April 10, 2004

Air Force Blue (part 10)

Other bits and pieces of my life can be found under the Boring Stories and Seriously categories.

I donÂ’t remember exactly how we got invited to the party, but it was some sort of semi-official function. There were four Canadian exchange officers there, and one of them was in full piper kit. Since I love the bagpipes, I got to talking to them, and we all hit it off pretty well. Being young and enlisted, my roommate and I drank way more than we should have, and the Canucks matched us drink for drink. We got a lot of disapproving stares from the other guests because other than us, it was a rather reserved crowd.

It was around midnight when we left the party. My roommate and I went to the Visiting Officers Quarters (VOQ) with the Canadians and we continued the party there. They broke out bottles of MeyerÂ’s Spiced Rum and we kept right on drinking. Sometime after 1am we got thrown out of VOQ for marching up and down the hallway singing filthy drinking songs and being generally disruptive.

Since the night was still young, the Canucks accompanied us to our dorm, and thatÂ’s when things got really fun. We got there, and suddenly our new friends got wildly enthusiastic, because we had a pool table. They started to tell us about a game they played called Crud.

Between the rum and the fact that this all happened some 20 years ago, IÂ’ll try to describe the game. It was fun as hell, but that may just be because we were all drunk.

Ok, first off, to play Crud you only use two of the balls: the cue ball and the 8-ball. Cue sticks are not used. So far, so good.

The object is to use the cue ball to knock the 8-ball into a pocket. That scores a point. Likewise, if the 8-ball stops moving before you hit it with the cue ball, the other team scores a point. The main rule is that the 8-ball cannot stop rolling. You hit the 8-ball with the cue ball (trying to get it into the pocket), and then the other team has to grab the cue ball and they have to hit the 8-ball, then it’s your teammate’s turn, followed by the other team’s second player, and so on. And that brings up the other main rule, the so-called “ball” line. One end of the table is where all cue balls have to be rolled from, but only after your balls (testicles) are behind that end of the table.

Body blocks are allowed, but only by putting both hands on the table and sticking your ass out there. ItÂ’s not considered sporting to trip someone.

Sounds pretty sedate, huh? There is no ‘scratch’. If the cue ball leaves the table, you have to run and fetch it, then get back behind the “ball” line before you can take your turn, and all before the 8-ball stops rolling. What happens in practice is that quite often you’re snagging the cue on the bounce, then diving back across the line while sidearming that cue ball back at the table.

ThatÂ’s how we wound up putting the cue ball through the front of the coke machine. Twice. No bones were broken, but there were plenty of bruises administered, and around 4am someone called the base cops on us, and our evening ended.

I never did get to play Crud again because it was specifically banned in the dorm. Supposedly, there were Crud tables in Winnipeg bars, complete with chicken wire enclosures. I never saw any, but when we went to Winnipeg, it was for CFL games (go Blue Bombers!) and horse racing at Assiniboia Downs, so we didnÂ’t do much bar-hopping in Manitoba.

Posted by: Ted at 04:31 PM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 642 words, total size 4 kb.

March 28, 2004

Three French Hens, Two Turtle Doves, and a Volkswagen in a Pear Tree

I grew up in rural San Jose, California, back when it was still getting used to the idea that it had become a small city and was no longer the farm community it once was. In those pre-silicon valley days, San Jose was figuring itself out, not wanting to be like it's snooty neighbor San Fransisco, and secretly worried that it might turn out to be like thuggish Oakland.

Out where we lived, it was as rural as was left in that part of the bay area. We lived in a newish trailer park (did you know that mobile homes appreciate in value in California?), in a big brand-new double-wide. The park was as far on the outskirts as possible while still being part of San Jose. We were isolated, at the very end of First Street (at that time the longest 'main street' in the US).

The park was situated at the end of a half-mile long stretch of raised blacktop off of First Street. The most remarkable thing about the road was a humungous drainage dip about 3/4 of the way to the park. Take it at speed, and you would be airborn. Nowadays kids would think of it as a near perfect half-pipe, at least a beginners version. The rest of the road sat about six feet higher than the land on either side.

Bordering the park on the back side was Agnew State Mental Institution (West Wing), where the safe crazy's lived. They farmed for therapy and sold produce at a roadside stand. Loony as all git out, but harmless. The violent and scary ones lived about a mile away at the East Wing, where the fences were topped with razor wire and inmates getting a little fresh air were chained to the benches. Every six hours, a siren would wail at one wing, and the other would answer, letting folks know that all was safe in the land of the normal. I've got some loony stories, but those are for another time.

So we've got the mental hospital on one side, and an interstate on another, with a big field between us and the highway. In season the field would be full of migrants, picking lettuce or onions or whatever was growing.

On the third side was a cactus farm, with big glassy greenhouses and complete with scary-assed watchdogs. You didn't mess around there.

But on the fourth side, where the road connected to First Street, was pear orchard. Across First Street was pear orchard. Acres and acres of orchards. Beyond the cactus farm was another onion field, and then more orchards. All those orchards were our playground. In the Calvin & Hobbes cartoons, Calvin used to go into the woods to get away and play. We had the orchard.

Because of our relative isolation, as kids all we had were each other. Galapagos Finches. We had few outside friends, because we were bussed across town to school (we passed at least three high schools on the way to our school). It was an interesting environment to grow up in, and we did have our occasional Lord of the Flies moment, but we mostly got along.

One friday night I was walking around looking for something to do, when I came across Moby and Mac (names changed to protect the stupid). Moby was as tall and bumbling as could be, and the closest thing to a stoner that we had in our little circle. Mac was the middle brother of three, and somehow he'd managed to get drunk. Moby was leading him around the park, trying to sober him up before taking him home.

