Leaderboard

We were living on the Marine air station at Iwakuni in May of 1959. On May Day that year, a bunch of commies rioted at the base entrance, so the base fire department turned the hoses on them. Thus ended the riot. Seems we could resurrect that tactic for some of today’s antics.

Chuck Norris was petting a tiger. Suddenly the tiger began to utter a soft growl. The trainer said, "get up slowly and back away." So, the tiger did.

Is this a real problem?

Got to love interservice rivalries - kind of like a Linebacker calling a Split end a wuss. In theory and usually in fact parts of a whole. Sometimes at worst, not well coordinated.

WTH is up with these stupid ****ing so-called battle cries by the Army and Navy. I knew about the Marine “Oorah” for a long time, but now I see the Navy supposedly has a call of Hooyah? Bull Crap! My guess is a bunch of whiney douchbag new ensigns and 2nd lieutenants got dare wittle feewings huht because Marines had a battle cry and they didn’t.

TOTENKOPF Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller slammed the cruiser's door and stomped toward the group on the football field. "NOW WHAT'S THIS I HEAR ABOUT A BUNCH OF HELL RAISIN' TROUBLE MAKIN' SORTS!" she yelled, her voice pitched to carry: she shouldered her way into the center of the group, then she threw her head back and laughed, seized two of the men, hugged them to her and laughed, and they laughed with her: a half dozen men crowded in, demanding their turn, some hoisting her off the ground they way they used to hoist her pale eyed grandmother, back when they were young, when they were skinny, when they were football players for Firelands. Football practice was at an utter and absolute halt. Most of the players had some idea what was going on. The coaches all did. The remainder of the Firelands High School Football Team did what puzzled young men do when a woman comes in and causes utter confusion. The stood, and they stared. Marnie curled her lip, whistled, thrust a knife-hand at the head coach. "HEY COACH! HOW'S THEIR ROAD WORK?" "LACKING!" came the shout. "THEY NEED CONDITIONED!" Deputy Sheriff Marnie Keller looked at one of the fathers, lifted her chin, then grinned in absolute delight. One of the fathers raised a pole, and on the pole, a pennant, and on the pennant, a skull, missing its lower jaw. "FALL IN, DAMN YOU, OR I'LL HAVE YOUR GUTS FOR GARTERS!" Marnie screamed. "EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU MISERABLE EXCUSES FOR A HUMAN BEING, FALL IN!" Fathers of the football players fell in, the way they had for a pale eyed Sheriff who used to scream at them in the same manner, a pale eyed woman who ran with them, who ranked them and spaced them and paced them, a woman the fathers remembered as one of the most inspiring people they'd ever known. "Firelands, Delta Mary Seven, on site for assigned special detail, out of vehicle." "Roger that." "GUIDON!" Marnie barked. Five wide, four deep, the Firelands Football Team, arranged into ranks by their knowing fathers, looked at one another: the fathers, behind, made a smaller block, but their ranks were just as precise. "DRESS RIGHT, DRESS!" Marnie waited until fathers slipped between the ranks, explained to sons and sons of friends, waited until the ranks were dressed. The guidon was carried to the front, and Marnie's eyes narrowed: she thrust a knife hand at the skinniest member of the football team, called him by name, waved him to the front. She stood him between two linebackers in the front row, then had him pace forward -- "Pace off on the left, toward me, halt!" She thrust the guidon into his surprised hands, then laid her hands on his shoulders. "You," she said quietly, "are the patrol leader. You'll set the pace. Everyone will look to you for that leadership." He looked surprsied, then grinned suddenly, the way a young man will when he is suddenly given a good dose of confidence. "ALL RIGHT, WHO'S THE MEDIC?" Teammates looked at one another, turned and looked at a young man in the next to last row. "MEDIC, FALL OUT, WITH ME!" Fathers looked at one another and grinned, but did not break ranks. Marnie laid her hand on his shoulder, guided him to the rear of her cruiser. "You know CPR," she said. He nodded. "You teach CPR." He nodded again. "That's the best way to learn something, teach it. How about first aid?" "I'm too young to test for EMT, but I passed their course." Marnie stopped, looked at him again. "I thought I recognized you!" she said quietly, then opened the back of the cruiser. "This should be old home week for you, then." She thrust a backpack into his arms. He grinned -- a quick, boyish grin: it was the same backpack he'd trained with when he took the training with the Firelands Fire Department. "Here. Let's get this on you. Turn around." He ran his arms through the padded shoulder straps; Marnie adjusted them just a little, ran the waist belt around him, nodded, then reached into the cruiser and brought out two bottles of water, thrust them into their pockets on the front of his orange-nylon harness. "I need you right where you were," she said. "You'll fall back with any Tail End Charlie, anyone with cramps, any injury." He nodded. "BACK IN RANKS, SOLDIER," Marnie yelled, jogging to the front: "YOU'RE NOT ON VACATION HERE! ALL RIGHT, YOU SORRY BUNCH, LET'S SEE IF YOU CAN KEEP UP WITH A MERE GIRL! YOU WILL RUN IN STEP, YOU WILL STAY WITH ME, YOU WILL SING WHEN I SING, YOU WILL STOP WHEN I STOP, DO YOU GET ME?" "WE GET YOU SIR!" every one of the grinning fathers shouted, their enthusiastic, unified yell echoing off the brick side of the high school building. "GUIDON, UP! DETAIL! FORWARD!" The Firelands Football Team, both past and present, leaned forward into a nice easy run: strong young men, motivated by a pale eyed woman, the way the Firelands Football Team had been motivated, falling into a unified running cadence the way their fathers had, when their fathers were their age. Willamina's Warriors, and their sons, ran once again behind a pale eyed woman, and behind the same hand embroidered Totenkopf guidon that led Willamina's Warriors not many years before.

