An Update to Virgil's Air Force 3 Tale

Coz we're all about "the rest of the story" (with apologies to Paul Harvey).  Here's Virgil (the first part of the story is just below):

Virgil flew F-4s out of RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge

I also left out what really is the kicker. You see, I (and another guy in my squadron) were on the Wing Commander's sh$$t list. He wanted to jerk our wings for some, um, "unauthorized" tangling with some RAF (English) Electric P1 Lightnings in mock air-air combat. Now, I didn't ask for my cousin come to come to my aid--I didn't even know he was coming and he knew nothing about my travails, but everyone on the base assumed that was what he was there for--especially when the Wing Commander showed up at the O-Club in dress blues to greet the General. As one 2nd Lt in the 92nd TFS (who knew of my situation) assigned to the command post said later: "I thought Virgil was in really deep serious, but after we got that call from Air Force 3 I realized he didn't have any troubles at all." LOL!

What was REALLY interesting was the "repartee" between the Wing Commander (O-6) and my Cousin (O-7) and myself at the O-Club bar before my cousin and I went to dinner. The Wing CO trying to suss out how much the General knew of his attempts to ground me, and my cousin's realization that there was a "disturbance in the force" but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. A very stilted "polite" conversation all round.

One assumes Virgil didn't get grounded, after all.

Thanksgiving Comes First

Blog-bud Jim has his annual post about Thanksgiving up and it's later than usual.  There's a reason for the late posting and... well, here's Jim:

Since I've often been all about Thanksgiving, some of you were probably wondering when I was going to write a post about it this year. If you were wondering, I thank you for thinking about it and here it is.

I made a conscious effort to NOT post about Thanksgiving. I wanted to see what was happening without being clouded by thoughts of what was happening as a result of anything here.

I still kept plugging away on Facebook (on my own personal page and at THANKSGIVING COMES FIRST, a page I manage there - https://www.facebook.com/ThanksgivingComesFirst ) and I get the feeling that there may be a tipping point being reached, one way or the other. There are boatloads of people who are fed up with the commercialization of Christmas and the incursion of store openings on Thanksgiving itself. I mean, some folks are seriously angry now. That's a good thing. And there are lots of stores specifically advertising that they will be closed on Thanksgiving, another good sign. On the other hand, stores are opening earlier than last year (when they opened earlier than the year before that) so...

We support Jim's efforts, we totally agree with him on this subject, and we hope that you do too, Gentle Reader.  Jim posted this graphic as a part of this year's post:

Now you know where to shop and where NOT to shop.  Act accordingly!

Guest Post

Promoted from comments to the main page... Our Man Virgil Xenophon.

HOW I GOT TO SEE FOOTBALL GAMES IN TIGER STADIUM FOR FREE 1971-1972

When I left the Air Force and landed at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, 90 miles from Baton Rouge, I wondered how I was going to get to see my beloved Tigers play during football season as all games weren't televised like they are now and, as I was no longer a student, and season tickets sold out annually, even scalped tickets were hard to come by. SOooo...like any good ex-military guy, I devised a plan.

It so happens that those years were the years when the student culture was changing and in flux (not to mention the national one). Whereas in the early '60s all male students and adults wore a suit & tie to Tiger games and women their best dress, the culture was changing to casual wear. The only people who wore suits were news/sports reporters and LSU Admin officials. So I devised a plan to blend in in order to sneak into the press box.

First, I dressed in a suit, with a set of binoculars hanging around my neck and carried a clip-board to fake the sports-writer bit. Then I would head to the check-in point where the sports reporters got their credentials. In those days Tiger stadium was a one-story oval seating 68,000 before they added the upper deck slabs and the southern end-zone curved 2nd deck. It was a far simpler time. Usually two guys sat at a folding card table just outside the perimeter gate with a couple of shoe-boxes full of 3X5 cards used to verify reporters, and the double gates were hugely wide (to allow for trucks, etc.).

