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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: Do they still have Slush Funds, Anchor Pools and Cockroach Races?
You have to template this with the knowledge that I was a member of the piston powered submersible Navy....AnimalLant. We had something called a totally illegal SLUSH FUND...also known as. THE SALTWATER SAVINGS AND LOAN...El Slush-o...First National Cigarbox...Or the Against Regulations Finance Corporation. It was run out of a Hav-a-Tampa box kept in the medical locker...and had a board of directors that looked a lot like the guys who rode with Jesse James. It operated beyond Federally defined perameters, the knowlege of the FDIC and the guidance of the Federal Reserve. It was organized along African tribal lines and was governed by headhunter standards. Every animal aboard would visit the Slush Collector in the messdeck the day after payday and make his obligatory collection plate offering of five bucks...to the Church of Bluejacket Salvation's Widows and Orphan's Fund. Such regular contributions allowed the benefactor certain advantages...the principal of which was the ability to borrow ten and pay back twelve or twenty for twenty four....and the only other benefit coming when the Board of Elected Representatives declared a "drunken dividend" or 35 inning beer ballgame, an athletic event common to boatsailors of a far less gentiler time involving balls, bats, a few worn out ball gloves, lots of drunks and wholesale public urination. The mechanism established to run THE SALTWATER SAVINGS AND LOAN also served to operate the anchor pool...public events betting...and "at sea" sporting events such as high stakes elimination poker....hearts....ten dollar entrance fee Acey-Ducey and thoroughbred roach racing. It is a little known fact that the dry stores holds on the USS ORION (AS-18) was one of the nations finest and most prolific cockroach breeding farms for top form racing roaches...They had three or four two pound stud roaches up there who serviced 4000 phillies and two june bugs, The USS REQUIN (SS-481) had a roaming herd of ORION racing roaches that contained some of Pier 22's greatest champions including Freddy the Flash and Son of Lightning Louie.....we kept them comfortably stabled in a tin, hinged lid BAND-AID box. Did any of this carry over into the Snap, Crackle and Pop pixie dust propulsion undersea Navy? How about finding "The Golden Rivet" and world class "Drop the Soap"? DEX |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 6180
Location: Summerville, SC | Subject: RE: Do they still have Slush Funds, Anchor Pools and Cockroach Races?
The 2 FBM's that I rode didn't have these events which, to me, was surprising since most of the troops on them were former DB sailors. Admiral Hymie had brain washed these guys and put some unreal fear to them I guess. Being a somewhat non-conformist back then is the reason I only did 3 patrols and went back to the 408. |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Do they still have Slush Funds, Anchor Pools and Cockroach Races?
Gentlemen....Somebody out there HAS to remember this stuff. Maybe this will help....the statute of limitations has run out on this stuff, if you are worrying about SP's coming through your window at 3:00AM (You know, that hour in the morning Hillary Clinton will be on the phone taking care of world crises, oil prices and trying to find out why Bill's side of the bed hasn't been slept in) to haul you off for watwerboarding. Somewhere in the last forty years all that stuff went from a gross violation of Naval Regulation to part of the official history of naval diesel boat service. It is my understanding that when they sent Mother Onion (USS ORION (AS-18)) to the scrapyard they entered the Roach Kingdom and provided all the big boys DD-214's and six Greyhounds to take them back to Norfolk. One of them claimed to be the Chief of Naval Roach Operations and asked to be returned to Rosannes lingerie drawer. I can't believe that NOBODY on this board ever heard of a slush fund...anchor pool...or Scotch taped a chart tube to a messtable to form a race track for roaches, whose racing stable colors were painted on them with Testors model airplane dope (paint). Man, how did you contend with ping-time boredom without Roach Derbys? It truly has become a kinder, gentler and more cerebral undersea force....But how long can one study the interaction of protons and neutrons before they begin to have conversations with flying monkeys, dust bunnies and little pixies who do the backstroke in thier bug juice cups? On smokeboats, if you didn't create your own entertainment and diversions you had to turn in your peacoat for a straightjacket. DEX |
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Great Sage of the Sea
Posts: 781
Location: Port Orchard WA | Subject: RE: Do they still have Slush Funds, Anchor Pools and Cockroach Races?
