Schlockumeatries , Iove them!

Schlockumentaries
My son-in-law is introducing me to the joys of craft beers and ales. Unlike with diet drinks and water, with beer and ale there is an undesirable side effect for a rigid calorie counter like me. To counteract it, I have been spending a lot of time pedaling to nowhere on my exercise bike. That is boring unless someone watches something on the TV or listens to something on the iPhone. This leads me to a discussion on sclockumentaries…

Schlockumentaries are shows that take an incident in military history and try to turn it into a mystery or cover-up of some kind. For example, the confederates lost the battle of Shiloh because t hat ate too few calories for all the hard work they had to do in winning the battle and those Yankees that held out for hours at the “hornets’ nest” didn’t really help win the battle. The History Channel is great at this, although to be fair, they produce so good shows too.

USS Murphy (DD-603)

The low in the schlockumentary department so far is the mercifully now canceled “Deep Sea Detectives” who “discovered” the sunken forward third of the USS Murphy (DD-603). The implication was that the wreck of a US Navy destroyer was lying on the bottom of the Atlantic while the navy maintained the ship had been sold for scrap in the 1972! Is this yet another government cover up! Hello 1984???

The only minor problems here where that the Murphy was in a collision and only the forward third sank although 36 crewmen went with it; many people it seems know where the wreck is, especially the fisherman whose nets get snagged on it; oh, and the navy repaired the Murphy. There was no cover up. Drat!

The intellectual schlockumentary is epitomized by Bob Ballard (okay, his résumé is somewhat impressive). Since finding the RMS Titanic (in too badly damaged a condition to be repaired) he has “found” among others the USS Yorktown, the USS Atlanta.

I saw the results of a destroyer meets aircraft carrier up close and personnel in 1969 in Subic Bay, PI. In this case it was the back (aft for us navy vets) half of the USS Frank E. Evans. While I was flying somewhere but time dims the memory, I talked with the aft lookout on the Evans. He was headed off to be questioned and perhaps court-martialed. I hope he wasn’t, since he was only an E-2 and certainly not “driving” at the time. They have to blame somebody!

I must say, I thank God for the opportunity to have served as a member of the armed forces of the United States! I am so grateful in fact I ordered a vintage 1980s genuine “like new” USN issue pea coat from a vintage (!!) clothing company in California. The US Navy it seems doesn’t wear them anymore.

“… any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: 'I served in the United States Navy.”

John F. Kennedy

New Navy on the Block

Since this has turned into a navy themed blog I leave you with this; Rocky and Mayur and their own schlockumentary on the INS Virant (ex-HMS Hermes) an aging aircraft carrier that guarantees Indian control of the sea. The video is also your source for toe-tapping Hindu music!

Schlockumentary Update

As I pedaled to nowhere last night I watched a National Geographic show on Arlington National Cemetery. Death is the great leveler since America treats all its veterans the same in death. The show focused on the Honor Guard that guards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Far from being a schlockumentary, this show was moving to the extreme. There is good stuff on the History Channel after all! Wow.

Vaya con Dios!

On to Richmond!

…but it will cost extra if one doesn’t avoid the new toll road.

Like General “Fighting Joe” Hooker, my drive on Richmond back in early May for the 150^th commemorative reenactment of the Battle of Chancellorsville, came at a heavy cost. I was driving to my friend Wes’ house and the TomTom asked if I wanted to avoid toll roads. I said no because there are none.

Rather, it seems, there used to be none. The great state of Virginia added some lanes along 495 (the beltway) and called them express lanes. It costs to use them. On Saturday morning, one can save the money. I got a notice from 495ExpressLanes.com and a bill for a slightly less than $12.

To added insult to injury, Old Dominion scalawags have contracted the toll collection to dam Yankees in New York! If one chooses to mail a check instead of paying online, it costs two Yankee dollars more (Confederate money is not accepted).

Oh well, lesson learned!

New JC Penney suits

FitnessPal.com informs me that today (6/15) is my 450^th consecutive day of logging in. Go me! One consequence of that is I have replaced my 10 year suit (which looked like a tent on me) with grey and blue pinstripe suits from J. C. Penney. While the late Johnny Cochrane, known for his $5k suits, would not be caught dead in one (wonder what they did bury him in?) the look, style, quality, and PRICE make them my suit of choice. My only problem now is where and when to wear them!

Flying Dog Brewery Tour

I know someone who knows someone is an executive at The Flying Dog Brewery. On Flag Day, June 14, that person (my son-in-law) and I toured the facility. I cannot believe what goes into brewing craft beer and will forever open and quaff it with proper awe and respect.

