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I warn you guys. Let's hear some stories. I was on that marvelous boat for a year & a half, & before that Mary & I were in Keflavik, Iceland for 13 months. I'll bore you to death.
Prof
Prof
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Oh lordy, I giggle myself stupid over that last...
Not to let the challenge stand unanswered (how do you follow pink vomit?)
I'll try.
As a mech, a knuckle dragger... I don't aim so high, but I do want the things I work on to fly high etc.
There is a complicated piece of machinerey(sic) on the birds I work on called the Free Air Temperature gauge.
An awesome piece of machinery that is basically a thermometer stuck outside the air-craft... A dial on one side, a measuring probe on the other.... Only one way to really install the thing...
A friend of mine had a bit of trouble with the lock-nut... anyhow long story short, at the end of the 'task' (the little bit of literature that tells a knucklehead how to do it properly) had the words 'inspect' on it.
"Inspect" means you bring the high-holy-of-holies down to look at your work, and it better be right...
Anyhow, I put the 'thermometer' in backwards, the FAT could be read outside, the temperature it read was how comfortable it was in the cockpit... Nevermind the reasons, the 'Inspector' had to be brought down to look at it... The whole hangar was apparently assembled to witness the event...
Ah, the 'craft was only red-exed for a moment or two, and we all had a good laugh...
Was it intentional, or legendary?Comment
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Pate:
Hey now. That's more like it. Goodonya. Thanks.
ProfComment
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Lest this puppy get too retro,...
In '71 I was at the USN Air Station Dispensary @ Keflavik, Iceland. Mary & I lived off base in the top floor apt of a house on the gravel main road (I understand that everything on the island has been upgraded since then). Great place to live. The place smelled wonderful except when the fish meal factory known locally as "Mama Kef" cranked up, & then it, uh, didn't. Beautiful if somewhat barren views from the windows. Daily shepherd driving his flock through the yard to get to the beach where sea-oat grazing was plentiful. Lots of wind. Surprisingly moderate temps except for inland, where it was arctic. Around the coast it was sort of chilly all the time, but never really cold due to the Ireland(?) current. Aurora borealis. Exotic.
But there was a food problem. The lamb was fabulous. Horsemeat OK but I never really got fond of it. The fish was celestial; possibly the best in the world. The milk was rich but a little fishy. But there were no green vegetables. Cultural thing? You got me. They were just hard to find in any form, even if you got serious & went all the way to Reykjavik.
Mary solved that problem by smuggling them in from the PX. Before we got our ancient VW beetle & then again after it died of general airborne pumice abrasion she'd call the cab company for our guy (known as the "YowYow Man - go to Iceland to figure that one out) to pick her up. She'd bring the laundry. Just to wash it. Mechanical drying it was uneccessary because of the constant wind. Absent rain, hang it on the line & it was dry in a flash, & smelled good, too, unless Mama Kef was belching.
Grocery shopping was always coupled to laundry for a reason. Mary, clever girl, would put the wet clothes in heavy gauge clear plastic bags for transport off base. In amongst the wet clothes would go the cans of green stuff. Infallible. No gate guard in his right mind would go groping through a bunch of wet clothes hunting for God knows what in the chilly wind when the bags were clear plastic & there was obviously nothing there but nast wet clothes anyway, right?
There was one gate guard who was a Commie & very anti-American. His name (phonetically; I don't have access to some of the letters) was "Sloanie." Unlike the other border guys he always made Americans get out of their conveyances to be inspected. Mary was always meek (O lord), respectful & polite.
One day she & the YowYow Man got stopped. She got out of the cab as instructed with a large, clear bag of wet laundry. As usual. As she got out it slung back against the cab & instead of saying "squish" it said "clunk."
The green beans were found. Busted! The French green bean connection.
The Icelandic legal system is (or was then) unusual. There were no jails or prisons at that time. We had a gentleman more or less voluntarily incarcerated in the upper floor of a house down the street from us. He was, I was told, Iceland's only prisoner, under house arrest for some violent crime committed near the beginning of WWII.
We were told that Mary's trial would come up during the "Althing" when the assembly was held. Her punishment, if convicted, would be to have "International Smuggler" "informally" stamped on her passport, so that we would have to get her a new one without that addition.
Fortunately, Mary skipped town when it was time for me to go, so she missed the disgrace of being convicted of vegetable smuggling.
Trouble followed "Sloanie", however.
