Walking Day is Wednesday, July 3, 2024.
Weather for the day… nice day, starting out 59°, little wind, overcast, blue sky; 67° back at home.
Podcast is WTF? With Marc Maron Episode 1552 - Paul Scheer
Perfect walking weather. Supposed to get to 75° today 90° by Saturday with a National weather heat alert 5th to the 9th around here.
Podcast is WTF? With Marc Maron Episode 1552 - Paul Scheer
Perfect walking weather. Supposed to get to 75° today 90° by Saturday with a National weather heat alert 5th to the 9th around here.
Happy 4th of July Independence Day!
We've been through a lot these past few years or ten. Hang in there. Hopefully, we'll get back on track and end this roll of criminals and authoritarians and not have to hear their lies about how everyone trying to make everything better, based in reality and America, are the criminals. They're not. So much abuse. Calling career bureaucrats the "Deep State". Just pathetic.
From yesterday...
Maybe we all should boycott this 4th of July until they give us our country back?
Or maybe we just need a break for a weekend.
Have fun, be safe! All the best to EVERYONE!
First a little business and reality...
Well, THAT happened (meme). Kind of like...
"If you'd just lie still while I finish raping you, you wouldn't get hurt! YOU'RE doing this!"
Isn't it?
Nope, not doing this to ourselves.
Know what Project 2025 is yet.
It's pretty simple.
Reject Donald Trump
Reject Donald Trump
Reject ANYTHING Trump & The STUPIDITY of "Trumpism"
Reject MAGA
Reject toxic conservatism
Reject authoritarianism
Reject theocracy
Reject toxic capitalism
Just be an actual patriot, pro-America, and Americans.
Back to my air conditioner. I do love my air conditioner. And my furnace. And indoor plumbing.
Someone posted online that her most stable relationship has been with her air conditioner. A few years ago, I got rid of mine that saw my kids through much of their childhood. It was old. It was noisy. It ate energy like a hog. This new one is a U-shaped one that fits in one of my old style hung/sash type, up and down windows. I don’t even hear this thing when going off or on and it works great. Low energy, certified, whatever. And works with my Alexa. Which is awesome because I sometimes make it go up and down as the heat and the house changes. It’s weird how in the afternoon, how it can get almost too cool in the house, and then within an hour or two I need the air conditioner on.
I just remembered this. When we were kids back in the 60s, we had an agreement. See, there were times when we didn't have oil for the furnace to heat the house. We'd huddle in the kitchen around the electric stove for warmth, close the kitchen doors to the living room and front hallway. A few times when we had like, bread, for dinner. But hey, there was butter on it!
Our agreement was that whoever one day made a lot of money, they'd help out the rest of the family. At least close family, nuclear family. Help. Not loans. People always say loans but often that just delays the difficulties. To really change a life, you gift them.
As I understood it, if I made millions of dollars, I'd give each family member a bunch of money. Nothing to harm my continued success, that would potentially harm us all, but enough to change their lives. And so far? No one made it that big and well, time's running out...
Anyway...
Oh, this was fun. I went to put the rack back in my air fryer because I used it for lunch yesterday and the trays were down drying. I noticed air fryer window needed cleaning. As I was doing that, I ran the underside of my thumbnail into the sharp little widget that connects the door to locks it to the air fryer when you close it. Jammed it right in under my fingernail and hurt like a son of a bitch. Threw some antibiotics on it and was about to head out for my walk. I started to think about how dirty that little thing that stabbed me might be.
Oh, this was fun. I went to put the rack back in my air fryer because I used it for lunch yesterday and the trays were down drying. I noticed air fryer window needed cleaning. As I was doing that, I ran the underside of my thumbnail into the sharp little widget that connects the door to locks it to the air fryer when you close it. Jammed it right in under my fingernail and hurt like a son of a bitch. Threw some antibiotics on it and was about to head out for my walk. I started to think about how dirty that little thing that stabbed me might be.
So I actually put a Band-Aid over it. Throughout much of my life I didn’t bother that much with minor wounds. Maybe threw some antibiotic ointment on them, sprayed some Bactine on it when I was a kid, then typically used Neosporin when that came available. And I was good to go. I do that now and it seems to get infected. I do heal fast, but my immune system doesn’t seem to be what it was. Where is that damn pill that makes you 20 again? No, I wouldn’t want to ever be in my 20s again. I wouldn’t mind being 30 for a few hundred years, or for good. Especially the shape I was in when I got out of the service. Able to leap over a 6 foot fence without even trying, or touching it. Ah, the good old days.
Remember in 1980 living at my brother's in his back shed/shop/loft. I was stripped down to nothing in my life. This was before he talked me into going to college. He said about that, "What’s not to love? (Vietnam-era) benefits pay for your school. You get to get an education, you’ll end up making better money, have a better job (he worked construction), there’s parties and college girls all over the place, because… It’s college!"
It didn’t piss them off as much as having to pay for their own haircut after having to pay for a hair-out-of-regs ticket.
Starting my 2nd mile…
So anyway, they gave me a kind of minor waiver at my main base because I had the flattest feet my foot surgeon ever saw when he performed surgery on my left arch when I was in 10th grade.
But a Parachute rigger has to walk up and down a concrete floor next to a 40 foot parachute packing table all day long, every day, for years. Sucked. We had a rubber pad to stand on at the end for most of our work, which was something.
That wasn’t the worst because then they told me I had to pack B-52 drag chutes which were 48-foot split ribbon, yellow nylon, and when fluffy and dried had one hell of an electric shock. To the point that it hurt and it happened many times every time you packed one like that. I remember getting zapped and shaking my hand in pain and swearing. Trying to avoid it but you could hear the static electricity as you were moving the split ribbon around to stage it to go into its containment bag, then ZAPP! DAMNIT that HURT! lol Not that it hurt THAT bad, but when it happens again and again and then you need to pack another, and another, it gets old pretty damn quickly.