SOMETIMES IT'S NOT PREDICTABLE I stood on the crumbling concrete sidewalk in front of one of two surviving row houses in Old Washington. I blinked, surprised, wondering how in the hell I got there, and then I relaxed a little. This was my imagination. Ahead, on the right, the post office: I turned, looked up hill at Emma Bond's house, the swing where that fine old woman and I used to sit and swing and discuss the world. Emma Bond was the friendly neighborhood rebroadcast center. If it was to be known, she knew it, but a gossip she wasn't. I turned, looked up the street at the Old Colonial Inn. When Morgan's Raiders came through here, they came right up to this T intersection and boiled both ways, they raided the post office, the general store, they terrified the blacksmith and he tended their horses in an absolutely fear-silenced, sweat-drenched angst, for these were those Rebel devils he'd read about in Harper's Weekly, the ones that slaughtered men, snatched up women and ate children roasted over a fire in the middle of the street. I wondered, as I looked around this little town where I used to live, where the apartment was that General Morgan himself stopped, and tapped at a door, and swept off his fine plumed hat when a woman answered. I smiled a little at the story I'd read: how he asked politely if he might have a drink of water, and how she'd burst into tears and confessed that a moment before, she'd had a pistol pointed at him through the window, for she recognized him by the star that he wore on his breast. General Morgan bowed his head for a long moment, then looked up and said in a gentle voice, "Mrs. Morgan is often on her knees, imploring God Almighty for my safety. I doubt me not in that moment, that my wife was imploring the Almighty to keep me safe." He drank the water she brought him and thanked her courteously, and went on his way. There, in the Colonial Inn, one of his officers lay down for a much needed rest, but when the shout went up that the Yankees were sighted in pursuit, he rose and hastened to join his men, and left the pocket-case containing his wife's image there on the dresser beside the bed. I closed my eyes and took a long breath. I opened my eyes and smiled. I was no longer in Old Washington, Ohio. I was in Firelands. I stepped up -- one step, two -- and instead of standing on decaying cement, I stood on a familiar boardwalk, one I've trodden many times in my imagination. I no longer had a row house of locally-fired, weathered brick on my right. I had a brightly-painted saloon, and over the windows, the carefully-crafted, freshly-repainted sign, THE SILVER JEWEL. I nodded, shifted the rifle slung muzzle down from my off shoulder, paced forward, gripped the bright-brass, hand-lacquered door handle, hauled the door open. I took a moment to admire the frosted scrollwork on the inside of the glass. I stepped inside and it smelled just as I'd imagined: tobacco smoke and beer and the sweat of honest labor, a woman's perfume -- Tilly must've only just vacated her station behind the mahogany hotel counter -- pigeonholes behind the counter, some with keys, some without. I looked around. Empty. I turned, looked at shining beer mugs, at ranks of heavy glass bottles with old fashioned labels, at the beer tap with the long neck I knew ran to the underground storage, where the beer would be kept pleasantly cool. Curtains were brightly colored, clean, the brass foot rail, though worn, was polished, the floor was little short of immaculate: I looked up at the stamped-tin ceiling panels, carefully fitted, the seams fiddlestring-straight. "Someone," I murmured, "took the trouble to make sure those were just right." "Yes they did," a voice said behind me. I turned. "Mr. Baxter, I presume." He was exactly as I'd imagined: the hair, the ribbon necktie, the white apron, a long bar towel over his off shoulder, and he was using its tag end to polish a beer mug. "I didn't start here until after the Sheriff did," he said, "so I wasn't here when she was put up, but ..." He looked up at the ceiling, smiled. "I've put those up myself." He smiled a little at the memory. "It's not easy to get that long a seam, dead straight!" I nodded, looked from the ceiling to behind the bar, and -- Gone -- I sighed. "That's imagination