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.

Your Hit Parade

Several posts back (Inner Sanctum), I rattled off the names of a few vintage TV shows our family used to watch.  I forgot one of our favorites:Your Hit Parade.  It ran 1950-59, preceded by 15 years of radio broadcasts, hosted by Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, and others.  My brothers and I speculated on which song would be numero uno, got it right most of the time.

Allegedly, the TV show featured the 7 most popular songs of the week, based on record sales and play frequency on radio, jukebox, and so on.  I use the term allegedly because the much-touted selection procedure (Authentic Tabulation!) was never divulged, and perhaps wasn't all that authentic.  But that's beside the point.

The show aired on Saturday nights, the songs arranged in countdown mode, and usually sung by one of the 4 regulars pictured above: Dorothy Collins, Gisele MacKenzie, Snooky Lanson, Russell Arms.  Guest vocalists appeared sporadically.    

Rock and roll was the show's demise.  The above-named artists were great with show tunes and big band songs but weren't able to make the transition.  Poor old Snooky botched Elvis' Hound Dog hit so badly- several times - that he was credited with bringing the show to its knees.

Bookworms

BOOKWORMS

12" x 24"

Acrylic on Hardboard

I get a kick out of doing semi-abstract paintings that viewers can study a bit and maybe figure out the name.  Trish nailed it in 2 minutes, then was grossed out because she'd seen the real thing.  I didn't know there was a real thing, thought it was just a person who reads a lot.  Like me.

So, I had to google bookworms and find out what they looked like.  Here's a picture of one. Ugly little sumbitch!  My worms are colorful, slim, graceful; dare I say, elegant? 

Are You A Turtle?

When I was in college, there was this funny turtle thing making the rounds.  I had no idea how or when it started and didn't much care, too much on my plate.  Recently, the turtle thing popped into my mind for reasons unknown, and I became curious about it.  Here's the story.

To become a member of the Turtle Club, you had to answer 3 questions which had obvious lewd answers and alternative answers that weren't lewd.  One of the standards was:
Q: What does a woman do sitting down, a man do standing up, and a dog do on 3 legs?
A:  Shake hands

If you answered the questions correctly, you became an 'official' member of the Turtle Club. Members would ask other members, "Are you a turtle?" and the only acceptable response was, "You bet your sweet ass I am."  Typically, the question was asked in a public or social gathering where it would have been embarrassing to make the required 'sweet ass' response.  The catch was, if you didn't answer correctly, you had to buy the other guy a drink.

Nowadays, saying 'sweet ass' in a social gathering wouldn't even raise an eyebrow but that wasn't the case in the 40s - or even in the 60s, when I became a member.  Back then, the usage such words was restricted to men's locker rooms and similar venues.  JFK was allegedly once asked if he was a turtle, which of course, he was.  This occurred at a press conference.  He responded with, "I'll buy you your drink later."  NASA got into the act, too.  On several occasions, while on world wide radio broadcast, the ground control people asked astronauts in orbit, "Are you a turtle?"

It all started in WW II with a group of bomber pilots stationed in England seeking diversions from their dangerous duties.  One of the pilots came up with the turtle club idea, a sham society inspired by the likes of 'friendly societies' like the Ancient Order of Foresters.  Thus was born the Ancient and Honorable Order of Turtles, the official name of the Club.

Are you a turtle?

Totally Nuts VII

Here's yet another episode in the Nuts series, passing along the weird dreams of a sick, twisted mind.

It wasn't a large gathering, couple dozen people or so.  Didn't know the whys, whats or wheres of the event, don't even recall seeing anyone there I was acquainted with.  Maybe that's why I was leaving early.  Party pooper.  When I left the building I noticed my car was blocked in by another car, couldn't drive out of the yard the way I'd come in. 

I decided to go around to the other side of the car, see if I could get out that way.  In order to do that, I had to go through a large, 1-story building.  I went in the front door, hung a left, then a right, and entered a long, grassy hallway.  Huh?  Grass growing in an inside hallway?  Whatever.  I continued down the hallway, finally arriving at a door that opened unto a large pasture.   

Standing just outside the door was a 4-legged creature that resembled a horse, but was much slimmer. I was compelled to grab the thing's halter in my left hand, no idea why, just seemed it was what I was supposed to do.  Together, we walked back up toward where I thought my car was parked until we came upon a long picket fence of weathered wood that blocked our way.  I let go of the harness and stood arms akimbo, surveying the situation.

When I turned to look back at the critter, it had morphed into a 2-legged thing wearing a polo shirt and jeans.  Still had the same head though - minus the halter.  It nodded over to the left end of the fence, and said, "Gate."  I was flabbergasted!  "Gee, I'm sorry," I said.  "I didn't know you could talk."

That's it.  Never got to my car.  Never knew what what kind of critter it was or why I thought I needed to take it to wherever it was I was taking it.