They were mostly pretty good and not shocking if they were delivered off the flight line after deployment, dry. When they were wet however they were heaven in a lump dropped outside the shop. You had to drag them in the door, down the packing room, around the packing table, into the parachute shop, to the drying tower, hook the top of the canopy to the big hook on a cable, and use the scary giant hand-held drill to turn the winch to pull them up to the top at their full length to dry them.
When they first showed me a drag chute packing can, where you would put the containment bag in the can to maintain form, fold the chute down into it off the packing table, where you had ordered it up and tied string to keep the ribbons from tangling from the 28lb buckle that attached to the B-52, to the canopy rim...it would stick up a foot or two of just pure nylon on top of nylon ribbon, sticking out of the top of the bag.
In 10th grade, I told my sister, three years older than me who had just graduated, so after third grade we were never in the same school again, I said I can’t keep track of things. I keep forgetting things. She said just use your watch on your wrist. I said I do, but it doesn’t help... a little bit maybe.
So she said OK do what I have done. When you think of something throughout the day that you don’t want to forget. Like, after school I have to remember to do this or that. Write it on a piece of paper and put that in your pocket where you keep your house key. When you start driving, it’ll be even more obvious because you need to get your car key out to drive home from school. Just try to remember at the end of every day before you leave school check your pocket. I started doing that and at end of day one day I pulled out my keys and there were all these pieces of paper with notes on them.
What I learned about this, years later, was I have to trick my mind into doing what I want it to do. I told my kids about this. My oldest son as usual back then as a teen, rebelled against the concept.
Recently, he was telling me how he had a thing that he would do that worked for him, and he always remembered whatever it was. I reminded him about what I had told him when he was younger. I said, so you get it at age 35. That’s what I was trying to tell you as a kid. You just have to figure out your own method, but it’s basically the same thing.
I’ve been on our local kids show in the late 1960s, The Brakeman Bill Show (I liked the JP Patches Show better but I did watch his show too). I was doing karate demonstrations with our Sensei and a couple other students. Did that a few times on the show.
Remember in 1980 living at my brother's in his back shed/shop/loft. I was stripped down to nothing in my life. This was before he talked me into going to college. He said about that, "What’s not to love? (Vietnam-era) benefits pay for your school. You get to get an education, you’ll end up making better money, have a better job (he worked construction), there’s parties and college girls all over the place, because… It’s college!"
I decided he was right. Maybe.
I took two weeks to really think it over. Didn't want to make a snap decision and end my unemployed loser lifestyle. Because, while I wanted more education, with great knowledge comes an enhancement to the quality of your human experience. But with that is also an enhancement to one's recognition of all the pain in the world. I took those two weeks very seriously. DID I want to better feel and see so more more of the pain it could bring me?
I took two weeks to really think it over. Didn't want to make a snap decision and end my unemployed loser lifestyle. Because, while I wanted more education, with great knowledge comes an enhancement to the quality of your human experience. But with that is also an enhancement to one's recognition of all the pain in the world. I took those two weeks very seriously. DID I want to better feel and see so more more of the pain it could bring me?
In the end I decided the good outweighed the bad and I signed up for college for the 3rd time (Once after high school, not sure why I stopped (stupid), once just to get out of the Service 3 months sooner (seemed fun), and this time.
One day I just got tired of just hanging out. Although it was nice after four years of the military to do whatever I wanted. I was on food stamps for a year all together, something I would never have thought of doing before that. But I know now, especially after my psychology degree, I needed a year to decompress.
I got out of the Service thinking, while this is only the Cold War, a lot of the guys I had been working with had been over in the Vietnam war. They kept telling me that wartime is great, as long as you could avoid being out in the bush. So don’t be in like the canon fodder frontline infantry. But we were USAF. They said parachute rigger was about as safe as you could get. But they had stories about how that could go wrong. Like in someone grabbing you, giving you an M16, sticking you in a foxhole outside the perimeter of the base to stare all night at the tree line off in the distance. Or all the shrapnel holes in the building and ceiling that sucked when it rained. And so on...
In peace time you followed the regs to the point of absurdity. You did your job and only your job and followed the tech manuals. Not really, but mostly. The only power we had over those above us, especially when they were pushing us to hurry up, was to threaten to actually follow the tech manuals word by word. I can’t remember, but I think it was supposed to take 2.5 hours to pack a T-34 emergency high speed deploy parachute, 28' parabolic commando canapy. Can't remember the designation of the harness. The one we had on the BUFFs (B-52s, Big Ugly Fat Fuckers) and tankers (KC– 135 Strataotankers). Most of us got to where we could pack a chute with all due and required inspection in about 15 to 20 minutes (minus any need to swap out expired parts after 7 years, or damage). I could pack on in I think about 12 minutes and do a decent job.
So if they started giving us crap and we started following the TO (Tech Orders/Technical Orders/manuals), it would take us eight hours to pack 4 chutes instead of 4 hours to pack 8 chutes. I was have jumped any chutes I ever packed. Offered to. But they aid they stopped doing that years before I got there. Why, I asked? My boss said, "Lost too many riggers." And he walked away.
Someone told me and I can’t remember if it was before, during basic training, or after that. if you wanted to make it in the Service, learn the rules. No one did that. None of my friends or coworkers did that. I don't mean out direct regs. But beyond those.
Having had experience as a flight commander when I was in junior high, in Civil Air Patrol, I had to learn all the rules to train others. When you know what all the rules are, it’s amazing what you can do, or get away with. You can walk right up to that rule's end without breaking it because you knew how far you could take it and no one could say anything. Other guys guessed and got in trouble for it. It gives you a lot of freedom.
My fellow Airmen and friends would complain to me that I seemed to get away with murder and, how did I do that? They said, "You’re not one of the “ate up” “ lifers.“ But you seem to go anywhere you want, do whatever you want." Not really, just seemed that tway to them sometimes. "Lifers" were "ate up". They sucked. Mostly because they were aholes and liked to micromanage or play Little King. "Career" types were different and we got along with them. They were in for a career and retirement and in between were pretty normal.