I started walking along with them, and at one point Moby randomly complained about his mom being out on a date, and being bored. His mom drove an old blue VW bug, and it seemed like a good idea to go for a spin. We headed over to his house, and Moby searched for her keys. No joy.

I said we could hotwire it, and showed them how. More by luck than skill we got it started. I climbed in the back seat, while Moby took the wheel and Mac rode shotgun. We buzzed around the park for a while, and mostly I held on to Mac's belt to keep him from falling out the window as he leaned out and drunkenly hollered at signs and trees.

We made two or three runs down the main road to First Street, but since none of us had a drivers license, we weren't brave enough to actually leave the park property. So we'd go like a bat out of hell granny's VW down the straightaway, then turn around at the end and head back.

On one of those runs, Mac yelled something about hitting an animal and grabbed the steering wheel. We made a sharp right turn, straight off the edge of the road and headed into the pear orchard.

Remember the scene in Blair Witch Project where they're running through the pitch dark woods in black and white? Exactly.

When I came to my senses, my head was hurting. I think I hit it on the roof as we bounced through the field. The car was at an odd angle, up against a tree. The lights were on, the engine was running, the radio was playing, both doors were open, and the front seats were empty.

I looked out the back window and saw Moby and Mac scrambling towards the road. All I could think of was that the car must've been on fire and I didn't want to be in it when it blew up.

I caught up to them on the road. Moby was crying, mostly because he knew his ass was grass. Mac was laughing like a maniac, mostly at Moby. Me, I was already setting up my alibi. Going through the timeline out loud, making sure I was covered and completely unconnected with it all. Getting everybody's story straight.

When I got home later, I calmly said goodnight to my folks and went to bed. The next morning, I mentioned that it had been a while since we'd been to Confession.

That afternoon, we were sitting in the family room, and I remember my aunt and uncle being there. The phone rang and my mom answered. She listened for a moment, not saying much at all, and then handed the phone to my dad. Mom got up, walked over to where I was sitting on the couch, and started to beat me. It went like this:

"How" {SMACK} "Dare" {SMACK} "You" {SMACK} "Steal" {SMACK} "A" {SMACK} "Car" {SMACK} "And" {SMACK}...

Well, you get the idea. I was curled up, arms over my head protecting myself while mom wailed away and my relatives looked on with stunned expressions.

My dad hung up the phone and walked up behind mom and stopped her from hitting me any more. She hadn't done any real damage, she was too mad to do more than flail away, but I'd have some bruises on my arms for sure. Mom actually said to my dad "You hit him, my arms are tired."

Dad gathered me up and we walked down to Moby's house. The beetle sat in their driveway, looking beat to hell. Windsheild smashed, fender torn off, dented and scraped up pretty good. My dad talked to Moby's mom, and they agreed that I would buy a new windsheild and get a fender and put it on. The rest would be up to the other boys.

I found out later that Moby called his mom when he got home and told her the car was stolen. When the cops found it - not hard at night with the lights still on - they supposedly dusted it for prints and found ours. I still think Moby just guilted himself into ratting us out.

The phone call. When my mom answered the phone, Moby's mom said "Mrs. Phipps? Last night your son and two other boys stole my car and wrecked it in the pear orchard." Not once did she ever tell my parents that her son was one of the "two other boys".

I got a sunset curfew for a year, and my folks enforced it. Dad and I made a trip to the junkyard. I dipped into my savings and bought a windsheild and fender, and my dad helped me attach the fender. He was pretty pissed off when he found out the other two got zero punishment for our stunt, and we never did finish the glass.

My brother wrecked our family car in the same orchard a few years later after I'd left home. Drag racing or something equally stupid. Almost a family tradition.

And that's the story of #5 on my list.

Posted by: Ted at 01:07 AM | category: Boring Stories
No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1497 words, total size 8 kb.

March 25, 2004

Air Force Blue (part 9)

I'm going to backtrack a little bit, back to Security Police training (talked about it here and here). The last part was Air Base Ground Defense, where we threw grenades and patrolled and set ambushes and all that army-man stuff. Big fun. Really. Like playing as kids, except we had real M16's full of blanks.

So one day towards the end of our ABGD training, our job as a unit was to attack and secure a mock weapons storage area. It had a fence around it, and real bunkers and a tower, but the 'buildings' were mostly plywood boxes with door and window openings. Nothing too permanent.

So we attacked, and overran the base, and secured it. And after all this running around, the fire team I was attached to - four of us - were sitting in this corrugated tin shed that was used as the Entry Control Point for the area.

It was cool and dark inside, and we leaned back against the walls catching our breath, when one of the guys pulls out this little bottle from his shirt pocket. I had no idea what it was, being the naive youngster that I was then. It was a bottle of what he called "Locker Room" or some such, and I think they also called it a popper. The basic idea being you inhaled and it gave you a massive head rush and you got really dizzy for a moment and pretended it was like being high.

So the guy hits it, and for some reason reached for his weapon leaning against the wall. He manages to grab it by the trigger guard, and inexplicably his weapon wasn't on safe, it was on full auto. The fool accidentally machine guns a full 20-round magazine of blanks at the ceiling.

Remember now, we're in a tin shed.

The noise was deafening. We were writhing around on the floor, holding our ears. After a few seconds someone realized that we were being called on the radio, wondering what we were shooting at. There was only one thing to do.

We ran out of the shed, flopped to the ground, and started shooting into the treeline across the road. Soon every trainee in our unit is blazing away at that poor innocent clump of trees. Eventually we all ran out of ammo and the firing trickled off. We later got an 'attaboy' for detecting the attack, and our prompt action prevented the enemy from conducting the attack, forcing them to withdraw after surprise was lost. Uh-huh.

My ears rang for hours. The three of us beat the crap out of popper-boy later that evening.

Posted by: Ted at 03:58 PM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 453 words, total size 3 kb.