for ya," I muttered. "YES IT IS AN' DON'T YE FERGET IT!" an indignant Irishwoman declared from behind me. I turned, grinned. "Daisymedear!" I exclaimed, delighted, and she shook a wooden spoon at me, frowning. "Don't you Daisymedear me, you scoundrel!" she scolded, her syllables rapid, sharp-edged, her voice loud, pitched to penetrate a man's inebriation or his inattention. " 'Tis only me husband calls me that, an' if ye think ye'll put yer hands on me I'll take me fryin' pan to ye like I did Dirty Sam!" I laughed with absolute delight at this diminutive, fair-haired, milk-skinned, nose-freckled wife of the big Irish Fire Chief: I blinked, and she was gone, and someone I knew from years before stood there, blue-eyed and fair-haired, smiling as gently as I remembered. "My God, you're young," I whispered. I was afraid to move, afraid to destroy whatever fragile magic this could be. "I regret not marrying you," I said softly. "You were needed elsewhere," Dana replied, smiling that gentle smile I remembered from the days when we were in college together. "If you'd married me, you would never have done all that you have" -- she smiled a little more -- "and I was needed elsewhere, too." Dana Lynn Messman, my first love, faded, and was gone. I looked down the hallway, to the back door -- behind it, Shorty's livery; a stage door on the right, Daisy's kitchen, on the left -- all solid and real, not at all as ethereal and tentative as my imagination first painted them. I turned back, looked around, stepped outside, frowned. The Sheriff's office, yonder, that little log fortress: to the left, Digger's funeral parlor, windows shining and freshly washed, I saw the display coffin inside the parlor -- I swung my gaze left, to the Mercantile, and I knew if I turned left and paced up the boardwalk, down the steps, across the alley, back up another short stack of steps, I would come to the original library and newspaper office. I wondered idly if they had a typewriter, then I realized I hadn't researched when the Smith-Corona hit the market, and I shook my head. I felt a step behind me, turned. Mr. Baxter stood there, arranging the towel neatly over his shoulder. "You're trying to come up with a story," he said quietly. "Yes," I nodded. "You're trying too hard." "I'm used to posting one a day right along regular." "Your well is dry," he said, giving me a wise look: "you're tired. Look at what you've done. Your father in law just had surgery, you've stayed with him and tended house, you've fixed meals and handled laundry detail and trash detail and gotten groceries and made sure he didn't have to exert while he healed up. Your wife's not been entirely well and you're taking care of her." I nodded, took a long breath. "You're carrying a rifle you've meant to sight in for three months. You've been so busy doing for everyone else, you haven't done for you." "I write for me," I countered. "I've laid a number of ghosts with my stories." "You have that," the barkeep with the neatly-pomaded hair and fiercely-curled mustache agreed, "but when you run yourself too short, those ghost come philtering up out of their graves, no matter how many rocks you pile on top of 'em." I sighed, closed my eyes. "You're right," I muttered, and opened my eyes. I was no longer in Firelands. There were no more shining mountains rising aggressively behind wind-dried buildings or the wagon-rutted main street. I looked at my laptop, at the metal bookcase I had yet to get moved into the spare room to hold my wife's scrapbooks and albums, I looked at the TV set and the talkies in their chargers ranked on top of the wooden entertainment center. My wife coughed from my left: she reached for the big steaming mug of tea I'd brewed for her earlier, took a sip. She looked at me and said "That asthma attack just took everything out of me. Thank you for getting my inhaler." I leaned my head down into my hand and considered that maybe Mr. Baxter is right. I can't think of a damned thing to write today. Maybe I'll just take things easy and try again tomorrow. By then Angela might walk up and kick me in the shins, or Jacob could gallop past, Old Pale Eyes might lay his hand on my shoulder and offer a quiet suggestion. It's hard to tell. Firelands is sometimes less than predictable.