One complaint, the biggest one my friends through at me was that I may have had the longest hair on the base. Aa lot of them had hair shorter than mine and would get $50 tickets for not being within regs. I was downtown with my wife once making a purchase at a department store and showed my military ID. The older gentleman and clerk could not believe I was in the USAF. I was in civvies. When I got home I immediately showed and changed my clothes and washed my hair. I reeked of JP4 jet fuel exhaust from packing BUFF drag chutes, hated that smell. So my hair was lying natural and it's normal length.
My plan on my hair was simple. I had what they called “white walls “. Some of us got them, the ate up types did but were considered lowlife style by many of the guys. I saw service in them, a useful aid. When I got my haircut, I had them shave around my ears, so there was a blank area with no hair, kind of like on a white wall tire. Then I let my hair grow out, but never below the bottom of my hair on my neck which would be within regulation. Then every morning I put Dippity Do in my hair so it would all stay up on top of my head and it would dry the time it took to drive the 15 miles from down downtown Spokane on South Hill and 18th Street. When I got to work I'd park outside the hangers I wear my fatigue cap all day.
So I looked like I had short hair. Some of my friends had hair sticking out of their cap or they would take their caps off and get caught. They would get their $50 ticket from the LE which ironically, was what I went into the Service "guaranteed job" as law enforcement. but got kicked out in Basic because I had flat feet and shouldn’t have even been in the Air Force. Thanks to the AAFES (Army and Air Force Exchange Service) station doc for that ("keep your socks on if you want to get in") on the day I was inducted.
One day I just got tired of just hanging out. Although it was nice after four years of the military to do whatever I wanted. I was on food stamps for a year all together, something I would never have thought of doing before that. But I know now, especially after my psychology degree, I needed a year to decompress.
I got out of the Service thinking, while this is only the Cold War, a lot of the guys I had been working with had been over in the Vietnam war. They kept telling me that wartime is great, as long as you could avoid being out in the bush. So don’t be in like the canon fodder frontline infantry. But we were USAF. They said parachute rigger was about as safe as you could get. But they had stories about how that could go wrong. Like in someone grabbing you, giving you an M16, sticking you in a foxhole outside the perimeter of the base to stare all night at the tree line off in the distance. Or all the shrapnel holes in the building and ceiling that sucked when it rained. And so on...
In peace time you followed the regs to the point of absurdity. You did your job and only your job and followed the tech manuals. Not really, but mostly. The only power we had over those above us, especially when they were pushing us to hurry up, was to threaten to actually follow the tech manuals word by word. I can’t remember, but I think it was supposed to take 2.5 hours to pack a T-34 emergency high speed deploy parachute, 28' parabolic commando canapy. Can't remember the designation of the harness. The one we had on the BUFFs (B-52s, Big Ugly Fat Fuckers) and tankers (KC– 135 Strataotankers). Most of us got to where we could pack a chute with all due and required inspection in about 15 to 20 minutes (minus any need to swap out expired parts after 7 years, or damage). I could pack on in I think about 12 minutes and do a decent job.
So if they started giving us crap and we started following the TO (Tech Orders/Technical Orders/manuals), it would take us eight hours to pack 4 chutes instead of 4 hours to pack 8 chutes. I was have jumped any chutes I ever packed. Offered to. But they aid they stopped doing that years before I got there. Why, I asked? My boss said, "Lost too many riggers." And he walked away.
Someone told me and I can’t remember if it was before, during basic training, or after that. if you wanted to make it in the Service, learn the rules. No one did that. None of my friends or coworkers did that. I don't mean out direct regs. But beyond those.
Having had experience as a flight commander when I was in junior high, in Civil Air Patrol, I had to learn all the rules to train others. When you know what all the rules are, it’s amazing what you can do, or get away with. You can walk right up to that rule's end without breaking it because you knew how far you could take it and no one could say anything. Other guys guessed and got in trouble for it. It gives you a lot of freedom.
My fellow Airmen and friends would complain to me that I seemed to get away with murder and, how did I do that? They said, "You’re not one of the “ate up” “ lifers.“ But you seem to go anywhere you want, do whatever you want." Not really, just seemed that tway to them sometimes. "Lifers" were "ate up". They sucked. Mostly because they were aholes and liked to micromanage or play Little King. "Career" types were different and we got along with them. They were in for a career and retirement and in between were pretty normal.
One complaint, the biggest one my friends through at me was that I may have had the longest hair on the base. Aa lot of them had hair shorter than mine and would get $50 tickets for not being within regs. I was downtown with my wife once making a purchase at a department store and showed my military ID. The older gentleman and clerk could not believe I was in the USAF. I was in civvies. When I got home I immediately showed and changed my clothes and washed my hair. I reeked of JP4 jet fuel exhaust from packing BUFF drag chutes, hated that smell. So my hair was lying natural and it's normal length.
My plan on my hair was simple. I had what they called “white walls “. Some of us got them, the ate up types did but were considered lowlife style by many of the guys. I saw service in them, a useful aid. When I got my haircut, I had them shave around my ears, so there was a blank area with no hair, kind of like on a white wall tire. Then I let my hair grow out, but never below the bottom of my hair on my neck which would be within regulation. Then every morning I put Dippity Do in my hair so it would all stay up on top of my head and it would dry the time it took to drive the 15 miles from down downtown Spokane on South Hill and 18th Street. When I got to work I'd park outside the hangers I wear my fatigue cap all day.
So I looked like I had short hair. Some of my friends had hair sticking out of their cap or they would take their caps off and get caught. They would get their $50 ticket from the LE which ironically, was what I went into the Service "guaranteed job" as law enforcement. but got kicked out in Basic because I had flat feet and shouldn’t have even been in the Air Force. Thanks to the AAFES (Army and Air Force Exchange Service) station doc for that ("keep your socks on if you want to get in") on the day I was inducted.
It didn’t piss them off as much as having to pay for their own haircut after having to pay for a hair-out-of-regs ticket.
Since I did have flat feet, they had given me a waiver which I’ve gone into elsewhere. That helped me get through basic training but they threw it out in tech school and wouldn’t accept it at my main base at Fairchild Air Force Base outside of Spokane, Washington. a SAC base, Strategic Air Command for the nuclear bombs, bombers, refueling tanker jets, and support services. I was in 92 FMS (Field Maintenance Squadron). The Strategic Air Command (SAC) was deactivated on June 1, 1992 after 46 years of service.
