Two Men in a Boat

Yesterday, Ex Number Two posted an appeal to assist a 6^th grader in her science project.  I am extending that appeal to all of you who hoard only one dog; or two.  Later, I will do a rare ‘Share’ to pass it on to all of my FB friends. (OK, had to do it this instant while OCD still had the scent.  Thanks for the shares, T.S—all fifty of them)

Here at Corky’s Emporium for Errant Animals, it is with quite a bit of reluctance that we must decline to participate in the noble experiment.  It is an intelligence test for dogs. (Yet another oxymoron—the 2^nd in as many days!).

I went to the 6^th grader’s website (Sheeyut!!) and read the protocol and scoring methodology (Thanks, Charlie; for sticking that word in my head back in 1967)

I had problems problems problems that were seemingly insurmountable.

Setting aside my fit of giggles at the oxymoron applied to the Mutt Brigade, I took just one of the tests and did a cerebral analysis of the outcome for each individual dork.

The test had two chairs laid down on their sides and facing opposite each other in a ‘V’ pattern.  A treat would then be placed on the floor inside the chairs, out of reach to Fido.  In the expectant and ambitious scenario (Thanks again, Charlie!) Fido is set at the outside of ‘V’ and given time to ‘solve’ the conundrum of snatching the treat.  He can see the num-num through the crack in the ‘V’ (We’re talking science here, you perverts; not pornography!)

I thought of all the times in my own life when I too stared longingly at an unreachable num-num in a similar location, and commiserated with Fido’s frustration.

In a successful conclusion, Fido quickly deduces that he must trot around the chair barricade in order to score his prize.  Score an A for that good work, Boy!

What follows is my assessment of the six dorks’ response:

1.   Momma would insert her muzzle into the crack, pushing until it widened enough for her to squeeze through

2.   Scooter would take one sniff before retreating to the nearest pet door.

3.   Jypsi would commence her shrill barking (shatters glass snifters, that one) until I would relent and just hand the treat to her.  Then she would run to the nearest pet door, intent on not sharing her goodie with anyone

4.   Clancy would just leap over the chairs

5.   Stick would roll on her back hoping for a tummy-rub

6.   Goofy would raise his stubby hind leg and piss on the chairs

In the scoring range of A to C, all of my dogs would be awarded a D.

All this assumes I could sequester the testee-poochy in the test zone to the exclusion of the other five.  It further assumes that Winston would not seize this golden opportunity to mess with their heads, specifically Scooter and Clancy, my two mentally challenged pets.

Seriously, do give it a second thought and consider your pride in proving your Fido of superior intelligence within the species.

Whoops!  We are at the five-hundred-word-mile-marker: time to git back to the Shew.  (Wake up, Ed Sullivan!  And git yer hands out of them armpits!!  HOW MANY TAHMS MUST AH TELL YEW?  Woodjah wont yer Mama sniffin’ them hands?)

I will regal you with one more monsoon story before pressing on to other matters in The Saga of Our Blond Dimpled Hero (He’s just as cute as a bug, that boy!).

For some unknown reason, I remember that day as a Saturday; not that the day of the week had any bearing in a seemingly endless daisy chain of days. 

Perhaps because Saturday was a day in which the Lifer Caste took their drinking a little more to heart than other days.  They would do that, conforming to a 200 year tradition of Navy stupefaction on a Saturday night. (Ah! But I do throw stones from the sanctuary of my glass house!)

But this was still daylight--work time and all.

Recall my previous curses about lifers, and the two basic needs of the Caste:

1.   To wheedle skatin’ duty

2.   To take a hardship tour before retiring to the comfort of a steady paycheck and the local bar

A few days before this fateful day, in walks this lifer to the Boathouse and shuffles over to the Chief’s desk to report for duty.

He is himself a Chief Petty Officer of unidentified rating.  He is not just white-haired and old; he is white-haired, shriveled and into the decrepit state of ancient doddering life that does await us all, those of us fortunate enough to live that long.

Two days after our guest’s arrival, the Boathouse Pirates have knocked this guy off as a venerable member of the Caste, working on #1 and #2 of the lifer’s playbook.  I use the term ‘work’ here with no intended reference to his proclivities.

Our guess was that he would very soon retire from active duty--straight into some nursing home, preferably furnished with an in-house cash bar.  Actually, we considered creating a Division pool to bet on whether or not he would croak before his Freedom Flight.  The idea was ditched for want of takers.

Zoo! Back to the Saturday.  Chief Methuselah (Another name black-out) is the duty Chief of the Watch, Scott and Rodriguez being elsewhere.  There’s dick going on; what harm can come of letting him sit at the Chief’s desk on a do-nothing day? I am sitting up in my hooch, probably reading, as it wasn’t quitin’ time as yet, even though the afternoon was moving towards sunset.

I was interrupted by Franklin at my door (no lima-lima in the hooch—I was working on that) who relayed a message from China Beach.  I was to proceed immediately to Deep Water Piers, to pick up a pilot who didn’t care to wait for the HQ-based motor pool to come get him.

I looked out to the water from my vantage of the stoop.  Two things were immediately clear.  The first was the approaching sunset.  I did not want to be out after dark on the water.  The damn gook fishing boats would be doodling in from sea with no running lights—none.  I never figured out if they did this because they wanted to mimic the Navy boats; or whether they figured no one but them would be stupid enough to run out there under blackout conditions.