March 08, 2004

Air Force Blue (part

It was the meanest practical joke I was ever involved in. Not the funniest and certainly not the most fun, but unsurpassed for pure mean...

I'm going to change enough details here to make the victim anonymous, because you could Google his name and find out all kinds of things about him. I know it because I did just that.

He was a nice enough guy, if a little naive. He and his wife were newlyweds, devoted to each other, and devout. His name was Jerry P (changed), and his family was famous in certain circles. Jerry was a proud family name, so much so that his twin brother shared the same first name. Jerry's brother Jerry went into the Marine Corps at about the same time our Jerry joined the Air Force.

And that's everything you need to know as setup to this practical joke.

It wasn't my idea, and I don't know who first thought of it. The only reason I was involved at all was because the luck of the duty roster put me on a post with a phone that night. But I went along wholeheartedly, because the plan was brilliant.

It was well after dark on swing shift, during that evening lull after dinner, and a few hours away from the midnight shift relief. The phone at my post rang, and when I answered a friend told me about this joke being set up on Jerry. I was to monitor my radio and be ready to pick up the phone and listen quietly.

This was the security phone system, not connected to the civilian world, but we could do things like set up party lines and such.

In a while Jerry P was paged on the radio and given a telephone number to call. He had to phone Central Security first (they were in on the joke), and asked them to transfer the call outside our network.

While the phone was ringing, cops all over the base were quietly picking up their phones to listen in.

A doctor answered the phone. The 'doctor' was actually another cop that Jerry P didn't know. The doctor verified personal information (social security number, etc) with Jerry P to convince him that the call was legit. Then came the joke.

"Airman Jerry, you have a brother in the Marine Corps, correct?"

"Yes sir."

"And he has the same first and last name as you, correct?"

"Yes sir."

"Well, we have an unfortunate mixup here then. As part of standard procedure, everybody going through basic training is tested for various things, including venereal disease. Your brother tested positive and has been undergoing treatment for syphilis for the past month, but we've discovered a mistake in our records, and, well, this is difficult to say..."

(confused) "What do you mean?"

"Unfortunately Airman Jerry P, your brother doesn't have syphilis, you do."

I will never know how we all managed to keep quiet. I was bent over, holding the phone and my stomach, desperately trying not to laugh out loud.

It took a moment for Jerry P to respond, and at first he was sure it was a mistake. It had to be. The doctor kept insisting that Jerry P stay calm and report the next day to the base hospital. Jerry P kept getting more and more agitated, and that's when he dropped the bomb.

"BUT I'VE NEVER SLEPT WITH ANYONE BUT MY WIFE!!!!"

He was in tears, and suddenly it wasn't funny anymore. Jerry thought he had VD, and since he'd been a virgin when he got married, the only way he could have gotten it was from his wife. His newlywed wife.

And he was on duty, and had a gun.

I heard a quiet call on the radio, sending someone over to Jerry's post ASAP. Hopefully to disarm him before he did something stupid. Then someone on the party line snickered loud enough to be heard, and we were busted.

Oh man, he was righteously pissed. Couldn't blame the guy one bit either, talk about a roller coaster of emotions we'd put him through. He didn't shoot himself, but he was close to shooting the supervisor who went over to take his rifle away until he calmed down. Calming down took several hours, and it was a week or more before he would talk to anyone. Eventually we could kid him again, though not about that. The joke was never ever mentioned. I don't know about the other people eavesdropping that night, but I always felt major guilt over that practical joke.

I still think it was brilliant though.

Posted by: Ted at 06:59 PM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 781 words, total size 4 kb.

March 05, 2004

Air Force Blue (part 7)

This story is about an odd little incident that happened to me one day on duty. I'm going to relate it exactly as it happened, but there are a few not-quite-right details that I'll mention at the end.

I wasn't wearing a parka that day, which means that it was sometime in August in Grand Forks, North Dakota. I was also working Six-Charlie. Some cops loved working Six-Charlie, some hated it. I was an in-betweener, as it was a nice change occasionally, but it could also be a royal pain.

In those days Grand Forks had five B-52's on alert at all times. Fully fueled and loaded with nukes, crews close at hand on standby, they could take off with five minutes notice (click the pic for a real appreciation of the size of the B-52). As you can imagine, there were cops all over the place in that area, guarding and protecting things.

"The Pad" was where the spare aircraft were kept. Most of the time, the pad was patrolled by one cop in a pickup truck (Six-Charlie), while the majority of security was provided by the maintenance crews and flight personnel that swarmed the area. A lot of times, it was a sleepy backwater.

I was just cruising slowly around the area when I got the call on the radio. An unidentified aircraft was on approach, and not answering radio calls. I turned on the lights and stomped the accelerator and raced to the end of the runway.

We had standard procedures for this. It wasn't common, but occasionally some poor flight student doing a solo would mistake our runway for the one at Grand Forks International, ten miles east of us. The runways were oriented the same way, and an inexperienced or nervous pilot might not notice details like the airbase, especially from the direction this one was coming. That's if they could see the base at all, for the day was far from clear. The clouds were low and thick, it was rainforest muggy, and it felt like a good thunderstorm could happen at any moment.

I positioned myself at the edge of the end of the runway and watched the clouds. As soon as the tower gave the word I'd drive alongside the runway, and when the plane landed I'd lead it to a holding area where the pilot would be detained. Most of the time, we felt sorry for them, because they'd be all kinds of embarrassed for their mistake.

The tower called go, and I started rolling down the edge of the runway, picking up speed. I was expecting a little Piper Cub or something similar. Instead, this huge and wicked looking jet materialized out of the bottom of the cloud deck, startling the bejeebers out of me. I frantically looked for markings, trying to figure out what it was as it roared by.