But I did get a kind of sort of waiver. They kicked me out of law enforcement so I couldn’t have a job sitting in a squad car all day whereas it was the SPs, the security police guarded the planes who DID stand around all day. I think they just thought law enforcement, security police, same thing, lower body has to have this certain rating. Which I didn’t have having had it lowered in basic.
So I chose as a replacement flight simulator technician to train pilots, which would’ve been awesome. But somebody got it just before me and I just missed getting it. My back up job was parachute rigger because I’d been skydiving a couple of years before as detailed in my screenplay “The Teenage Bodyguard “.
But I did get a kind of sort of waiver. They kicked me out of law enforcement so I couldn’t have a job sitting in a squad car all day whereas it was the SPs, the security police guarded the planes who DID stand around all day. I think they just thought law enforcement, security police, same thing, lower body has to have this certain rating. Which I didn’t have having had it lowered in basic.
So I chose as a replacement flight simulator technician to train pilots, which would’ve been awesome. But somebody got it just before me and I just missed getting it. My back up job was parachute rigger because I’d been skydiving a couple of years before as detailed in my screenplay “The Teenage Bodyguard “.
Starting my 2nd mile…
So anyway, they gave me a kind of minor waiver at my main base because I had the flattest feet my foot surgeon ever saw when he performed surgery on my left arch when I was in 10th grade.
But a Parachute rigger has to walk up and down a concrete floor next to a 40 foot parachute packing table all day long, every day, for years. Sucked. We had a rubber pad to stand on at the end for most of our work, which was something.
That wasn’t the worst because then they told me I had to pack B-52 drag chutes which were 48-foot split ribbon, yellow nylon, and when fluffy and dried had one hell of an electric shock. To the point that it hurt and it happened many times every time you packed one like that. I remember getting zapped and shaking my hand in pain and swearing. Trying to avoid it but you could hear the static electricity as you were moving the split ribbon around to stage it to go into its containment bag, then ZAPP! DAMNIT that HURT! lol Not that it hurt THAT bad, but when it happens again and again and then you need to pack another, and another, it gets old pretty damn quickly.
They were mostly pretty good and not shocking if they were delivered off the flight line after deployment, dry. When they were wet however they were heaven in a lump dropped outside the shop. You had to drag them in the door, down the packing room, around the packing table, into the parachute shop, to the drying tower, hook the top of the canopy to the big hook on a cable, and use the scary giant hand-held drill to turn the winch to pull them up to the top at their full length to dry them.
IF you weren't careful with that drill, it would throw you across the room. I was told a guy before I got to the base, who left before I got there, actually got his arm broken by the drill. Wasn't paying close enough attention. You PAID attention. I just tried to find a photo of a drill that big, couldn't. You had trouble picking it up it was so big. Once you got it on the winch the weight wasn't the issue, the power was.
When on the next day, you pulled them out of the drying tower, they were just a fluffy bundle of electricity waiting to spark which weirded me out at first. I know you can rub your feet no a nylon carpet and zap somebody or get zapped touching a doorknob, happened to me all the time as a kid with our rug at home. This was another universe of zapping.
When they first showed me a drag chute packing can, where you would put the containment bag in the can to maintain form, fold the chute down into it off the packing table, where you had ordered it up and tied string to keep the ribbons from tangling from the 28lb buckle that attached to the B-52, to the canopy rim...it would stick up a foot or two of just pure nylon on top of nylon ribbon, sticking out of the top of the bag.
Then you would get on top of that bucket and hold a bar above your head, and literally jump up and down on it until it was low enough that you could seal the bag. That photo above is from a series of photos showing the process which cracks me up because there are two of them packing that drag chute. I never had anyone helping.
My worst day was packing FOURTEEN in a single day, can't remember if any were wet which was just an added nightmare. I was so exhausted by end of day. It was during an "exercise". An "alert", when we played war to practice or be tested and rated and it was miserable. Usually, I'd pack 3 or 4 drag chutes a day in the morning first thing to knock them out, then go pack emergency cutes the rest of the day.
A day full of drag chutes, knowing it was all week long? Suuucked.
The first time they showed me that bucket I laughed. Kinda like when they told me as the new guy, I was to always sweep the entire shop before I could go home at night. My question? You guys don’t have people who come in and sweep up and clean the place? Their answer: Yeah. You.
Me: So, THIS is how you get a drag chute into the bag? You don’t have a machine to push it down in there? Wait. That’s me, right? Never mind.
And the Sergeant would just laugh and walk out back to his office with his coffee and cigarette. Miss ya, Pete.
Jumping up and down on that drag chute was so much worse than just walking up and down a concrete floor all day. Especially every once in a while, when you'd be jumping and kicking that drag chute down into that bag and you'd get to do it fast in a rhythm until one time you get a little off-kilter and jam the middle of your foot down on that thin steel side of the container which did NOT BEND. I thought I broke my foot a couple time and it took 20 minutes or so before I could continue.
And nowadays I have a lot of trouble with my knees and that left ankle where I had the surgery. Which is typically the foot that would get jammed packing drag chutes for some reason I remember the second time it happened during the same packing session, why did it have to be the LEFT foot AGAIN? Anyway, cause and effect? Are my joint problems now from that? Maybe. VA doesn't think so. As with breathing in JP4 jet fuel exhaust off the drag chutes, in a closed room, flapping the panels on the chute to order them up for clean and very rapid deployment, hour after hour, for years.
The first time they showed me that bucket I laughed. Kinda like when they told me as the new guy, I was to always sweep the entire shop before I could go home at night. My question? You guys don’t have people who come in and sweep up and clean the place? Their answer: Yeah. You.
Me: So, THIS is how you get a drag chute into the bag? You don’t have a machine to push it down in there? Wait. That’s me, right? Never mind.
And the Sergeant would just laugh and walk out back to his office with his coffee and cigarette. Miss ya, Pete.