Thanks. I can tell that 40 years ago there was no Navy “battle cry”. Now if they said the battle cry was “LIBERTY CALL” then I would say “Damn Straight!”

Its Not there but then again neither is the old PX

Fortunately, I have rifles…

Ahh Buffalo... come for the wings... stay to find your car.

I SLEEP WELL, THANK YOU “You ran.” “Yeah.” “You ran from me.” “Yeah.” “You should know better.” “I wasn’t thinkin’.” “No, I’d reckon not.” Two men spoke in quiet voice, near a spring, at a trickle of a stream’s headwaters. It had been a long ride: lawman and lawbreaker, one fleeing, one pursuing: the lawman’s horse was the better of the two, and when the fleeing horse flagged and Sexton realized he’d had it, he turned to face his pursuer. Sheriff Linn Keller rode up on him, slow, satisfied he wasn’t coming into an ambush: he knew Sexton was a stranger hereabouts, he knew Sexton had no associates this close to the Nation. He came up close, stopped. Two men sat horseback and regarded one another. Linn took a long look at the man’s horse. “Might want to dismount,” he said, “water your horse an’ build a fire. I’m for coffee.” Two men dismounted together. Sheriff Linn Keller turned the wheel, just enough, just enough, then came off the throttle, braked briefly, quickly, firmly, straightened his cruiser. The vehicle he’d just tapped swung, rubber screaming: Linn came down harder on the brakes, watched as the fleeing felon he’d just pitted, caught the shoulder, jerked back around straight, then dropped into the ditch and stopped, fast. Linn laid on the brakes, hard, reversed quickly, stopped. “Firelands, Firelands One,” he called. “Pursuit ended, send the squad, Orrin McVey’s barn.” “Roger that, One,” he heard. Linn thumbed the button, released the shotgun: he was an old lawman, and an old lawman likes his shotgun, and as he came out of the cruiser, he slammed the action open, slammed it shut, running a green-plastic Remington 00 buck round into the chamber. He sauntered up to the driver’s side, looked through the window at the deflated air bag, at the man laid over the steering wheel, groaning. Linn waited. He watched as the man reached down, saw the seat belt come slack: one hand was welded to the steering wheel, the other one came up, shaking, open. Linn waited. He saw the man reach over, try to open the door, saw him shoulder against the closed door – twice, a third time. Linn made a spinning motion with his hand: Roll it down. The window whined as it lowered, quickly, smoothly. “Out,” Linn said, his voice unsympathetic. The driver started out the window, struggled out to belt level – Linn saw movement behind the driver – Rear seat – Threat – Linn took a fast sidestep, shotgun rising by itself, he felt the comb of the gun hit him under the cheekbone and he saw the sideglass explode outward and the shotgun shoved him back and he wondered Who in the hell just fired my gun? and his off arm jacked the fore end and rammed it forward and he saw a figure drop out of sight. Linn strode forward, seized the driver by the back of the belt, yanked him out, hard: he hit the ground on his back and laid there as Linn knocked out crazed sideglass with his gunmuzzle, took a look inside. He drew back, looked at the driver, still flat on his back, half on the gravel shoulder and