USN

Every now and then, I reflect on my years in the Navy. I spent eight years on active duty in Uncle Sam's Canoe Club having joined up when I was seventeen while still in high school. I actually went to boot camp at Great Lakes between my Junior and Senior high school years.

The Navy was an enormous influence on who, and what, I am. After boot camp, the Navy told me that I was a smart kid and as a result of my test scores I could do anything that I wanted. I wanted to fly jets but two years of college were required back the to be an Aviation Cadet and as a high school senior,I didn't qualify. The next best thing seemed to be Guided Missile School, so off I went to GMS outside of Virginia Beach. After Basic Guidedmissileman "A" School, off I went to Terrier SAM School at the General Dynamics plant in Pomona where they were built.

Two years at the Navel Ammunition Depot in Crane Indiana where I reenlisted for six years into the Regular Navy and off I went Advanced Missile Technician "B" School at Mare Island in Vallejo.

Next I and my new bride were transfered to San Diego to serve on the USS Constellation a new supercarrier. I didn't much care for life on an aircraft carrier and fortunately after six months, I was transfered to new ship construction at Todd Shipyard on Harbor Island in Seattle. We commissioned our new Guidedmissile Destroyer the USS Waddell and charged around Puget Sound for two months shaking her down and wringing her out.

On Halloween of 64, we pulled into Long Beach which would be our homeport for the next four years. It truly was love at first sight. After Cleveland and Norfolk and Southern Indiana, I was finally home, and after forty seven years, I'm still here.

My ship has been de-comissioned, leased to the Greek navy, de-comissioned again by the Greeks and sunk by a French Exocet, but I still favor the twenty-four hour clock, using 15 February in lieu of February 15 and tend to also favor Peacoats, Kakis, and other military type garb. After two tours to Nam and six crossings of the Pacific, the lure and the lore of the Sea is too deep to deny.

I say all of this because I truly believe that the Navy and it's men are at the top of the military food-chain. The Marines are, in fact, better trained and way more Gung Ho but they tend to be not the brightest individuals that you will ever meet. I just don't get the Army but I guess somebody has to crawl through mud and get shot at. The Air Force seems to get high quality guys, but it can hardly be called a military organization. And the Coast Guard? It's not even DOD.

A Libertarian's New Year's Resolutions

In case you've been sleeping this last twenty five years, whenever people start talking politics around me and ask me of my leanings, I tell them that I am a registered Libertarian. I believe that the Republicans are bad and evil and that the Democrats are even worse.

The Republicans want to preserve the Status Quo and keep all of their tax breaks and other perks. The Democrats want pretty much the same thing, but in addition they want to create an endless stream of social programs. But they want you and me to pay for their good deeds.

Do you want proof? Just stop and think.

I'll repeat, all that you have to do is stop and think.

Was George Dub bad or good for the country? Wasn't he up to January 20th. 2009 the worst president ever? One day later, look what we got. Obama, the new Worst President ever.

When campaigning Obama preached change, and we did indeed get change.

Do you want change? Real change? Positive change. Then make some changes in your own outlook. When people say why vote Libertarian and throw away your vote? I counter that if enough people "throw away their votes" that maybe some real, not superficial, change will then occur. Until then, what value is your vote if you continue to piss it away perpetuating the good ole boy, and girl, system?

Anyway, Happy New Year. Read below and then think. Really read this and then really think.

It's like the difference between hearing, and listening.

A Libertarian's New Year's Resolutions

by Harry Browne

1. I resolve to sell liberty by appealing to the self-interest of each prospect, rather than preaching to people and expecting them to suddenly adopt my ideas of right and wrong.

2. I resolve to keep from being drawn into arguments or debates. My purpose is to inspire people to want liberty -- not to prove that they're wrong.

3. I resolve to listen when people tell me of their wants and needs, so I can help them see how a free society will satisfy those needs.

4. I resolve to identify myself, when appropriate, with the social goals someone may seek -- a cleaner environment, more help for the poor, a less divisive society -- and try to show him that those goals can never be achieved by government, but will be well served in a free society.