Uplifted as he was by his success at detecting crime he manually searched the pregnant abdomen of the wife of one of our base Marines. The encounter made the papers. For once our diplomatic people grew some balls. When Sloanie got out of the hospital he got a slap on the wrist for exceeding his authority but the Marine got no slaps at all.
ProfComment
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Good shit, Tankie me lad. Thanks. I've read the entire thread, & I've looked at everything else you've posted, so I know you're still filled to the bursting with entertaining & well told anecdotes, so BURST, goddammit. Your stuff is better than mine.
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Good one, prof. Obviously the question arises, what the hell was wrong with taking some veggies off base. This wasn't some Capt Queeg and his strawberries thing, was it?:)To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - PlatoComment
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50/50 my ass. I have some good'uns stored up, but some of the stories I've read on this thread are epic.Originally posted by tankie View Post50/50 matey
ProfComment
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It was against the rules (or Law; in Iceland...) to take food off base.Originally posted by JAD_333 View Post
T'weren't Queegs at fault, it was one single blockhead utterly unsupported by the local township(?) which then tried to enforce poorly ( & hand-wringingly poorly) defined rules.
Mary actually had fun with this. On the couple of occasions when she needed to talk with people of influence, she had a look available. She has a look. O yeah.Comment
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The stun gun joke over on the jokes thread made me think of a couple actual incidences that happened when I was a Deputy.
After apprehending a combative suspect late one evening and getting him tucked safely away in jail, I headed to the public restrooms on the groundfloor of the courthouse to clean up, take a break and refresh the uniform. It was about 2am and the only folks in the courthouse at that hour are the inmates, a jailer, and a dispatcher.......thankfully.
It was the early 90s and our Sheriff was trying to answer our requests for more modern equipment and the latest addition to that arsenal were stun guns. Not tasers that shoot darts attached to a wire mind you, these are the little two metal pronged persuaders that put out about 120,000 volts and if applicated long enough to a body, can make them cry and lose some bodily functions.
Being the stuck in middle ages individual my Sheriff was, he managed to get the wrong holsters for the stunners so they did not fit quite properly in the holsters. It was difficult to get them into the holster prongs down, so sometimes, after using the stunner, we would conveniently slip them in prongs up and snap the leather flap back over to secure them. Later, when we had a free minute we would try to jigger the thing back into the holster properly.
After finishing my "bizniss" I was putting my gun belt back on and was replacing the keepers that wrap around the utility belt attaching it to your pants belt all the while standing at the restroom counter thinking I needed a haircut and not really paying attention to what I was doing. I was struck suddenly in the left hip by a force that I can't quite describe and recall everything going blurry.
I could hear a familiar whine and tick-tick-tick that I realized was my stun gun being activated in the holster and contacting me right through the leather flap on the holster. I had accidentaly hit the button, though the holster and could not move enough to release the pressure. I had hooked my thumb in my waistband while tucking in my shirt, and just couldn't let go. What was probably about two to four seconds seemed like 30 when I finally hit the wall, bumping my elbow knocking my hand off the button.
I slumped over the counter panting like I had just run a couple of sprints. Sweat pouring off my face and hands shaking like a junkie in need of a fix and I couldn't feel my left arm!
After sitting down for a few minutes and splashing some cold water on my face I was ready to go again, although my left hand was numb for rest of the night.
Second story to come, have to give up the laptop to the Mrs for a bit. Besides, you should be done laughing at this one by the time I get back!:PComment
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Back in Iceland:
ON THE WARPATH IN ICELAND
We used to go to one or both of the non-exclusive clubs on base to frolic. Because of local custom, (& also maybe because Mary was a girl) Mary & I could go to the 56 club even though I was an E-4, & the EM club was available anyway. Both were OK.
Both also had in common a drink special available during happy hour. I'm not sure I ever caught either joint not in happy hour, but... This special was the "Vodka Goddammit." You could get 20 Vodka Goddammits for a buck. These were some sort of vodka or some other clear alcoholic beverage without distinctive taste combined with some sort of lemonade-like stuff in a smallish tall glass. They'd bring the things 20 at a time on a circular tray. Brought out the beast in many people. Brought out the beast in other life-forms. Sometimes all at the same time.
"Choir practice" was fueled by these things, & we (whoever we were) sang many verses of such famous Naval ditties as "Lulu, O Lulu, the girl I adore..." lubricated by VGDs. Those who didn't like the things drank beer as well (as opposed to "instead").
