Hot Diggity's Carolina Story telling thread.

I need a place to save these stories. Many will be my own, some will be stories that I've heard told by friends around the camp fire. Some here have heard them before, some haven't. My plan is to collect them all in one place to give the kids something entertaining to read.

 

As an introduction, this message refers to my old country doctor friend Pat. He died of ALS many years ago. He had treated the drug addicted population of the county and confided in me that when he retired he looked forward to taking a pill to get him moving in the morning, and another to put him to bed at night. He never quite got there, but he took a year off, probably after his initial diagnosis, cut some trees, and used the lumber from them to build an awesome one room cabin overlooking the river.

I miss him dearly. We spent many long nights discussing politics, cars, guns, and life in each other's kitchens.

I recently bought a bottle of Knob Creek Whiskey in his memory. I will drain and refill my beat up old flask from this new bottle and enjoy its current contents.

From a message to the family:

I've discovered why Pat liked Knob Creek Straight Bourbon Whiskey and how to enjoy it.

Unlike my favorite single malt Scotch, the Knob Creek is too harsh for me to enjoy neat. It's bitey and unpleasant until tamed by three ice cubes and good conversation. No rushing it. The cubes have to have time to melt and mellow the drink.

An absolutely perfect reflection of the spirit of Doctor Hawley.

I can picture Pat standing in our kitchen as I sat on the counter, or seated across from me at his kitchen table. A glass of Knob Creek in his hands. Warming and mellowing perfectly as we discussed the issues of the day.

 

Remember the night Pat left in a hurry?

That was the night he showed me how to fix really severe tennis elbow. And also why he was known in the medical community as "The Iceman."

He told me he could fix my elbow pain, and he absolutely did.

He asked for three ice cubes and a towel and sat me down at the dining room table.

We talked as he massaged my elbow with the ice cubes until all three were reduced to water in the towel. The massage got harder and deeper as my elbow got chilled, but I hadn't noticed.

When he was done, he dried his hands and said goodnight.

I thought this was odd, since we usually sat up until after midnight in each other's kitchens talking and drinking.

I asked why he was leaving so fast.

He said "Because when the ice wears off you're going to want to kick my ass."

I never had that much pain after the chill was gone. I never had any tennis elbow pain again. Ever.

That's why they called him "The Ice Man."

 

This is a story about #1 Son, who's well past 30 now, and my old country doctor friend Pat, who I buried almost ten years ago. Pat was a great story teller, and had some fantastic tales from growing up as an Army brat in the Philippines, serving as an Air Force medic in Vietnam, and decades of treating local folks with drug abuse problems. His patients may be the reason he was just Pat, who anyone would think was an old Swansboro fisherman when at home, and Doctor Hawley at work. The transformation was amazing, and he had patients bum a smoke from him at the hardware store and never recognize him.

Pat and I would hang out in each others kitchens, drink each others liquor and talk until early in the morning. In summer we would sit on the porch and talk. It was after one of these late night chats that #1 Son (maybe 6 or 7 at the time) asked me "Dad, why do we always have rednecks and slugs hanging out on the porch at night?"

I was shocked, and troubled that the little fella would be calling my friends such names. I also wondered where he had learned those names, and by extension, who else was calling my visitors rednecks and slugs. I did my best to grill him, without making him feel that I was in any way angry with him. He quickly got frustrated with me and my line of questioning and told me "That's what all the kids at school call them!"

All the kids at school? This was worse than I thought. I'm sure Dewey, Wanda and Pat would all wear the redneck badge with pride... but slugs? He grew more and more frustrated with me as I explained that it wasn't nice to call them that. He finally blurted out, "Well, what should I call them? They have red necks and puff them out like this!" He used his little hands to demonstrate how the little green lizards with the red necks would puff their necks out when they peeped.

The poor boy must've thought I'd lost it! All I could do was hug him and laugh and laugh, and laugh! I still have rednecks and slugs on the porch. They're welcome visitors, and make me smile.

(All the ones I see at The Forest are named Coleman.)

 

My old shop foreman Kent had perfect comedic timing. He would have you hanging on every word of a story. He always tied the story to something that we had all just seen. After that it was ON!

There is a gentleman in town that has both hands cut off straight across just below the thumb. He wears dog collars on his wrists and has a car key with an L-shaped handle on it. I've seen him pull his wallet out at Food Lion and pay cash for groceries. He has mastered his disability.

Kent told a story about this gentleman looking for a job a couple decades ago.

The guy he'd asked about a job was an ass, and figured he'd show his boys how useless this handless man was.

They chatted for a bit about the job, and then the boss man said "Well, here's the deal boy, if you can pick up this twenty dollar bill you can keep it, and you can have the job."

He set a crisp twenty dollar bill on the table, sure that he would put the man with no hands on the spot.

The man with no hands looked at the bill on the table, licked the stump of his right hand and stuck it onto the bill.

There was silence in the room.

He picked up the bill and stuffed it into the pocket of his overalls.

The boss man, laughing, said "Well boy, it looks like you got the job."

The man with no hands said "Thanks, but I don't want your job." and walked out.

 

Immediately after that story Kent would tell us about the old Base Forestry man he knew who had two wooden legs.