We ate lunch at Growlers Brew Pub before we headed to Flying Dog.  This group of people came in and filled the table in front of us. One of the women had a tat on her shoulder; all I could make out was “ruela.” As in Cruela DeVil? Why do people do this? On top of that she was pregnant and so will be raising up a new generation of… 

I left with two bits of knowledge that are crucial to an old retired guy like me. The first is that they hire temp workers to assemble the “Shock and Awe” variety boxes that are samplers of their various beers and ales. This is about the only thing that a machine cannot do –yet.

The second is that workers get to take home the as much product as they want that fails quality control (usually because the label on the bottle was put on crookedly).

Since Wal-Mart is now hiring only temp workers too (thanks in part to Obamacare) I know which company my next employment seeking is aiming for!

One of the prominent people connected with the early days of Flying Dog is Hunter Thompson. His office, on loan from his widow, is set up in the brewery.

Brooks Hill Trail (6/15)

The regular reader of this blog knows I like to hike the Monocacy battlefield trails whenever I can. That may be scaled back as today I did the last one (excluding a nature trial) I have not hiked before – Brooks Hill Trail on the Worthington Farm. Parts of it came close to being Mount Brooks in my opinion. Fortunately I had my CW reenacting tent pole turned hiking stick to help me along.

This normally forgotten battlefield is quite crowed on weekends in seems, I saw about 10 other people and a dog during my trek including the lesbians in a Subaru Forrester with an Obama 2012 sticker. Like all most of them I see, it was put on crookedly.

Church Music

Modern church music is wretched, wretched! Listen to this execrable feces - I had to once in church and we were supposed to sing along! It prompted me to write about my concerns to the pastor. We have since left that church.

Last Sunday, we were in Montrose Baptist Church where we have been going for about six weeks now. The music selection was like, well, heaven and featured many southern gospel songs like “I’ll Fly Away,” “In the Sweet By and By,” and “when the Roll is Called UP Yonder.” I know the words to all thanks to listening to Statler Brothers greatest gospel hits cassette tape while driving down to visit my late mother many years ago.

Finally

I am watching “The Lost Fleet of Guadalcanal.” Robert Ballard got someone to pay him to find more shipwrecks. One navy vet and a survivor of the lost cruiser USS Quincy told of his recurring dream of seeing the ship with its crew and feeling he was supposed to be there. I have had that same dream although no ship I ever served on was sunk in action (although all have been scrapped). It is the universal “navy dream” I think.

Adios!

A Walk in the Battlefield Woods

On Memorial Day I raised the Old Flag (the same style that flew over Fort Sumter) over our castle and headed
off to hike another section of the Monocacy Battlefield. I chose the Thomas Farm trails because the area they cover is where most of the battle was fought. My first stop was the Visitor’s Center. As they do every Memorial Day they had covered the front lawn with US and Confederate flags – apparently one for each battle casualty.

One must prepare for arduous substitute Appalachian Trial hikes. On my feet were my pair of surplus 3LC Tan Desert Mil Spec Boots and I carried a homemade hiking stick that I converted from my former reenacting dog tent ridge pole. The stick has been christened the “Shaft of the Union” or SotU. The SotU proved very useful for footing since the trails meander up and down some steep hills along the river. I hope to get the SotU signed up for a Visitor Center movie. The audience will see it pointing to various parts of the field as the narrator intones what happened there.

Reenactors would, uh, reenact the battle. If the same folks who did the Antietam visitor’s center film are still around to do this one, it could be great! Otherwise we will get the guy who perpetrated the Classic Images 125^th videos and go for the unintended comedy effect.

Monocacy is an unusual civil war battlefield in that there are very few monuments and not very many interpretive signs (explanations that this happened here). When one is hiking the “self-interpreting trails” (i.e., get the free brochure or buy one of the inexpensive but excellent booklets about the battle and we hope you don’t collapse out there cause no one will find you!) one is out there in the woods with no indications that anything out of the ordinary ever took place. In fact most times I have gone solo hiking the trails I have not encountered anyone else on them.

Yesterday however I ran into two people whom I took be a couple out walking their dogs. As I got up close I could see they were two women and seemed indeed to be a couple – not that there’s anything wrong with that. I nodded. One studiously ignored me and the leader nodded back. That was the extent of the humanity I met on the Thomas Farm portion of the Monocacy Battlefield.

Our dachshund Max is recovering from back surgery he had on March 13. He actually walks most of the time now. Dachshunds it seems are high maintenance dogs and one in four will experience what max suffered. I am glad we had the $$ for the surgery. After the doctor explained the options – basically surgery or permanent paralysis – and told me the cost of the operation, I nodded and told him I’d play the odds (85% success) and to go ahead. So $6700 and two months and two weeks later, it looks like we won. Was it worth it? Yes; we have had several dogs put down because there was no treatment to reverse their conditions (usually old age related) and so no hope. This was different.

