Happy Holidays

                                                          Happy Holidays


     Whatever the reason birthdays in our house were no big deal.  I know that I had a birthday party somewhere along the line but to be honest I can't remember when it was - no card, no gift and no day off - the lawn still needed mowing, the potatoes still needed peeling.
      I wasn't the only one without a birthday party. Linda was shocked when she asked Mom what she was going to do for Ronnie's birthday when he turned 9 or 10 and Mom said, "nothing."  Ronnie was probably the only one of us to get a birthday cake that year - after Linda made it.
      Not only did we not celebrate birthdays, we didn't celebrate Mom and Dad's anniversary or any legal holiday unless Dad got time off. This was a sore point for Linda as I never seemed to remember the occasions that meant so much to her.  I try but still drop the ball from time to time.
     There were two holidays that were religiously honored by the Riggan family - Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Dad was always big on family and these were family holidays.
     Thanksgiving was always celebrated at the grandparents.  Fortunately they lived close to each other so we made Thanksgiving lunch with the Riggan side and dinner with the Wade side.  Granny Riggan cooked chicken and Granny Wade cooked turkey (Granny Riggan was more adapt at wringing the necks of chickens ). Later, after Grandpa Riggan passed on, the events were held at Granny and Grandpa Wade's until Granny got smart enough to let Aunt Addie have Thanksgiving at her house.
     Thanksgiving was great as you got to see all of the aunts, uncles and cousins on both sides of the family. The kids ran around and screamed like banshees.  The food was plentiful and we ate like there was no tomorrow.  Fried chicken, turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans or peas, sweet potato pie with marshmellows on top ( I was never keen on sweet potatoes but I loved marshmellows ), cakes, pies and three flavors of ice-cream - for a kid, this was heaven.
     Preparation of the meal was left to the women.  The men of the Riggan family talked on all kinds of subjects and slipped outside and had a snort out of sight of Granny and Pa.  Us boys ran around screaming and hollering getting into all kinds of mischief.  The girl cousins were older and they went off by themselves talking about what ever girls talk about.
     The Wade meal was served later in the afternoon.  Digestion had not kicked in from the feed at Granny Riggans' but we kids seemed to find room for more food.  Grandpa swore we had hollow legs.
     The men of the Wade side were more sports minded and Grandpa usually found a ball game on the little 19in black and white TV. The women gathered with Granny in the kitchen to help with the food and later the clean up, all the while cackling away like the old hens the men folk said they were.
     When we were younger the play time was all fun and games but as we got older we tried to fit in with the adults, but I was not into sports so other avenues were explored.
     One year when I was a teenager we went to Granny and Pa Wades. They lived out on the Bethpage Hwy on a small farm.   Everyone showed up, even Uncle Roy (better known as Uncle RC) and Aunt Jean from California.  Uncle John  (better know as Uncle AJ ) and Aunt Sammy drove up in a VW Beetle.
     Now this was a long time ago and try as I might I can't remember all of the players involved.  I do know that I, brother Pat and at least one or two cousins were feeling kind of mischievous that day. Uncle AJ had parked his VW in the driveway appropriately along side of two trees which happened to inspire us to pull a prank.  It took some doing but we picked up on the rear bumper and dragged it to the side then picked up the front of the car and moved it to the side. After several minutes of dragging the car this way and that we finally had it positioned between the two trees and there was no way it was going to be driven out.
     Uncle AJ was pretty good about the joke and everyone got a good laugh -  we didn't even mind dragging the front end around so the car could be driven out.
     As Granny and Pa Wade got older the Thanksgivings were moved to Aunt Addie and Uncle Harold's house in Hendersonville. The house was an old colonial home built back in the 1800's that Uncle Harold had restored,  and it was large enough to accommodate the whole family which had enlarged due to marriages and births. The location didn't seem to matter - this was a family gathering and everyone enjoyed themselves.
    Christmas was the holiday of choice, especially for us kids - Santa Claus, presents, candy canes and toys. This was the one time each year when everybody was happy.  I can't remember a bad
Christmas.
   There was an unwritten law that Christmas Eve was spent at home.  Christmas Day we went to the Grandparents but Christmas Eve was at home. 
     Christmas was the one holiday that had a build up that started back around September.  The anticipation gained momentum daily until the morning of Christmas Eve. By this time Mom was ready for Santa Clause to arrive but the game had to be played out.
     After months of looking at the Sears catalog toy section and showing Mom and Dad the pictures and describing what each toy could do and why we had to have it Mom and Dad were exhausted. We kids were so hyped up on anticipation we didn't need sugar but we sneaked a piece of candy anyway.
    Christmas Eve started with Mom getting the house ready because there would always be extra guests to stop by later on. Then she would start cooking - not that we wanted to eat - what we wanted was to open " just one " of the presents under the tree. We spent the entire day around the Christmas tree which had some presents under it.  We tried to guess what was in each of the brightly wrapped gifts.  Somewhere around 6:00 or later Dad would show up,  preceded or followed by friends or co-workers, some who brought gifts or at least fruit or candy.