5. I resolve to be compassionate and respectful of the beliefs and needs that lead people to seek government help. I don't have to approve of their subsidies or policies -- but if I don't acknowledge their needs, I have no hope of helping them find a better way to solve their problems.

6. No matter what the issue, I resolve to keep returning to the central point: how much better off the individual will be in a free society.

7. I resolve to acknowledge my good fortune in having been born an American. Any plan for improvement must begin with a recognition of the good things we have. To speak only of America's defects will make me a tiresome crank.

8. I resolve to focus on the ways America could be so much better with a very small government -- not to dwell on all the wrongs that exist today.

9. I resolve to cleanse myself of hate, resentment, and bitterness. Such things steal time and attention from the work that must be done.

10. I resolve to speak, dress, and act in a respectable manner. I may be the first libertarian someone has encountered, and it's important that he get a good first impression. No one will hear the message if the messenger is unattractive.

11. I resolve to remind myself that someone's "stupid" opinion may be an opinion I once held. If I can grow, why can't I help him grow?

12. I resolve not to raise my voice in any discussion. In a shouting match, no one wins, no one changes his mind, and no one will be inspired to join our quest for a free society.

13. I resolve not to adopt the tactics of Republicans and Democrats. They use character assassination, evasions, and intimidation because they have no real benefits to offer Americans. We, on the other hand, are offering to set people free -- and so we can win simply by focusing on the better life our proposals will bring.

14. I resolve to be civil to my opponents and treat them with respect. However anyone chooses to treat me, it's important that I be a better person than my enemies.

Adios 2010

I don't know about anyone else but I won't be all that sad to see 2010 go away.

For me, 2010 was just an extension of 2009 and that wasn't very good.

My business took the Diamond Lane into the crapper in early 2009 and I've been living hand to mouth for the last two years. Besides the obvious, struggling to pay your bills etc., the other downside to being destitute is that you don't get any respect. When things are going well, everybody wants to be your friend. Your jokes are always funny and people listen to what you say. They hang onto your every word. When you're broke, you're just another bum and what you say, or feel, is worthless. It's also hell on your personal relationships. When the money goes out of the window, the romance goes out the door. Sorry to say, that is the way it is. But life does go on. One has to pick themselves up, brush off the dust and then climb back up on that figurative horse.

I realize that just because we tear a page off of our calendars that some controller of our collective fates somewhere doesn't fire off a cannon and announce "OK, the woes of the World Economy are over. Everybody may now resume life once more". But having said that, it does appear that things are finally improving. As a builder and seller of capitol equipment, I am one of the first people to know when things are slowing down. Business stop spending money on their machinery because things "are tight". Conversely, as a builder and seller of capitol equipment I also am one of the first to see things recovering, which it is.

So I am looking forward to 2011 to be as good as 2009 & 2010 were bad. I found a recipe for a drink called AMF, if you catch my drift, to toast away 2010. If you want a copy, let me know and I'll be only to glad to share it with you.

I was recently thinking back to New Years' past, and thought back to the celebration in Times Square. It was the heralding in of the year 2000 which despite Y2K being such a big deal, it was a small deal. If you have a Bucket List, New Years at Times Square should be on it. Being crammed into a relativally small area with three and a half million drunken New Yorkers is an experience not to miss. At the time, I thought that it would be My Worst Nightmare. It was actually very nice. My then wife Nancy said that it was because all of the asshole New Yorkers were all out in LA at the time.

Let's all hope that all of our wishes and expectations for 2011 do come true.

I'm bored

I'm trapped on my sailboat, three days into a ten day rainstorm, with a wet dog. Just about the time that both me and my Golden Girl get dried out, I get the Growl. The Growl is Sadie's way of telling me it's time for another walkie. So out we go and I spend five to ten minutes in the rain while she sniffs around seeking the perfect square inch to do her business. By then, were both soaked pretty good. Being a water dog, she doesn't even notice, let alone care about the simple fact that it is raining. So back in we go, I have to carry my wet load down the ladder and sternly warn to not even think of shaking half of the Pacific Low's wetness all over my and the galley. I get us both dried off and Sadie retires to the electric space heater and I to my rack. It's Sunday and there are basically four things to do.