What I would do is hang back until I saw a gaggle of around 10 or more reporters gathered around the officials and otherwise occupying their attention. I would sidle up to the back of the crowd as if to get my Press Pass, then slide to the side when attention was diverted and walk right by thru the gates and on up to the elevator door to the Press Box as if I belonged and up I would go. Once there where I sat depended. If the games were against teams that were not traditional opponents and from far away so that there was little fan interest (like, say, Wisconsin) there would be few out-of-town reporters and so I could sit right at the reporters desk row and watch the entire game from the 50 yard line! Of course when trad opponents like Ole Miss, Alabama or Auburn came calling the Press Box would be packed with legit reporters. What then? Well, PLAN B was to take the back stairs/fire-escape from the Press Box down the elevator tower to the point where it opened as a one-way door out onto the top rung of the stadium seats beneath the Press Box. All seats usually being occupied, I usually then sat on the top step underneath the Press Box on the 50 yard line. Again, a great vantage point even if the seating was a bit "hard." LOL I did this for every home game for two years!

Special Note: On the night of the Ole-Miss-LSU "one second" game I arrived a little early.  Sooo, it being early there was still room in the Press Box proper, so I thought I'd take in a bit of pre-game warm-ups, ceremonies, etc., before heading down-stairs and out into the stadium. Unfortunately, I had had too much to drink at the fraternity house before hand, so passed out face down. A security guard eventually tapped me on the shoulder and said "Nice try, son," and escorted me down and out of the stadium. Not to be deterred, however, I planned a "re-attack" in the best Air Force tradition by repeating my performance (what are the odds?) a second time only heading directly for the stadium exit door before anyone could detect me and thus I was there to watch a very thrilling and historic last-second come-back win for my Bayou Bengals!

Virgil has been threatening for well over a year to become something like a co-blogger here at EIP. I took the liberty of promoting his comment from "All's Well" and calling it a "guest post" to encourage him to deliver more stories like this.  Further encouragement from you Gentle Readers would be appreciated.

(I did a couple o' minor edits and added the photo.)

Bits and Bytes

Some linkage and a video...

There's this, to begin with.

I'm actually rather embarrassed about my results, what with only getting 11 out of 15 correct.  This, after living in Ol' Blighty for three years and making at least four trips back since I left in 1983.  (H/t: Skip, who's an Honorary Brit, too.)

And then there's this, from Anne Bonney:

There are cheaper alternatives at the link and thank The Deity At Hand for that.  Forty-seven Yankee Dollars for a single candle is about three ticks to the right of "outrageous."  That said, I've heard lotsa people will never move to an e-reader because of the lack of that "book smell."  Well, problem solved!

And finally, here's the video I mentioned up top... but first a screen-cap from the source... Hemmings Daily (the comments at the link are interesting, most notably this vid was shot mere days before the big earthquake of 1906):

It makes perfect sense... to me, at least... that Americans' bad driving habits originated in California, and San Francisco, specifically.  That said, the video above ain't got a THING on driving in the Third World, which might could be best described as "you hadda be there."  Go ahead, ask me how I know.

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Happy Hour isn't happy today, thinkin' as we are about the pain in one of our blog-buds' life at the moment.  This is for Skip...

Got up this mornin', just about the break of day
A-huggin' the pillow where she used to lay
Got up this mornin', just about the break of day
A-huggin' the pillow where my good gal used to lay

I don't believe there's a pain in this life worse than losing the one you love, especially if she's your wife and life partner.  If you haven't already done so, please stop by Skip's blog and give him your condolences.  Life is hard right now.

"Until I Met a Man With No Feet*"

So, yesterday we were bitching about the heat.  Which, in retrospect, wasn't half bad compared to this:

Aiiieee!  There's no indication about how humid it was at Skip's place yesterday but that's frickin' HOT, even if it's a dry heat.  I guess my shoes fit pretty well yesterday, by comparison.  And we're even better today, as the weather-guessers promised:

I predict a rather longish and enjoyable Happy Hour today, even if the humidity is up above what we consider usual, customary, and reasonable.