     Dad was a sucker for Christmas.  He could no more wait for Christmas Day than us kids. Later in the evening we were told we had to go to bed.  Santa Claus wouldn't come if we weren't asleep - what 7 or 8 year old kid was going to sleep on Christmas Eve?  As we lay quietly in our beds wide awake but pretending to be asleep, we could hear noises in the attic.  Soon Dad would come in and wake us up because Santa Claus had been there and left all kinds of great stuff.  How Santa got those toys in the attic was a mystery as we had no chimney or outside attic access.  Dad said it was Santa's magic.  I quickly discovered that Santa started storing toys in our attic way before Christmas but the question remained - how did he get in the attic?
     Sometimes Dad would take us for a ride to see the Christmas lights in the neighborhood and when we got back Mom would be there telling us that we had just missed Santa.  Sure enough there were all kinds of toys and gifts. Thank goodness Mom was there to let Santa in the house.
     At this point the Genie was out of the lamp and no way was he going back in.  The sugar canes, cookies and anticipation had reached a peak and we were awake for the night. Wrapping paper, ribbons, bows and name tags were everywhere, the crescendo of noise was deafening but this was Christmas.  One year, when we lived on Colonial Circle, Granny and Grandpa Wade came to visit on Christmas Eve.  I was probably 8 yrs old.  Several gifts were in large boxes and after everything had been opened we played with the toys and the boxes.  Grandpa watched and was amazed to the point that he said, "hell, if I had known how much fun those boxes were going to be I could have saved myself a lot of money ". It was not important that we didn't always get what we wanted.  By the time Christmas morning rolled around we were thrilled with what we got and couldn't wait to show off to our friends.
    Dad was always the one who couldn't wait to see the expressions on our faces when we walked into the living room after Santa had come.  The little kid in him would come out as he helped us assemble, figure out how to operate and then play with the toys. Many times it would be after midnight and we kids would still be going strong but Dad would poop out and leave Mom to stay up with us until one by one we couldn't hold our eyes open any more.  This was somewhere around 3-4 in the morning.  As Pat and I got older we would be the baby sitters so Mom could get some rest also.
     Christmas morning started the whole show over again as we loaded up and headed for Granny and Grandpa Riggans' house.  More anticipation, cookies, candy and presents.  Later we would cross the raging Cumberland river on a rickety old ferry and visit Granny and Pa  Wade.  More anticipation, cookies, candy and presents.  Oh, and don't forget the Aunts, Uncles and Cousins.  I realized years later why many adults would say, "thank goodness Christmas only comes once a year ".
     Brother Pat and I are only 15 months apart in age and we usually got the same major gifts from Santa.  One year we each got BB-guns, another we got 3 speed English racer bicycles, and when money was tight we shared the gift like when we were teens and got a Philco radio which we listened to all night.
     Christmas continued on in the same manner for many years - then we kids got older, Grandpa Riggan passed away and the Riggan clan seemed to venture down different paths. We still visited Granny and Grandpa Wade but the Christmas Eve tradition at Mom and Dad's house was the highlight of the season. The family expanded as we kids got married and started to have kids of our own but all of that didn't matter as Mom expected us to start arriving by 6:00 - come hungry,  and friends were welcome.
    The Christmas Eve's spent at 301 Jacksonian Drive  were some of the most memorable.  Just imagine Mom and Dad, five adult kids and spouses, as many as four grand kids, a couple of neighbors, friends and co-workers all gathered into a small house.  Add to this the smoke from 7-10 people smoking pipes and cigarettes.  Finally the time would come to open the gifts,.  Imagine everyone in Mom's small living room opening presents.  There would be ribbons, bows and wrapping  paper two feet thick on the floor but that too was a part of the tradition, as was Dad passing out the gifts and helping the little ones to figure out their toys.
    We of the Riggan family may not be all that great about remembering birthdays and anniversaries but few families could hold a candle to our Christmas Eve gatherings. It was nice to have a night where everyone was happy to see you and only good things were said and at the end of the night you went home with a smile on your face. We were always a Norman Rockwell style family full of goodwill, cheer, love and togetherness .
    Linda and I left Nashville in 1978,  Dad died in 1985, Christmas Eve was never really the same after that.  But the tradition carried on no matter where we lived.  Linda grew up with a different tradition of opening gifts on Christmas morning but the spirit soon got to her.  Even when it was just the two of us we opened gifts on Christmas Eve and I would save the one biggy gift for last. When our boys came along the tradition continued as it had for many years. Christmas Eve was spent at home.
    Today our boys have their own families and friends.  They still come over on Christmas Eve but we are slowly becoming the grandparents to be visited on Christmas Day. The spirits of Christmas 's Past are many and as time passes they seem to run together in my mind - but they linger.  Still, I can't remember all of them, but neither can I remember a bad one.
    That twinkle in my eye this Christmas will be for my first grandchild (a Granddaughter),  due December 22, 2012.  I am looking forward to meeting her and passing the Christmas Eve traditions to my son.