He was doing controlled burns in the large pine forrests on a windy day and getting distracted, got surrounded by his own fire.

We all waited and waited to hear what happened to the poor man.

Finally Kent told us...

"Burned his ass to the ground."

 

Maybe the fella that worked at Pace' seat cover center is more believable.

Poor guy fell into the industrial sewing machine....



He's fully recovered now.

 

Thanks Diggity made my morning, Love short life stories like those.

 

USMC Mess Duty

Everybody below the rank of Corporal pulled 30 days of mess duty, or 30 days of guard duty every year when I was a young Marine. That was how we got these essential tasks done in the days before contract civilian workers.
I served a grand total of 7 days mess duty after Boot Camp (and lots more guard duty) before I made Corporal. I was particularly fortunate to be on mess duty with a crew of guys who I got along with very well. We spent our long hours on mess duty in the pot shack and scullery, doing the dishes as Marines brought them to us. There was a little window, about chest height and probably 30" wide by 16" high. I had to bend down to look out the window and see how many Marines were left on the mess deck during meals. I had three stainless steel pans along one side of the window for silverware and an open space to place the empty trays on. I kept up a chant heard in every mess hall I'd ever been in. "Knives, Forks, spoons...knives, forks, spoons...don't push the trays Marines...Knives forks spoons."

It was pretty easy work, and I rather enjoyed it. It was at this window I learned what the Marine Corps means by "an explosive personality," and why it is a disqualifier for Drill Instructor duty. It's the way I was raised. Mom and Dad didn't wait til after
supper to sit you down and discuss why it was rude to reach out and take the last piece of meat when Dad was also reaching for it. Oh, No. Do that at our table and you'd get a fork stuck in your hand. (#1 Son has three fork tine marks on his arm from when he tried to snatch some food right off my plate!) Instant correction of misdeeds. A swat, or a wooden spoon across the knuckles the instant you got into something you shouldn't. Same way I deal with cats every day, they swat at me, I instantly swat them back. Neither of us make contact, but they understand and respect the reaction.

Well, there I was in the scullery window, taking in trays, scraping off left-over food, and setting trays in racks for the giant dish washer. "Knives, forks, spoons...don't push the trays Marines." I had a pretty good rythm, and the other five or so guys all had their part to do in the production line that was our scullery. "Don't push the trays Marines"...THUD! I get hit with a butter knife, striking sideways, HARD, square in the chest. I had seen the Marines hand move, I never saw his face, and he couldn't have seen mine. Before he could move away from the window I reached out and grabbed his uniform shirt with both hands and smashed his face into the concrete wall above the window. It made a nice hollow "thunk" that must've been loud enough to alert my fellow messmen to what I'd done. They didn't miss a beat, and without a word spoken, passed me along the line all the way back into the pot shack. I still remember scraping mashed potato residue out of the seam of a large pot and spraying it off with boiling hot water from the overhead sprayer. I could hear bits and pieces of what went on at the window. "No Sir, Must've slipped..." "...got to be more careful on that wet tile." "No Sir, I didn't see anything." "Nah, I been here all day."

Next couple days we had a typhoon, and the mess deck was flooded with about two inches of rain water that had come under the wall. I remember not having many Marines come for meals, but I had to be there. We got really good at walking up walls in the steady winds with a table cloth as a wind chute. I nearly got my head taken off by a 4x8 sheet of plywood that blew in from somewhere. I had time to think. Probably about a month earlier I had been on a meritorious promotion board, but I knew promotions went on the first or second of the month, and I'd been on mess duty a week. I figured I was really in trouble when the First Sergeant came by the mess hall and told me to get out of my mess whites and into utilities after breakfast and report to his office. Oh, crap. What had I done now. Did I really smash up that guys face? He still deserved it for throwing a knife at me

It was a beautiful sunny day after the storm had passed, and I enjoyed my lone walk to the Company Office. (Rather than marching in Platoon fornation, which we did 4 times a day.) I guess if you have to go to the brig, it's nice to go on a sunny day. I was greeted by my Platoon Sergeant, and every NCO in the Company was milling around outside. Rather than being charged with assault, I was promoted (meritoriously) to Corporal, and when I exited the Company Office there was a "gauntlet" of NCO's ready to congratulate me and "pin on my blood stripes." (the red stripes sewn on the legs of NCO Dress Blue trousers) This pinning on has since been outlawed by Marine Corps regulation, and with good reason. As I walked the gauntlet pairs of NCO's would stop me, carefully line me up, and in unison punch me in each upper arm (pinning on stripes), and then shake my hand before passing me to the next two. Only two guys (Sergeant's Mike Hartman and Jay Rehr) really made an effort to pin on my blood stripes. Mike hit me in the thigh with his knee so hard I thought I'd never walk again!

I never pulled another day of mess duty. Messmen in the scullery still chant "knives, forks, spoons...don't push the trays Marines," and I'll never be able to pick up silverware in any other order. Knives, forks, spoons. I wonder if they ever figured out who it was that tried to pull that Marines head through the scullery wall? Nope, I didn't see a thing, I was washing pots way back in the pot shack.