Besides not having to have my beloved dog put down, this positive report means I could probably go to the commemoration of the 150^th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, a somewhat more famous affair than Monocacy. Will I? Likely not. The flesh is weak and the spirit is waffling. Still, it is a 150^th, so…

Adios!

 

 

 

I have previously discussed my participation in a reenactment of the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 4, 2013. Well, I have caught the 150^th anniversary event fever and  I am organizing a 150^th anniversary of a little known battle. It was the ONLY action of my new (as of 2014) CW reenacting unit, the 37^th Iowa volunteer infantry.

A summary of the battle is as follows:

… the regiment was called upon to furnish the guard every other day for the provision train from Memphis east to LaGrange, Tenn., and from there south to Holly Springs, Miss. The country was infested with roving bands of the enemy, making the duty of guarding the trains both dangerous and difficult. It was while in the performance of this duty that the Thirty-seventh Iowa came into conflict with the enemy, and sustained a loss of several men, killed and wounded. 

The “Gettysburg of the west” occurred on July 5, 1864. I plan to organize a reenactment of it in nearby Wheaton Regional Park. They have a train that is appropriate to the period (see photo) the C. P. Huntington. While not full sized, it looks cool and we will not need thousands of reenactors; 20 or so on each size will do I think. I suspect we will provide strong competition, but a welcome alternative, to the boring annual reenactment of Gettysburg!

I was recently lamenting the lack of good chambray shirts on the market, L. L. Bean and Lands End offer expensive and really unacceptable versions of shirts they call chambray. Bah! My mind drifted (intentionally this time) back to the Seafarer brand shirts of my Navy days. So of course I Goggled Seafarer dungaree shirts and found the company is still in business, more or less. The Navy changed its utility uniform in 2009 to a sea-camo BDU affair. (My nephew, a Navy Lt., informs me that sailors circa 2013 think it great fun to lie down on the decks of their ships, which are also painted in a sea-camo pattern, and have their photos taken.) Seafarer is selling its stocks of “irregular” chambray shirts at about $7.00 a copy. I am now the proud owner of enough to constitute a lifetime supply. Thank you Al Gore, for giving us the internet! But Al, you could have spared us the carbon credits scam.

So, my work wardrobe has been given to Goodwill and replaced with smaller sized jeans, cargo pants and “surplus chic” shirts and field jackets. My OD M65 field jacket arrived yesterday (this is it) and it completed my collection M65 field jacket collection. The Woodland Camo pattern version is the best. Life, which after all is but a vapour, is at the moment good; or so I thought until last night when...

I got a call from the son of a late friend who found a copy of my unpublished military memoirs among his "parent's effects." Seems his mother died last year. His mom and dad were among my closest friends in the 1970s through 2003 when his father died although we were losing touch at that point. Now she is dead too, both from smoking related illnesses. So much is ending these days and yet there is the grandkid to remind me life goes on; with or with out me.

Adios!

I participated, after a fashion, in a reenactment of the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 4, 2013 – which fell within the span of the150th anniversary of the battle.

The “battle” (the reenactment of it that is) started at 1:30 PM, so of course my battle-tested comrades and I left Springfield, VA at 10:20 AM for the hour or so drive down to Spotsylvania Courthouse, VA. Naturally it was necessary to stop on the way and get lunch before we could later, as did John Kerry at th3 2004 democrat convention, stand before a cheering throng (for us our reenacting unit), give a lame salute, and announce we were “reporting for duty!” Lunch being happily consumed (for the record, I allowed myself an Angus burger deluxe and fries) we departed for the impending faux blood and destruction at about 12:20 PM. We were cutting it close. Our reenacting brethren and sisteren already on site were no doubt putting on accouterments, falling into ranks, and preparing to march to their assigned places. As we soon discovered, had they but waited a bit, they could have taken the bus!

As for us, anyone familiar with “Thomas the Tank Engine” stories will recognize their constant phrase that so aptly describes much of Thomas’ and everybody else’s day-to-day life; and then there was trouble! We got lost. But this is the 21^st century after all. An iPhone V and Google Maps soon had us heading in the right direction – although we were incredulous at how far off course we were.

The 18 or so minutes to the event site were surreal. Two of us, Wes and I, didn’t care if we made it in time for the battle or not. Chris was getting more and more frantic that we would miss it and was trying to urge us on.