                                                            -----------------------------

     This Christmas turned out to be a mixture of feelings both good and not so good. About the tenth or eleventh of December, 2012 Linda was rushed to the hospital where she was placed on a ventilator, her congestive heart failure had risen up with a vengeance and she almost died that night. After three days the ventilator was removed but she needed bypass surgery but they also needed her heart to be stronger so they kept her in the hospital. 

     On December 15th MJ was born in a hospital a couple miles away, Linda was unable to get to her hospital. When Marie was released to go home the nurses who attended to Linda talked the doctor into letting Linda meet her new granddaughter in the lobby downstairs. 

     Linda wound up having her operation, it was risky and she stood a good chance of not pulling through.  Christmas and New Years was spent in the hospital, it was mid January before she could come home.

    
    

The Wind and The Darkness

                                          

                                          The Wind and The Darkness





     I have always enjoyed being on or around the water.  Coming from Tennessee the only water I was familiar with was Old Hickory Lake.  My first two years in the Navy were spent at Patrick AFB in Florida.  There I tasted salt water for the first time if only to swim in it.
     The last twenty months  of my enlistment were spent on the ocean either on board a ship or on a Mike boat.  I became familiar with the many faces of the sea - from calm gently rolling swells that would rock you to sleep, to monsoon storms so rough you would be tossed out of your bunk. There were times when I would look up and see nothing but water all around, even overhead, and times when I would be mesmerized by the sun glaring off the calm surface. The sea has it's own smells too - fishy odors close to shore, clear and cleansing out of sight of land.  It's colors are the clear blue green of deep water and the angry gray of storm-tossed waves.
     All of us had respect for the sea, we operated in all kinds of conditions.  Some of us looked into the depths reflecting on our problems to put them in their proper place.  I used to go on the flight deck at night and lay in the safety netting surrounding the deck, hanging over the side of the ship with nothing beneath but the darkness of the sea.  Even with the stars shinning the nights were black, we had black out conditions aboard ship at night.  The wind always blew because the ship was underway.  On a black night it was as if you were in a void - all thought replaced by the wind and the rocking of the ship as she rode the swells taking you into another world.  For a short time the war and all your worries were far away, for me the sea was refreshing and invigorating like a good nights sleep.
     We were never more that a few miles from shore.  In the daytime the jungles were clear, green and inviting, at night they were dark, lifeless and at best a shadow in the ambient light of the stars.
     Laying in the safety netting looking towards shore I watched red tracer rounds arc thru the darkened sky, crossing from mountain top to mountain top.  It was like a light show only all of the lights were red.  There was no sound or smell of cordite only the wind. Tracer rounds were spit out about every fifth round and at night it appeared as though a seamstress were stitching the darkness with red thread.
     At first the sight of the tracers was interesting in that I had never seen anything like it but then I wondered about the guys pulling the trigger. Were they alone, did they have hot chow that night and when would they see clean sheets again, how many more days til they rotated stateside, were they scared and what was going thru their mind. Up until then my war experiences were limited to the old movies on TV where the good guys always won and the enemy perished by the hundreds, but this was Vietnam, John Wayne was in Hollywood and the good guys were dying.
     One night several of us watched as an ammo dump exploded miles away down the coast.  It was like the final act of a fireworks display where they shoot off bunches of rockets at one time. Red tracers and flashes of large explosions illuminated the darkness for hours - we were in awe of the sight. The reality that this was war couldn't sink in as the sounds and smells were not there. Then just as in the movies the screen faded to black as the ship came about and the stern now faced out to sea. The wind and the darkness engulfed us as we wandered back to our compartment and told the guys " wow you should have seen the ammo dump go up ".
     Just a few miles away men were fighting and dying in the black of night. Fighting the enemy and the darkness of their own mind. This was something I knew nothing about and could only imagine. All I could do was watch red tracers as they crossed the night sky.

