heywood on 21/11/2017 at 21:03
Quote Posted by Tocky
Well there was also this game many of the girls played where they chased you and if they caught you you had to go with them to the alcove and let them kiss you. I was really good at running and dodging....
We didn't quite have that, but there was a kid named Jim who used to frequently challenge me to race him at recess. We were pretty evenly matched. One day, to raise the stakes, he proposed that the loser would have to be kissed by a girl named Tanya. She agreed to it. He lost by a hair, but wanted to call it a tie and race again. We did, and I lost by a hair. My first kiss was a little weird, but I agreed to race him again the next day, and from that day on I would make sure I lost the race by just a little bit.
Tocky on 22/11/2017 at 03:12
That's the only way to lose, heywood. And I'm sure it's not easy to understand all the nuances of culture, SubJeff. You puzzle over some things your entire life. nickie, no bad memories allowed unless they make you smile after the cringe. And Chade, I bet you have plenty of stories if you just think about them.
My first article fifteen requires back story. I'm a stoner. Okay done. No wait. That 70's Show? Something like that if you throw in motorcycles and winning a few smarty pants awards. Anyway we aren't starting in the seventies but boot camp 1980. We were honor flight. Nobody had failed a test or screwed up but in the third week we got a setback. A setback is a guy who washes out of the group before and keeps getting sent back to an earlier group. Basically they are just wanting him to give up and sign ultimate washout papers. He got a bunk next to mine.
Everybody said not to speak to him. He had been caught with a joint in his luggage. Who the hell takes one to boot camp? Still, I had to ask if he had any more. He found it funny. We found we had a lot in common, music, mushrooms, general life philosophy. Not a bad guy at all. They let him continue two weeks with us and washed him out a week before finish. They hounded him. It made me die a little just to see it. The guy did not have a chance once the ass brass had it in for him. That was the Air Force in a nutshell.
So I arrive at my base in England after tech school and the welcome wagon is a great bunch of guys called the degenerates. It's a long story. We go to The Barley Mow and get soused and they pump me for info and then we go back to the dorm and smoke a number. One of them takes my picture mid toke. I'm pissed but he says they have word OSI (office of special investigations) is sending dupes to infiltrate. Paranoid but if he promises to hide it well I'll let it ride. He did. Off and on those guys and me had a great time. Stories galore.
A year later I'm giving CPR to half a plastic woman to keep certified and get called in to the OSI bend over room. Turns out they weren't paranoid. OSI was looking to make a sweep and clean up the division or something. Somebody had fingered me for smoking a hash pipe at an off duty party in Banbury WE KNOW YOU DID IT RAT ON ALL YOUR FRIENDS. Yeah no. That was tobacco. AND IF IT WASN'T? It was. ARE YOU SURE YOU DON"T WANT TO BE A PIECE OF SHIT AND TELL US LOTS OFF STUFF WE HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT? Pretty sure. ARTICLE FIFTEEN. They had a nice little panel with lot's of brass and everything. But I. ARTICLE FIFTEEN! But. THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS AND YOU ARE NOT A SERIOUS BUSINESS. Well you got me there guys.
Turns out it was Barney (airman Barnhill) who had been called in and caved on everyone he knew including himself who was the worst of the lot anyway. The ass did acid on duty in the ER. None of us even so much as drank a beer on duty. Just a little off duty parties with locals and stuff. They had already promised Barnhill immunity. Brilliant guys. Give the only guy who really is a shit a free ticket.
Anyway, Tim took down the pic from where it had been taped on the top of a ceiling tile and we went out for a brown and bitter and burned it. But once they decide you are going to take a fall they stick their foot out every chance they get. Just like the setback they zero in and maybe, just maybe, if you keep your head down and are a serious person you can squeak by. Heh. That ain't me.
Number three tomorrow.
nickie on 22/11/2017 at 09:30
Was that Upper Heyford, Tocky?
SubJeff on 22/11/2017 at 10:59
Great airforce stories Tocky!
Quote Posted by Tocky
I'm sure it's not easy to understand all the nuances of culture, SubJeff.
Yeah. That's how it goes. I only told that story because of yours and Chade mentioning Nigeria. It's one of the countries we lived in too. My brother's first language wasn't English, it was Swahili he learnt from his nanny in Kenya. He's forgotten it all now though. I wonder what would happen if he went back...
Purgator on 22/11/2017 at 12:11
These are awesome, Tocky. It's like a HBO version of 'The Wonder Years'!
Tocky on 23/11/2017 at 02:47
Quote Posted by nickie
Was that Upper Heyford, Tocky?
Yes, all of this happened there. It's a little place between Oxford and Banbury. I think it's around twenty five miles from Oxford. I know if you miss the last bus out of Oxford and have to walk because you have to go to work the next day it takes about six hours. You would think there would be a taxi about after midnight but I never saw one. Parts of World War Z and Octopussy were filmed at the air strip which I rarely paid attention to.
