C-rats

A couple days back, Trish was preparing and freezing food for our upcoming Lake Powell houseboat trip; pound cake is one of several items on the menu.  When I asked her what she was baking, and heard 'pound cake,' I had a flashback.  Vietnam: pound cake was the most coveted item in the C-rat meals field soldiers lived on, and the competition to score that precious commodity was fierce.  C-rats (combat rations) came in cases of 12 individual boxes.  Each meal was different, and only 1 included pound cake.

My first assignment in Nam had me in a rat cage, an underground bunker on the DMZ. There was no electricity, no plumbing, no anything even vaguely associated with civilization as we know it.  Sustenance consisted of tepid, tinny-tasting water stored in jerrycans and, of course, C-rats.  Every day.  Every breakfast.  Every lunch.  Every dinner.  Friggin' C-rats!*

The larger army bases where I spent the last few months of my 1-year 'tour' had mess halls and the chow was quite good.  However, I didn't spend much time in base camps, was out in the jungle more often than not, and (Whoopee!) living on C-rats.  C-rats weighed in at 1.5 pounds each, could only carry 3-4 days worth because you also had to carry 2-4 canteens of water, rifle, ammo, sleeping gear, personal items, etc.  Humping half your body weight up steamy jungle mountains burned lots of calories, had to consume lots and lots of good 'ol C-rats.

Typical C-rat meal.  

The coffee made you gag but instant chocolate was drinkable.

Towards the end of my 12-month 'tour' in Nam, we occasionally got the new version of army haute cuisine: LRPs (Long Range Patrol Rations, later called MREs, Meals Ready to Eat).  These were freeze-dried, one-course meals in heavy duty, shrink-wrapped plastic bags.  They were better - and much lighter - than C-rats, but you had to heat water to boiling, pour it into the bag and stir for a few minutes before you could eat, took too darn long.  And, if out in the jungle on search and destroy missions, you had to carry more water, and Sterno or some other fuel; C4 plastic explosive was best, burned really hot, but hard to come by.

LRRPs (pronounced lurps) 

On the flip side of pound cake was ham and lima beans, the least favorite of all C-rats.  Soldiers often swapped food items, and on rare occasions you might find someone who actually liked ham and limas.  "Hey Joe, wanna swap your pound cake for my ham and lima beans?"  Joe: "Up yours!"

Something the dog left behind?  Fake barf?

Nope: ham and lima beans!

Winner, Most Repulsive Food Ever Contest.

Tobasco was my salvation, as it was for many others.  I might leave my flak jacket behind but never the Tobasco sauce.

*There was one memorable exception: on Thanksgiving day, a chopper dropped off a hot, delicious turkey dinner packed in insulated containers.  My 2 fellow advisors and I really packed it in that day.

Fungus!

Fungus, bacteria and mold, oh my!  While dining out at Barley Bros last night, Trish and I had a brief discussion about these little critters. It got started because a woman at a nearby table was browsing the menu, and said she didn't like mushrooms.  Mushrooms are a type of fungus, you know.

Trish and I love mushrooms.  That's not to say we're flaming fungus fans, flagrantly flaunting our fondness for the full fungus family.  Ogaricus bisporus (common mushrooms) are great but onychomycosis (toenail fungus) not so much.  Even the best of families have the occasional black sheep.

Our discussion continued with me wondering out loud if fungus and mold were related.  Is one a subset of the other?  Are they siblings?  Are they totally unrelated?  Awfully heavy stuff for casual dinner conversation but what can you do?  My ever-curious mind is constantly compelling me to boldly go where no man has gone before (unless they were really, really bored).  And, of course, I am further compelled to memorialize those strange odysseys here on my blog.

Mold and mildew are indeed members of the fungi family, as is yeast.  Fungi are neither plant nor animal.  They're an entirely different life form called planimal (not really, just made that up, gotta call 'em something).  Fungi have their own kingdom,1 of the 6 biological kingdoms that include all life forms.

Bacteria are so plentiful and diverse that they have 2 kingdoms, and also the distinction of being the first living thing on earth.  Bacteria biomass on earth exceeds the combined total of all plants and animals. Prolific little buggers.

Viruses don't have their own kingdom, nor are they a member of any other kingdom.  In fact, biologists claim that viruses are non-living particles because they have no cells. They must attach themselves to a host cell to reproduce.  Try as you might, you can't kill a virus.  You can't kill something that was never alive in the first place.  But: you can kill the host cell.  That's reassuring for chest cold sufferers: simply remove your lungs and you're good to go.      

The Band

There were 5 of us at first: Bob, Dan, Don, Ronnie and me.  A girl, Leona, joined the class later - but too late to be a member of The Band.

St Joseph grade school, near Perham, MN, was typical of country grade schools back in the day.  The 2-story brick schoolhouse was staffed with 2 teachers who taught 4 grades apiece.  Our class was average in size, the total student count about 45.  The class ahead of us had an even dozen, the largest ever (must have been a really cold winter the year that bunch was conceived).  It was in 1954 that the 1-4 grade teacher decided to create The Band.

St Joseph Grade School

Dan, a big kid for his age, was the drummer.  Bob played coronet, Ronnie was bass guitar player, Don was on the harmonica, and I was lead guitar.  We played mostly popular tunes, big band stuff and a few old standards that had withstood the test of time.  We entertained at wedding receptions, bingo potlucks and the like.

And I'm the king of Denmark.  The truth: we had no musical instruments whatsoever, and our repertoire consisted of 3 simple tunes.  Mary Had a Little Lamb was our opener.  The music - I use the term loosely - was produced by blowing over the tops of pop bottles, partially filled with water.  Yes sir, we were the rompin,' stompin,' St Joseph Grade School Pop Bottle Band!  And we had 'uniforms': jeans, white shirts and silly-ass hats made from the bottoms of rolled oats boxes.  The hats, covered with green wrapping paper, were held in place with an elastic chin strap.  Were we super cool, or what?

We retired from the music business after 2 performances, never having made the Top 40.  Hey, we were only 10 years old!  And, being farm kids, we didn't have a lot of spare time to develop our musical skills.  I had zero interest in learning to play a musical instrument anyway, so no great loss.

Only one of us, Bob, ever played a real musical instrument - which was in, fact, the coronet.  He played in the high school band, don't know if he continued playing beyond that, haven't seen him in 5+ decades.