My "Explosive personality" was the reason I was "screened, found eligible, and selected" (another story for another time) for duty in the Marine Corps Professional Career Planning Force, instead of going to Drill Instructor Duty.

 

The Family Mortar Crew.

My childhood was... interesting. Dad was a fan of black powder cannons, so my interest in muzzle loaders was encouraged. We all enjoyed blowing stuff up, so my brother took an interest in model rockets. He blew up lots of them before he eventually got into enormous multi-stage stuff that had to be cleared for launch by the FAA and tracked by radio across several Southeastern Michigan counties.

Somewhere along the way we developed a bursting charge that we could drop in the quarry pond or launch from a muzzle loading shotgun.

For safety the black powder launching charge and bursting charge COMBINED must never exceed standard max load for the launcher. In this case a 28ga Muzzle loading shotgun. We found that large capacity small neck rifle cartridges worked well. .270 Winchester was perfect. After the small measured charge was added to the cartridge case a piece of cannon fuse was placed down inside the case and toilet paper was stuffed in alongside the fuse until the case was packed tight. If the fuses outside coating is cracked it will not stay lit under water. My solution was to find soda straws that fit over the case neck to protect the fuse inside the straw. Once lit, the fuse provides enough gas exiting the straw to prevent water entry even at pretty deep depths. Three safety tips: Never seal the tops of the cases with wax from a lit candle. (My brother learned this the hard way) If placing them in snow drifts with the intent of driving off after lighting the fuse, be sure you are not stopped on a patch of ice. And finally, if you toss one into a frozen pond...from a canoe... make sure there isn't ice below that 1/2" of water you can see.

Launching procedure we used took three of us. I would load a quarter of the normal powder charge followed by a 28ga shotcup in my shotgun, cap the nipple, and with the butt on the ground, cock the hammer and hold it back. My brother would hold the case at the muzzle with just the fuse sticking out, and Dad would light the fuse with his Camel cigarette. Once he saw it was lit he'd command "Load". My brother would release the case, which would then slide down the bore, and make a solid sounding thud inside the shotcup. When I heard this (we were all crouched like a proper mortar crew at this point) I would release my grip on the hammer and pull the trigger, launching the case down range. A few feet from the muzzle you could see the projectile swap ends and fly off with smoke trailing from the burning fuse. This made it easy to follow in flight. At the end of this flight you'd get a nice bang and puff of smoke as the remaining charge of black powder in the case, confined by the packed toilet paper in the neck, exploded. We sent a bunch of these down range using the largest Poplar tree in the valley as our aiming point. We never found even a single piece of brass from the cases even in the winter.

With all the BB guns, .22's, reloaded ammo, gasoline, sharp knives, tree houses, tractors and farm implements, livestock, climbing ropes, swimming holes, sand pits, skis, sleds, snowball fights, and sugary treats it's a wonder we survived childhood at all without the Government to protect us from ourselves.

 

The Magazine.

One year when I was home on leave I was asked if I'd meet the ATF agent who was coming to inspect the powder magazine.
I was told that they didn't need to open it. It was just a visual inspection. I was enjoying my leave and had a good book to read, so I'd be around the farm when they arrived.

The magazine was a large armored steel box with enormous puck locks recessed into iron pipe. It took two men with lengths of 2x4 to lift the lid off. It was bolted to a poured concrete base and had a neat circle of grass mowed around it in the otherwise overgrown back valley. The magazine was required due to the quantity of black powder and large model rocket engines that were stored in it.

The agent arrived on time, and I directed him to the trail that would lead into the valley and out to the magazine. I stayed up on the valley rim and watched. It was a very quick inspection. There was a nest of wasps inside one of the iron pipes that guarded the locks. He decided rather abruptly that he'd seen enough when they came swarming after him. It was a hilarious sight from my safe location above the scene. He didn't get stung, and the annual inspection was complete.

Dad told me that the next year the agent did the inspection with binoculars from the valley rim.

 

Just sitting here remembering stories brought a troubling story with a memorable line that an old Fish & Wildlife officer told me.

He and a new officer were on a small boat in an area of Cape Fear River near Wilmington, North Carolina. In some brush along the river something caught his eye. It was a hand, and it was waving at them. As they drew closer they could see the hand was waving with the movement of the waves. The body attached to the hand was quite dead and wearing only one blue sock and was rolled up in about forty feet of hurricane fence. He'd probably been thrown off a bridge somewhere in the area.

The new officer was really disturbed by the dead body and tried to stay as far away as was possible on a small boat. The older officer had found bodies in the water before and offered this advice. "They won't hurt you."

 

I met a commercial fisherman named Rabbit yesterday. His real name is Roger,but since folks call him Roger Rabbit, he just goes by Rabbit. He can tell you where the fish are at any time of day. Like David the clammer, he has no car, no driveway (no need for one, with no car) and does most of his traveling by water. These guys live a hard life, but all seem happy, if not maybe a little too happy sometimes.

