This Is Your Life.

[CWO3ROBBIE]

Kat, or maybe it was akabukowski, once said to me that everyone thinks their life would make a good book.

She is probably right. What do you think?

Here is your chance.

Let's all tell stories from our experiences as we traveled through time.

 

Ahh, but there has to be rules. They will be pretty loose, but rules there must be.

RULES:

1. It can be any experience that you want to tell us about.

2. It can be as short as one line. Or as long as fifty. Anything over thirty will be deleted.

3.You do not have to end the story at fiftyy lines, but you have to quit writing at the end of fiftyy lines. You can not post again until at least one other person  has posted something.

This ensures that everyone gets a chance.

4.You can continue on the same subject or jump to a new one.

5. Nothing is required to be in chronological order.

6. Very Graphic Sexual discriptions should be posted in the sex talk group. You can direct us to go there if we want to read about it.

7. No one will be checking the facts 

8. Additional rules will be posted and implemented as I see fit.

Step right up and post. who knows, the next knock on your door may be Spielberg asking for the movie rights.

[Bob Stepp]

Anything but ordinary....:=)

[CWO3ROBBIE]

I'm in the fifth grade. Still in the Three Room School House. Each room had two grades in it all day. The Teacher would teach one grade for a while, I'm sure there was a program of instruction that said how long each session would be, then assign something to do or read, and turn to the other side of the room and teach the other grade for a similar period.  Each room had a pot belly coal stove sitting in the middle of the room.  It was ok to throw your scrap paper or other burnable stuff in the stove.

I was a fast reader and rarely did the assignment hold my attention for the entire time while the other grade was having their lesson. As I mentioned earlier, I was probably ADD, so the teacher was used to me roaming around. Today, I have some down time before our next lesson. I'm feeling through the random junk that I always have in my pockets. I find a .22 cartridge. I pull it out. I have my pocket knife in another pocket. This was before I got the neat high top boots that had a knife pocket on the side.  That was what all the boys wanted for Christmas. The word cool hadn't yet been invented, so they were known as neat.

I knew that cartridges had gun powder inside, but I had never taken one apart before. So with my trusty pocket knife I started cutting the lead bullet out of the cartridge. It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, but I got the job done. I thought, "well better get rid of this stuff before the teacher starts our next lesson". So, I brushed the small amount of gunpowder, much less than I had imagined, off onto the floor and got up, moseyed over to the stove, opened the door and tossed the harmless cartridge into the stove.

I quickly learned something about unfired amunition. They contain primers. Primers contain explosives. It is not gunpowder alone that causes a cartridge to propel a bullet up through and out of the rifle barrel. The fireing pin striking the primer causes a fairly small explosion which ignites the gunpowder. Unfortunately the primer explosion was not so small that it did not blow open the stove door.

Yup, Back to the paddle.  

 

Could you imagine that happening today? I would have been assigned to child protective services. 911 would have been called and a swat team and homeland security would have quickly arrived. My parents would probably have gone to jail. News teams would be flown in by helicopter. the Governor would have held a news conference.

However, in 1947 nothing much changed. I went home that evening and when ask how my day went, I said "Ok". "Can I go over to Gene's to play?  I promise we won't fight.

  

 

 

[TeeBubbaDee]

You just touched my heart Jaylee.

Big time!

[thallygal]

And I too say wow Jaylee,

Is it not amazing that people are so willing to share their souls with one another

I lived with an elephant in my designer decorated livingroom in a bedroom community in Leawood Kansas

That elephant was my mother and no one ever talked about her drinking, she always had the flu or something...My grandmother, bless her heart, lived with us.  She used to draw lines on the wine bottle in the fridge, as if that would do some good

One day my mother got drunk, took pills and I remember my grandmother pulling her hair and screaming at her, what and how many did you take...

My brother ran across the street to get the doctor who lived there, he came over, gave her mustard and water and she threw up whatever pills she had taken...

