Tag Archives: beer

Welcome Home

His eyebrows sagged and his countenance fell. His lips tightened as he went into a blank stare. He wiped a tear from his eye. He was somewhere else in the world right then, a different place, a different time. He had come back from that place years ago, probably before I was born. He had to come back from it again during our conversation sitting at the bar. I wondered how many times he’s had to come back from there in the last 45 years or more.

During my last trip to Ft Jackson, I stayed for a week instead of the usual weekend. When I’m there for only my army reserve weekend, I have a routine I generally follow. I get to town on Friday, check into the hotel, then go to Sonic. And why not? They’ve gotten my order right 3 out of the last 5 times now, getting better. Saturday is usually blur, and Sunday afternoon I head back to Florida. But when I’m there for a week at a time, I usually go to a couple different restaurants instead of eating drive-thru food for a whole week.

One particular night I went to a place I’ve enjoyed a few times before. It’s a sports bar with a killer burger. Not only is it good, but it might kill you, too, at half a pound of beef. Hence, a killer burger. But I’ll take my chances. The beer is cold, there’s sports on the TVs, and the people are nice. That’s where I met Chuck.

The conversation at the bar had to the with the heat that day. Then Chuck started talking to me, saying something about a “dry heat” like in Arizona or something. I told him that only works until it gets to a certain point. I told him it was a dry heat where I was in Iraq, but once the temperature got over 110 degrees, it was just hot. Dry or not, it was hot. Side note. For the record, I took a picture of the thermometer outside our Preventive Medicine office at my base in Iraq. It was at 146 degrees. But it was a dry heat. LOL.

Then Chuck told me he had been to the two worst places in the world. The first place being Detroit during the riots in 1967. The second place was Saigon, 1968. He was a Vietnam Veteran. He told me how he went from Detroit to the jungle. Then he told me that of all the men on the plane that took him to Vietnam, only 4 came home. That’s when he retreated into his mind for a minute. I imagine he was taking a moment to remember each of them. I believe he could see them in his mind, maybe as they sat next to him on the plane or maybe as they drew their last breath, I didn’t ask. Either way, he needed a minute.

When he returned to reality, we changed the subject of our conversation to sports. But in only two minutes before that, I knew his pain. I had a sense of his war stories. I could tell where he had been in some respects. His face spoke it all very clearly. Sports brought a completely different face to Chuck. His sports stories were amazing and fascinating. The sports figures that he met over the years, the autographs he told me about, the memorabilia he said he has in his sports room. It all had me in awe. And he was happy talking sports. It’s his life now, and his job.

Everyone I went with to Iraq and Afghanistan came home. I personally knew a few people that died serving, but everyone I went with both times came home. I can’t imagine what goes through Chuck’s mind when he thinks about being only one of four surviving members of the group on the plane that took him to Vietnam. The only inkling I have of what he goes through is what I saw in his face while he revisited the fallen in his memories.

I have my moments where I get triggered to memories of war. On occasion I get jumpy because of unexpected noises. Being in traffic is hard for me. I battle anxiety and depression all the time. I’m still figuring out a lot of this since coming home from my last deployment. I don’t know his stories, but I can very much relate to how Chuck reacted when taken back to 1968. I also do that from time to time. And I wonder if years from now I’ll still have my moments like that. We’ll see.

I’ll say again what I told Chuck the other night. Thank you for leading the way with your service. And Welcome home. I’m glad you’re one of the four that came back.

Thank you all for stopping by this week. Good day, God bless.

Dave

Get Philosophized

Philosophy says that the early bird gets the worm. Ok. But the early worm gets eaten. I guess timing is everything. And it is. I used to drive a box truck for a produce company. If my truck wasn’t ready to go when I showed up for work at 4 a.m., I would be running late getting my route done. It was at least an hour drive from my starting point to my first stop. I needed be ahead of the morning traffic. Between Pensacola and Ft Walton Beach, there must have been 372 school zones (I exaggerate, of course, but it sure seemed like it). And if I didn’t leave on time, I would undoubtedly catch every one of those annoying school zones, one of which was less than 100 feet. If I didn’t leave on time, I would be at least an hour late just a few stops into my route. And my leaving on time was contingent upon the night loaders getting their job done and getting the trucks loaded.