As the jet passed me and touched down, I called the tower and let them know that it was a Canadian RF-101 Voodoo. I could tell it was the reconnasance version from the long boxy nose that housed the cameras. In those days I was an aircraft geek, since I worked around them every day.

As the Voodoo slowed down to below 90mph, I managed to pull up alongside and signalled to the crew (twin seater) to follow me. They acknowleged and I concentrated on not wrecking the rattletrap I was driving as we continued to slow down.

They followed my truck to the holding point, and as they shut down the aircraft I got out and, weapon at the ready, waited for them to climb out. The pilot started talking to me from the cockpit but I couldn't understand a word because it was in french. I gestured that they should come down, and finally they climbed out of the aircraft. More hand signals, and they put their hands up in the air. Every time they tried to drop their arms I raised my rifle and their arms went back up. They both wore smiles and chattered at me in french, I assumed they were cursing me out.

Within a minute or two backup arrived. Fifteen more cops, armed to the teeth, and one of them spoke french. My part done, I went back to my interupted patrolling.

That's basically it. I found out later that their base had been closed by bad weather, and they didn't have enough fuel to go anywhere else, so they flew to Grand Forks unannounced. I always thought english was the international flight language, so at least one of those two should have been able to speak at least a little. I also never heard why they wouldn't communicate with the tower on the emergency frequencies, instead of coming in dumb and silent.

Thinking back on it, they could've been surrendering Montreal to me.

Also, it's mildly interesting (to me, anyway) that the Voodoo was retired from active USAF duty in 1971. This story took place in probably 1979 or 1980.

Posted by: Ted at 07:02 AM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 849 words, total size 5 kb.

March 03, 2004

Air Force Blue (part 6)

Last time I talked about my very first day in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and my up-close and personal encounter with a military police dog. Ahhhhh, memories, eh?

This story needs a little set-up. Working around the nukes (which besides the actual weapons themselves includes the bombers, missile fields, maintenance shops, and storage areas), you are held to a higher standard. Quite rightly so, in my opinion. In those days, it was called the Personal Reliability Program (PRP), or maybe it was “Personnel”… doesn’t matter. The point being that you not only had to be a good guy to work those jobs, you had to be constantly monitored to make sure you were trustworthy around such important things. Even something like prescription medications could knock you temporarily off the PRP, and you’d be assigned to a less-sensitive job for a while. Getting into certain kinds of trouble was definitely a no-no…

“Airman Phipps, Grand Forks Security. State your location.”

“Grand Forks Security, this is Airman Phipps. I’m at one-Juliette.”

Long pause.

“One-Juliette, Grand Forks Security. Wait one.”

“10-4”

IÂ’d been waiting for that call all morning. I could imagine the shit hitting the fan right then.

I was sitting in the Weapons Storage Area, near the bunkers where they keep the extra big-glowing-hole-in-the-ground devices, armed with my trusty M16 and 120 rounds of ammo.

I had been busted for drugs the night before.

There was no way I should have been issued a weapon and put on post. I figured IÂ’d be steering a floor buffer for at least a few days while things got straightened out. So I sat there for a few minutes, until the Area Supervisor drove up in his truck. I was relieved of my weapon, read my rights (again), and transported to Central Security Control. Before too long, I was standing before the squadron First Sergeant. He asked me what the story was.

The night before IÂ’d been laying in my bunk reading a book when someone knocked on the door, and then the door opened immediately. I looked up and saw a cop dog-handler, his K9 bud and the dorm chief.

Our dorm had two-man rooms with common latrines down the hall. My roomie wasnÂ’t there that night, I donÂ’t remember where he was. It wasnÂ’t uncommon for the squadron to run the drug-dogs through the dorms.

The cop told me that the dog alerted on our door, and that he was going to search the room.

“Knock yourself out.” I really wasn’t worried. When I got this roommate I had been very clear about one thing: no drugs in the room. I couldn’t have cared less about what he did elsewhere, but don’t bring it to the room. Ever.

So I lay there reading my book. The dog alerted on one wall locker, and I unlocked it so they could search it. As I expected, the dog had smelled a loaf of bread in there and went right for it. They emptied the locker anyway. Nothing.

“Ah ha! Look what I found!”

That was an instant attention-getter. As I got up from my bunk, I was already mentally calculating how long I could keep my roomie alive while I killed him. The phrase “burnt beyond recognition” came to mind.

Over by the desk, the cop stood there with a triumphant look on his face, pointing into the pencil drawer. I looked inside and stifled a laugh. Forgetting that he had two weapons, the pistol on his hip and that dog, I made my first mistake.

“Are you an idiot?”

Not very diplomatic, and precisely the wrong thing to say. At that point I was busted, no matter what else was said. I could see that much in his eyes.

I looked back down at his ‘discovery’. It was a small plastic packet of pizza seasonings. At that time, one of the frozen pizza brands had a gimmick where you got a little bag of oregano and other herbs, mixed with some garlic salt and such. It was included in the box, and you sprinkled it on your pizza before popping it into the oven. The packet was about two inches square.

“Do you really think drug dealers are going to heat-seal that little baggie closed?” I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing, which just pissed off the cop even more.

As I laughed, I noticed the dorm chief was looking pretty doubtful about this bust. I tried to explain about the pizza thing, but the cop ignored that, read me my rights, and put the suspicious ‘dope’ into an evidence bag. He then searched the dressers, mostly by emptying drawers onto the floor. He did that last just to get even for me laughing at him. The dog was bored, mostly just staring wistfully at the locker containing the bread.

After they left, I wondered why they didn’t arrest me. Something wasn’t quite right about the whole thing. Still chuckling about the ‘dope’, I cleaned up the room and went to bed. The next morning I went to work as usual, which is when they had called me.