Odd nicknames like Rabbit seem to be a local thing. I used to work with a guy named Johnny, who we all called "Skunk boy" because of the white stripe in his hair. Turns out Johnny has a cousin named Craig, which some kids thought sounded like "egg", so he started getting called Egg in school. Then some smarty-pants decided an egg was "hen fruit" so they started calling him that. Now there's a 50 year old man walking around who goes by the name of Fruit! I also work with David who we call "Butter." There's "Cooter" Brown, Curtis who says "Damnit Man" so much it became his nickname. What a crazy place. I almost got stuck with the title "The Bear Creek Bully" but that's kinda went away since my pal Tony moved down to the Honda garage. I never did quite understand why he thought I was a bully, but he was a little guy, so maybe he felt like I was bullying him.

I've accumulated plenty of aliases and nicknames over the years. The Marines in Second Tank Battallion called me "Duke" because they said I lived like royalty in the field. When I was around the racecars I was either Skipper, Captain or "Cap'n" in reference to the name and color of the land-speed car, or "Diggity" in reference to the name of the autocross car. That car got the name from an exclamation that Kent used frequently at work. I searched the rosters of the Southern California Timing Association, and all over the web for any reference to a car named Hot Diggity, and found none. So the new car was named Hot Diggity.

 

This material is scattered all over my several computers and e-mail programs. I thought it would be a good time to try to get it organized. The kids are enjoying reading it.

Earliest Childhood Memories.

I grew up in a little village called Milford, Michigan. My family moved there, onto a five acre farm, surrounded by cow pastures (We had "cow patties" in the yard when we moved in in 1970 from the cows that Ray Shotwell grazed across our land, which had been his until our recent purchase.) We'd moved from Detriot along with nearly everyone we knew during 1970-1971. Although I remember clearly "my gang" and how we rode our bikes all over the west side of Detroit in a day before "child killers" and other such perverts, I have few fond memories of Detroit. I do remember that darn crossing guard who had told me to hurry up and cross the street. I was in third grade, and remember how I'd fallen on the ice and broken my left wrist. I remember the 1967 "race riots", the '68 elections, and elementary school, where I saw the first black girl I'd ever seen who was my age. (probably seven years old) I remember we used to bike from Outer Drive to the Rouge River way out by 9 Mile Rd, a huge area for kids under 10 years old. I remember Dad always modifying Kipling's original line when referring to the Rouge River so it was it was just green, which it always was. "The Great Green Greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever trees." That just made us want to go there more. We met up with some other tough kids one time. Boys who were maybe eleven or twelve years old who didn't care for having us on their "turf". This was a building foundation along the river where we'd been walking along and throwing stomes into the water. I swear, it was like a scene from the "Little Rascals", so funny now that it's almost comical to remember. I did all the talking and finally talked our way out of trouble. I do remember the bigger boy saying, "Hey kid, stop sticking your tongue out at me." because I had chapped lips and needed to keep them moist. I was kind of scared that he might hit me for little while, but my gang had my back. (My best friends John and Erv, and their cousin and my backdoor neighbor, Lillian) My little brother was too young to ride with us then, and all I can remember of him are embarassing little kid times, and one time when he'd seen kids writing on windows with soap bars, so he scribbled with crayon on a neighbors basement window screens and had to clean it off. (I loved that, because I hadn't been involved!)

I didn't start to really live the life of a feral child til I was set free in the Southern Michigan meadow that was my new home!

 

Five Acre Farm

A two strand barbed wire fence kept the cows out now, and Ray had been trying to keep them on higher ground anyway, since the area (half a mile) between our place and his had quite a lot of low sticky areas that looked solid, but were really just a root mat of grass on top of a peat bog that was known to swallow whole cows. Our land was right up to the edge of this bog, but was remarkably solid in comparison, being mostly hard clay and rock with one odd dome of sand in the valley that was apparently deposited by the last passing glacier. This would later be a wonderful sandbox, and place to dig forts. Later it would be the backstop for my rifle range.

My folks had wisely placed the new house in the middle of the five acres, which put us about 150 yards from the road, and right in the middle of a large curved hill that bordered a beautiful valley on two sides behind the house, and extended across the property nearly from side to side. A stream flowed under the road directly in front of our front door, and ran to the left (looking from the house) along the road for a stretch of 50 yards or so before following the property line roughly halfway back into the peat bog. There it widened and turned left again, and ran out over the bog to restrict again on the other side, nearer Rays' barns. If I walked back across our valley, and up the hills in Rays' pastures for about 3/4 of a mile I'd hit a woodline that had a well worn cow path leading to Meadow Lake. I think that was the name, we just called it "the lake". There was a gravel pit in one corner of the long, narrow lake area, and it's steep clay and sand cliffs provided hours of fun, climbing, jumping and shoving stuff over the edge. There were absolutely no houses on this end of the lake, and in my youth a guy could shoot a .22 in any direction within the areas I hunted without risk of hitting anything but hills or woods. Summer vacations usually found me and later both my brother and I sent to live and work on the Starr's farm. They had seven children and we fell into the middle and youngest groups. This gave Mom and Dad a break, and wore us out doing farm chores. The girls did most of the milking, but I learned how and got good enough to squirt milk into the cats mouth. Real fresh milk is a treat, and the cream on top was divided up among the kids.