Okay, the third one, and yes there is a fourth article fifteen. You have to understand I have an animosity to formal religion. I was raised southern baptist fire and brimstone suffering through hot summer weather in starched shirts while a fan hardly disturbed the redwasp nests on the ceiling. There was a time I wanted to swallow it all so bad but I just couldn't. The Bible made God look like a dick, the congregation were often hypocrites holier than thou, it just was not logical, but most of all no god I would worship would want me to worship him.
Nearly every night these two evangelicals would wait in the lobby of the medical barracks after last call at the NCO club. I didn't always go to the med barracks because my dorm was a temp dorm near the women's dorm but I was over enough that I looked like I lived there. We often stayed up playing poker and drinking Jack into the wee hours. Well on the way in it would be "have you found Jesus?" and I would say "I didn't know he was missing". I recall all of us breaking into song on the way up the stairs because he told us we were going to hell. It was Alice Coopers "You Can Go to Hell". I also recall AC DC's "Highway to Hell" after him saying we were on the road to hell. It became annoying though.
Oh sure I had my moment of trying to explain why I would never join his Bible study group but that had long passed. Well one night I was shit faced. As soon as he came up to me I said "Heeeeeeyyyy motherfucker! How you doing motherfucker? I know you want me to wash in Jesus blood, motherfucker. Well motherfucker not gonna do it. You know Jesus would likely kick your vampire ass for slinging his blood all over motherfucker?" And lot's of other things I shouldn't have said all ending in motherfucker. I was cordial. I put my arm across his shoulders and was smiling the whole time but for some reason he took offense. As I walked away one of the guys with me said "do you know you called that motherfucker a motherfucker?" I denied I ever would have called that motherfucker a motherfucker and promptly forgot all about it.
The next day I was in ER sewing a tendon back together and the doc had promised he would show me how to do a football stitch quicker than I had been doing it. Doc was pretty cool. He had been in Nam and wanted us to know shit we might use if a war broke out, plus I think his eyesight was failing. Tendons are really small and white and you have to irrigate often and be really steady with a hook needle. Anyway I never learned that football stitch trick. The brass had sent a flunky down to get me. What now? Frankly I was pissed at all the bullshit.
Turns out Bible boy had turned me in and you will never guess what for. Calling him a motherfucker. Seriously? So I had to face just one paper pusher captain this time. He dressed me down and I stood for it but I was pissed. I almost never got to work on open wounds and I was missing my chance. We were a small hospital on a small base and who knew when the next time would be. I was telling him of my deep regret but I could not for the life of me act contrite. I can't recall what he said but I recall where I went most wrong in my response. I told him I did not know there was anything in the regs about calling a motherfucker a motherfucker and I just might have gotten away with saying that except I added one more motherfucker.
You can't call a captain a motherfucker no matter how softly and exasperated and I knew that but damn it I could not for the life of me resist. I had just gotten my sergeants stripe a month prior. It's such a stupid thing but I was proud of it. I had written home about it. Gone. And knocked down a pay grade. Well motherfucker.
faetal on 23/11/2017 at 10:42
Loving these stories.
Tocky on 23/11/2017 at 15:11
My last article fifteen I got when I had been trying to be good and slow down on all the good time Charlie business. I wanted to see more of England and the degenerates were all about partying which is a big part of me too but only a part. I wanted to see Liverpool and Brighton. I wanted to see Wales and Scotland. I wanted to stand on the parapet of Edinburgh castle the way my father had when he was in service. I had seen the old 8mm films dozens of times and he had been everywhere and always there was a girl on his arm. He was movie star good looking and I'll show a pic of him if anyone wants. Anyway I'm not but I never wanted for company. Sometimes I just wanted to be alone to soak in experiences and meet locals on their own terms and most natural. I did some of that. I know I can't describe the feeling of walking about at dawn in an English village centuries old and watching a milkman deliver glass bottles and convey the feeling I got so I Won't even try.
Alas I never got to do everything. I did lots. But I mourn for what I missed. I was turned in for kicking a coke machine. That's right, a coke machine. I explained the machine in the day room would sometimes stick but if you kicked it in a certain place it would spit out a coke. It would do that with or without change but I didn't bother with that explanation. Such a stupid thing to get an article fifteen for. I knew then that I was a setback. They were going to hound me. I had a long talk with a captain I respected on the ward. We worked it out that he would fudge his record and send me up for dismissal from service with an honorable discharge. He was a nice guy. I had talked with him many times and he said I was one of the few he never had to tell to do their job because I was already on it and he would miss me.