At this point the First Sergeant sent me out into the hall to wait while he called in the K9 handler, I assume to hear his story. The cop glared at me as we passed, I just smiled back. I stood there for awhile, and wondered how bad the chewing-out was going to be for screwing up my arrest. Someone would catch big-time hell for me being issued a weapon and put on post, I was just glad that it wouldnÂ’t be me.

A few minutes later, I got called in again. Standing at attention before the First SergeantÂ’s desk (K9 cop beside me), he told us that the lab results had come back on the evidence. Looking at his notes, he read it to us.

“Oregano… Parsley… Garlic… Onion…”

I managed to keep a straight face. Inside I was more than a little relieved, and made a mental note to let my roomie know just how close to death he had come. Just in case he needed reminding.

I was dismissed, and the First Sergeant told the K9 troop to stay for a little talking to.

That wasnÂ’t quite the end of it though.

I didnÂ’t keep the story quiet, it was too funny not to share. IÂ’m sure it got back to the K9 cop, which must have been pretty embarrassing for him. I had no hard feelings, because he was young and inexperienced. He, on the other hand, was holding a grudge, as I was to find out.

A few weeks later, I got called in to see the First Sergeant. Never a good thing, I was trying to figure out what I had done wrong this time. I knocked, presented myself, and waited at attention.

“Airman Phipps, we have a report that you had your personal vehicle checked by a drug dog on (some date I don’t remember). Any comment?”

Oh jeez. “Yes sir. I bought a used car, and figured it would be smart to have it checked right away. I went over to the kennels and asked a friend to run a dog through the car as a favor. It was clean, sir.”

“Why would you do that?”

I reminded the First Sergeant about another Airman who bought a used car and got busted at the main gate when a drug dog alerted on it. As far as I knew, that person didnÂ’t smoke dope, so whatever was found was probably there when she bought the car. He knew who I was talking about, and knew she was a good cop too, so what I had done made sense in that light.

I did ask where the First Sergeant got that report, but he wouldnÂ’t tell me. It didnÂ’t take a genius to figure it out though.

Not long after I had another direct confrontation with doggie-cop. I was on duty with my team, and we had just come out of the chow hall. At the street, I turned right to go drop a letter into the mailbox, while the rest of the team continued on towards our truck.

A police car was parked at the curb, and just as I walked by the driverÂ’s door opened and K9 cop stepped out and glared at me. I just kept walking towards the mailbox.

“You! Halt!”

I turned around slowly, and sure enough, the nitwit was pointing at me, he also had one hand on his sidearm.

“My dog alerted on you! Halt right where you are!”

“Your dog alerted on me? You’re kidding, right?”

“There are drugs in that envelope. Freeze!”

IÂ’d had enough of this stupidity.

“You’re dog alerted on me. From inside a car with the windows rolled up. As I walked by. Because I have drugs in a sealed envelope. Go to hell, you idiot.” And with that I turned around, took the final few steps and dropped the letter in the mailbox. When I turned around, K9 cop had his weapon out and was shaking because he was so pissed off.

Since his weapon was drawn, I didn’t argue any more. Hell, my team was witnessing the whole thing. He disarmed me (M16, I was on duty), put me on my face spread eagle (for being ‘belligerent’), and we waited for backup. I snickered when my team was called to attend the situation. Fastest response ever.

I stayed calm until I saw the First Sergeant again, then lost it a little bit. Apparently he agreed with me this time, because I didnÂ’t get into any trouble (not that I had done anything wrong, which didnÂ’t always mean you werenÂ’t punished), and I never saw that K9 cop again.

Posted by: Ted at 09:37 AM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 1644 words, total size 9 kb.

February 20, 2004

Says it all

When my wife was rid of her wheelchair and allowed to drive again, this is the custom license plate I put on her car (extended entry): more...

Posted by: Ted at 05:05 AM | category: Boring Stories
No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 39 words, total size 1 kb.

February 18, 2004

Air Force Blue (part 5)

Spoiler Alert – This includes the story of how I wound up on my back, being read my rights, with a police dog standing on my chest (#45 on my Cornucopia of Ted list).

After collectively graduating from our police "tech school" training, we were presented with our dark blue berets and given our orders for assignment. In the Air Force, you keep a form on file commonly referred to as your "dream sheet" which lists the top ten places you'd like to be assigned. Theoretically, when it comes time to send you to your next assignment, they start with your first choice and see if thereÂ’s an opening there for your specialty and rank, and if not they go to your second choice, and so on.

The main thing about my dream sheet was that California didn’t appear on it at all. I didn’t want to go back home, I wanted to see some of the world – well, some of the US anyway. I wasn’t ready for overseas yet.

I can guarantee you one thing though - Minot, North Dakota was not even remotely on my list of places to go. Maybe you’ve heard the standard joke: “Why not, Minot? Freezin’s the reason.” Uh huh, exactly.

Now the Air Force does something kinda cool at this point. In this room of brand new and entirely interchangeable newbies, you can trade assignments with someone instantly. Just find some sucker one else willing to do it, and it happens. Of course, nobody is going to trade for Minot, because the only people who want to go have already put it on their dream sheet, and you can bet that those people get their wish.

So IÂ’m standing there with my orders, wondering where Minot is (and for that matter, where exactly is North Dakota?), when another guy comes up looking to trade. See, his girlfriend is going to Minot, and heÂ’s going to Grand Forks, North Dakota, and he wanted to know if I would trade orders with him? Sure, what the heck. North Dakota is North Dakota. This turned out to be a huge decision, since I met my wife in Grand Forks, and the guy I traded with broke up with his girlfriend within a month.

Before traveling to the Great White North, I went home for leave, my first Christmas as a military man.

