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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: How many of you remember the days....
How many of you remember the days...Of Lucky Bags, D.C.d clothing and Gear Adrift auctions? Days when boats had butt-kits, sharpshooter buckets and air expulsion heads called "Freckle Makers", "Thunder Mugs" or "225 Wishing Wells"? How many of you guys remember crawing into some other animals' sweat on an After Battery (Hogan's Alley) flashpad and scratching your athletes foot split toed on a bunk chain....and yelling at some damn electrician to close the After Batter well access cover when he dropped down to take his battery readings and water the bloody things? How many of you remember smoking in a top rack and poking snuffed out cigarette butts up a main vent operating handle? How many of you remember when the proper term for the forward capstan was "nigger head" on the ships' GI book, nomenclature list of topside equipment"? How many of you remember when ship's company prepared and painted their boats? Anyone remember when nobody ever heard the terms "mess crank","reactor scram". "poopie suit" "nukie-poo" "blue crew" and "gold crew"? How many remember when "hitting the beach and enjoying monitarily compensated horizonhtal refreshment" was looked on by the United Statesw Navy with a blind eye?..you could get what were then called profilactics from your Corpsman and you only got in trouble if you picked up something thyat couldn't be cured with APC's and iodine? Remember when ALL non-rated bluejackets hitchhiked? Anyone remember when no sailor got an enticement bribe to serve his country and was extremely proud to wear his uniform in public? You know...the days when sailors weren't allowed to have civilian clothes on Navy ships ( the days of Locker Clubs outside the gates of Navy Bases) and sailors didn't run like hell to take their uniform off and get in civvies when they knocked off ship's work? Remember when a sailor could go from Norfolk to Mexico City and back, with $20, an AWOL bag and 72 hours liberty......and get loaded on $5....Anyone remember when two packs of Beer Nuts, Six Slim Jims and two picked hard boiled eggs from a big cloudy looking jar on the bar was a three course gourmet meal for a discriminating qualified E-3? You remember when barmaids wore Radio Girl cheap dime store perfume and Frederick's pop-up bras? Anyone old enough to remember $29.95 Seafarer Doeskin Blues with gussets....and the tailor tossing in your rate, hashmarks and ship's designator shoulder rocker for free...( cuff Dragons, Sharks, Mermaids, Confederate flags and Dolphins sewn in your cuffs cost an additional $3.50)? Remember when the3 United States Government in cooperation subsidized cancer with five cent a pack Raliegh's, Pall Malls, Lucky Strikes, Camels, Cavaliers, Old Golds and filter tip Pickiunnes when your screw guards cleared the International Bouy? Remember folding your raghat to form East Coast wings in it and cocking it oier your eye at a "Mother's lock up your daughters" angle....the days when NO SAILOR beyond a hundred yards past a boot camp gate ever wore his raghat toilet bowl fashion centered on his head, looking like a tankless American Standard commode. Remember when everything you owned in the entire world could fit in a canvas bag and hauled through bus and train stations over your shoulder? Remember the pride you felt when you heard a father whisper to his son,"That sailor is a submarine sailor...They're special."? Remember the "Two-Bit Draft"? ...Thirty Five Cent Nightstand and Fabian skin books? Dime store chili and soda crackers? "Moon Pies?"....Thirty five cent shoe shines? GemsCo rodium two-dollar Dolphins? Remember Liberty Cards? Armored hefer canned milk? SOS...aka "pus and scabs" on toast? Tender incubated cockroaches in your breadlocker? Officers in hydraulic oil spotted dinged and dented steaming hats with verdigrised up green brass? Ever go up on the bridge and find a girl's step-ins hanging on the TBT? Remember GP shoes aka "Mammy Yokums"? Greasy snake neckerchiefs? Rolling your smokes in a tee-shirt sleeves....or tucked in a sock? Getting your butt chewed out by a Chief for carrying a halyard clip loaded with keys hanging from a dungaqree belt loop? "You goddam idiot...You wanna git hung up on something clearing the bridge" (How long do you think it would have taken for one hundred seventy pounds of a E-3 jerk to lose keys and beltloop moving at just under the speed of light?)....Anyone remember anyone drowning as a result of halyard clip key suspension? Never understood a lot of that "Chief stuff"....It could be so cold penguins had to have sex to keep from freezing and CPO's would tell you to keep your hands out of your pockets...(Look at the Lone Sailor sailor at the United States Naval Memorial at 12th and Constitution here in D.C....God Bless him, the sonuvabitch has his hands in his pockets....All around the statue there are piles of dead CPO's who had heart attacks when they saw that sailor with his hands in his peacoat pockets...they would have prefered seeing some E-3 with his fingers surgically removed due to frostbite.) Remember passing a jug of rotgut booze around and peeing off a pier waiting for the libery launch to make the rounds to boats swinging the hook offshore? Remember having Shore Patrol in an overseas port and sorting drunks by their shoulder boat name patches to get them loaded in the poper launch to get them dropped off a their proper boat? Remember when being returned to your boat after a ginmill fracus in a shore patrol paddy wagon, being delivered topside to your Duty Officer and being signed for, blessed and being told to "Go forth and sin no more."? Those were wonderful days when riding submersible iron was a great way to make a living and a lot of damn fine Americans served their nation and met a man's patriotic obligation in acid eaten dungarees and soft frayed white hats. I wouldn't have had it any other way. DEX |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1814
Location: Boydton, Virginia | Subject: RE: How many of you remember the days....