It was a sportsmans paradise, and a fabulous place for a boy to grow up. In the summer we were outside from dawn to dusk, except to come in and eat, and in the winter we tried, but had to take occasional breaks in our play schedule to change into dry clothes, or simply to thaw out. We all had our favorite furnace duct near the floor, and would prop a blanket over our feet and catch all the heat under the blanket with us in an effort to thaw our frozen bodies. The sledding and toboganning were terrific in the whole area, but especially right in our front yard. In later years I would learn to cross-country ski, and mastered the fine art of wax selection based on snow conditions. I tried my hand at downhill skiing, but was never able to master that stopping bit, so it got a little scary at times. Lots of really dramatic arm flailing, totally out of control, often ending up knocking other skiiers down or blasting into pine trees like some cartoon character. I still own a set of cross-country ski's, but even though I grew up at the base of Alpine Valley Ski Resort, and had many sets of skis and boots (that were all slightly flawed and had been discarded by the resort staff) as a kid, I own not one piece of downhill ski equipment now. Skiing UP and down hills always made a lot more sense to me, and the slower pace of cross-country skiing made the scenery in the woods more enjoyable.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First came the sledding and the tobogan. We had other sliding things too, but the sleds and tobogan were the only ones that really gave you any steering, so they were more fun. As we got older we even started to sled on the steep hills of dirt roads that were completely iced over and perfect for sledding. It was not hard to get a 1/4 mile ride on your sled from even a modest hill. I remember one time even ice skating "around the block" which was about a 5 mile round trip, on roads that were slick black ice. Skating down hill was even more dangerous than skiing, but at least on hockey skates I could steer, and more importantly, stop! Eventually we graduated to what would now be called "extreme sledding" and drove to the Pontiac Lake State Parks' snowmobile area to find some monster hills. I was probably 16, and was driving a gray '68 Pontiac Lemans with a white interior.

Marty, my best friend at the time, my brother Gordon, and Mike, Marty's step brother were all out with our sleds. We found a gulley that ran down a huge hill, that had been completely packed down by the snowmobiles. From the top it looked like a smoothe ride all the way across the valley and up the next hill, but there were mounds of snow at the bottom that we quickly found too high to allow us to ride over them at high speed without going airborne and crashing. My brother Gordon decided he'd go down the hill head first, and try to hang on. (We'd all been sitting on our sleds and going down feet first, so when we went airborne we could kinda run in mid-air and land on our feet if we were lucky.) He figured he'd hang on and make the jumps. He even got a running start, so he was really flying when he hit the first big bump. He looked like he had it, until he landed hard on the front side of the second big bump. This solid landing caused his head to whip down, bringing his face in contact with the steel front edge of his sled. Wham! It slid right up his face, nearly slicing his entire nose from his face. He crashed violently and lay in the snow. For a minute we all thought he might be dead. We hit the hill on out sleds (seated) and made it to his side in seconds. We could immediately see what had happened, and packed snow onto his face to both ease the pain and stop the bleeding. Into my Pontiac, with white interior went this bloody mess, with lots of wet snow piled into the back seat for the trip home. A few minutes at 80MPH along snow covered gravel roads 1 1/2 cars wide and we delivered him to Mom, who loaded him in her car for another 30 minute ride to the hospital. I didn't go along, but I can imagine it was no fun. For the rest of his life he looked like some sort of Frankenstein experiment if you looked closely at where his nose was sewn back on. I think that was the day we hung up our sleds in the barn... where they remained when Mom sold the farm.

 

--Old Grunts at The Basic School

Funny thing about three of the guys who bragged the most about having lots of infantry
experience at TBS. They were the only three to fail night land navigation. It
was cold and miserable when we all ran through that course, and I took no chances,
opting to ford a beaver pond, and several streams to stay on my compass headings.
I tried throwing things across the beaver pond, but when I couldn't hear them
hit anything but water in any direction I knew it was a choice between getting lost,
or taking a midnight plunge, during March, in Virginia! By the time they went
back out to retest it was pouring down rain and was barely above freezing. All
three just squeeked by with passing scores, and were humbled by the experience.

I really am going to start trying to get what's in my memory down on paper.
Every little thing brings back memories. Mentioning range fires reminds me of a
Second Lieutenant who's t-shirt caught on fire as he was trying to stomp out a night range
fire during super squad competition at Quantico. Thinking about land navigation
always reminds me of the bewildered Gunner who I caught up with on our final TBS
land navigation exercise. This one covered a 10 square mile area, and my objectives took
me diagonally across the whole thing. This poor Gunner was thrashing around, looking
for his next objective, and he was very close to it... I could see. Trouble was,
he couldn't. He was so color blind that he had to practically fall over the
red painted ammo cans welded on fence posts to find them. We were honor bound to
say nothing to each other about our position or the position of nearby objectives,
and I moved through the area quickly to save him any embarassment. Spring had sprung,
the woods were green with new life, and it was making his miserable.

 

--Advice to a future recruit

-With the right mindset Boot Camp is easy, even enjoyable. EVERYTHING is done to
teach you the basic skills (Immediate reaction to orders, and in the absence of
orders) necessary to stay alive in combat.