There are other things I could say on this but suffice to say it was a turmoil of emotion for me to leave. A few of the officers even tried to get me to stay after they found out which surprised me. Maybe if I hadn't seen how the guy in basic was hounded, the setback they had it in for, I would have stuck it out. I don't know. But I knew there were other officers who had it in for me. The officers on the ward I laughed and joked around with and forgot they were even officers. Hell, I even went out with a nurse to her friends birthday party against fraternization policy. But the paper pushers I despised.
In many ways I've regretted leaving. I've often wished I had stuck it out. But I likely would never have met my wife and had the family I do and there is nothing I would trade for that. Still, there is a bit of pain and longing looking back. I loved England. I loved the people and London and experiences, some of which I'll tell later, but I've never managed to go back. I've talked of it with my wife many times and we want to go one day but life seems to always intervene.
Tocky on 23/11/2017 at 18:23
I've never told my kids the Air Force stories. I wouldn't have wanted to influence them to be any wilder in their teens and also I'm a bit ashamed to have been so ruled by my whore-mones then. I've always excused it as having been so devastated by my high school girlfriend but there are many factors and one is that I was just a cad in wanting to keep a bit aloof. Women are wonderful, more beautiful than any work of art, more interesting than any mystery story. I want now to show myself in a bit better light and show I can be good. I'm not always a would be lothario. So much of those years I was exactly that.
The degenerates and I went to see a Rick Wakeman concert in Oxford at an old theater with a steep bowl and red velvet seats. I could look up my old ticket stub and find out its name but it's not important. They had gone ahead or maybe it was me for some reason and I was stuck in the crush of the crowd of two hundred or so folks waiting for the doors to open when I saw a girl stand on a concrete structure and scan the crowd. She isn't looking for a specific person but just someone I told myself. Her eyes seemed to linger on this and that one. When they swept past me I looked away. I didn't want any scam or whatever it was she was going to involve me in. At least that was the general feeling I had. When I looked back she had stepped down and I felt a tad relieved. I'm a magnet for trouble but sometimes I just don't want any.
Next I know she is in my face. Would I help her? There was a guy who was stalking her and she needed help. She would give me a free ticket if I would. I had a ticket. One way better than the one she was offering. She had really nice eyes and they did look desperate. Shit. I asked the crowd did anyone need a free ticket.
She was American, some midwest state I don't recall. When the guys caught up I explained the situation and they give me a sure buddy jibe or two and we separate. It was a good concert. Some journey to the middle of the earth stuff of his. On the way out she is happy and excited and I'm just wanting to get her away before her stalker shows up. She says she can get me backstage to see Rick Wakeman and tugs on my arm. She says she knows him and it would be repayment for my help. Well damn, I would indeed like to meet him but I think it's wishful thinking on her part.
Halfway back in and there he is. The stalker. She immediately turns and pulls me back out again. He follows. We run into the guys outside (Jack, Rob, and Allan) and set off together. The stalker follows. I can't believe this shit. The audacity. He comes to her and starts in with how she should go with him and she says she doesn't owe him anything and he persists. He grabbed her by the elbow. This set me off like pulling the trigger of a gun. He was pulling her backward. I knocked his hand away and pushed him backward and he is trying to tell me I don't understand. I'm telling him it's him that doesn't.
We turn our backs on him but the asshole still follows trying to get her to go with him. I finally tell the guys to go on ahead and I will explain the facts of life to him. The idiot is still trying to push past me to get at her and I'm heading him off every time. Finally I just start shoving him backward over and over. I figure if he takes a swing I will beat hell out of him but otherwise I'm just separating him from his target. I don't want more trouble if I don't have to have it. Also there is a cultural thing I might not understand because this guy is middle eastern.
Finally he gives up and starts to walk away. I turn and don't see the guys. Oh shit. I have no idea where Allan's apartment is. I run in the general direction of where I think it is and see them. Thank the lord. We go have a meal at Pak Fooks Chinese restaurant (the brother of Lee Ho Fook of London fame in the song Werewolves of London) and we have a great time.
Back at the apartment it's nearly ten and the old folks Allan rents from bring us tea and we sit around the living room talking a bit. English folks are great. So damned cordial and accommodating of noisy Americans. Me and Jack have our long running argument about the nature of reality with me arguing for what input is being reality vs what actually is. I had an idea about a brain in a jar being fed information and increasing deja vu it gets. Anyway we go to bed after.
Allan only has the one room and the one bed. Only Jack has a sleeping bag so he lays on the floor. Me and the rest lay in our clothing atop the covers of this king size sway springed old bed. We all just want to go to sleep but Rob keeps hitting on her. He is a funny guy. He is always on the verge of laughing himself with every word and has a lot of success in getting girls. He has us laughing, including her, as he keeps up his wheedling. At a certain point I notice she isn't laughing anymore. I ask her if she would like to trade places with me who is on the outside. We do. Now I'm between them. We sleep.