* Don't know what I'm on about?  Go here.

Linkage

I have great news: good friend and constant correspondent Lin is back in the blogosphere after a nearly four-year hiatus.  No longer in New Mexico, Lin now blogs from a log cabin located in Upstate Noo Yawk, about an hour from Montreal.  The name of her new blog is Log Cabin Gothic and here's a sample of her work:

The cabin on a misty Spring morning

I stepped off the bumpy little plane from Boston, the last plane of four in a CheapTickets 22 hour tour of US airports on the convoluted way from the southwest and my family did not recognize me.  Granted, it had been over a decade since they last saw me and life had become an interesting hell during that last five years of it. My intent the year before was to find that last place, one closer to family after so many years of drifting further and further away.  In a rare phone chat with my brother, he had said "Yes, I think it is time for you to come home." 

Twenty five minutes after landing, we pulled into the long driveway of my new last home.  My brother had inspected it and sent photos that previous year but I had not seen it for myself before the closing.  The angst about my decision had been building, especially after that brother died so unexpectedly so I was gripping the seat in front of me tightly as the car drove up the long woodsy lane.

As the trees gave way to an open expanse of lawn and buildings, what I saw replaced the anxiety with a welcoming playful wonder.  I almost expected a Hobbit with pipe in hand to wander down the path to greet us.  Or a talking billy goat or two.   Inside my drawn and worn carcass, there came a tiny squeal of rebirth from a promise of peace and healing hidden within these woods. 

There's lots of beautiful photography on the blog in addition to Lin's excellent prose.  Go give her a visit and tell her I sent ya.

The Sunday Re-Run

This was a fun post... to do, but not necessarily to read.  From almost six years ago:

Thursday, May 22, 2008

MeMe

I was tagged by Lin to do this here meme the day I went for my slicing/dicing. Now that I'm up to speed (sorta), I'm checking the box.

In Lin's words: “Soo ... the idea is to answer these questions with only a photo or other graphic, NO words allowed. Here goes then (but I reserve the right to complete and childish asininity).”

Me, too.

1. What is your current relationship status?

2. What is your current mood?

3. What is your favorite band/singer?

and

4. What is your favorite movie?

5. What kind of pets do you have?

6. Where do you live?

7. Where do you work?

8. Who do you look like?

9. What do you drive?

10. What did you do on Saturday?

11. What did you do on Sunday?

12. What is your favorite network TV Show?

13. Describe Yourself.

14. What is your favorite candy?

I'm supposed to tag some folks, coz that's the way these things work. Consider yourself tagged, if ya wanna be. There's a lot of image googling involved. But Hey! That's fun, innit?

Blog-Bud Lin no longer blogs, but her archives are alive and well (and her posts are ALL great reads).  As for YrHmblScrb?  Not much has changed in my world during the last six years, other than the fact I don't live in El Casa Móvil De Pennington any longer, gave up riding mo'sickles, and replaced The Green Hornet with something a lil big bigger and a lot more comfortable.  Wait.  I suppose that IS a lot o' change, innit?

Yeah... That's About Right

Courtesy of that Brighton Pensioner, a fun quiz.  My results:

As the post title notes: that's about right.  And we most certainly DO love us some raw fish.  We've been known to go to great lengths to get it, too.  Like this:

The Second Mrs. Pennington and YrHmblScrb in a Tokyo sushi bar, c. mid-1990s.

Ah, Former Happy Days Fish.

OK, I'll Play Too

A most interesting quiz, brought to our attention by that (other) Old AF Sarge.

Ahem.  We shall now pick a nit: "y'all" is correct for TWO people.  Three or more folks are addressed as "all y'all."  That said, I don't think I have a readily-identifiable dialect or accent but I most certainly retain what Mom... a classic Suth'in Belle, if there ever was one... taught me, mostly in the terms I use to describe things.  You'll note I fit in with my New Mexican neighbors quite well.