-The biggest baddest gang banger from Brooklyn and the bookish too-skinny kid with
glasses from Boise will all have their strengths and weaknesses. No one will have
any hair, you'll eat, sleep and dress the same, and you will not get through
Boot Camp without each other. (Look folks, he's making his own bed, doing his own
laundry by hand, cleaning the head and the barracks, he's clean-shaven every single
day, gets a haircut every week, says "yes maam" and "yes sir", he
isn't slouching, and his trousers are pulled up where they're supposed to
be. In three days the Marine Corps can get recruits to do things they never did at home.)

On the training schedule I'm certain there is a specific time scheduled for
Drill Instructors to do everything. Some DI reactions the recruits will bring upon themselves,
others are carefully planned to keep the recruits off guard and build mental toughness.
Unknown distance runs, incentive Physical Training. They've got to still have sand "pits"
for this, and although there are now strict time limits on how long the DI's can
thrash recruits they can still be as sadistic as ever. This is not a bad thing. I felt
it was necessary to build esprit de corps and toughen minds and bodies.
I have the highest respect for all DI's and although I loved training Marines

I would never want their job.

-When volunteers are called for, do. (There are no adventures to be had hiding in
the barracks.)
-Sit in the FRONT of the class (always)
-When receiving orders take notes and ask questions if the option is offered
-If you do not understand something ASK Questions. (Waiting until after you've
pulled the pin on the fragmentation grenade will make you very unpopular.)
-Keep your weapon clean, appropriately lubricated, and know your zero. (put a note
in the butt stock)
-Do what the drill instructor tells you, even if your instincts tell you otherwise.
(They are not trying to kill you... really.)
-Do exactly as you're told...NOW! (immediate reaction to orders will become
natural only with drill, get used to it, as it could well save your life.)
-Can't swim? Get in a pool now and get some practice. Jumping in the water
for the very first time with full combat gear and rifle does not make it any easier.
It's truly "sink or swim" then. (I have some B&W shots of absolutely
terrified "swimmers". I'm personally about as boyant as a brick,
but I mastered combat swimming. My style ain't pretty, but it'll get me there,
ready for battle.
-Be alert to everything around you. Getting your ass chewed by an officer or Staff NCO
because you were daydreaming is just as careless as letting the enemy sneak up on
you. (one causes embarassment, the other death)
-You get cookies from Mom? There had better be enough for everyone (80-90) and
you better be prepared to eat them all right now, while standing at attention on
the quarter deck. (Don't send him cookies! Worse than that was a guy who
got a letter which clearly contained a condom, and written on the outside was the
message "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" Try explaining that to the DI's.)
-Read "A Message To Garcia" by Elbert Hubbard. Then tackle Sun Tzu, Rommel,
Hart, Keegan, Lejeune, etc.
-Practice, practice, practice (e.g. weapons disassembly and assembly)
-Study, study, study (This "habit" will be force fed with a fire hose
during boot camp, but should continue throughout a military career. In any formal
school setting the guy who can score highest on the first two tests has the best
shot at graduating with honors.)
-When not in a combat zone, travel. A year spent on Okinawa for example and seeing
no more than the barracks, work, chow hall, and PX is a wasted opportunity. I spent
five years exploring Japan and Korea and never got bored with new sights and places.
-DO NOT buy your own (made in Vietnam, or anywhere else) tactical gear, contrary
to the BS you hear on the news, you will be issued everything you need, for wherever
you're going.

This one is special, since it's from my Dad.

--"Remember, anything you buy you'll have to eat, drink, or carry with
you all over the world"

Best of luck to your future Marine. The sand fleas (South Carolina State bird?) at Parris
Island oughto be at full strength by the time he graduates. I suspect the Marine
Corps created sand fleas. Nothing will test your discipline like having a sand
flea gnawing on your ear while you're standing at attention.

Take pictures of this young man before he goes to boot camp, and after. He will
come home a man.

Tell him and his parents I said "Thank You".

 

Mail Call

To hear it told, it sounds like a story about the early 1900's, or earlier, but it wasn't that long ago. The primary source of communication with folks back home while I was overseas was by mail. There wasn't any internet at that time, and the postage was cheap. The trouble was that it took a letter a little more than a week to get there. Then there was the wait while somebody wrote back, then another week to get a reply. The Pony Express may have had a faster turn-around time. It seems a wonder that more folks didn't crack up just waiting for an answer to a simple question. It was even more confusing when letters arrived without a date and were read in the wrong order.

If it was a real emergency we could send a message through the Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS) station at the USO, but it had to be only so many characters long, and there was no guarantee that it would get through. As a last resort you could ride a local bus north for an hour or so to get to a telephone. This was very expensive. You had to wait for a booth, and then have an operator connect you. You had to pre-pay, and the operator would cut in every minute or so and remind you that your time was slipping away. I usually made one call a year at Christmas time, and years later on Number One Son's birthday.

That was what it was like to be overseas in the early 1980's. Probably hadn't changed much since mail was delivered aboard ships. I still look forward to going to the mail box every day, and probably always will. It has a special significance to me. The worst part of e-mail is that I can check it over and over, so instead of opening an empty mailbox once per day, I now can get depressed about having no mail whenever I have an opportunity.