half on pavement. Linn looked down at him like he was examining a specimen in a Petri dish. “You ran.” “Yeah,” the driver gasped, grimacing. “You ran from me.” “Yeah.” “This is my county,” Linn said quietly, his voice a deep and menacing rumble. “Mine. You don’t run from me.” A pale eyed lawman with an iron grey mustache hunkered by a small, smokeless fire, another man hunkered on the other side of the steaming coffeepot. “You ran from me,” Linn said. “Yeah.” “This is my county,” Linn rumbled. Mine. You don’t run from me.” The Sheriff’s voice was quiet, which made it all the more menacing. The criminal stared into his tin cup of scalding coffee. Of a sudden he had no more appetite. Linn watched as the wrecked SUV was winched onto a rollback, as it was tarped down: the squad was there and gone, taking the driver in, with a deputy accompanying the prisoner, as the prisoner was cuffed to the ambulance gurney. The shots-fired team already had the evidence markers picked up, the scene was cleared, Linn looked around, then got back in his cruiser. He went a hundred yards to a handy turn around, pointed his nose toward home. Skid marks and tore up mud in the roadside ditch, and a brief, bright sparkle of shattered safety glass where the wrecker driver broomed it off the pavement, were the only indicators anything ever happened here. Sheriff Linn Keller sat, impassive, as His Honor the Judge pronounced the criminal guilty, and passed sentence: death by hanging, may God have mercy on your soul. The church busybody scuttled up to the Sheriff so soon after the Judge swung his gavel that Linn was satisfied she had to have a head start on His Honor’s hammer. “Sheriff,” she scolded, “that poor man is going to die!” “Yes, ma’am,” the Sheriff replied mildly. “You, you, you brought him here so he could be hanged!” Linn’s pale eyes were patient as he regarded the sputtering old woman. “Sheriff, how can you sleep at night!” Sheriff Linn Keller stood in the courtroom and smiled gently at the town’s busybody. “Ma’am, I sleep well, thank you.” The inquest, as usual, was public: the Sheriff’s testimony, as it generally was, was concise, brief, to the point: a gun was pointed at him, this constituted a threat to his very life, he acted to keep himself alive in the only way available to him, and that was to send a charge of heavy shot into the fellow who’d just taken a shot through the rear window glass, at him. It was not a surprise to the Sheriff, the Judge, nor the prosecutor, that this was no-billed. His Honor the Judge swung his gavel and dismissed the proceedings. The town busybody scuttled up to the Sheriff less than a heartbeat after the Judge’s gavel smacked the desk top, disapproval in her expression and indignation in her posture. “Sheriff,” she scolded, “you killed a man!” “Yes, ma’am,” the Sheriff agreed, tucking his Stetson under his off arm. “But that’s terrible, Sheriff! How can you even sleep at night?” The tall, lean, pale eyed Sheriff of Firelands County, Colorado, stood in the courtroom, facing the town’s busybody. He smiled ever so slightly, the curled ends of his iron-grey mustache lifting a little as he did. “Ma’am,” he replied honestly, “I sleep well, thank you.”

I don't know if this actually is taking place in Canada. But it seems like it ought to be.