YEP! All of that. Been there -done-that. "Thanks for the memories". Wish I had your fantastic recall, Dex, but reading your posts is almost as good as doing it the first time, but without the hangover!
Steamboat sends |
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Mess cooking
Posts: 9
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I do remember all those things. However, not all on a boat. I had the good fortune to serve my first enlistment on a GENUWINE Heavy Cruiser, ROCHESTER (CA 124). That was before the UCMJ. Law was Rocks and Shoals. They were good years, but not nearly as good as the DBF DAYS. I still have a plastic bag of dungarees that I open bout once a year, take a big whiff and close it back up! Trying to get the wife to agree to having them cremated with me, but she says the ashes will kill her flower bed! |
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Great Sage of the Sea
Posts: 561
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AJ,
The heat from your booze soaked corpse buring will kill all the flowers in a hundred mile radius and cause global warming to go up 6 degrees.LOL Al gore will add a chart to his dog and pony show warning about creamating old bubble heads and suggest we all be buried in Key West.
T.Spoon, DBF |
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Mess cooking
Posts: 9
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Spoon....
I ain't a-going back to Key West, never, no more! There are different folks down there now. Not only that, no Gate Bar, Boca Chica Bar, Dos Amigos Bar.....and, the fruits pick the people! |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1431
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A.J. the last time I visited Key West was in 2001. The place was built up with boutiques and alot of trendy eaten spots. It was run over with teen pick pockets standing on the street corners waitin for an easy mark to wander by. What suprised me was the place where I stayed. I found it on the Internet,but I didn't realize it was clothing optional!!! It would have been good if some of the residents were women who hadn't past their prime ,but nothin but ole gals whose boobs were draggin on the floor..... Never again!!!  |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 2561
Location: Rapid City, SD | Subject: RE: How many of you remember the days....
Bob, you got something against ole gals whose boobs are dragging on the floor? I just read a medical explanation telling why ole guys have things dragging on the floor. And it ain't their knuckles!
Cora
Edited by Corabelle 2008-12-03 10:29 AM
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: How many of you remember the days....
For you SubRon Six animals. Remember The Big "O", Bells Bar and Naval Tailors, The Victory, Loveys Krazy Kat, Little Italy and Babe's....Jolly Rogger past Ocean View. The George Washington just oputside the gate at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth......The Crabhouse and Trixie's? Bill's Bar-B-Q.....Oscar's and whatever in the hell that greasy spoon pancake house out on Willoughby Spit was called, the one with the big busted waitress named Edna, who asked,"Sailor, you wanna Bromo Selsor...You look like you died and ain't nobody shovelled no dirt on you." The menus were all full of syrup and grape jelly fingerprints. Remember the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, where every damn Friday some idiot bluejacket tossed a peacoat button in the toll hopper and caused traffic to back up to Taussig Boulevard? Remember CE Piers, The USS ORION (AS-18)...The KITTYWAKE and all the pierhead telephone booths, the SubRon Six quonset huts....torpedo trolleys....fuel hoses...five gallon cans....dumpsters specifically marked OILY RAGS, METAL, CANS, TRASH and EDIBLE GARBAGE (no eggshells) Who ate that stuff? Marines? Remember when Naval Supply issued bales of wipedown rags marked STERILE RAGS and out at sea the damn enginemen would find stuff and come waltzing into the messdeck wearing a flowery