December 26th, 1977. Nice day in northern California, temperature in the 50Â’s, chilly enough to need a heavy windbreaker. At the airport Mom cried, Dad was proud, and Ted is off to live his life. I donÂ’t remember much of the flight, but as we were descending into Grand Forks that night, the pilot mentioned that the ride was bumpy because of the blizzard just kicking up, and that we were lucky we hadnÂ’t been diverted. I found out later that we were the last plane to land for almost three days.

In those days, Grand Forks International Airport earned it’s name from the thrice-weekly flights to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Hey, it was ‘International’, how small could it be? As the plane stopped, the stewardess stood at the front of the plane and told everyone that once the door was opened, we should all closely follow in single file to the terminal, because visibility was really bad and they didn’t want anyone getting lost in the blizzard. Huh? What about rolling the little accordian thingie up to the door and walking down the ramp into the terminal? Yeah, right.

We filed off, struggling with our carry-ons into the wind and blowing snow (and I’m in a windbreaker!), and my mind is running a mantra, “…what the hell did I get myself into?… what the hell did I get myself into?…”, over and over again. Out of the darkness loomed a one-story building – the terminal. We hustled inside and stood around shaking the snow out of our hair and stamping our shoes (sneakers in my case) and trying to warm up. An announcement was made that our luggage would be coming in at the baggage claim at Gate 2 (there were only two).

We all shuffled over to Gate 2, and suddenly a big garage-type door rolled up and the blizzard was inside with us. Through the blowing snow you could make out two guys frantically heaving suitcases and whatnot through the opening in the wall, trying to get done as quickly as possible. Then the door slammed down and shut and everyone started rooting through the pile to find their luggage.

“…what the hell did I get myself into?… what the hell did I get myself into?…”

Half in shock, I located my stuff (everything I owned), and dragged it over to a chair. Now I needed to find a ride to the base, but for this I was prepared. Hell, they even had a courtesy phone on the wall to call the base taxi. Five minutes later I slouched back in the chair, totally dejected and resigned to spending at least the night in the terminal. It was going to be a cold hungry stretch, because the vending machines were all empty, not that I had change anyways. Concessions? Yeah, right.

Some guy, whoÂ’s name I donÂ’t remember but who shall always be my hero, walked up and asked if I needed a ride to the base. Seems the person he was there to pick up didnÂ’t make it (connecting flight grounded), so if I needed a rideÂ…

This guy went above and beyond, and I later realized he was more than a little crazy. See, Grand Forks International is located almost exactly halfway between the city of Grand Forks, and Grand Forks AFB. Ten miles in either direction on US Interstate 2. So this good Samaritan, in what was working up to be a whopper of a blizzard, gave me the grand tour of the city first (not that I could see anything at all, let alone make sense of it – I remember him showing me the college campus), before driving back twenty miles to the base.

I told him I was a cop, so he took me to the ‘cop barracks’ so I could get a room. I unloaded my stuff from his car and thanked him with all my heart (and never saw him again) and went into the barracks. It was now about 11pm.

I found the day room where a bunch of guys were playing pool and watching TV. One of them was the Dorm Chief, and when I talked to him and showed him my orders his response was “I ain’t got no room.”

At this point, Leavenworth wasnÂ’t looking half bad. I argued with him for a few minutes, and finally one of the guys playing pool told the Chief to put me in with him, since he didnÂ’t have a roommate. Done.

I walked up to the 3rd floor with my new roomie, dumped my crap in the corner and crawled into bed. It had been a long, bad day, and I needed some serious down time. Suicide was not considered, desertion wasÂ…

Dog-breath. In my face, panting hot like a bellows. Opening my eyes, I stayed otherwise still and looked into a mouth full of yellow teeth. The teeth were obviously attached to a dog, but why was a German Shepherd in my room? In North Dakota, I remembered. And why was the dog standing on my chest? I realized there were words being spoken:

“…if you refuse this right anything you say can and will be used against you…”

And at this point I noticed an Air Force policeman attached to the dog by a leash, and as he read me my rights, the dog stood over me, breathing into my face.

My new roomie (forever blessed as well, but I’m not giving his name here although I do remember it), called out from his rack across the room, “Any drugs you find in the room are mine, he just got here!”

Whatta pal.

The cops tore the room apart while searching it. No drugs were found. My roomie was busted for having a sugar dispenser he stole from the chow hall. Roomie was trying to get out of the Air Force, and it was not an amicable parting. The dog probably never alerted on the room door like they claimed, the cops were just hoping to get lucky and find some drugs on him. I just happened to be there, they had no idea who I was.

That was my first day in tropical Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Posted by: Ted at 05:28 AM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 1448 words, total size 8 kb.

February 08, 2004

Squirrels and the bird feeder

I'm seriously tempted to buy one of these.

We keep a stocked bird feeder in our back yard, and there's nothing more relaxing than sitting quietly on the swing and watching the birds come and go. We bought a book on birds of the mid-Atlantic states so we could identify our little friends, and we now recognize almost two dozen regular visitors.

Of course, the squirrels and I match wits constantly, and I often win. They destroyed one feeder by gnawing through the line holding it up in the tree, so I replaced it with another hung with plastic-coated braided wire. That was fun to watch, because they chewed through the plastic, then figured out it hurt to bite the wire.

When I moved the feeder to a pole away from the tree, they learned to make dive-bomber leaps from overhanging branches, grabbing at the feeder as they hurtled by. With practice, they've improved their accuracy and success rate, but it has to hurt when they miss.

Up to now, common practice has been to hang on to the feeder and rake the seed to the ground below, searching for the occasional sunflower seed like a kid going for the peanuts in a box of cracker-jacks.

But now, one of them has accidentally stumbled upon the secret of the new feeder, and they've learned how to hit the jackpot at will. more...

Posted by: Ted at 07:36 AM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 261 words, total size 2 kb.