Remember The Alamo

               


     One of the first ships our group served aboard in Vietnam was the LPD USS Alamo. The Alamo was a newer amphibious assault ship.  Not only did it carry Marines their equipment and our boats it also had a flight deck for helicopters. Being a newer ship they seemed to have the best of everything.
     One of the great things about the Navy was the chow.  They had great cooks and I guess the only thing I could fault them on was the powdered milk and eggs, powered food isn't natural.  It was years before I would eat eggs again and milk never tasted the same so I eventually gave it up.
     On the Alamo we could count on two sure things the first of which was that the chef's surprise was fried chicken. A lot of fried chicken, once in a while we were served something that looked like fried chicken that one of the guys said was rabbit but it tasted like chicken. When I got home I told my wife not to cook me chicken again. Only in the last few years have I begun to eat chicken breast -  but not fried.
     As for the other certainty, movies were a big deal aboard ship but there were times when new movies couldn't be had so watching a rerun was inevitable. The Alamo had a remedy for reruns.
     The story was that when the Alamo entered service the actor John Wayne presented the ship with it's very own copy of his majestic movie, " The Alamo ". I had never seen this particular movie until then but by the time I got off the ship a few months later I was damned tired of it. I swear the Alamo was shown every week.
     The Alamo showed movies on the mess deck which was a large space for feeding all of the troops and ships company. They dropped a screen down in the middle of the mess deck and turned out the lights. When you got tired of watching the movie as made you could go around and watch it from the other side of the screen. The sound was the same but the characters were now reversed. It was different.
     One Saturday the ship pulled into Da Nang harbor and dropped anchor. On this particular Saturday the captain decided the crew needed a day off so he loaded up the crew, beer and a picnic lunch  for a day of softball on shore. Three of our boats were used to ferry everyone to shore, my boat was left behind in case a boat was needed for whatever reason.  I was left as boat coxswain, I had driven the boat several times but always with the senior petty officer close by.  It was a lazy day and it was doubtful we would be needed.
      We were tied up along side the ship soaking up the sun when this four stripper ( captain ) came down the Jacobs ladder. The captain walked up to me and said he needed a ride to his ship about a mile away.  It was a troop ship.  I had the engines lighted off and away we went.
     Coming along side of a ship in a Mike boat is really kind of simple.  Having twin screws enables you to actually walk the boat sideways. I had performed this maneuver several times but not yet perfected it.
      When we came along side the captain's ship I started maneuvering the boat into position with the captain  standing next to me. WHAM !   My boat slammed into the ships gangway ( new gangway ). WHAM !  I hit it again.  It would be hard to bust an E-3 seaman but I felt as if the captain was figuring how to go about it. The third time was a charm and all the time the captain never said a word.  When at last I held the boat in position the captain looked at me and asked if I had been driving the boat for long.  I told him this was my first time alone he said, "you'll learn"  then stepped off on to his freshly dented gangway.

The Lighter Side Of War

                 


     The members of of ACDIV 13 had a fun side, the ships we were stationed on used us for a lot of different jobs. Some times we were used to ferry people and things around, we picked up supplies in Da Nang Harbor every week and at times were sent out so the ship could make repairs to the well deck. Having nothing to do created boredom and you know about idle hands being the devil's workshop.