print sundress or a pair of raggedy ass coveralls from some Cadillac dealership? Remember sitting up half the night in port drinking coffee that would float bricks, smoking stale as hell smokes and playing hearts with other poor bastards in Section Three? Remember the Krispy-Creme doughnut truck rolling down the pier and the topside watch hollering down the After Battery hatch to the Below Decks Watch...."Six boxes of tooth decay, TOPSIDE"....Remember when they knocked off ships work and the Khaki Sackers went home for home cooking and an armload of mama, and the stay aboard animals turned on the old one lung, black and white ZIENTH TV bolted on the galley bulkhead and watched highly intellectual and educational programming like BULLWINKLE AND ROCKY....J.P. SIDEWINDER...and LEAVE IT TO BEAVER....Remember betting on QUEEN FOR A DAY? Remember listening to late night Norfolk radio where slick talking sonuvabitches would sell you anything on the planet for "No money down and easy payment arrangements...All you need is a Navy I.D. card and a desire to spend the rest of your life as an economic slave.", Remember the GRANBY STREET BUS? Remember when it rained and sailors crawled on that bus in wet wool peacoats and it smelled like leftover sheep dip? Remember when the only thing specifically designed to fit a peacoat pocket was a flat pint of HIRAM WALKER TEN HIGH? Remember when nobody dipped snuff? Remember being at sea and the air getting so oxygen depleted, you couldn't light a Pall Mall and they spread lithium hydroxide on a bunk in the AB to choke you to death? Remember getting qualified and being able to sit in the messdeck, eat popcorn and watch B-movies on a screen the size of a newspaper page? Remember taking showers in an aluminum box the size of a pigmy coffin? Remember rainbow soap...resharpening Gillette Blue Blades with your fingers inside a glass? Remember tucking a skinbook under your flashpad with your place marked with a pack of book matches? Remember when you got paid with a blue government check that had DO NOT FOLD, SPINDLE OR MUTILATE printed on it? Ah the old smokeboat memories. DEX |
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Admin
Posts: 2297
Location: Renton, WA | Subject: RE: How many of you remember the days....
Dang Cora... you shot him with both barrels... LOL... |
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Great Sage of the Sea
Posts: 590
Location: Colton, NY | Subject: RE: How many of you remember the days....
Hey Dex,
I just channeled Cuzzin Bob and he said he liked your posting.
(So did I) Bob on remembering (July 2000)
Anyway, he and Cuzzin Bill and Cowboy and Old Gringo et al were
heading off to a heavenly bash so of course it was a very short transmission.
Bill knew how to wear a white hat too. Bill is on the right.
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Great Sage of the Sea
Posts: 590
Location: Colton, NY | Subject: RE: How many of you remember the days....
Just an after thought: The faces of the men of WWII
Link Am I crazy? Or did they all seem to have a distinctly different look
than the young men of today?
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: How many of you remember the days....
Sid your posts are ALWAYS catnip for the soul....The one above being no exception. Thanks ever so much, it lit a sparkler it my heart. Thanks DEX |
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Great Sage of the Sea
Posts: 811
Location: NW Connecticut | Subject: RE: How many of you remember the days....
Sid Harrison - 2008-12-03 5:58 AM
Just an after thought: The faces of the men of WWII
Link Am I crazy? Or did they all seem to have a distinctly different look
than the young men of today?
It's the B&W photos..Otherwise they look the same to me.. The WW2 guys may look a little younger than todays sailors and they seemed to wear their hair longer than todays sailors, but otherwise they still look a lot like todays sailors. |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: How many of you remember the days....