February 05, 2004

Theatrical Review

(Ha! Now IÂ’m a theatre critic, eh?)

Last night I attended the Cardinal District Theatre Festival. This is what Mookie has been so swamped with lately, on top of regular schoolwork and the spring production of MidsummerÂ’s Night Dream.

The festival is a competition where various schools put on one-act plays before judges and audience. They get constructive criticism from theatrically-trained people, which helps them put on better shows in the future. Each play must run less than 35 minutes or be disqualified. The top two schools from each district move on to regionals, and from there on to state-level competition.

If you care, the rest is in the extended entry. more...

Posted by: Ted at 11:02 AM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 1302 words, total size 8 kb.

February 04, 2004

Dealing with a bully at school

Michele is going through it. Paul is too. Some kid at school is picking on your kid, and how do you handle it if the teacher/principal/school system won't?

My solution was simple, although it took a long time before I finally implemented it. I tried the reasonable parent approach, talking to the various authority figures involved and giving the system time to work.

It didn't work.

One afternoon I got a call from the principal. She was a nice lady and we got along well enough, although in this matter she'd been ineffective. I'll never forget her first words:

"You can't teach your child that!"

I knew exactly what I she was talking about. She was upset. My son had informed his 3rd grade teacher that his new policy was "massive retaliation". When the startled teacher asked what he meant, TJ gave her the whole littany that I'd drilled into his head over the weekend.

"The next time (bully) picks on me, I'm going to hurt him. I will kick him in the groin. I will hit him with a book, or I will hit him with a chair. I will hit him with anything I can find. And I will keep hitting him until a teacher pulls me off of him."

The teacher was horrified and immediately called the principal. TJ repeated it to her, and that's when she called me. I also let her know that it applied to my daughters as well. If any of my children witnessed a sib having trouble, they were to immediately jump in with "massive retaliation". The crap was going to stop, once and for all. I figured once or twice would be all it took. It worked even better than that, because the school staff decided to do what should have happend in the first place, namely deal with the bully instead of blaming the victim.

Interestingly enough, a year later my son did get into a fight with a different kid that cut into line ahead of him. The kid outweighed my son by 30 lbs, but was so surprised when TJ fought back that it never happened again. They all thought my son was crazy.

Posted by: Ted at 07:33 AM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (12) | Add Comment
Post contains 378 words, total size 2 kb.

January 26, 2004

Mean-assed Bird

My wife called me at work.

"Ted, there's a woodpecker out back. He's tearing up the wood around the tomatoes."

"Chase him away."

"No. I'm afraid of it."

We had just gotten back from Germany, and were renting a house in Maryland. Nice place on a large lot, with a fair sized garden patch lined with telephone pole sized timbers.

Liz gave me more details, and the more she told me, the less plausible it all sounded. I told her that I'd take care of things when I got home in a few hours.

Oh. My. God. She wasn't exaggerating a bit. Examining the aftermath, the timbers looked like someone had machine gunned it. Foot-long splinters were everywhere, and the wood was peppered with holes big enough to poke your finger into. The wood was shredded. Our landlord was a jerk, and he was going to be pissed for sure.

Later, as we ate dinner we heard the woodpecker again. I went out on the deck and I swear this sonuvabitch was the size of a chicken. Once again he was attacking the timbers around the garden, and the splinters were flying. He flew off when I approached him, but reluctantly. I had an uncomfortable flashback to Hitchcock's The Birds.

He returned a few more times over the next few days, and on the weekend I threw rocks at him when he went after the wood siding under the eaves of the house. He finally did leave, never to return again.

Good riddance.

Posted by: Ted at 08:36 AM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 257 words, total size 1 kb.

January 23, 2004

TGIF

I don't talk a whole lot about work. Let me just say for the record that this week was the culmination of literally years of effort (and millions of taxpayer dollars), and I am so freaking glad it's almost over.

I've come in early every day and I've worked through lunch every day. My 'office' is a refrigerator, and I don't mean I'm chilly, I mean it's damn cold in here.

My big accomplishment this week is arranging 17 years worth of data into useful form and then putting it out there for other folks to upload into a brand new computer system due to roll over like a dead dog come online monday. Well, almost all of the data. It turns out that we're going to be short some .8 million records because we're running out of time. And I'm not coming in to work this weekend. Screw it, I was all set and ready to go, but some genius had to make unneccessary last minute changes that destroyed our carefully planned schedule.

Enough whining. They can get it monday.

Posted by: Ted at 02:29 PM | category: Boring Stories
No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 183 words, total size 1 kb.

January 22, 2004

Where were you when...

Some folks will never forget where they were when they heard that JFK had been shot. I remember every second of my morning at work when the shuttle Challenger tragedy happened. I also vividly recall where I was when I found out that John Belushi had died. Everyone has different events that touched them in deeply personal ways.

This story is about my most memorable 'where were you' moment. It actually has a happy ending, although it was by no means a sure thing at the time.

It was the early 1980's, and my best friend Paul and I were on leave from the Air Force. We'd gone to his hometown in southeastern Minnesota - near Mankato, Little House on the Prairie country - for R&R. We'd spent this particular day road drinking, at least that's what I call it. Basically, we were out running around to all the various small towns dotting the area, visiting his old friends and stopping for a beer at every bar we happened across.

In one town (Blue Earth? Good Thunder?), we stopped at this little hole-in-the-wall biker bar, obvious from the line of dusty Harley's parked out front. We walked in and went to the bar and ordered beer. There were 8 or 10 people in the place, and they all looked like stereotypical bikers. We were getting a pretty good looking over because, well, with our military haircuts we didn't exactly blend in. Drinking our beer, I glanced up at the TV going in the corner and asked the bartender to turn it up.

President Reagan had been shot. Attempted assassination. He was conscious, and was heading into surgery.