Jumping up and down on that drag chute was so much worse than just walking up and down a concrete floor all day. Especially every once in a while, when you'd be jumping and kicking that drag chute down into that bag and you'd get to do it fast in a rhythm until one time you get a little off-kilter and jam the middle of your foot down on that thin steel side of the container which did NOT BEND. I thought I broke my foot a couple time and it took 20 minutes or so before I could continue.
And nowadays I have a lot of trouble with my knees and that left ankle where I had the surgery. Which is typically the foot that would get jammed packing drag chutes for some reason I remember the second time it happened during the same packing session, why did it have to be the LEFT foot AGAIN? Anyway, cause and effect? Are my joint problems now from that? Maybe. VA doesn't think so. As with breathing in JP4 jet fuel exhaust off the drag chutes, in a closed room, flapping the panels on the chute to order them up for clean and very rapid deployment, hour after hour, for years.
How could that cause any later issues? Right?
But good times, right? It was better than during war getting shot, killed or maimed. Cannon fodder. Pete loved to remind us of that. Every single day.
Getting back to the older guys I worked with who had been in Vietnam when I got there, it was early '76 and Vietnam just ended. During peacetime, you had to follow all the regs. During wartime, they told stories of being a parachute rigger at some base in Vietnam. You’re walking down the flight line and some crew chief maybe up on a wing of a jet is working on something and he says, Hey come over here.
But good times, right? It was better than during war getting shot, killed or maimed. Cannon fodder. Pete loved to remind us of that. Every single day.
Getting back to the older guys I worked with who had been in Vietnam when I got there, it was early '76 and Vietnam just ended. During peacetime, you had to follow all the regs. During wartime, they told stories of being a parachute rigger at some base in Vietnam. You’re walking down the flight line and some crew chief maybe up on a wing of a jet is working on something and he says, Hey come over here.
Maybe he has you help change some oil our or whatever he’s working on that you are not trained to do. You would end up doing a lot of different jobs. You helped where you were needed. Stuff you were not trained or allowed to do but it was war and regs were looser and so war was great. At least, a better time for those not on the front line.
Our sergeant and second in command of our shops told a story once where a general was visiting all the bases. They had this asshole commander they hated who wanted everything by the book and one day the commander was complaining to the general about how the troops wouldn’t fall in line. Short story shorter, the general relieved him of command. Because everyone was under a lot of stress and had to get work done and they worked just fine when they weren’t being micromanaged. Everyone loved the general.
So that was my life as the shop “jeep“ until about 18 months later when we got some new people and eventually I became the parachute shop supervisor, as a senior airman,h three stripes and an invisible blue star. They had recently changed that back then. You previously would get sergeant stripes before initial enlistment was up, if you’re only doing 4 to 6 years.
Our sergeant and second in command of our shops told a story once where a general was visiting all the bases. They had this asshole commander they hated who wanted everything by the book and one day the commander was complaining to the general about how the troops wouldn’t fall in line. Short story shorter, the general relieved him of command. Because everyone was under a lot of stress and had to get work done and they worked just fine when they weren’t being micromanaged. Everyone loved the general.
So that was my life as the shop “jeep“ until about 18 months later when we got some new people and eventually I became the parachute shop supervisor, as a senior airman,h three stripes and an invisible blue star. They had recently changed that back then. You previously would get sergeant stripes before initial enlistment was up, if you’re only doing 4 to 6 years.
So I separated service as senior airman. While I was in college after that, during my two years of post-active service during my final 2 years of inactive service, which I was sweating out because they could call me back into service at any time, I got notified by mail that I had somehow made Staff Sergeant. Must’ve missed when I became an actual "buck" sergeant (with a visible white start with the three stripes).
So for the rest of my life for all intents and purposes, I made staff sergeant in the US Air Force. Even though I never ever saw Sergeant rank before I got out off active duty.
I also had Vietnam benefits. And until around the time I was either in college or sometime in the 80s, one day they just said you’re now post-Vietnam era. I don’t get how they do that. If you sign up and your Vietnam era, how do they just later a decade or two on, decide to change that? To be fair when I signed up and they said you just got in before the end as Vietnam Era, that's good for you. I complained But they said that's how it works. You made it. But I never made it to Vietnam.
Well whatever. I still did get my Vietnam era benefits, at least so far as college. I mean my university fees were $350 a quarter with $100+ for books which always hurt and I had to scrape up somewhere. But I had enough because school only ate up one of my benefit checks, which were around $350 a month. But then for the other 2/4 of that session of school, I would have full benefit checks to live on and pay rent with.
So for the rest of my life for all intents and purposes, I made staff sergeant in the US Air Force. Even though I never ever saw Sergeant rank before I got out off active duty.
I also had Vietnam benefits. And until around the time I was either in college or sometime in the 80s, one day they just said you’re now post-Vietnam era. I don’t get how they do that. If you sign up and your Vietnam era, how do they just later a decade or two on, decide to change that? To be fair when I signed up and they said you just got in before the end as Vietnam Era, that's good for you. I complained But they said that's how it works. You made it. But I never made it to Vietnam.
Well whatever. I still did get my Vietnam era benefits, at least so far as college. I mean my university fees were $350 a quarter with $100+ for books which always hurt and I had to scrape up somewhere. But I had enough because school only ate up one of my benefit checks, which were around $350 a month. But then for the other 2/4 of that session of school, I would have full benefit checks to live on and pay rent with.
I lived with my girlfriend so she kicked in half, usually as she could. Money was tight. She got a job as a vet tech at a veterinary clinic, which she had been doing when I first met her and since she was in high school. I could have gotten a job but honestly I was worried about school as I was studying all the time. She went through Catholic prep school and was very smart. Though she was studying all the time right there with me. I'm really not sure either of us could have made it through school without the other though to be honest. We made an amazing team in school and were pretty well known on campus. But not for going to a lot of parties, to be sure.
I had met her when I got out of the Service. I took a quarter Tacoma Community College which got me out of the Service three months early. Along with having so much paid leave saved up, I took 60 of my 90 days of saved leave and got out an extra two months early meaning that my shop chief knew I was getting out in six or seven months but suddenly I was getting out in two.