                                                              Nicotine Fit


     We had several characters among us who were unforgettable. There was this one guy from somewhere around New York, his heritage was Polish and I couldn't even begin to spell his name, maybe that's why we called him Ski.
      Ski was a nice guy and fun to be around, he only had one problem. Ski was a mooch when it came to cigarettes.  He never had any of his own except for those he got from the C- ration boxes and they were 20-25 yrs old. He didn't seem to mind what brand he smoked as we all smoked different brands and he bummed off all of us. Most times Ski would just walk up join in the conversation you were having, pull your pack of smokes from your pocket and pull out a cigarette then put the pack back in your pocket, he was very considerate. When we played cards in our compartment we usually had our packs and lighters ( oh, he didn't own a lighter either ) laying in front of us. Ski would reach over pull out a cigarette as he talked and never broke his train of thought.
     We all just sort of took Ski as he was.  He was a nice guy and cigarettes were about .15 per pack, no big deal. After a while though some things get under your skin and become an irritation. It took a while but Ski finally got the better of one of the guys as we were playing cards one night. It was payday, a day when you drew your pay, settled your debts and replenished your personal supplies - all in that order.
     So here we are playing poker in our quarters and Ski is in the game. A good hour or so has gone by and Ski has smoked 4-5 cigarettes by now when he reaches over and pulls another from a pack belonging to one of the petty officers. I guess this petty officer was losing or something but he slapped Ski's hand and said no. Ski was shocked and asked "what the hell". The petty officer asked Ski if he got paid that day and Ski said yes, then he was asked why he hadn't bought any cigarettes and for that Ski had no answer. The petty officer told Ski he was tired of keeping him supplied with smokes. Ski said he was sorry and he would get cigarettes the next day then he reached for a cigarette from some one else's pack and they promptly smacked his hand. Ski went without a cigarette for the rest of the night as no one would give him one.
     The next day when we came back to the compartment from lunch we were surprised to find a carton of cigarettes on every body's bunk - the brand they smoked. As usual we sat down to play a little lunch time poker. Ski was in the game, he promptly reached over and pulled a cigarette from someone's pack. Seems as though after buying about 15 cartons of cigarettes Ski forgot to buy any for himself, but he was a nice guy.


                                                       Prohibition


     Once a week the ship would drop anchor in Da Nang harbor to pick up supplies. The most obvious thing to do would be to send one of our boats, sometimes two, as they are big enough to carry whatever was needed. So off we would go up a river to what was called the beach ramp.
     This was a place that the marines had set up as an ammo dump and it had a ramp going into the water for loading boats. We would pull up and drop our ramp and wait for whatever we had to pick up even if it took all day (which it usually did) - remember what I said about idle hands.
     Turns out the beach ramp was about 3 miles from China Beach which was an in-country R&R site.  They had all kinds of recreational facilities but most of all they had booze.
     There were several problems getting the booze :
                     1. We didn't have transportation.
                     2. We didn't have ration cards, beer for enlisted men, liquor for officers.
                     3. We didn't have the right kind of money.
                     4. Who would go get the booze.
     Problem #1 was simple - hitchhike, problems #2&3 had us scratching our heads.  Problem #4 was simple enough, some one just needed the balls to go for it.
    We had among us a new recruit we affectionately called Wildman.  We called him that because he was always doing wild and crazy things. Once the above problems were explained to Wildman, we gave him a collection of about $30 and sent him on his way. Wildman walked out to the highway, stuck out his thumb and quickly obtained a ride in a passing jeep.
     About 4 hours later, a Marine six-by truck ( about the size of a dump truck - all wheel drive )backed on to the boat and out pops Wildman. He climbed into the back and shouted to form a line then commenced handing down three cases of beer, a quart of Canadian Club and a quart of Crown Royal, plus he gave us back some change. Wildman was our go to man from then on.
     In the process of passing the booze the Canadian Club was dropped on the deck, miraculously  it landed on it's bottom and only broke off the neck. Our quick thinking 2nd class engine man carefully picked up the broken bottle and placed a greasy rag from around his neck over a small bucket that had been quickly rinsed with river water ( you don't want to know about the river ) and strained the booze into the bucket. His quick thinking saved one of us from swallowing a piece of glass.
     We never asked Wildman how he managed to pull off such a feat, we just toasted him with a drink and started saving our money for next time.
     One of the fine points about being able to obtain booze was the resale value.  Aboard ship a six pack which cost us a couple of bucks would sell for close to $10.  Problem was that some of the guys who bought the beer had a problem keeping it under raps and had to stand Captains Mast. The ship knew we were bringing the booze aboard and searched our boats whenever we returned to the ship.  We were never caught.