Watch TV, but I just can't get into football being we don't even have a team here in LA. Screw that, life does go on without football.

Or I can read. I'm slogging through volume XI of The Durant's Story of Civilization but it's heavy going and I can only get through an hour, or two, at a stretch.

I can eat. I'm eating my way to the bottom of my freezer. Digging through my freezer is like an Archeological dig. I pull something out, brush off the frost and say to myself, I wonder what the hell this is.

Or I can surf the web. I've read, and re-read, my emails. I've purged my Outlook of old, never to be re-read saved emails. But then I remembered an article that I read in the LA Times years ago about what we Americans ate back in the late thirties and early forties. There are twin windows of time, for food and cars that are quite similar. The first is the late thirties and the other is the late forties. The late thirties because the Great Depression was winding down and a lot of folks could afford to get back to normal and WW2 hadn't kicked rationing in yet. The late forties, to me, was a culinary extension of the late thirties. The War, with all of it's rationing, was over and the quest for Modernism hadn't really affected most folks yet.

I started looking for something similar to that old article, I couldn't find it, but maybe I found The Mother Lode. It's called www. foodtimeline.org and I found it very interesting.

[1946] Cocktail Parties. This is the era when the hostess' attitude is a "help yourself" party she may give her fancy free reign and let her guests assume full responsibility. Alcoholic or non-alcoholic cocktails--either or both. A choice of the following suggestions: Stuffed celery, Olives, Radishes, Marinated mushrooms, Hot ripe olives, Potato chips and cheese Antipasto, Lobster spread sandwiches, Caviar and cucumber canapes, Very small hot toasted sandwiches or puff shells (mushroom, cream cheese, liversausage, oysters etc.), Codfish balls, Tiny broiled sausages with mustard cream, Chicken livers in blankets, Broiled sardine canapes, Deviled sardines, Rolled tongue or chipped beef hors d'oeuvre, Lettuce sandwiches, crab or lobster canapes, pastry snails, Shrimp surround a small hollowed cabbage filled with mayonnaise or pink sauce for shrimp, Meat pie in dough (rissoles), Pretzels and cream cheese, Pickled onions and bacon, Bacon and saltine canape, Oyster canapes, salted nuts." ---The Joy of Cooking, Irma S. Rombauer [Bobbs-Merrill:Indionapolis] 1946 (p. 800-1)

It's mostly familiar, but also different enough to not expect at your next soiree.

MAIN COURSE

Grilled kabobs, OK
Scalloped chicken supreme What the hell is that?
Beef and corn casserole Ditto.
American lasagne American cheese in it?
Tuna-potato chip casserole Who doesn't love that?
Savory meat pie Shepard's pie?
Welsh rarebit with tomato slices and little sausages
Swedish meat balls I used to love those.
Fluffy meat loaf Fluffy?
Baked ham with glaze OK, but who beside Honey Hams "glazes" anymore?
---Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book, revised and enlarged, 2nd edition [McGraw-Hill:New York] 1956

Chicken a la king Do you even know what that is?
Oysters baked in the half shell Not lately.
Turkey or chicken casserole with vegetables What ever happened to the casserole?
Chicken pot pie What ever happened to the Pot Pie?
Hamburger-olive loaf Not lately.
Chicken or veal croquettes Worst of all were the (canned) salmon croquettes.
Baked fish Who bakes fish?
Souffle My mom made a spinach souffle, and I loved it.

Oh well, it looks like it's time for my mid morning repast.

I got a new military decoration the other day.

A few years back, I got an email from a shipmate that we were awarded another medal. The Combat Action Medal (CAM) and we were to write to some bureaucrat in St. Louis to receive it. Now you may, or you may not, know that you can't just run down to Medals R Us and buy these things. They are, with a few exceptions, awarded and are not a commodity to be bought and sold. If you loose your medals and want to replace them, it's a fairly big bureaucratic deal. Anyway, I wrote the cival servant in St. Lou and gave him all of the pertinent information that I was instructed to convey. Name, rank and serial number. Name of ship dates of service aboard said ship and deployment dates were all dutifully noted. That was three years ago and I still haven't heard back. The medal was first created in 1969 with "retroactive presentation" to March 1961. So I guess in the grand scheme of things, three years wait isn't a sin.

