Camaro, favorite liquors... cigar brands... sports teams… etc. etc…

Yes, it was the last bastion of men being men in front of men… belching, farting, cussing, chest bellowing titty talk’n, ‘No girls or girlie men allowed, entirely and perfectly male paraphernalia!!! Now what the hell is wrong with that?!? I always said the idea of no butt nekkit girlie magazines is nuttier than a porta potty at a peanut factory!! When it comes to gett’n rid of nekkit girlie magazines and good skin books…

“Hey somebody should really get rid of that trash…”

… never came up on my watch… ever!!!

I grew up in an auto-body shop where ‘Champion Sparkplug’ & Snap-On Tool Pin-ups littered the walls and Penthouse Forums were found in every desk! Then I joined a Navy that made me feel right at home!! We never seemed to grow bored with nekkit lady subject matter… ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours high school type of rapid fire fantasies!! And the stuff we looked at

was admittedly unsuitable for Dr Seuss & Cat In The Hat Golden Books of the past… as the titles would range from… ‘Ass Of The Mohicans’… ‘Poca-Hot-Ass’… ‘Backseat Confidential’… ‘Bang the Dong’… ‘Caddy Snatch’… ‘Crammer vs Crammer’… ‘German Whore Fare’… ‘Romancing The Bone’… and many many more!!!

While we sat eagerly oogl’n these rather tasteless skin books…

“What the hell is going on in here?”

“Oh shit it’s Chief!”

“It seems we have a concealed stockpile of porno mags… in my work space!”

“Just a book or two Chief… no big deal!”

“Hmmm… ‘Lord of the G-Strings,’ ‘Saturday Night Beaver’… where do you come up with such literary garbage… this shit will pervert your mind!”

And from there the Chief would be off with your goods hand locked in his bottom file drawer with a carton of Lucky Strikes, a flask full of booze and a small bottle of Vaseline… my guess is!!!

But that was the normal exchange of camaraderie back in those days involving skin book swaps and trade negotiations for the best smut onboard… or at least the least used… pages stuck together of the aforementioned!! AAAAAH don’t judge… any sailor worth his weight in salt has been there done that…

“Sweet tits, you ain’t earned your seamanship ‘til you’d racked up with a stack of skin books while scratch’n your fungus ridden toes across the EEBD holder & stiffened a few pairs of socks!!”

Yes… nekkit girlie magazines were the medium of exchange in the old Navy! And any man with a good stash of books in a vacant side locker was considered a man of good sea going wealth!! Rather it be OUI, Cherrie, Club, Hustler, Penthouse or a good ol’ fashioned Playboy… they were found under pillow cases… mattresses… on top ventilation shafts… behind scuttlebutts… and high up in the angle irons!!!

Fortunes changed hands regularly at quite the going rate… because hard-up ‘Crackerjacks’ will do damned near anything for a ratty ol’ skin book! It was the only common currency of trade from Deck Division all the way down to the Engineering Bilges!! It wasn’t uncommon to swap skin books you’d already taken to the shitter on six or seven previous occasions!!!

“Hey fellas… paste your ‘winking one eye’ on this… I’ll give it up for a pack of smokes!”

“No way! There’s pages stuck together and the print is all smeared… can’t read it!”

“It’s a gauddamned Playboy… there’s no reason for reading it!”

“I can see your point… but You’re still full of shit… ain’t worth a pack of smokes!”

“Come on man, check out the centerfold… body by God, mind by Mattel! You gonna turn that down?”

“The only thing I ever turned down was a ten year old boy in the PI and I turned him face down!”

 “Sick fucker… how ‘bout this… this is some worthy lustful material!”

“Gauddamn! I wouldn’t fuck her with a borrowed Dick! She’s hairy as a bear trap… I like my girls shaved so I can see the little bald man in the boat!” 

“Come on man… it’s masturbation… the cheapest date in town, and she’s hanging open like a pea-coat sleeve!”

“Man, I’d rather jump barefoot off a six foot ladder into a five gallon bucket of porcupines than beat off to that shit!”

“Now this one… this one is worthy of the five knuckle shuffle! That gal wants a loving spoonful of my man gravy in her panty oyster!”

“Yeah man… he’s really great at sex… now all he needs is a partner!”

“Hahahahaha!”

“Hey… I’ve got what it takes… but nobody wants it!”

… and off the feller would go to the filthiest shitter in the joint with a roll of toilet paper gett’n busier than a set of jumper cables in a Redneck picnic!!!

“He’s the only guy I know who had to have penicillin for rubb’n one off!”

Then someone came along and did the Kabuki Dick Dance on our heads and completely FUBAR’d the whole gauddamned game! Tail Hook got publicized and the Navy became ‘Clintonized’ with women showing up and all the sudden the cuss’n… belching… & fart’n all came to a halt!! No more manly talk about titties and breastess’s… no more comparing intelligence levels on carnal knowledge or anything to do with the opposite sex… and last but not least, no more nekkit girlie magazines or skin books!! They all got replaced with Homes & Gardens and shades of Cosmopolitan & Redbook!! Things written by scholarly individuals who’d never set foot on a sea going vessel and knew nothing about manhood!!!

Yes my friends… the sanctuary of the ol’ boys club had been soiled and forever pushed aside for a more kindler, gentler Navy!  The best laid plans of mice and men had changed forever and either someone forgot to ask the important question or if it was asked…

“We have no position on the issue… whatever your position… is now our position… could you tell us what your position is?!?

Yeah… it’s call bend over and brace for shock… we’re gonna cut off your sexual appendage and feed it to ya!! Because it’s only gonna get worse!! No I ain’t all opposed with women on ships… as a matter of fact, when I was on the Rainier I thought it was working out rather well… but boy did shit start to hit the fan!! Soon the ol’ Canoe club started to tap dance and shy away from sexual harassment and other issues and the witch hunts, torch carry’n lynch mobs with ball crush’n hammers & axes came down from the countryside ready to strip us of anything we considered manly!! The policies were made and new liberal edicts were enforced like an invasion from the Mongol Hordes!!!

Now the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ has been repealed and I wonder if men are gonna be allowed to have long hair while wear’n skirts & make-up… is that too much to ask?!? I mean fair is fair in love and war!!!

So ladies and gentlemen… you’d better get rid of your fitness magazines and Victoria Secret Advertisements… hell you’d better cut out the bra & panty issue of your Sears & Robuck catalogs cause they’re coming after you!! No more sexy pin up calenders… no more ‘Babes In Brazzeers’ and definitely no more Cosmopolitan and Maxim mens magazines!!! I suppose nowadays I’d get Court Martialed for peaking at Aborigine Boobies in a National Geographic Magazine with butt nekkit women on the Amazon River… It’s all just a mystery to me!!!

It’s hard not to sweat the petty things when you don’t get to pet your sweaty thing…

♪ ♪ OOOh I love to go swimming with bow legged wimmin… and dive between their legs… ♪ ♪

The Job Interview

A recently retired Old Navy Chief went in for a new job interview…

Personnel Manager: "What is your greatest weakness ?"

Old Navy Chief: "Honesty.

Personnel Manager: “I don’t think honesty is a weakness.”

Old Navy Chief: “I don’t really give a shit what you think.”

 

Thanks to Owyn Bradford HP... an Honorable Royal Shellback