 

The Ten Percent

One of the first things a Marine recruit learns in Boot Camp is that you don't want to be one of "The Ten Percent." I first heard of this group early, somewhere between standing on the yellow footprints and my first Marine Corps haircut. The group in this initial minority were misfits, "fat-bodies and non-hackers." Some guys couldn't walk and swing their arms at the same time. I managed to avoid this group through most of my youth, but as I grew into more leadership responsibility, I began to see more than just that Ten Percent. (10%)

I had to deal with other interesting groups, thankfully never exceeding the magic 10%. Natural leaders who could destroy morale and lead others down ruinous paths, harmful pranksters, thugs, and masters of the con. Some of our actual "leaders" who were so clueless and had been promoted so far beyond their level of competence that they were poster-boys for the Peter Principle. Followers - absolutely lost souls - without someone to take charge of them they'd wander around aimlessly day and night... day after day.

There was some hope. There was always the 10% that went unnoticed, the guys who were holding it all together, picking up the slack for the guy who got a Dear John letter, the three guys who had a hangover, and the barely literate "leader" of the group. There were others groups filling out the unit, from barely passable to almost perfect. The real fun was to try to relate to each group and get them to work as a cohesive team to accomplish the mission. Leading Marines was the most challenging and rewarding thing I've ever done.

Throughout nearly as long in the civilian automotive maintenance field as I spent in the Marine Corps I've continued to observe the 10% phenomena. It's relevant to any group of people, and can be quite useful to the leader who's in tune with the dynamics of the groups.

They break down something like this:

10% are just lost. They've been thrown into the pool on the deep end and if somebody doesn't throw them a rope they'll sink. They're in too far over their head to ask for help, so don't expect them to.

10% are distracted by relationships, debt, hobbies, or something else. They can be a danger to themselves and others.

10% are sick, hurt, worn out, tired, or just old. We all have good and bad days, and time in this category can be reduced by eating right, getting a flu shot, exercising and getting enough sleep.

10% are just going through the motions. They'll get the job done, but just in time, with no polish, and certainly no "Wow."

10% are actively "skating." Hiding and sliding, malingering. They'll say things like "I'll still get paid." or "Can't see it from my house." Maybe they get to work a little late, take an extra long lunch, vanish unexpectedly at random times, and then leave early. Don't expect them to ever be asked their reason for clocking out late. These are your anchors, dragging everyone down.

10% are capable. They do the right thing, follow instructions, learn quickly and know how to find answers and make decisions on their own. They work hard, and are proud of what they do.

10% are incompetent. This is a different group from the lost. This group knows how to do it, they just find a way to screw it up, over, and over, and over.

10% are cocky know-it-all types. They do things their way because...well, just because. They know how to do it, even if they break things doing it the wrong way. (using a torch when changing u-joints on an aluminum drive shaft comes to mind) They won't listen to anyone who tries to correct them and are regulars in the smoke pit, talking trash about others. They can be leaders of small groups, but too often are the misguided type that you see on the evening news... with a mugshot.

10% are teachers. They've been around, know not only how things are done, but why they're done that way. They freely offer good advice when asked, and volunteer it when they see a need. If pestered by an individual about the same kind of thing over and over and they'll shift toward working on their own job and offer no further lessons to them.

10% are workers. This is a subset of the capable. Their skill sets may be fewer than the capable, but they will pull their weight in the areas they've mastered, and look for the teachers to help them with areas they are unsure of.

People will move in and out of these categories with some fluidity and may never be included in some of them. The goal of leadership is to create a balance where "The Ten Percent" that's harming the mission is identified and moved briskly into a more favorable group. There is no perfect 100% in anything when dealing with people. We can only hope to get everybody working toward the same goal, even if we have to let them think it's all their idea.

 

I thought about cars I've known, how long I usually kept a car and how old the car was when I replaced it. Interesting memory exercise.

I learned to drive in a '61 Willy's. Dad set up all three gear shift levers in neutral and set the hand brake. He taught me how to shift them all and to use the hand brake on hills. First car I drove with a license was a '65 Mustang (on solid ice roads). I drove a '68 LeMans into hunting areas that 4x4 trucks wouldn't try to get into. Got my first kiss in a '74 LeMans that Grandma handed down to our family. In the early '80's, on the way back from mowing Grandma's grass I stood Mom's '79 VW Rabbit up on two wheels to avoid an idiot who had run a red light. My reflexes and situational awareness at that age were incredible, and the car performed admirably. I think the gasoline powered Rabbit was an underrated car. (The diesel Rabbit is the SLOWEST car I've ever driven) Dad and I didn't drive the Rabbit like Mom did, and it seemed to appreciate being able to get some real exercise and be driven like a sports car.

First vehicle that was mine was a hand-me-down ;63 Wagoneer. I drove it from '77 until '80 when I bought a '74 Wagoneer. It had engine trouble and was replaced in '81 with a '63 Chevy pickup that I bought for $500 cash. I drove that truck home from Virginia to Michigan before going overseas for a year. My brother took the truck completely apart, and when I got home the frame was standing against the barn wall. He never put it back together.

At this point I started to maintain multiple cars, which was difficult on a guy who was overseas for most of the next ten years.