I had met her when I got out of the Service. I took a quarter Tacoma Community College which got me out of the Service three months early. Along with having so much paid leave saved up, I took 60 of my 90 days of saved leave and got out an extra two months early meaning that my shop chief knew I was getting out in six or seven months but suddenly I was getting out in two.
I was on top of the world about that because once you become a two-digit midget, that is only have 99 days left in Service, not three digits as in over 100, everybody tended to get excited. It was a pretty big deal in general. You'd say "Well as of today I'm a two digit midget." And people would grown for their own time left in.
Either that or you re-upped and hopefully got a bonus and that was all there was to be excited about, unless maybe getting a reassignment or a new job or whatever.
I considered staying in, but in my job they were offering $10,000 and even the Squadron 1st Sergeant was bummed that's all it was. I did go through the process to join the OSI the Office of Special Investigations, the USAF's FBI. I would actually sit in their office waiting room reading FBI Magazine while waiting to see the CO. Which up tol that point in 1979, I hadn't even known that mag existed.
Yes, there at least once was an FBI Magazine.
But that’s all another story that I’ve told several times elsewhere. Assigned to Berlin probably ending up running into Vladimir Putin when he was there as a KGB agent, I would be replacing an OSI agent who was blown up by the KGB getting into his car one day, according to the CO. So I would take that job which was sitting fallow for a year because no one wanted to get blown up. I jumped on it.
But after getting accepted, I got out and went to college. Decided I couldn't do that to my wife (then ended up getting divorced anyway). After I got out I tried to get a job. But that failed miserably. After a while of doing nothing, my older brother talked me into college and that changed everything.
On education nowadays, I grew up thinking everybody needed to go to college. We’ve grown into a high-tech world and we need a lot of college educated. People around the world try to come here for college, but we don’t give them incentive to stay. So they take that knowledge back to enhance their own country.
That’s nothing bad about them. Good for them. Bad for us because we should be thinking and acting better. If we’re gonna train the world, it’s the same thing in the 1800s when we decided to give K-12 free to everyone. One of the best things America ever did.
“A rising tide lifts all boats.“ JFK
Exactly. So we either need to give students a reason to keep their degrees, and advanced degrees, in America and for our benefit, maybe for a certain time before they can go home or everyone who's an American citizen should go to college. Hang on...
We need blue collar too. We have long now given away K-12 free, paid for through our taxes, which there may be a wiser way or an adjunct to that. If Republicans would stop trying to cripple our education system… look how well that worked out for them with charter schools and home-schooling their kids indoctrinating them into MAGA bullshit and Christian nationalism… and no, a lot of people homeschool and they’re just normal Americans, not right-wing extremists.
I know (ex)wife homeschooled our youngest for their first year and decided to put them into school that next year where they were tested and could’ve gone into fourth grade instead of second. I had emotional concerns for them in that so I said let’s skip just one year and my wife agreed. But that was still difficult on them once they hit high school. Especially when all their friends were getting driver's licenses and they still had a year ago. That almost killed them. I felt bad but reminded them that we could have let them skip more years and things would be even worse.
I considered staying in, but in my job they were offering $10,000 and even the Squadron 1st Sergeant was bummed that's all it was. I did go through the process to join the OSI the Office of Special Investigations, the USAF's FBI. I would actually sit in their office waiting room reading FBI Magazine while waiting to see the CO. Which up tol that point in 1979, I hadn't even known that mag existed.
Yes, there at least once was an FBI Magazine.
But that’s all another story that I’ve told several times elsewhere. Assigned to Berlin probably ending up running into Vladimir Putin when he was there as a KGB agent, I would be replacing an OSI agent who was blown up by the KGB getting into his car one day, according to the CO. So I would take that job which was sitting fallow for a year because no one wanted to get blown up. I jumped on it.
But after getting accepted, I got out and went to college. Decided I couldn't do that to my wife (then ended up getting divorced anyway). After I got out I tried to get a job. But that failed miserably. After a while of doing nothing, my older brother talked me into college and that changed everything.
On education nowadays, I grew up thinking everybody needed to go to college. We’ve grown into a high-tech world and we need a lot of college educated. People around the world try to come here for college, but we don’t give them incentive to stay. So they take that knowledge back to enhance their own country.
That’s nothing bad about them. Good for them. Bad for us because we should be thinking and acting better. If we’re gonna train the world, it’s the same thing in the 1800s when we decided to give K-12 free to everyone. One of the best things America ever did.
“A rising tide lifts all boats.“ JFK
Exactly. So we either need to give students a reason to keep their degrees, and advanced degrees, in America and for our benefit, maybe for a certain time before they can go home or everyone who's an American citizen should go to college. Hang on...
We need blue collar too. We have long now given away K-12 free, paid for through our taxes, which there may be a wiser way or an adjunct to that. If Republicans would stop trying to cripple our education system… look how well that worked out for them with charter schools and home-schooling their kids indoctrinating them into MAGA bullshit and Christian nationalism… and no, a lot of people homeschool and they’re just normal Americans, not right-wing extremists.
I know (ex)wife homeschooled our youngest for their first year and decided to put them into school that next year where they were tested and could’ve gone into fourth grade instead of second. I had emotional concerns for them in that so I said let’s skip just one year and my wife agreed. But that was still difficult on them once they hit high school. Especially when all their friends were getting driver's licenses and they still had a year ago. That almost killed them. I felt bad but reminded them that we could have let them skip more years and things would be even worse.
I used to think about that because I skipped a year my first year and never could figure out why things seemed out of whack for the next 12 years. But in the end, it was fine. I think. Maybe. Maybe not?
Anyway, I’ve spoken about this education thing a bunch of times. Were we gave everyone K-12 and now let’s face it, things have changed. We should be giving everyone K-14 but now the cost of colleges and universities is ridiculous. That needs to be gotten under control.
But offering 14 not just 12 years means everybody can get a community college degree at the very least. If you are wealthy, then pay for it yourself, have some patriotism. Have some empathy and compassion for those who have so much less than you do. And that would also cover two years of Voc tech school. So you don't want to go to college you can learn a skill or trade and get certified.