We arrived with moments to spare, got registered, serendipitously found a prime legal parking space in front of the museum, and asked directions to the battle. We were told by one of the ever helpful event staff that walking to the site, which meant crossing the battlefield, was strang verboten and we would have to take the shuttle bus. The funny thing was the apologetic “I am only following my orders” manner in which he told us this.

Hey, no problem dudes! This was terrific. We were suited up (after changing into uniform by the car on a public street – the reason I always wear running shorts under my street clothes to these things), got the souvenir medallion, were now legally registered, and we were not going to get to the battle in time to participate. We could watch the show and there would be no musket cleaning later at home. This was terrific!

But we did, make it into the battle I mean. After debarking from the bus and well behind the spectator line, we wandered over to watch the show. We saw the Union army formed for battle. As I gazed at the ranks we would NOT be in, I noticed the flowing beard and mane of our beloved corporal and mused aloud “I think that’s our unit.” Poor Chris, we were so close and yet so far. Filled with compassion at his disappointment, I asked the three young event staff ladies if we might slip under the yellow tape and mosey over to that passel of Yankees yonder as we were supposed to be with them. “Sure!” they cheerily assented only we should mosey rapidly as the shooting was about to start.

We did. Fell into line amid the joyous cheers of our comrades like: “Oh great, now the count is all messed up!”

To sum up the battle: I did the same thing on the same ground last year. Then it was the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse. Next year, being the 150^th anniversary of that battle, there will likely be another reenactment with a battle indistinguishable from its two predecessors, and it will probably be the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse again.

As soon as the shooting was over we decamped from our unit and the festivities and toured the civil war real battlefields – there are many in that area. The significance of seeing places like “the bloody angle” is a sobering contrast to the perilously close to farcical nature of a reenactment of it, or almost any battle for that matter. And so on Sunday, while the diehards at the event were doing it all again, I was mowing the lawn and, yes, cleaning my musket.

I am registered for the same type of thing with Gettysburg in late June. I will go – unless I don’t; it is very much TBD at this point.

I am plagued with recurring dreams that I am back at my old workplace. Everyone around me knows I was “retired” via a Reduction in Force (RIF) and am not supposed to be there. In the dream I am sad that I am no longer employed and an “outsider.” In waking life, getting RIF’ed and getting a generous severance package was a great blessing. The mind is a strange thing and mine is stranger than most.

Some few years ago, I read Bill Bryson's “A Walk in the Woods.” The book deals with his hike on the Appalachian Trail or AT. It is a comic gem (if a bit preachy in places) and it inspired me to “go thou and do likewise.” I began reading other books, so called classics in the genre, by people who hiked the AT. One, “On the Beaten Path” was written by a whiny egotist who quit his job and told his wife to take care of the house and their geriatric dog while he went to “find himself” on the AT. The shocker: they were still married at the end of the book! Reading his vapid tome was, I think, harder that actually hiking. I read several others but Bryson’s is by far the best. Of course, the AT culture disdains it for its lighthearted approach and because Bill only hiked about 45 percent of the trail.

I also started following other people’s plans and progress re their hikes on an AT site. Many plan but it seems like few do - and they are, er, unusual types. Add to that there is no running water out there (faucets, showers, and flush toilets that is) and it seems like the whole thing is an expensive and pointlessly colossal inconvenience. It takes lots of costly specialized hiking gear when it seems genuine US army surplus would do just fine to me.

So I scaled back my plans to hike just a small section of the Maryland AT. That too, failed to get off the ground. Then I remembered a Boy Scout hike in the early 1960s where we hiked a portion of the AT and ended up in Harper’s Ferry, WV; even spent the night on the trail and everything. We rode the B&O railroad home and debarked in Silver Spring, MD. So, like Bill Bryson who hiked some, but not the entire trail, but proclaimed in his book the he and his buddy “had hiked the AT.” I too, ipso facto, have already done it. So there!

But I have not given up on grueling hikes! I hike the Monocacy Battlefield trails. Yes, I have combined my fascination with this obscure Civil War battle and the CW in general with the need/desire to exercise and enjoy God’s creation. I have already hiked part of it and plan to do some more next week. Some of its trails (e.g., the Worthington Ford trail) are every bit as wild and poorly marked as the AT. They are long too – up to 2 miles! The battlefield is close to my home so I don’t have to stay overnight (indeed the park closes at sundown) and there is a McDonald’s nearby for resupply on the way home.

I have invested less than a $100 in surplus army equipment for my excursions; a new pair of very comfy desert boots, a 2-quart canteen, and a “boony” hat. One of my former reenacting tent poles is being converted into a hiking staff.