My brother got a spanking from my father for getting the doctor...see, that elephant belonged in our livingroom, not in the neighborhood...

What a day

[d's girl]

Your elephant's 1st cousin lived in my living room, thallygal.

[caseyjo]

I missed all these stories this week-end while I was out running errands & played Bingo...Today I searched high & low to find out how to delete those addicting games I play from facebook...I did some deleting today & now am here reading all these wonderful stories.....You guys rock..all of you. 

My dads wife...her name is MaryAnn fell down & broke her neck several months ago....I met MaryAnn sometimes in 2005.  My hair was growing back in after having it fall out after Chemo for ovarian Cancer. I had never met MA before because I had not seen my father in 37 years. A couple years prior to the chemo & the meeting I had gotten my very first computer & did some research into where my family was & made contact w/ people from my dad's & mothers side of the family....

One of those people was MA but not directly...A cousin I had not seen since he was about 4 years old got me in contact w/ her.. I was then able to e-mail her & she got backt to me, she told me she would leave my e-mail for my father to read on his desk & she would leave it up to him to contact me....About 3 days later I got a phone call from him.. He lived a couple years longer befor he passed & I did get to see him.

In the meantime I have gotten to know & love his wife MA who has kind of taken me under her wing & given me a little peak into what my fathers life was like all those missing years...He had a very good life & a wonderful wife.

 

It was touch & go for MaryAnn after she broke her neck & she nearly died more than once. If I remember correctly this took place in the beginning of November. I want to share what you all have written with her someday. She has told me to be careful on-line, but I have told her I know you guys.....You are my friends:).....she has been able to ride on her ramp downstairs twice to her office last week....yeah for MaryAnn......she is 78 years old & a real trooper, just like you guys..My friends.

[caseyjo]

MaryAnn back in the day interviewing Liberace....I have a small stack of pics of her interviewing famous people like Jack Benny, Phillis Diller,John Glen, & A pic her photographer took of John Kennedy in his car..she was in the pic somewhere swallowed up by the crowd.....This lady has some stories to tell...unlike me..Mine are more horror stories better left untold.....

[CWO3ROBBIE]

"I smell something burning"! that's me talking into the mike to the pilot. I'm in the back seat of the U-8 flying over the Mekong Delta in South Viet Nam. I have just transferred into the 146 Radio Research Aviation Company located at Can Tho, South Viet Nam. I have previously supervised the movement of the super secret equipment used at Ben Hua Station to "White Birch" Station in Saigon.    

I was the newly assigned Avionics officer for the company. The Company Commander  wanted me to get started right away. He had not had an Avionics Officer assigned for over a month. The war was winding down, But the 146 RR Company was task with providing Airborn Intelligence coverage for the Army for the whole area south of Saigon. This included the Mekong Delta which was the Southern Strong hold of the Viet Cong.

So I was in the aircraft with two of the pilots who were briefing me on what the equip was and how it was used. Military aviation personnel wear uniforms made of nomex, a nonflameable material. No one in the 146 th was to be in flight without a flight suit made of nomex. We had not been able to find a flight suit to fit me that afternoon, so I was in Jungle fatigues. 

Now, the damn airplane I was in was on fire.

At least it sure smelled like it.  the smell was of burning electrical wireing. The copilot was calling the Control Tower at Can Tho, "

We are about 15 minutes out. We are smelling burning wireing. request an emergency landing". 

"Roger,  Lonely Ringer 4, we have you about 30 out with an on board fire". 

"We're not positive but the smell is getting stronger all the time. We'll be coming  in hot". 

Roger , Lonely Ringer 4, we'll have the trucks on the runway.

I'm thinking. Damn, I'm in a war and I'm going to die in a dummy flight with no help from the enemy. What will the paper say. CWO Robinson died yesterday in a non-combat related accident.

F**k  if I'm going to go, I would at least hope it would be in heroic way. Not a stupid aircraft fire.