Paul and I bought a round for the whole bar, and as all these bikers came up to see what was going on, Paul lifted his shot and said "To the President". I echoed him, and then so did every biker.

I'll never forget that moment.

Posted by: Ted at 07:20 AM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 331 words, total size 2 kb.

January 19, 2004

Published writer

Yep, that's me. Honesty compels me to admit that I did once have a letter published in Penthouse. Because of the younger and/or more sensitive folks who visit and read, I've put the text of my letter into the extended entry. more...

Posted by: Ted at 01:02 PM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 86 words, total size 1 kb.

January 18, 2004

1/5 of the Friday Five

I know lots of people do the Friday Five. This week I saw (among others) Tink and Dawn answer, and one question in particular jumped out at me.

4. Have you received any gifts with messages engraved upon them? What did the inscription say?

When I was stationed in Germany, I was in charge of a wonderful group of people. These men and women were the type you could give instructions to, then leave alone knowing that they would get the job done. I was very protective of them because they made me look good.

Occasionally, one of my people would be on the phone getting frustrated with a nitwit-du-jour, and because of the nature of our work, it was usually someone of higher rank. If it went far enough that I needed to get involved, I'd say "Let me talk to that twinkie."

When I left that assignment, my people gave me a beautiful plaque (it's hanging above my desk right now) that has this inscription:

"Good Luck and Don't Let the Twinkies Get You"

Posted by: Ted at 07:27 AM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 186 words, total size 1 kb.

January 17, 2004

Personal questions

Last week I had to do the interview for my security clearance update, which is routinely done every five years or so. The Special Agent came to my place of work at the time agreed on, and we sat down so she could conduct the interview.

These interviews start off with about five minutes of "Privacy Act..." and "Civil Code..." and "You can..." and "If you so desire...", accompanied by much form signing and reading of paperwork.

Then comes the personal questions. Most of it is just verifying that what you told them on your paperwork is correct, and asking for certain amplifications to an answer here and there. It's the price you pay for the clearance, and in this neck of the woods, the clearance is worth extra bucks on your resume.

After a standard series of questions about "illegal substance" use, I asked the agent whether anyone still answered with "I didn't inhale". She laughed and said that she had never had anyone use that line.

I told her about my last interview, when asked if I ever smoked marijuana that I had replied "I suppose the politically correct answer is: I didn't inhale". That agent wasn't amused, so I quickly revised my answer to a simple 'no'.

The interview was easy, because I'm boring. The agent said that for this purpose, that's a good thing.

In the next month or two, the neighbors will tell me about being visited by an agent asking questions about me. Personal privacy is a relative thing.

Posted by: Ted at 08:09 AM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 259 words, total size 1 kb.

January 10, 2004

They don't even try anymore

The Weekly World News doesn't even pretend to be serious anymore. This week's headline sums it up: Bat Boy Led Our Troops to Saddam's Hole!

I miss the good ol' days, when you knew they were full of crap, but they didn't serve it up with a big ol' wink.

When I was stationed in Germany, in our office we had this big bulletin board. On it were various stories from the tabloids, by category. Bigfoot story, UFO story, and so on. Every week, we'd pick up a copy of each of the tabloids, cut out the best stories, and put them up as well. Then everyone would vote on the 'best' for each type of story. That one stayed up and the loser was removed. It was entertaining, and we kept up with the important news.

Totally unrelated. My wife hates going to the grocery store with me, because in line at the register I'll track down a copy of the Weekly World News and read it out loud to her. I make sure everyone can hear me. My favorite parts are Dear Dottie and Ed Anger. Are they even still around? It's been awhile.

Changing gears again, my 'brush with fame' bit for the tabloids involves a WWN story from a few years ago, about a possessed dishwasher in Italy and the priest who performed the exorcism on it. The 'priest' in the photo was a co-worker of mine, the 'owner' of Satan's appliance was his girlfriend, and the Italian kitchen was located all of about two miles from my house. I don't care though, it's still all true.

Posted by: Ted at 07:07 AM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 281 words, total size 2 kb.

January 03, 2004

My HOA

If you live in a neighborhood under the control of a Homeowners Association (HOA), then it's quite possible that you've had a run-in or two with some power-mad board member who acts like he has more authority than he really does.

I've had a few encounters with my HOA over the years, and for the most part they've learned to leave me alone. I know the rules better than they do, and refuse to let them push me around.

The last bit of fun I had with the HOA was when they announced that nobody was allowed to have satellite dishes on their roofs for aesthetic reasons. I threatened to install a dish on my roof and disguise it with one of these fake rocks. I'd make that sucker look like a meteor crashed right through my roof, but the dish would be hidden.

Not surprisingly, they dropped their objections.

Posted by: Ted at 09:20 AM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 154 words, total size 1 kb.

December 09, 2003

Uh oh moment

A few months ago, we had one of our periodic weekend 'disaster recovery' exercises. Our part is simple, we just make sure that our system works like normal even though it's connected to a backup mainframe in another state. I'm the primary point of contact, so on friday afternoon I reminded everyone about it one last time and went home for the weekend.

On sunday morning the phone rings and my wife answered it. She handed the phone to me and said "It's your boss".

"Oh Shit! I'm supposed to be at work!!!" Telling my wife to let 'em know that I'm on the way, I jumped up and started getting ready as quickly as I could. I was already a half-hour late.

I blasted out the front door in record time, and as I ran down the front walk towards my truck, my daughters stood on the porch and hollered "Run Forrest run! Run Forrest run!"

Posted by: Ted at 07:17 PM | category: Boring Stories
Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 163 words, total size 1 kb.

<< Page 2 of 4 >>
124kb generated in CPU 0.031, elapsed 0.1135 seconds.
84 queries taking 0.0915 seconds, 235 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.