Yes, you read correctly. Civil War Reenacting and I have come to the end of the trail. I am just too old. I am going to next’s week reenactment of the Battle of Chancellorsville but am getting shaky about going to Gettysburg in late June. If I do, I think that will be it.

Not that I do not expect relapses. I have therefore organized my own recreated unit, the 37^th Iowa Infantry. I am the senior member and we have a face book page. The dues are also considerably cheaper than the group in which I am presently a member. I need 18 more “likes” to be able to access the secret face book statics on the page.

Reenacting has had its benefits for me though. Like a lot of great pictures and the inspiration to lose about 50 pounds. My wife has gone from “you need to lose weight” to “you need to gain some weight back.” I have decided to ignore scale readings of 175 or less and use this criteria – as long as I can comfortably wear 34” waist pants and a 42” chest sports coat, I’m good.

Yesterday was “A Day out with Thomas” at the B&O Railroad Museum. A disappointment for me as Thomas was not a real steam engine. In fact he was not an engine at all. It was just, apparently a mock-up incapable of movement under its own power. A 1950s vintage General Motors general purpose diesel (a GP7 or 9, I think) did all the work. Still, for the 4-year old and under crowd (my grandson gave Thomas multiple “wowees”), it was a big hit so I will stop being a curmudgeon.

On Saturday, April 13, I had occasion to “interface” with our local state police barrack. My brother-in-law was giving me a pistol in exchange for my old car and we had to get the pistol registration transferred to me. I called them the day before and asked about the procedure. They told me they could do it (will yeah, it’s one of their jobs) but, they being terribly busy, I should just go to a gun store and have the store do the paperwork. The problem there is the local gun store is packed these days, charges $90 plus a $10 state police fee. The state police just charge the $10. Care to venture a guess where we went?

 We dutifully arrived about 9:30 AM. The corporal in charge told us to go in and have a seat as they were terribly busy; shuffling police cruisers around in the parking lot as far as I could tell. We did as instructed. About 20 minutes later the corporal came in and gave us some papers to fill out. Among the information requested on the list was a “firearms safety training certificate number?” It was not mentioned verbally that honorably discharged armed forces veterans don’t need to take the safety class but the form states it. I knew this and did the mentioning. I was asked for proof. Other than a host of sea stories, I didn’t have any on me (I always knew I should have gotten one of those USN over an anchor tats – I just knew it).

So off we went back home to get a copy of my DD214 – honorable separation from active duty form. My brother-in-law was stunned I still had such a document. The fact that it has “This is an important record – safeguard it” in big letters at the top impressed me 40 years ago so, hey, I kept the thing. It came in handy too, come to think of it, when I got my VA house loan in 1984 and needed a security clearance for my job. It will also get me a VA grave marker when the time comes!

 As added proof, I also bought my boot camp graduation picture (yup, that's it). When we returned, the form DD214 was accepted as proof, the photo was not. Hey, I never thought it would be but I was a bit disappointed when my little attempt at humor elicited not so much as the hint of a smile. Finally, two hours later, it was all done. After a 10 day waiting period from the date of the paperwork filing, I will be the new official owner of the pistol.

 The last time I actually fired a gun was in 2006; incidentally at our state police training academy. Our son was beginning training and the state police conducted a family gun safety day for families of the soon to be new troopers. We saw a William Shatner “Rescue 911” episode about a policeman who left his loaded gun within reach of his toddler daughter (she survived by the way). Then we saw the recruits demonstrate their marksmanship and then got to give it a go ourselves. They actually taught me how to get a respectable shot grouping with a semi-automatic pistol; something the US Navy and Marine Corps were never able to do.

 Last Monday our plastic goose and two ducks were abducted from the planters in front of our house. The two ducks were my late mother’s and I took them home with me on the day I went to settlement on her house in 2007. My wife and I are irate to say the least. Living in an ethnically diverse state, I am hiring a member of the local immigrant community to put a voodoo curse on the thieves. Will it work? Who knows; but it will make me feel better.

 We also have several “psychic readers” who have opened shop near us. Maybe for $15 bucks, one of them can tell me where our goose and ducks are. I am doubtful though. They put “open” signs in their front doors. It seems like a good psychic reader would know when a customer is coming and be ready to meet them as they arrive.

 Big events are looming in my near future – a “Day out with Thomas” with my grandson and reenactment commemorating the 150^th Anniversary of the Battle of Chancellorsville. My enthusiasm for the latter is waning but if I go, it will provide good blog material (maybe). Still, my increasingly blasé attitude toward civil war reenacting plus my duties in caring for our dachshund as he recovers from back surgery may cause me to sit out Chancellorsville 150. But if not, I guess it will be better than having been at the first one.