On the flip side, when I did leave on time, I would have about an hour wait by my third stop. Nap time! The cab of the truck wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep, but a couple times a week, when the loaders got my truck ready on time, I would enjoy a short cat nap while waiting on the manager of that restaurant to show up and accept the delivery. Sometimes I was early, sometimes I was late. Being the early bird that gets the worm, or the worm that got told by customers he was late, all depended on someone else doing their job.

I really miss that job.

And on the subject of being early, why does my GPS offer me slower routes when I’m driving from Florida to South Carolina and back every month for my army reserve duty? It shows “This route is 34 minutes slower.” “This route is 15 minutes slower.” I’ve seen it give a slower route by an hour and 15 minutes while driving. Why? Why would I want a slower route? If I didn’t care what time I arrived, I wouldn’t be using my GPS. But honestly, I mostly use it for traffic updates and an estimated time of arrival. But really, why try to sell me on a slower route? It’s more than an 8-hour drive one way. I don’t want to go slower. I just want to get there and take a nap.

Another philosophical anomaly is seeing a glass half empty or half full. Who came up with that? I don’t mean to sound judgmental, but that’s just ridiculous. Let me explain. I’m a very analytical person. I need more information than just a cylindrical container being at 50% capacity. The truth is, if you are filling the glass and stop halfway, it’s half full. If it’s full to start with, and you drink half of it, it’s half empty. This same equation works for beer, except that with beer it’s always half empty. No one starts out with only half a beer.

Lastly, let’s look at “I think, therefore, I am.” I like that one. But I still have questions. Do I exist because I think? Or do I think because I exist? What about some of the people we deal with on a daily basis that make us scratch our heads when they think? Come spend a day with me at the airport I work at and you’ll see what I mean. I guess when Descartes came up with “I think, therefore I am,” he didn’t add an addendum that it has to be intelligent thought. I guess his glass was half full.

Thanks for stopping this week and getting philosophized. And since I skipped last week, Happy New Year. May your 2018 be as good as you make it. Well, that statement is an interesting bit of philosophy. Think about that for a while. Good day, God bless.

Dave

Abstract

I fell asleep thinking about you, hoping to see you in my dreams. You didn’t show. But that’s ok, I know you’re busy. I should shave my beard since that’s what derailed the last dream and turned it into a nightmare. Even the smallest ripple can turn into a tsunami that engulfs my slumber when my dreams start to go sideways. And once it starts, there’s no stopping it.

I enjoyed a couple of naps this week. I’ve hired a nap coach so I can get better at it. I hope to turn pro at it one day. I wonder what the pay is for a napper at the top of his game. Could it be classified as a sport and what would the scoring system entail? And would the TV commentators whisper into the microphone, “Oh my gosh! He nailed it! Look at his form.” Regardless, I’m sure everyone who gets a nap is a winner. I think we should all explore this.

I’ve been wondering some things. What do the constellations look like from somewhere else in the galaxy? Or even outside the galaxy? Would Orion’s Belt become Orion’s Suspenders? Or perhaps the Big Dipper looks like a bottle of wine from opposite of where we are. Maybe a giant bottle of chardonnay? And we’ll need a colossal size bottle of booze in less than 4 billion years when the Andromeda Galaxy comes crashing into ours. That’s going to be one hell of a party. I should put a reminder in my phone for it.

Today feels like Friday. But, in fact, it is Saturday. I wrote this on Wednesday. You figure it out. Days of the week mean very little to me anymore.

I used to believe in Santa Claus. I’m trying to believe in myself again. I do believe in Jesus, so I got that going for me. But of those three, the only one I really talk to anymore on a regular basis is Me. You should hear the arguments I have with Me. But I am very happy that no one can see what’s going on inside my head at any given time. If you could, you would either be extremely entertained or terribly horrified. At least that how it works for me, having this front row seat to it.

Sometimes I have memories that I’m not sure are really mine. I don’t know how they got in my head; nonetheless, they are here. But I’m not convinced they belong to me. If you are missing some of your memories, please have your people call my people and we’ll work something out. Otherwise, the ones that go unclaimed will be put on craigslist.