The Annual Windmill Tilt, or, Thanksgiving Comes FIRST

Some might say I'm late to the party this year (and some would be correct, in nearly ALL cases of parties NOT involving alcohol) but I wanted to wait until some clue-free merchant fired a Christmas shot across my bow.  Well, that happened last evening while I was watching the hockey game and it disgusted me, as it always does.  Thanksgiving is still two weeks away and already the fat old man in the red suit and his many clones are urging me to buy, buy, buy.  That's just wrong and the premature launch of the shopping orgy rubs a lot o' people the wrong way.  Blog-Bud Jim takes this situation personally and he's fostered a Thanksgiving Comes First movement, leading the charge against corporate greed for several years now.  We support Jim's efforts, so herewith our annual post: Thanksgiving Comes FIRST.

Thanksgiving Comes FIRST

We here at EIP join Sisyphus every year in his rock-rolling exercise, mainly coz (a) we believe and (b) because we ARE curmudgeonly in our old age.  So herewith the UCR post in this space:

The Annual Tilting At Windmills Post

We've run this post every year for three four years, mainly because it's sumthin' we REALLY DO believe in:  Thanksgiving comes first.  Without further ado...

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

No Cause Is Truly Lost

It's that time o' year.  The time when we ring up Mr. Panza and beseech him to help us in our annual tilt against the windmills of commercialism.  Well, it's more like me being ol' Sancho to Jim's Don Q (ed: link updated for 2013).  But... lost or not... I'm all FOR what Jim is selling. Here's what I said last year and the year before: 

Blog-Bud Jim, aka Suldog, has launched his second annual “Thanksgiving Comes First!” campaign… and has asked those of us who agree with him… and who are the proprietors of blogs… to join the campaign. Well, I can’t think of anyone who actually approves of seeing Christmas sales, Christmas advertising, Christmas-this, or Christmas-that, before Thanksgiving has come and gone. NO ONE… period, end of report, full-stop (ed:  It has since come to my attention that I'm wrong here.  There IS one person I'm aware of, and only ONE.). I’m quite sure even the employees and management of those businesses who launch Christmas before Thanksgiving is even here have a distaste for the project at hand. I mean… how could you NOT?

So. I’m on board with this. I hope you are, too. Jim has great narrative reasons and not a few rants on the subject at the link above and here, as well. Do go read.

The links in the quoted bits above are older.  Jim has updated his original post and added thoughts at my link in the first graf.  Won't you help us?

As noted in my parenthetical comment in the first graf of my repost, Jim has updated his post for 2011.  And there is progress in this space... companies DO respond when their customers tell them things.  See?

I stole that from Jim, of course.  Thank you, Nordstrom's!  Now if we could just get EVERY retailer to go along...

Most o' Jim's readers join him in this effort... won't YOU join, too?

My last sentence still applies.

The Sunday Re-run...

Four years ago on this date:

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Linkage

There are war stories and there are sea stories... and then there's this. Do your fine self a favor and go... and then grin. A LOT.

Impulse Buy

So... we were in Wally-World yesterday, doing a mini-resupply run (beer and such) when this caught our eye:

We DO like Dan Brown and $17.50 seemed like a small price to pay for several hours of page-turning entertainment. I picked up "The Da Vinci Code" a couple o' years back when the ex-girlfriend and I were off on a long weekend in Dallas and was enthralled. That book made it through me, the ex-GF, her family, and mine before I lost track of it. And everyone said the same thing, to wit: "Wow! What a page-turner THAT was!" Yup. And we can only hope there's more of the same lurking within the pages of his latest...

All that said, I should note I read Mr. Brown because of the way he writes... and NOT out of any belief there's hidden truth or any such other "deeper meaning" in his plot lines, which is to say I ain't buying into the various alternate Gospel theories and such.  He just tells a damned good story.  Period.  End of report.