                                                        Speaking Of Beer

     One of life's lessons that I learned early on was that the thing you want most usually is unobtainable - nowhere to be found. Another lesson was, "don't look a gift horse in the mouth ".
     The antics we went thru to get our hands on booze were just as described in the last story.  It wasn't that we were addicted to booze and had to have it to survive. We didn't have any but wanted it more because we didn't have any. Any of this make any sense?
     We were young sailors in a far away land or rather floating around in a far off ocean with very little to do. A cold beer would not only quench a raging thirst it would soothe the beast brought on by the heat, boredom, and monotony of waiting for something to happen.
     We had recently completed one of our two amphibious landings and were floating around waiting for orders on our next task of the day. We were told to marry up with another Mike 8 and come into the well deck. Great, done for the day, now we can go into our compartment and play cards the rest of the day. This was not to be as the Marines ashore required more cargo.
     Boy did we get the surprise of our life when forklifts started loading pallets of beer on our boat - bunches of beer. We were loaded two pallets high, five pallets across and about fifteen pallets deep on each boat. Let's see, that is 24 cans per case x 25 cases per pallet  x 150 pallets  =  a lot of beer!
     One disturbing fact was that here we were conniving and scheming to make sure our boat was the one to go to the beach ramp every week so we could buy booze and now we find out the ship is using it for ballast.
     To get back to the problem at hand - no way could a battalion of Marines drink all of the beer we had on our boat and surely we were deserving of a small delivery fee. We figured that no one would miss a couple of pallets that just happened to get knocked overboard by a rogue wave.  (Rogue waves were not known back then so we just said that a wave came out of nowhere and hit us when we were not looking)  - wham!  Two pallets were washed overboard.  Fifty cases of beer were a lot to hide but they say necessity is the mother of all invention and where there is a will there is a way.
     The Mike 8 is a well constructed boat.  It's designers thought of ever possible situation that could hinder the boat from making it to the beach with it's load. Beneath the well deck were five voids that ran across the boat from side to side, a man could duck walk in them. The idea was that if a void was punctured only it would take on water and the boat would continue to float.  Seems like we could flood three of the voids and still remain afloat.  Each void had an inspection plate on either side of the well deck and each round plate was big enough for a man to enter the void, but the plates were secured by about 80 - 3/4 inch bolts torqued to 150 ft lbs.
     Fortunately we kept nuts on one of the plates a little tighter than hand tight for just such an occasion - in no time at all fifty cases of beer washed overboard right into the void.
     The Marines must have been ticked about the missing beer because there was an inspection when we came aboard that night. An officer and a Chief Boatswain mate searched our bilges and storage compartment and came up empty.
     The lesson to be learned here is not to underestimate the resourcefulness of a thirsty sailor.