I’ve had green tea in Japan, hot tea in England, chai tea in Iraq. As a southerner, you would think that I drink sweet tea. I don’t much care for it. But I like beer. The chai tea in Iraq was the best. But the grits were horrible. They definitely weren’t southern. And don’t get me started on the so-called red beans and rice they served us in Afghanistan. Not even close. Not. Even. Close.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Law of Diminishing Return is real. And the best way to counter it is to go backwards, then it can only get better. Read the previous two sentences again. It’s not confusing, it’ll come to you sooner or later.

Today’s crazy abstractness was brought to you by the number Twelve and the color known as Purple. I hope you enjoyed something a little different from me this week. I sure enjoyed writing it. Good day, God bless.

Dave

Tropical Storm Cindy and My Crazy Thoughts

This past week we dealt with Tropical Storm Cindy here where I live in Florida. Yes, the landfall was hundreds of miles away to the west, but the rain was far-reaching. With the rain came localized flooding, at least one tornado that caused damage, and over 5 ½ inches of rain right here from June 20th to the 22nd (recorded at the local military base according to Weather Underground’s website). That’s a lot of rain in just 3 days.

 

What a wonder view of the clouds outside my back door.
Very minor damage for me, the siding started to come loose.

Views from my back door after the main part of the storm had passed.

But now I’m going to be controversial. All the hype the different weather sources put out about weather events, is just that, hype. At least most of it is. They need ratings, just like the news channels. They will play it up as much as they can to make sure you tune in. I have to do some research on the subject, but as far as I can tell, someone changed the term “tropical disturbance” to “tropical cyclone.” Why? Because “cyclone” sounds more scary. On a similar note, but going in a completely opposite direction, we got PTSD from changing the way it’s named. It went from “shell shock” to “battle fatigue” to PTSD. People will change the name of something to impact how you view it depending on how they want you to see it. PTSD doesn’t sound near as bad as Shell Shock.

But I digress. I do that from time to time. Let me grab another beer.

The reason I know the Weather Channel, and other weather outlets, hype things up is because I’ve seen it. In Panama City Beach years ago, they did a report about flooding from a parking lot that floods in an average afternoon thunderstorm. The roads were fine, no problems. But the reporter walked through the deepest part of the parking lot talking about how the flooding was affecting us. It was a lie. I saw a reporter on the Weather Channel once talking about how bad the winds were during a particular tropical storm one year. They were reporting from in between two condominium buildings, where the wind is tunneled as it comes off the beach and increases in strength. It’s always windy in that spot. I was on the crew that built the pool for one of those buildings and I know firsthand that the wind right at that exact spot is always much greater than on the beach. Again, they lied. Or at least in both cases, the source of the information was manipulating the truth in such a way that it was not accurate reporting.

 

Some tornado damage at a local park.

I have lived in the Florida Panhandle for more than 25 years. I’ve sat through every tropical storm and hurricane that has ever come our way. Some storms were worse than others. Some hurricane seasons were worse than others. But the common denominator in every storm, every year, was the reporters for the weather and news channels hyped them all up more than any of them ever turned out to be. The only one here that even came close was Hurricane Opal in 1995. Opal forever changed the landscape of the Emerald Coast. And 1995 was a record-breaking year for named storms at the time.

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This guy had a bad day.  But then again, the tree missed the house, so maybe it was a good day.

The point of all this is to take everything with a grain of salt. Have a little common sense, do some research. Understand that not everything is as it appears or is as reported. Not everything is what the name suggests. A tropical cyclone is still just a tropical depression until it becomes a tropical storm. And while I’m on the subject, who renamed the “War Department” to the “Department of Defense” in 1949? Someone that thought War Department sounded too harsh, probably. They still do the same functions despite the name change.

I’ve written enough for the amount of beer I’ve consumed tonight, so I’ll close for this week. Thanks for reading my bizarre ramblings. But I do hope you take some of this to heart and not be fooled by the appearance of things that aren’t true. Good day, God bless.

Dave