Committed to the Inter-tubes by Buck on 10/20/2009 12:47:00 AM 12 comments:

Yup, two posts.  Go read Lex's story at the link, it's one of my favorites of his.  Lord, do we EVER miss the man.

This Made Me a Bit Misty...

... mainly coz we've got a tee shirt similar to this.  The h/t goes to Curtis.

In Which We Steal a Fellow Blogger's Thunder*

Here's an hour long video on the North American Aviation P-51 Mustang, my favorite fighter plane from Big Bang Two.  I thought I'd seen just about every aviation teevee show ever made but this one was new to me.  The interesting thing about this video is its initial focus on the A-36 attack variant of the Mustang, which is quite extensive, indeed.  It's long but it's great good stuff, Maynard, including footage I've never seen before.



Oh.  The asterisk in the post title?  Well, it IS Friday.  My apologies, Chris.

Wherein We Exceed the Half-Life of a Blog Post By a WIDE Margin

For the fourth and LAST time, I swear.  Skip to the end to find out why I'm posting this yet again.

Saturday, July 02, 2011

Another Stoopid Re-Run

I got a nice e-mail yesterday from Ginger Cucolo, to wit:

To all,

If you are receiving this note, you contributed in some way to my project for researching the history of Military Identification Tags.

Dog Tags: The History, Personal Stories, Cultural Impact, and Future of Military Identification has now been completed. For this, I want to thank you.

Ginger went on to note her book is available at Amazon and through her book's web site, if'n you're interested.  I participated in her project by filling out a questionnaire, which came to me as a result of this post:

Sunday, January 21, 2007

A Lightweight Post for a Sunday

Via Kris, another one of those quiz thingies. This time, it’s “What Book Are You?”

You're Siddhartha!
by Hermann Hesse

You simply don't know what to believe, but you're willing to try anything once. Western values, Eastern values, hedonism and minimalism, you've spent some time in every camp. But you still don't have any idea what camp you belong in. This makes you an individualist of the highest order, but also really lonely. It's time to chill out under a tree. And realize that at least you believe in ferries.
Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

This one is closer than most, aside from the fact the test results say I’m really lonely. Au contraire. I’m alone, true, but I am not lonely. Big difference. Boy-Howdy is it ever true when they say “you've spent some time in every camp. But you still don't have any idea what camp you belong in.” That statement really nails it! And I do believe in ferries, having been on quite a few. The book selection is interesting in one other aspect: check out this photo of my USAF-issued dog tag (click for larger). I’m Buddhist, by an official act of the US Gub’mint. The story behind that lil bit of trivia goes like this…

Once upon a time while I was still on active duty it came to pass, via directive, that all personnel had to have Official ID tags in their possession, at all times. Those of us who had lost their ID tags were ordered to report to the CBPO and get re-issued. So, I took my ol’ self down to the personnel shop, found the ID-tag foundry and presented my ID card to the airman in charge. He looked at it in a bored manner and asked “What’s your religion?” “No preference,” sez I. “No go,” sez he, “You have to choose a religion…pick one from this list…” and he shoves a list of about 25 religious denominations across the desk to me. I scan it quickly, and he’s right: there are no “No preference” or “Agnostic” categories. So I said “I’m Buddhist.” The airman didn't bat an eye and proceeded to pound out my dog tags. Ten minutes later I walked out of the personnel shop with my newly-minted dog tags and a brand-new religion. The Second Mrs. Pennington was most impressed when I got home, she being a closet Buddhist and all.

Siddhartha, indeed.

This is the third time I've run this post; I last published it in March of 2009.  A couple o' you Gentle Readers commented back then to let me know "No Pref" was an option on your dog tags, which caused me to doubt my memory.  I swear the story is true and I'm backed up by The Second Mrs. Pennington, who made one of her rare appearances in comments to that post to validate the story (and my religion, such as it is) in her left-handed way.  So, there.