                                                                 Mail Call


     My Dad once told me of how they would screw around with the new guys aboard ship.  They would tell him he could write a letter home and mail it while in the middle of the ocean.  When the recruit inquired as to how this was possible they explained that he would have to be on deck at some odd hour of the night as the ship would be passing a mail buoy and he could drop his letter in it and the next ship heading in the opposite direction would retrieve the mail and take it stateside. Not everyone was gullible enough to fall for the trick but several stood on the deck in the cold or rain  or both for hours. It was sort of a rite of passage - first time at sea.
     The best part of a serviceman's day was always "mail call".  Not everyone got mail every day but everyone looked forward to hearing their name called when the mail was handed out. Sometimes it was almost as much fun to see what the other guys received.
     The girlfriend of one guy had put his name in the local paper back home and told the whole town that he was overseas and lonely, please write to him. This guy got mail every day and loads of it mostly from people he didn't know.  He got love letters ( some were quite racy ), he got magazines of all kinds, newspapers, etc.
      Then some guys got gifts - cookies, salami, cheeses and sausages.  If we'd had an oven we could have made a pizza.
      Linda would send me packages of grape kool aid and popsrite popcorn. The kool aid we would mix with the water in our igloo cooler - when you couldn't drink beer grape kool aid was the next best thing - beat the hell out of plain water.
     Popsrite popcorn came in a flat aluminum pan with a wire handle.  You had to remove a paper cover and then set the pan on a hot stove.  Soon the popcorn would start popping and the aluminum cover would start to rise and form a round dome as it filled with hot popcorn.  When all of the popcorn popped you just tore open the dome and started eating. There was just one problem - we didn't have access to a stove hot or cold.
     Not having a stove was an opportunity to improvise and we excelled in that area. The Marines had heat tablets issued to them for warming their C-rations. Heat tablets were basically Sterno in tablet form - use enough and you could boil water quickly. This though presented another problem, open flames were not allowed aboard ship.
     During daylight hours cooking the popcorn was not an issue when we were out of the ship on our boats, a five gallon bucket with some busted pallet wood and a pint of diesel fuel to get it started, but after hours cooking presented problems as the Captain frowned on seeing his ship afire.
     Thru experimentation we found that the heat tablets burned a blue - white flame which was nearly invisible even at night. So one night I decided to pop some popcorn for the guys. I got a gallon can from the mess cooks and poked holes in the bottom to provide air for the fire and then dropped in about 9 or 10 or more heat tablets and a match. In no time at all the popcorn was well on it's way, the aroma was delicious and tantalizing. I had selected a cook sight that I thought was well hidden.  I was between a couple of the large Marine amtracks and things were going well when all of a sudden we were surprised by a Marine guard. Turns out the guard was aroused by the aroma of popcorn and was less concerned about the fire than our offer to share.  Sharing some popcorn with him assured us of his silence.
      The popcorn is now popped and ready to eat - just put out the fire and head back to the compartment. The fire though was not ready to go out.  I must have used more heat tablets than I needed because the fire was not even getting low. Throwing sand on the fire was the only thing to do but the heat tablets still got  a supply of air and flame appeared from the mound of sand, it took a whole sandbag of sand to put out the flame.
     The popcorn was great but we decided do our cooking off the ship.


                                                             Game Time


     We liked to play games in our off time especially if we could place bets on the outcome. We played all kinds of card games though poker was the standard fare. I had no idea there were so many different poker games. We played five card stud, seven card stud, seven card no peek, hi-lo. We had deuces wild, low card in the hole wild, low spade wild,  high spade splits the pot, two's and nines and one eyed jacks were wild. There were times while in the middle of a game we would have to be reminded what game we were playing as it was dealers choice and changed with every hand.
     Sailors get serious about their gambling. My first time aboard ship I walked into the compartment and found a game of Acey Duecy going on. This was a game where each player put money into the pot and was then dealt two cards.  Prior to receiving his next card he places a bet in an amount up to the total of the pot.  If the third card falls between the first two cards the player removes the amount he bet from the pot. If the third card matches or falls outside of the first two cards then the player tosses his bet into the pot and the pot grows.
     This particular game had about six players and they were tapped out for cash so they were accepting backers who would place bets based on how good a hand the player had and take half of the winnings if they won. When I walked in the pot contained over two thousand dollars cash, an expensive watch and the title to a 1966 mustang ( this was late 1967 ). The game went on for another 2 hours and as with most games of chance there were winners and losers.
     Once at sea there was a continuous poker game every night in the compartment.  Cash didn't last long so to keep the interest high a bookkeeping system was set up. Come payday everyone settled up or they were not allowed to play again.
     Poker and blackjack were the standard card games but we sometimes adapted other games. Linda's dad sent me a home made board game that was played with dice and marbles.
     The basic idea of the game was to get your four marbles around the board before your opponents. Up to four players could play and the excitement could become quite high. One of the rules was that if your marble landed on an opponents marble the opponents marble had to go all the way back to the starting point and try again. Treachery and intrigue kept the tension and excitement high as each player had put up fifty cents or a dollar in the pot, winner take all.
     I don't remember the original name of the game, the guys  though came up with another name for it, "f--- your buddy ".
     In a time where the future was uncertain and you were far from home it was good to have something to lift your spirits and make us laugh. There were many things to be concerned about but all it took was a little humor to put a smile on our faces.