well the Glow Boats never seemed to have much of a roach or rodent issue, we did have a duck or two on Aspro and did use a bit of Kerosene from time to time for "crouch critters" But we certainly had a slush frund (how do you think the Kakai Mafia survived) and we were always coming up with new ways to gamble in the early days of my 20. However by the end of my 20 much of the festivities had gone away. They still have races there are pictures some where in my computer that were on the web of Mouse House races betweeen the tubes for halfway night. But I think the change in the operations and the advent of all the new "toys" have done away with a lot of the individual entertainment we used to have. Think about it every one has their lap tops and dvd plays and able to watch their own movies in the bunkie Just my thoughts |
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Senior Crew
Posts: 192
| Subject: RE: Do they still have Slush Funds, Anchor Pools and Cockroach Races?
...not as you remember them, nor me apparently, shoot it's been 21 year since I left, we had some, but not like yours, mostly it was divisional...the only authorized "pools" were the anchor pool, we did have others, but they were on the Q.T. (I recently had to explain that to someone and it kinda took me a while to answer, 'coz I was so dumbfounded that some folks don't know certain terms and/or phrases...
Billy Bob |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1262
Location: Va.Beach,Va. | Subject: RE: Do they still have Slush Funds, Anchor Pools and Cockroach Races?
Been a while since I was there but I can't believe that beer ball games,anchor pools,and,of course,
ship's recreation fund (SLUSH FUND)fund raisers are a thing of the past.(unthinkable to imagine).
They ,in today's PC,squeeky clean,don't ask,don't tell Navy,are probably less frequent in occurance
and referred to in quieter and more gentile terms (which don't appear in my outdated Funk & Wagnel), but I refuse to accept the concept that they have gone the way of the gooney bird and the T-rex.It doesen't make a damn bit of difference whether our rides were powered by fossil fuel or
fairy dust,there are certain things that should be held sacred and not F***ed with.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!!  |
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Senior Crew
Posts: 226
Location: San Diego, CA | Subject: RE: Do they still have Slush Funds, Anchor Pools and Cockroach Races?
I think one of the reasons they don't need slush funds today is that today everything is on credit. Back in the 50's and 60's it was a "cash and carry". You ran out of cash and you had to stop drinking. Today, you just whip out your credit card and keep on going.
Of course no one drinks today because they would send you to alcohol diversion class. |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Do they still have Slush Funds, Anchor Pools and Cockroach Races?
The more I hear of the changes that followed, the more I get on my knees and thank The Goddess of the Main Induction for giving me the opportunity to serve when I did....My crew, several who turn up here from time to time had 20 shipmates turn up at the first boat reunion. I wouldn't trade any of my time on REQUIN (SS-481) for anything since. Sub Duty was rough back then...but that, oddly enough was part of the attraction. We used to love hearing surface craft sailors touring the boat during visitors hours, say to each other. "They don't have enough money in the entire Navy to get me to put up with the crap these poor bastards put up with." "Damn, this thing is a goddam floating septic tank." "There are bums in my hometown who live in cardboard boxes bigger than this sonuvabitch." "Look at them..no uniform of the day...and the ones they are wearing look like Clem Kadiddlehoppers throw aways." "You smell this place...it's a goddam zoo." Hey, it came with the "old time religion of the Smokeboat Tabernacle of the Deep Water Baptised...Pier 22 SubRon Six Cathedral of Slim Jim, Beer Nuts and Rolling Rock consuming congregants....that took their "slice of life right out of the middle of God's pie" No boatsailor ever loved it more...boat, crew, wardroom, COB's and being a SubForce bottomfeeder. DEX |
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Do they still have Slush Funds, Anchor Pools and Cockroach Races?