I never mentioned this in previous iterations of this chestnut, but if ya look closely at the photo you'll see another war-relic: my P-38.  I've carried that puppy on my key chain ever since 1968, or so.  I use it, too.

Committed to the Inter-tubes by Buck on 7/02/2011 11:02:00 AM 11 comments:

You might want to read the comments linked above.  But anyhoo... I posted this to enlighten Sherlock.

WANT!

Want what, Buck?  Why, Spitfire Kentish Ale, of course!



More vids here... and the hat-tip goes to the Ex-Bootneck.  Brilliant!

While we're on about the beer... Wanna see more stuff like this?  Go here.

Heh.  DOUBLE-heh.

Dreams

The drug in question on my messy desktop.

I've had this post percolating in the back o' my mind for some time now but haven't done anythang with it until now.  Just to set the stage... it came to pass about four months ago that I was having trouble falling asleep in the evenings (or early mornings, you choose), unless my Ol' Ass was parked in front o' the teevee, at which time sleep came all TOO easily.  I'd retire to my bedchambers, turn out the lights and toss and turn for what seemed like hours before sleep came.  So I decided to purchase what you see above: a potion called "Sleep," by an outfit called NatureMade.  The "all-natural" bits consist primarily o' melatonin and L-theanine and the good news is the stuff seems to work.  I've been taking one of these pills before bedtime for about four months now and have no trouble falling asleep any longer.

But the better news is my dreams have become a LOT more interesting and vivid (but NOT vivid like this).  I'm 99.4% certain the pills are the cause o' this phenomenon and I'm also 99.4% certain my better dreams are the reason I'm still taking this stuff.  Hell, my dreams are like an E-ticket ride at Disneyland these days and I'm not gonna give up "Sleep" anytime soon.

So what prompted this?  Well, I read this post by that other Old AF Sarge today.  My dreams are pretty good, but I can't hold a candle to his.  Mebbe I'll up my dosage.

You Don't See Many o' These Any Longer

I'm talkin' about sidecar rigs, like this:

Don't they look spiffy?  That's Occasional Readers Carol and Tom, who stopped in for coffee yesterday morning.  They're on a Memorial Day weekend jaunt down towards Ruidoso, Fort Stanton, and the VLA... among other places.  There was a time when one used to see sidecars all over the place but I'm thinkin' they've fallen into disfavor in this day and age.  More's the pity, as they say, because a sidecar rig is a pretty classy way to travel.

Yesterday was the first time we've met in Real Life and the occasion is one of the things I like BEST about this blogging gig... the making and meeting of new friends.

It's One o' THOSE Days...

... which is to say the sorta day where I got nuthin' yet my Occasional Correspondents come through to rescue me.  Again.  Frequent Correspondent, Occasional Reader, Superb Cook, Great Drinkin' Buddy, Retired Blogger, and Perpetual Biker Lin sends this along...



About which I replied...

Wow.  Those guys have MUCH bigger ones than I do, speaking specifically about riding in snow, all that "passing on the right" stuff, and some of those mountain "roads."  Ah, to be young again.

That's just scratching the surface.  You'll note the map at the beginning of the video that shows the route these guys took.  That, in and of itself, is amazing.  I've ridden in some rather obscure and exotic places in this world but these guys' "been there, done that" tee-shirt is almost beyond amazing.  Big ones.  Big BRASS Ones.

On another topic... make sure you drop by the Old AF Sarge's place today to see some incredible plane pr0n.  Good stuff, Maynard.

Today

Blog-Bud Ivan reminds us it's May Day.  I responded with...

Ah, May Day. It's just not as exciting as it used to be. (ed: click it)

Yes... the Good Ol' Days, when we knew what we were fighting and exactly who the enemy was.  These bastards left little doubt:

I kinda miss the sonsabitches.  Our commies today just ain't very good at it.