The bad thing about remembering is that once you start, stuff keeps being dredged up from the dark cobweb laced long ago loaded lockers of a seldom visited part of your brain. When you loved something like I did serving aboard the old petroleum powered scrapyard cheating submersibles, you retain a whole lot of useless memory crap you should have deep sixed years ago. Remember constantly pulling your neckerchief out of your soup, the gravy on mashed potatoes.your salad...your damn Post Toasties....and your coffee? Remember that collar flap flying up and wrapping itself around your neck like an open hotdog bun? Remember the art of sleeping on a train station bench using your AWOL bag for a pillow and your peacoat for a blanket.....and holding your ZIPPO at the proper angle, lighting it and holding it until you heated the damn lid until it was hot as hell, then dropping it in a glove and using it as a hand warmer in a cold train or bus station? Remember when you were an E-3 living off Chinese coolie wages and would pick up discarded newspapers off lunch counters to read on the bus? Did you ever go through Cleveland and go into a bus station at 0200 get a cup of coffee and pick up a discarded newspaper...get on the bus and find out the gahdam paper was in Polish and full of polka band adverising? Did you ever arrive at DesSub Piers and have some jarhead gate monkey wake you up yelling.."Git out cher ID and Liberty Cards ladies...Git em out...Lets see em...I've got all night, not going anywhere until 0400...so git em out if you want to git aboard yer ship and git some rack time before morning quarters." Then some half awake idiot yells..."I'd rather havva sister that was a whore, than a brother in the Corps." And the representatives of the United States Marine Corps spent the next ten minutes heaping verbal abuse on Americas forces afloat....Ah, those were the days. Remember Sealtest frozen reconstituted milk? That stuff must have come out of the breast of a dead witch. Remember having your running mate win the anchor pool and the two of you wasting most of it on the commercial services of a naughty girl and five pitchers of Blue Ribbon draft? Remember loading stores and jackassing Mark 14's and 16's aboard until the sun came up and hearing "Prepare to get underway"? Remember the old diesel boat joke about the COB stepping forward at Morning Quarters and yelling "Today we all change underwear....Bill you change with Frank, Eddie you change with Tom, Jack you change with Pete....and anyone left over go up to the wardroom and swap with the Supply Officer." Remember when you singled up with the showers loaded with potatoes, cases of beans, beets, Vienna sausage, corn, snap beans, kidney beans, soup.....and SPAM....Then at night someone in the AB berthing compartment whispering I've got Ritz crackers over here...any sumbitch near the peanut butter?" Thje memories keep flooding back. DEX |
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Great Sage of the Sea
Posts: 590
Location: Colton, NY | Subject: RE: How many of you remember the days....
Smiley - 2008-12-03 6:28 AM It's the B&W photos..Otherwise they look the same to me.. The WW2 guys may look a little younger than todays sailors and they seemed to wear their hair longer than todays sailors, but otherwise they still look a lot like todays sailors.
Hmmm. I bleeve you're onto sumpin there Smiley.
Plus they all wore their hats (covers to USMC) at a jaunty angle...
even the Marines. (I kinda like the word jaunty)
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 2672
Location: New Jersey | Subject: Thanks for the links Sid
It was great reading one of Bob's poems...He could certainly turn a phase couldn't he? Nice memories... |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: How many of you remember the days....
Remember boat deck movies on ORION? All Denominations Church services aft of the 5" mount on the ORION's fantail? Father J.O. Marrs the SubRon Six chaplain...Christmas 1960...Father Marrs giving a stem winding sermon on PEACE ON EARTH beneath the muzzels of the twin 5" gun barrels just above his head....the irony not being lost on two jaybird E-3's attending the service. The service was followed by a most convivial poker game in the forward paint locker, complete with paper cups and boubon nobody making more than $45 every two weeks, would buy under threat of being bullwhipped. Remember the GRANBY THEATER where a drunk bluejacket could sleep one off for three bucks and having to watch Buck Jones chase bad hombres across the worst looking movie screen north of Panama. Remember when they were blasting for the caissons for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and anyone sleeping on any ship below the waterline got his fillings jarred loose with every detonation series? They just keep coming...DEX |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1262
Location: Va.Beach,Va. | Subject: RE: How many of you remember the days....
Thanks again to "the resident wordsmith"who seems to be the only SOB who
has escaped the grasp of the dreaded CRS and has not been afflicted with
PC.
Dex,contrary to some folk's opinions,some of us who rode the "Blue & Gold,
fairy dust powered,41 for freedom "boats carried with us and nurtured the
cherished memories of our roots (much to the chagrin of the contemporary
wierdroom) and did our damnedest to preserve the fine traditions and
practices of our esteemed predecessors.
It's damn good thing we don't all possess your gift of total recall (or vivid
imagination) 'cause there ain't room in this sandbox for all of us to be so
endowed.Most of us are more than happy to relive vicariousy the days you
chronicle in your mindless rants.Thanks Shipmate!
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Great Sage of the Sea
Posts: 539
Location: Palm Bay, Florida | Subject: RE: How many of you remember the days....
"Remember when you got paid with a blue government check that had DO NOT FOLD, SPINDLE OR MUTILATE printed on it? Ah the old smokeboat memories. DEX"
Damn Dex! Now you really got me feeling like an old phart. In GRAMPUS, the paylist was posted in the crew's mess, and you filled out your pay chit with how much of what was "on the books" that you wanted. Got in line in the FTR, and when you got to the disbursing officer from Mother Onion, inked your thumb and left a print on the chit. I remember a few times when all he had were $2 bills! |
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How many of you remember the days....