The ribbon, is quite another thing however.

When you get a medal awarded to you, you get just that, the medal. You then have to go out immediately and buy the ribbon for your dress uniform for inspections, or even liberty call.

Well I was in Oceanside last week. Oceanside is just south of Camp Pendleton and is a Marine town. I was walking past a Jarhead uniform store and went in for he hell of it. I told the guy that I wanted to buy a ribbon for a Combat Action Medal and asked if he had them. The Marine Corps is, after all, part of the US Navy and we have the same decorations apart from Army or Air Force stuff. Suddenly, the guy starting calling me sir and showed me one. I also got a triple ribbon bar for my new top row. There was a chart on the wall which showed the placement of the various medals on the uniform. There is a pecking order in how the awards are placed and in what order. The Congressional Medal of Honor is on top etc. I couldn't find the CAM on the chart. I asked where the medal was on the chart as I couldn't find it. The clerk explained that it wasn't on the chart. That was because there is no medal for the Combat Action Medal. Only the ribbon and the chart was for the medals. So I bought the stinking ribbon but I probably will never wear it as I haven't worn my uniform since a 1986 Halloween party.

I started thinking about the old WW2 term SNAFU.

Vicki used to call it Frito Pie

Vicki, our Office Manager back in the Good Old Days, or like the Kriegsmarine used to refer to as The Happy Days, would upon occasion woop me up some Frito Pie when she thought that I was working too hard and not eating. Boy, did I ever have her fooled. Me, working too hard, and not eating? Come on.

Frito Pie is dirt simple and one of my favorite comfort foods. Who said that comfort foods had to be like Cream Of Wheat with skim milk poured over it? Bland, bland, bland. Not me. Sometimes yes, but others lets light up the afterburner and see what chars.

I could have this very wrong, but this is what I do. I put a layer of Fritos in the bottom of a bowl. Yah, we're gonna nuke it so make it a microwave safe bowl. Not one of Grandma's heirlooms. Next add a layer of chili. The chili in the above picture is the gourmet shit. Left over from Saturday's boat parade made with Tri-tip. Leftover chili is maybe better than the "fresh" stuff. That's the beauty of chili, it's unpretentious. It knows that it's chili and therefore it goes willingly anywhere. Alone in a bowl, or atop a hot dog, it doesn't really care. Chili is like the ugly girl with the killer body, she's just so damned happy to be out and around she'll pretty much take whatever you throw at her.

Lastly, lay down some shredded cheese, any cheese will do as long as it's not cottage cheese or ricotta. Nuke it and while the cheese is changing it's state from solid to a more plastic consistency, grab a cold beer or two. ABB.

Kosher Okayu

Among such notable discoveries that were made by accident such as Polycarbonate and Ivory Soap, I would like to offer for consideration Kosher Okayu.

After puking my guts out for the last two days I decided to cook myself up some Jewish penicillin. IE Matzo Ball Soup. I usually augment my soup with a bit of rice and Fettuccine. Gotta have some additional starch in the soup as if the Matzo Balls aren't enough. I ladled out a small portion to see if I could even get it down and also to see if I could keep it on. While sampling the first bit, I left the heat under the pot on down low. I left the heat on too low and discovered a pot full of what I initially termed as Rice Gruel. After checking out the word I realized that Gruel is rather thin and what I had was a Rice Porridge instead. Being that I am a big fan of Japanese food, I looked up the Japanese term for Rice Porridge, I knew that there had to be something like that in the Japanese diet, and it is called either Congee or Okayu.

As I like rice so much, I'm sure that Okayu will become a mainstay of my diet when my tummy has been KOed either by illness or gross abuse. But if I use Matzo Ball soup as a base, I can then combine two of my favorite cuisines, Japanese and Jewish. Compai and La Cheim.