I got a '71 Pontiac Grand Prix when I got home from Japan in '81 and kept it until after #1 Son was born in 1990. I had 31 cars* while stationed overseas, and shipped one back. A 1971 Datsun 510 (U.S.S.Wankel) that I'd built in college while overseas and swapped a Mazda rotary engine into. I still have that car, and drove it to work every day for 12 years. ('86-'98) It's a full roll cage, Lexan window land-speed record holder now, and sits under a car cover and hundreds of pounds of other stuff in the packed garage.

I paid $800 for a '70 Chevy C20 to move all of our household goods from Michigan to North Carolina. It was a great truck. It had a granny low four speed, a 3800 pound Borg & Beck pressure plate and 1 ton rear suspension and concrete in the cab corners. It looked like it was going down hill all the time, but it leveled out nicely with 2800 pounds or marl in the bed. No A/C, but it had a rear slider and wind wings, so it was okay in the summer. I tended to drive at 45 MPH on the highway in the truck. It was just comfortable at that speed, and if folks wanted to go faster they could pass me. I kept the 16.5" rims, but in an effort to make the truck roll easier I put some 37x14 Super Swampers on the back. It took thirty minutes to change the radius on the rear fenders to get them to fit, but they did.

Being two wheel drive, you could still get stuck in the sand, but you really had to work at it. I got stuck on the beach, up in the dry sand, and had the frame so well planted that I had to hit the brakes to stop the rear wheels from turning. I flagged down a Marine in one of those new 5 ton trucks with the super single tires and Allison automatic transmission. He hooked a chain around my trailer hitch and lifted me out of that hole so fast I almost forgot to steer the front tires around the enormous holes where the rear tires had been.

#1 Son "drove" the truck while standing on my lap on some sandy back woods trails. By the time I sold it rain could fall through the cab and hit only the steering wheel between the sky and the ground. If you went around a corner too fast the wiring harness ground strap was the only thing holding the cab to the frame. I'd kept the truck as a loaner, and always siphoned all the gas out of it. Anybody that borrowed it had to bring it back full. Since the cab top was white I used several tubes of silicone, some window caulk and a few cans of refrigerator white paint to patch up the ruated rain gutters. We had that truck for 15 years and sold it for $800.

Being a family man, the old two door Grand Prix didn't work well for a car seat, so in 1991 we got a '89 Pontiac Sunbird. A car so memorable that it took me a minute to recall the name. It became That Woman's car, and I drove the 510, a '70 Chevy C20, or a '86 Jeep Grand Wagoneer until the Sunbird died in about '96. She bought a '95 Pontiac Bonneville then. I got another '70 Datsun about the same time for $25 and it became my primary car since I was commuting to Virginia and had killed the Sunbird doing that. I still have that Datsun too. It had so many high mileage issues that I bought a whole parts car to keep it going. That Woman bought a 2000 Lincoln Town Car in '05 and I had the Bonneville as a daily driver for a couple years before its one year/one model transmission crapped out and I couldn't find a replacement. I drove my '84 RX7 for a couple weeks, but it's not a street car and gets 7 MPG (it also requires oil to be mixed with the gas every time you fill up.) I switched to the Jeep briefly, but at 10 MPG it was killing me when gas spiked in '08. I bought a '05 Chevy Malibu for $5000. It had about 60K on it, but was a good car. It got a new engine at 210K and has 325K on it today. Great car! That Woman bought an ugly 2010 Dodge Charger in about 2011 when #1 Son was having trouble with his junky Chevy Impala. He took over the spare Town Car until the crash. The good old Lincoln saved his life. He bought a 2014 Dodge Charger and may keep it forever since he drives a State owned vehicle now.

I still have my Malibu, two Datsun's, my '85 Mercedes (Der Betriebsarzt - The Company Doctor) and my RX7 (Hot Diggity) with two engines. The Jeep helped finance the removal of three dead 70' pine trees and we've added Mom's 2014 Malibu to the family. since she hasn't been able to drive since her third shoulder replacement left her with no ability to lift the arm from the shoulder. We tried, but when you make a HARD right turn any time you release your left hand from the steering wheel, it's time to call it quits. I haven't found a need to keep a truck since I can use one from work or borrow one from a neighbor.

With the car situation being what it is and with what we're driving now I can see these same cars in the driveway for quite a few years to come. If I do replace the Malibu I'm really liking Subaru or older Mercedes station wagons. I parked behind a Subaru today and noticed that it was maybe a foot narrower than the Chevy. Probably as narrow as the Jeep. This makes getting to my favorite hunting and fishing spots a lot less dramatic.

* Memorable cars I had overseas
'74 Mitsubishi FTO
'79 Nissan Cedric
'70 Toyota Corolla (Betsy)
Honda Civic 4 door (Junk man made me wash it before he would take it as scrap)
Toyota Corolla (held together with duct tape)
Toyota Corona ("Blue Betsy") I carried multiple spare tires and drove this car with the tires against the curb everywhere! EEEEEEeeeeee!!!
'74 Ford Mustang (Brown)
'76 Plymouth Volare' (Purple)
Daihatsu (three cylinder - because it had a completely blown out head gasket on the fourth one.)