The next day after breakfast of marmalade on toast with the old folks we take her to the train station. Rob still hasn't given up and he has us all laughing again including her. He wants her address in London. She doesn't give it to him. Instead just as she boards the train she whispers it in my ear. I had no paper or pen and forgot it anyway as soon as the train pulled out. I wanted to do something just for the good of it anyway.
What had been puzzling me was why did she pick me out of that large crowd. How did she know I am who I am deep inside? I was kind of feeling proud of myself for my actions and that somebody could just see me for who I am in my face in the crowd. Then I looked down at my T shirt. I was wearing my Ole Miss T shirt. She saw only that I was a fellow American.
Tocky on 25/11/2017 at 02:32
Going to back up a bit and tell you about my cousin Rodney. There was a woman friend of mine in college (I had a glorious year of partying at Ole Miss with mostly great grades except algebra which caused me to lose my scholarship) who claimed I was dangerous. I sort of understand where she was coming from as I did fight someone who sat down at the table with us in The Irish Rose but mostly I argued I am safe as a feather. I understand where she was coming from though. Rodney is dangerous. Anything he thinks of he will do.
We grew up together except for some early teen years he spent in Colorado. When we were very young he stayed at my grandmothers with his folks. We were forbidden from fishing in the creek down the road so naturally that's what we wanted to do. It's a snaky tributary of the Yocona river whose name Faulkner used in his Yoconapatawpha county stories. Since the rods were in a locked shed we used broom handles and surveyor string with open safety pins for hooks and uncooked bacon as bait. It worked because there were so many brim that a quick yank would spear one. The halcyon days of youth.
We had pump up BB guns that were fairly powerful. He killed birds and rabbits and I mostly tagged along. Once he led me into my grandmothers root cellar where he shot several old blue mason fruit jars and urged me to as well. I shot one. Later I heard he was whipped severely for it but he never gave me up. Later still he taught me never to wonder anything aloud because when I wondered what was in those big transformers he raised his gun and shot it. It bled an oily substance for awhile then it blew in spectacular fashion. Sparks like slow white rockets shot from the top and a large perfect smoke ring blew straight up. It was quite a sight. Lights out for everyone nearby.
He was beaten for that too not that it changed him a whit. The transformer must have cost plenty and his dad was not one to spare the rod when he was angry. When we were about fifteen I saw his dad pick up a two by four and beat him with that for what I considered next to nothing so I imagine that whipping was awful. Still nothing changed him in any way at all.
When he lived in Memphis he wrecked my brand new Honda Shadow motorcycle. Like a fool I figured he would be easy on it because he was riding his girlfriend. No. It was a shaft drive and when he went through a patch of gravel he gunned it. On the other side it caught and went right on over. No broken bones but it busted her elbow up some and he took her to the doctor. My tach was broken and the seat cocked to one side. I got drunk on tequila and threw up in the side yard the next morning laying in the sunshine to bake the alcohol out. He promised to pay for it but never did. Years later when he let me ride his new Harley I purposely rode all over hell and came back late.
Later that year we were going to Wendy's and we pulled up next to the speaker but the rap from some folks hanging out in the back lot was so loud we couldn't hear the speaker. He was tired from working all day and hungry. He yelled for them to shut it down but they just laughed. The most I could make out from what they said was "white boy". The next I know his 357 Python, much like the one Rick uses on The Walking Dead is out the window on my side and he fires into the air.
It was amazing how fast they were all hidden. Over cars, behind cars, under cars, and the music went down. My ears are ringing and to my amazement he gives the speaker his order. You can't go to the window now I told him. The cops are going to be called. With a groan of frustration he turned around and drove out the way we had come.
That same 357 was on his hip the day we were breaking up a beaver damn on a mans farm. I had my colt 45 automatic and Jeff his 38. We were using picks and shovels to pry open the tightly woven sticks. We expected snakes and we were not disappointed. A water moccasin came swimming at Jeff who was knee deep in water. It was swimming as if it were going to go between his legs. We had all pulled out our guns. I had sighted but there was no way I was going to fire that close.
POW. Rodney hit it in the head just as it reached Jeff. Water splashed his crotch. It was a great shot. Water snakes swim with their heads moving back and forth rapidly and he had hit it dead on. Jeff was mad. "Did you ever think I might rather have been bit than to have my dick shot off?" Rodney was just as quick with, "What if it had bitten your dick?" Jeff allowed he might have a point and we all laughed.
Once I married I cut down on the amount of Rodney visits. One of his last to my house before he became married himself and settled somewhat he had come by to show us a gray crane he had caught. He had been holding it out the window and going down the highway at sixty just because he knew it had never been that fast. We took it down to the creek and let it go. "Now he has a story to tell" he said. Indeed. Hang around Rodney much and you would have several.
Later I will tell of my first night home on leave from the Air Force when he took me out drinking. I've shoved a lot into this segment already.