"The Radios just went dead" The pilot says into the mike.

"Goddamn, the stentch is getting bad" the Copilot says. 

"How much longer"? I ask.

"If we can keep this baby airborn for another 5 min we ought to make it" The Pilot says. He and the Copilot then start through the landing procedure checklist.

Hot Damn!! It looks like we'll make it. 

But, I haven't received any flight orders yet. I don't have on the required Nomex. Hell, they will probably court martial  both the CO and me.

We come in hot. That means that you fly it on to the runway instead of doing the normal stall out landing.

The fire trucks are racing down the runway, lights flashing, trying to get to the place we will stop at the same time we do.  We come to a stop. The Co-pilot climbs out. The Pilot motions for me to get out. I climb out on to the wing, jump off and walk to the side of the runway.

The emergency crews are running around the plane with fire extinguishers and other stuff.

I just keep on walking. Nobody ever questioned who I was or why I was on the plane in Jungle Fatigues.

Turns out it was the two inverters that turn the AC  into DC  to supply the flight equipment. They had over heated and shut down. Not really a big deal.

That was my introduction to my new assignment. It would not be the last time I left pucker marks on a seat.

  

 

[caseyjo]

Holy cow..Thats the stuff movies are made of....Glad  no-one got hurt.....

[CWO3ROBBIE]

Kooner,

Don't think I have any major issues with the tour. I saw quite a few dead people but I wasn't psychologically close to any of them. Mostly I was in a airpane a few thousand feet above the countryside or inside a compound surrounded by razor wire.  I was there less than a year.

Did some really crazy things tho. It is amazing what young guys in a war zone will do.

If you ever saw "Apocalypse Now" , I have to tell you that a lot of the happenings in that movie were not as far fetched as you might think. We would be out flying missions during the day and going to the "O" club at night to watch gogo dancers and be entertained by Viet Namese bands singing "Yellow River", trying to pronounce those english words with a Viet Namese accent. Then someone from the Cav would stand up and yell "If You Ain't Cav, You ain't Shit". Somebody from one of the other units would stand up and yell " If You Are Cav, You are Shit" and the fight would be on. Then the Officer of the Day would have to come and break it up.

One of the screwist things were the rules in Saigon. The People stationed there had to abide by many of the same rules as would be in force at a stateside instalation.  We would come in with our dirty flight suits or fatigues and a .38 cal. pistol in a shoulder holster. Other officers and MPs would sometimes hastle us about why we were in downtown Saigon dressed like that.

Duh!! There is a war out there. We are part of it. We are not allowed to go anywhere off post unarmed. We are here to get shit done to support the war. Get off our back, or talk to our Colonel.

I ran a couple convoys through Downtown Saigon.  The streets were filled with people. People on foot, people on bicycles, people in cycloes( bicycle powered buggies) Do they still have them there?

All the buses had wire mesh over the windows so a satchel charge could not be thrown in through the windows.  Seeing that when you are riding in an open jeep, in the middle of one of the most closly packed masses of humanity you have ever experienced, Is not very reassuring.

Naw, why would I have issues?

[funesthememorious]

About 3 years ago I started (re)dating my ex-wife. We went on a double date to a nice restaurant with my buddy Irwin and his girlfriend Linda. As we were looking over the menu, I started raving in intricate detail how great the stuffed porkchops were. Irwin started kicking me under the table and I noticed my ex looked mortified and Linda was just staring down at her lap. Then I remembered that Linda had two adorable pot-bellied pigs that were family to her. So all I could think of doing to remedy my faux pas was to quickly say...'But I would never order the porkchops'

 

After dinner, when I was driving my ex back to her place, she burst out laughing as hard as I had ever heard and to me it was the spark that got us back together.    

[funesthememorious]

Chickens don't sleep in the bedroom with you. And if you let them, be prepared to be the butt of poultry jokes.