On two occasions, when duty demanded, I was out there and almost rammed a gook boat as it chugged sedately along.  I couldn’t see them until they were laying ten yards away across my bow.  The adrenaline shock of an automobile collision cannot compare to the flash of being two miles from the nearest sandbar with no life vests aboard; and knowing for certain the gooks damned well didn’t have any either.  They didn’t need a Mae West; they could all float like turds.

My second concern was the thunderheads building up over the ring of mountains that encircled the harbor.  Another monsoon squall was preparing to descend.  That meant swells, the fifteen foot sort of swells.  Riding out a squall in a tug or a pusher boat was thrilling.  Riding one out in a sixteen foot skimmer was daunting.

I got my ass in gear, fired the fastest boat and skipped warming up the outboard; untied the bow line and pushed off.  As I dropped into reverse, I looked up to see Franklin waving me back.  What the hell did he want?

My bow nosed back to the causeway; he shouted down over the rising wind that the Chief was going with me.  WTF??  This wasn’t a joyride; and I had no time to give the old shithead a tour of the harbor lights.  Franklin said he was insisting.  When Chief Petty Officer of the Watch Bozo came staggering down the causeway, I had a frightful foreboding of what was to come.

I wasn’t quick enough of mind to say, “Geez, Chief: you should know the Captain has a standing order that no one can ride in these skimmers without his express permission; especially so right now, seeing as how you are as shit-faced as you can be and still be standing!”

Besides, later, that could be construed as refusal of a direct order and dereliction of duty.  In a war zone that was a beeline to court martial and on to Jail—do not pass Go and do not collect $200.  It just wasn’t worth that risk.

With growing irritation, I helped the old fart down.  He sat on the pew next to me, even after I told him to sit his ass on the bench forward of the center console.  Lifers were not accustomed to taking suggestions from seamen, regardless of any prudence therein. With the wind coming to full force, I wasn’t sure he could even hear me.  His body reeked of booze; I could have begun the nocturnal high just smelling him.  No big deal, I thought.  I’ll grab that pilot and be back to the causeway in the nick of time.  No…big…deal.

And so, we were off.  I shoved the big outboard to flat out and the causeway became a speck in the rear view mirror.  No sooner had Deep Water Piers begun to loom ahead when two things happened simultaneously.  The swells closer to DWP were much higher than nearer to the causeway; they were growing the closer I approached.  The other thing was that Methuselah had reached critical inebriated mass, transforming his body into one great wet noodle.

He began to pitch and weave about from a sitting position, gurgling something in the slur of a near-comatose drunk.  Soon, he began to lean so far over that I became alarmed he might go overboard.  (This is a fine kettle of fish you have got us into, Stanley!)  I grabbed his sleeve to hold him in place.  Now I was trying to drive the boat against the swells and keep this lush from falling out; all at 40 mph.

Here I pause to describe Deep Water Piers.  There were two docks, each long enough to accommodate any sea going vessel.  Call them dock One and dock Two. Number One was slightly shorter than Two.  Each rose about sixty feet above the water.  Two was clear for any small craft to pass under.

One was not.  It was crisscrossed its entire length with large concrete pylons barely submerged beneath the waterline, bracing the superstructure.

All of us knew not to attempt a pass under Dock One.  I was a pretty competent boat handler long before Viet Nam.  Not always a safe driver, yahooing around Lake LBJ, but smart enough to know the limits of my boat…and myself. And I knew about dock One.

Multi-tasking in a dangerous situation, I temporarily forgot about the pylons and went full bore under One on my way to the waiting pilot aboard ship docked at Two.  Quite suddenly, I realized my error.

The skimmer was lifted up and then down hard, straddling a pylon.  The engine stalled and we were caught mid-keel with the swells rising us up and off the pylon, only to slam us back down again.  As frightened as I was, it was God’s grace that I didn’t panic.

Pulling the drivetrain out of the water was difficult.  An 80 hp outboard in those days weighed as much as a modern 175 hp job today.  We didn’t have hydraulic lifts in-country either.  Methuselah was being nothing but a rag doll hindrance.  I managed to lift and lock the motor while somehow keeping one hand on him.  If the prop or the shaft took a direct hit, we would have been dead in the water—figuratively…and literally.

Taking the only oar I had, as the swell lifted us, I would pole the boat forward so that, after three or four swells the skimmer was free.  But not freed: the piers spanned 100 hundred feet; we were exactly at the halfway point.  In order to extricate the boat, I would have to row and pole across four more pylons.

Shit.  At any moment, the dropping action could have cracked that fiberglass hull in two; I guess it just wasn’t my day to die.  Same-same for Daddy Loopy, who continued the whole time under One to sit, stand and sway dangerously close to the side of the boat.

Eventually, poling and rowing, grabbing and pulling, I finally got us out from under One.  Relieved when the engine turned over, I sped on to the ship at Two and the waiting pilot; now thoroughly pissed at the delay.

Fuck him.  A god dammed civilian to boot. 

I used to fantasize, had I had a bird’s eye view of that unfolding scene; what others might have thought.  A fanciful guess is that of a Buster Keaton two-reeler in grainy black and white celluloid, playing faster than real time, getting two fat thumbs up from Siskel and Ebert.

When I recall that day now, the terror of it no longer real, I can often get a laugh out of it myself.  It was so fucking preposterous!

We made our way to the causeway with no further incident.  I checked the boat the next morning.  Miraculously, there were only dents and scratches but no breaks or tears in the gel coat.  I wouldn’t have to report the beating and suffer the wrath of EN-1 Byrd.

The other big relief from that scary Saturday was the mysterious disappearance of CPO Methuselah about a week later.  Bon voyage, Mother Fucker!  And Jolly good riddance.  Good luck with that nursing home!