That would vastly change a lot of the problems we have today. But no, God forbid conservatives and Republicans do anything to either help anyone else, or help America, or understand that whole adage, that…
A rising tide lifts all boats...
Anyway, I’ve spoken about this education thing a bunch of times. Were we gave everyone K-12 and now let’s face it, things have changed. We should be giving everyone K-14 but now the cost of colleges and universities is ridiculous. That needs to be gotten under control.
But offering 14 not just 12 years means everybody can get a community college degree at the very least. If you are wealthy, then pay for it yourself, have some patriotism. Have some empathy and compassion for those who have so much less than you do. And that would also cover two years of Voc tech school. So you don't want to go to college you can learn a skill or trade and get certified.
That would vastly change a lot of the problems we have today. But no, God forbid conservatives and Republicans do anything to either help anyone else, or help America, or understand that whole adage, that…
A rising tide lifts all boats...
When will conservatives/Republicans understand all they do doesn't have to just profit them. Do your job, which isn't just to retain your job. Wait, narcissism. Now I see their attraction to Trump.
Starting my 3rd mile…
Why do I do that? Mention what mile I’m on because maybe, especially if I’m walking a long distance day, gives you an idea that maybe the last things he said after that last mile...is he dying or maybe not thinking clearly or... thinking more clearly now?
Also at the bottom of this track I walk in my 1st mile when starting off it says one in this transcription. When I roundabout at the end of the two lengths and start the 2nd mile, I put down two. So I indicated in two places in this document.
Here is the reason why really. Just now I went to put down mile two. But I saw a two already there. So I put down mile three. Realizing that this is my last mile. Sometimes I get into this Jawin’, talking, speeching, recording thing and I forget where I’m at. Some of that is maybe getting older. Some of that is ADHD since I’ve been going through that all my life and always keep notes.
Starting my 3rd mile…
Why do I do that? Mention what mile I’m on because maybe, especially if I’m walking a long distance day, gives you an idea that maybe the last things he said after that last mile...is he dying or maybe not thinking clearly or... thinking more clearly now?
Also at the bottom of this track I walk in my 1st mile when starting off it says one in this transcription. When I roundabout at the end of the two lengths and start the 2nd mile, I put down two. So I indicated in two places in this document.
Here is the reason why really. Just now I went to put down mile two. But I saw a two already there. So I put down mile three. Realizing that this is my last mile. Sometimes I get into this Jawin’, talking, speeching, recording thing and I forget where I’m at. Some of that is maybe getting older. Some of that is ADHD since I’ve been going through that all my life and always keep notes.
In 10th grade, I told my sister, three years older than me who had just graduated, so after third grade we were never in the same school again, I said I can’t keep track of things. I keep forgetting things. She said just use your watch on your wrist. I said I do, but it doesn’t help... a little bit maybe.
So she said OK do what I have done. When you think of something throughout the day that you don’t want to forget. Like, after school I have to remember to do this or that. Write it on a piece of paper and put that in your pocket where you keep your house key. When you start driving, it’ll be even more obvious because you need to get your car key out to drive home from school. Just try to remember at the end of every day before you leave school check your pocket. I started doing that and at end of day one day I pulled out my keys and there were all these pieces of paper with notes on them.
What I learned about this, years later, was I have to trick my mind into doing what I want it to do. I told my kids about this. My oldest son as usual back then as a teen, rebelled against the concept.
Recently, he was telling me how he had a thing that he would do that worked for him, and he always remembered whatever it was. I reminded him about what I had told him when he was younger. I said, so you get it at age 35. That’s what I was trying to tell you as a kid. You just have to figure out your own method, but it’s basically the same thing.
He objected apparently as we figured out then in talking about it, to "tricking" his own mind. I didn't care for me, as long as it worked. Just how I saw it when I was younger.
It’s also like when you set yourself up for a reward and you get it after you do what you want to do. That works really really well.
I told him when he was younger, and he rediscovered it on YouTube, about the delayed gratification test. He mentions that a lot now. In the test you take several children separately and offer them one (in this original case) marshmallow. Tell them if they wait they get another marshmallow. Leave them in a room alone for a short time.
Certain personality types have to eat that marshmallow right then. Others wait and get rewarded with a second. And those I think the contention is, do better in life, espcecially in business. It also makes for a good metaphor in life.
I was thinking yesterday that recording this blog as I walk is fine and cathartic. It helps me work out issues in projects I work on and even future projects and consider things from my history and life experiences.
And hopefully, I offer something to anyone who reads this. That’s two things I wanted to address. If it seems I’m bragging or trying to show myself in a good light or something. I’m not. I’m trying to share things that might benefit others.
Oh, he did that? I could do that!
Oh, he has trouble with that? I have trouble with that. That’s an interesting way to think about it or deal with it. Or I'll do the oppsite.
Oh, what an idiot this guy is. I can do way better.
Cool. Whatever. I don’t care. Think I’m a lowlife? OK. Just remember if anything good comes of anything you read here, even if it’s the opposite of what I’m saying, then reading this was helpful.
It’s also like when you set yourself up for a reward and you get it after you do what you want to do. That works really really well.
I told him when he was younger, and he rediscovered it on YouTube, about the delayed gratification test. He mentions that a lot now. In the test you take several children separately and offer them one (in this original case) marshmallow. Tell them if they wait they get another marshmallow. Leave them in a room alone for a short time.
Certain personality types have to eat that marshmallow right then. Others wait and get rewarded with a second. And those I think the contention is, do better in life, espcecially in business. It also makes for a good metaphor in life.
I was thinking yesterday that recording this blog as I walk is fine and cathartic. It helps me work out issues in projects I work on and even future projects and consider things from my history and life experiences.
And hopefully, I offer something to anyone who reads this. That’s two things I wanted to address. If it seems I’m bragging or trying to show myself in a good light or something. I’m not. I’m trying to share things that might benefit others.
Oh, he did that? I could do that!
Oh, he has trouble with that? I have trouble with that. That’s an interesting way to think about it or deal with it. Or I'll do the oppsite.