One night our crowd closed the 56 club & decided to go back to a barracks room. What we didn't know was that there had been a recent dust-up involving sailors bringing Icelandic gals back to the barracks. Diplomatic Service No-no. It was important that the world understood that American Sailors did NOT do the Funny Thing with Icelandic Chicks. No one asked the Icelandic girls about that, but, well, Hell, they were jest furriners, after all.
Off we went, through the snow, blitzed.
Mary is (or was, but I like her) a long, lean ash-blonde with major-league cheekbones & grey eyes. A little tall for an Icelander, but otherwise fit the bill. I guess someone on the base saw her & squealed. Uh-oh.
We didn't know about that, though.
We were having a fine time continuing the evening when we were informed that CID critters were all over us. Looked out the window. Saw the signature white VWs (like black helicopters) with a bunch of overweight white guys with slacks & bad (one was, as God is my witness, Madras) sportcoats wandering around in the snow with .357s, moving from building to building. There weren't many buildings.
Mary climbed up into a "small" double-doored cabinet above the built-in closet/wardrobes with a couple of blankets & a six-pack of longneck pabst. Made herself comfortable. Meanwhile les flics were moving from room to room, hunting for the "Icelandic girl."
One of our hosts was an Apache named Tommy Ortega. He was offended by the whole situation. He was also the sort of person one didn't want to be around if one had offered him offense. Not only was he a maniac generally, & worse when troubled, but he had also had been through some (many) (serial) extremely severe personal problems that had left him on the ragged edge of his last nerve & had removed him from the status of E-5 to E-1. He just generally wasn't a happy camper. He got irritated.
He climbed up into another over-wardrobe compartment & got down a Sears hatchet.
You gotta picture this guy. He's wearing Navy dungarees, now with no Crow. Green suspenders. Thermal undershirt. Long (for the Nav) hair on his head & weird, unfortunate, unsightly & illegal popcorn beard. Boondockers without socks. & hatchet.
Out the window he goes, running through the snow toward the CID guys who are now headed purposefully in a distasteful group toward our building.
They look at Tommy, look at each other, & then walk very fast to their white VWs & drive away. I'm not sure what exactly was going on there, but I'm confident that Custer's last stand, or something equally unfortunate, was averted by their discretion.
In the meantime, Mary is still stashed up in her secret compartment. She has a pretty good idea of what's going on, so she knows not to come out, but then Nature is creeping up on her. It was a six-pack, after all. So she pees all over the place. But quietly.
When the heat is off she comes down, takes a shower with the head protected by a phalanx of choir practitioners, borrows some clothes, & we split.
I wonder what the next people to use that barracks room thought, that is, if their noses worked.
ProfComment
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Awright! Go get'em, Sniper!
ProfComment
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Raver up next...
Second story to come, have to give up the laptop to the Mrs for a bit. Besides, you should be done laughing at this one by the time I get back! :P
Well?...
Back to the Pepsi:
BM1 Reed, the Popeye the sailor man from the earlier L.G. story, was King of Deck Division, despite having numerous superiors. There wasn't much of anything he couldn't do. Also he had, as does Mary, a Look. A Look will get you far.
Ensign Withem, an ensign & so automatically a person without form, or void, was assigned to teach us enlisted persons how to use the Pepsi's formidable battery of small arms, which included, since we were a Gator Freighter, a stack or two of Garands, some 1911 .45s & (no shit) some Thompson submachineguns.
Ensign Withem was a youthful person without good sense, which is probably why he had been assigned the job, so he cheerfully accepted his assignment to teach a bunch of people, many of whom had been Riverines in 'Nam, how to shoot. He learned how to do that in preparation for his presentation.
We listened to his presentation with respect. Or at least with quiet. He picked the Tommygun to demonstrate first. Somebody from among the Deck People streamed a crate astern. He mounted the Thompson to his shoulder as though he was shooting a .22 rifle at a target. Let fly.
The Tommygun went vertical, & except for a single round that hit somewhat to the left & in front of the crate the rest hit the water beyond it, at increasing distances. Blip. Blip. Blip. Blip. Blip.
Reed came over & said, "I think I've got the idea, sir. Lemmee see that." Bent down, picked up a rag off the flight deck, put it over the radiator fins on the barrel, put his left hand over the rag, pointed the sucker downrange from the hip & produced "PTHRRRRRP"
The crate more or less dissolved.
So did we.
ProfComment
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Sniper? Your turn at the pooter? Raver's undoubtedly shoving to the front of the line.
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