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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: Smokeboat MidRats
Anybody remember diesel boat midrats?....cutting that green fuzzy fur looking stuff off the baloney?....unzipping that key opened mystery meat stuff that came in a green foot long can? ....hauling out a loaf of bread and using the eye removal tip of a spud peeler to remove mold colonies? Cutting the lids out of cans of "self healing" Navy mayonaise.?That stuff, that if left standing out exposed to air (if you could call the atmosphere roaming around inside a diesel sub, air. It closely resembled Rhino intestinal gas, infused with Calcutta sewer stench, filtered though a Russian female weightlifters undies.) If you left, Dressing, Salad (Mayonaise) 1952...Naval Issue Type II Mod Six...Unit of Issue; One Each...if you left a lidless can out on a messdeck table it began a sort of healing process...a scab formed...It was more like a vulcanized steel belted scum...In fifteen minutes it was as thick as the side of a B.F. Goodrich hot water bottle and had to be surgically removed with an electricians knife. I often wondered if once digested the damn stuff formed things like ulcer blowout patches in your digestive track. Remember the bread locker, where you got a free cockroach floor show every time you opened the door and the light hit the little bastards? "Hey, knock on that door...Give the little sonuvabitches time to go hide...the light hurts their little eyes." (Who said we were insensitive?). "If you don't like raisin bread shake the damn loaf and all the raisins will hop up and relocate." Remember mixing bug juice and panther piss?....Bug juice gave you a two day case of purple tongue. Remember "Sluggos"? (peanut butter and mayonaise sandwiches) "Pixie Peters"? (Vienna sausage) "Texas Torpedoes"? (Hot Polish Sausage and TTT Horse radish....USN Polish Sausage could set your skivvy shorts on fire the following day. All the Ridge Runners, Hillbillies, Swamp Rats, Cajuns, hicks, hay pounders and the South of the Border hombres used that damn Texas Pete or Tabassco...or stuff they purchased in the Carribean that was good for minor welding jobs or blinding cobras. If you were lucky and the cook did not reqire you to perform an abnormal sex act or promise him your "first born" you got second tray dibbies on a fresh cinnamon bun...one of those "just out of the oven" piping hot...fresh "wonder muffins". Right up until the milk turned into liquid that would gag a goat...it was ice cold and great. If you flipped the tab and sniffed and the stuff smelled like a bad case of advanced athletes foot...you smiled and politely asked someone to "down the bug juice." Ah, It was late night improvised dining at its' most sublime...If they were serving in night adaption red light, the cook could unload damn near anything on you...anything from batter fried pier rat to Desenex sauce basted seagull. We wouldn't have had it any other way if you had enough 57 sauce....Texas Pete....European dark mustard...Peter Pan....Catsup....Mayo...sliced union...bell pepper, Brer Rabblit molassas and garlic salt, you could eat a damn tractor tire...and maybe we did. DEX |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1602
| Subject: RE: Smokeboat MidRats
I'm glad to know the smokeboats on the East Coast had roaches also, I thought that was a West Coast or Pearl phenomenon . This is probably a stupid question, but I'm dying to know if the nukes were infested with cockroaches also. |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1431
| Subject: RE: Smokeboat MidRats
Gil, I know for a fact that there were no cockroaches on the Gudgeon. We had turtles!! |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Smokeboat MidRats
Gil. We had Kentucky Derby winners...We got them from our thoroughbred CockRoach stud farm called the USS ORION....Orion had roaches in her forward storage holds capable of winning tractor pulls and hauling that Budweiser wagon. One of the spare time hobbies on ORION was making roach saddles and racing tack. The hard part was training pier rat fleas as jockeys....We had races on the ORION's boatdeck after preliminary elimination races on the KITTYWAKE....I think ORION bred two...possibly three, Kentucky Derby winners with Popeyes Passion taking the Tripple Crown at some point....Orion Roach/Angus crossbreeds appeared in herds managed by Admiral Rickover, who built pastures on his 5000 acre nookboats. Charleston Navy Yard rats were trained to act as sheep dogs for moving roach herds from the After Roach Range to the Forward North Forty. You could get a 15 lb roach roast out of one of Hyman's Angus wonder roaches....Gil, I hope this answers your question. It's all in Tommy Cox's next book, SON OF BM BLUFF....Straight guage dope, from God's Paint Locker...DEX |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1405
Location: Houston, TX (Best state in the US) | Subject: RE: Smokeboat MidRats
Gil - 2007-07-09 4:17 PM
I'm glad to know the smokeboats on the East Coast had roaches also, I thought that was a West Coast or Pearl phenomenon . This is probably a stupid question, but I'm dying to know if the nukes were infested with cockroaches also.
Yes, but they were 3 headed and had anywhere from 7 to 14 legs, depending on whether they lived in stores (just fwd of the nuclear reactor) or in the more forward part of the 2nd plat by the wardroom. Some of them were raised by the messcooks and when they were grown to a sufficient size, then they were slaughtered and their legs were considered a delicacy, especially when they were dipped in butter!
Seriously, never did see a cockroach on a west coast nuke.....well, maybe one commodore from squadron, but other than that....... |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1602
| Subject: RE: Smokeboat MidRats
Glad you guys cleared that up. My first night on the Pickerel I almost got booted off because I had the audacity to swat a medium size roach that crawled over me in my hot bunk. I didn't know that roach had qualified and stood below decks watch while I was still in sub school. |
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Smokeboat MidRats