Oh, what an idiot this guy is. I can do way better.
Cool. Whatever. I don’t care. Think I’m a lowlife? OK. Just remember if anything good comes of anything you read here, even if it’s the opposite of what I’m saying, then reading this was helpful.
OK, the other thing was I’m doing this walk every day now and basically doing a blog every day. Recording is fun and easy. Doing the read through and edit to get it online... admittedly it’s interesting and sometimes I’ll take notes and save them somewhere else, but it’s also laborious. On the other hand, it’s helping me get back into editing an entire book. Which as some of you may know I need to finish my film companion book on my documentary. Worked on that I think till the end of December or so.
I was thinking maybe I should walk every other day because it gives all of us a break and then I can lift some weights because I really need to do some strength training. All my life I did that at home or at the gym. One day aerobics, the next day, strength training, lifting weights.
In the Service, the boss told us one day as we were headed to lunch, you know you can go to the gym and get an extra half hour off at lunch giving you 90 minutes. My friend Craig and I looked at him and said, What!
So we got the equipment and started playing racquetball every day. At some point, we thought we should be lifting weights so we started playing racquetball one day and strength training the next. In our job, you needed strength training. You were a lot less tired at night.
So there it is…
Man, I’m not giving Marc’s blog any leeway on his blog today… Bad me.
About 37 minutes into the podcast, Marc’s guest tells in incredible story about being in LA and a company you could pay to give you call out sheets of where all the productions were outside. So he got to go at 11 with his dad and met Michael Landon on set of I some show. And David Carradine, who gave him an autograph with a yin yang symbol.
I was thinking maybe I should walk every other day because it gives all of us a break and then I can lift some weights because I really need to do some strength training. All my life I did that at home or at the gym. One day aerobics, the next day, strength training, lifting weights.
In the Service, the boss told us one day as we were headed to lunch, you know you can go to the gym and get an extra half hour off at lunch giving you 90 minutes. My friend Craig and I looked at him and said, What!
So we got the equipment and started playing racquetball every day. At some point, we thought we should be lifting weights so we started playing racquetball one day and strength training the next. In our job, you needed strength training. You were a lot less tired at night.
So there it is…
Man, I’m not giving Marc’s blog any leeway on his blog today… Bad me.
About 37 minutes into the podcast, Marc’s guest tells in incredible story about being in LA and a company you could pay to give you call out sheets of where all the productions were outside. So he got to go at 11 with his dad and met Michael Landon on set of I some show. And David Carradine, who gave him an autograph with a yin yang symbol.
Then he and his dad go to where a movie "Communion" was being filmed. He has an incredible story about Christopher Walken talking to him, just the two of them. Kind of an amazing damn story, especially for an 11-year-old. Definitely worth listening to, just open the podcast and go to maybe minute 35 when he starts talking about this… Wow.
Then Marc starts talking about when he was living in Albuquerque, Sam Peckinpah was shooting his last movie, Convoy. Which for Sam wasn't his best film. But he got to meet a bunch of stars in the film that day.
I remember when Convoy came out. That was a really big movie for what seemed like a kind of “B” flick.
They’re talking about how cool it used to be to do that kind of thing and just walk on a set and how opening and friendly everybody was. But you know, somebody’s always gonna ruin it so we had stockers and paparazzi and whatever so they've locked things down. He said the security guards on sets were really nice.
Which of course, reminds me of my own story about being on the set of the pilot of Starman TV show at the Seattle Center at the monorail after having been on their set up near my apartment on Queen Anne Hill. They were at that famous location that everybody wants to shoot from for commercials and movies and TV that overlooks the city and the space needle. I was just driving home from work at Tower Video on Mercer Street by the Seattle Center and there's suddenly an entire film production on the street before me. I stopped and got out. What the hell? Cool.
That night by the base of the Space Needle the location manager noticed me sitting there watching the action and all the extras wandering around around midnight. He set me right next to the camera and the Director, right in the action. I had told him I was an aspiring screenwriter and had never been on a film set. Which isn’t quite true, but not that kind of set.
Then Marc starts talking about when he was living in Albuquerque, Sam Peckinpah was shooting his last movie, Convoy. Which for Sam wasn't his best film. But he got to meet a bunch of stars in the film that day.
I remember when Convoy came out. That was a really big movie for what seemed like a kind of “B” flick.
They’re talking about how cool it used to be to do that kind of thing and just walk on a set and how opening and friendly everybody was. But you know, somebody’s always gonna ruin it so we had stockers and paparazzi and whatever so they've locked things down. He said the security guards on sets were really nice.
Which of course, reminds me of my own story about being on the set of the pilot of Starman TV show at the Seattle Center at the monorail after having been on their set up near my apartment on Queen Anne Hill. They were at that famous location that everybody wants to shoot from for commercials and movies and TV that overlooks the city and the space needle. I was just driving home from work at Tower Video on Mercer Street by the Seattle Center and there's suddenly an entire film production on the street before me. I stopped and got out. What the hell? Cool.
That night by the base of the Space Needle the location manager noticed me sitting there watching the action and all the extras wandering around around midnight. He set me right next to the camera and the Director, right in the action. I had told him I was an aspiring screenwriter and had never been on a film set. Which isn’t quite true, but not that kind of set.
I’ve been on our local kids show in the late 1960s, The Brakeman Bill Show (I liked the JP Patches Show better but I did watch his show too). I was doing karate demonstrations with our Sensei and a couple other students. Did that a few times on the show.
But does that really count? Tiny TV studio set, not an actual on location (TV) film set. It ruined my childhood on Brakeman Bill's because they had a hand puppet called "Crazy Donkey" who everybody liked because he was irascible and funny. And suddenly I’m on this tiny set having thought it was somehow bigger and some guy's got his arm shoved up the backside of Crazy Donkey and I’m trying to give a karate demonstration and not look over at him.
On that note, I’ll bid you adieu...and leave you with that.
On that note, I’ll bid you adieu...and leave you with that.
It’s nowhere near noon time and lunch.
Cheers! Sláinte!
Cheers! Sláinte!
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