Napenclature

For a couple of days, workmen have been active in the apartment above.  The Beagle Posse came to me as a committee of the whole to lodge a grievance. 

"You make them stop," Tuppence demanded.  "They are disturbing our power restoration cycles."

"Power restoration cycles?"

Tommy spoke up, "When we coil, with our eyes closed, and appear motionless."

"Ah," I said, "You mean naps."

"They are disturbing us," snapped Tuppence.

"Yeah, I noticed. Yesterday you only managed about 18 hours of sleep."

A unison bark.  "We were NOT sleeping."

"Well, the eight hours burrowed under the covers with us last night, complete with snores and rabbit chasing yips, sure SEEMED like sleep."

"Stop changing the subject," said Tuppy.  "We're talking important daytime stuff. When those guys are banging and grinding up there."

"And when Tommy," I said, "is curled up on a throw pillow in the corner of the couch."

"I'm on Bushy-Tailed Tree Rodent vigilance," sniffed Tommy.  "What you call a pillow is an important rodent vibe concentrating platform--a RVCP, in military terms.  It raises me to the perfect level to pick up their sneaky chewing and chomping at the bird feeders."

"All the while cushioning your lazy dog butt."

"Did I insult YOU?" And Tommy pointedly turned to present just the butt in question to me.

"And you, Tuppence,  spend nearly every daylight and evening hour napping on my lap in the recliner.  I have not noticed a change in that due to carpentry above."

"AH, HAH," jumps Tuppence, "You don't even realize I am concentrated on saving your life and limb."

"Huh?"

"That is my Anti Gravitational Immunity station.  I curl up on your lap, and demand skritches and scratches, at great sacrifice to myself."

"Looks and feels like napping to me."

"And that's how good I am at it.  Look, just think, some day you are sitting there, watching a BBC Mystery show, and you suddenly become immune to gravity.  You would immediately crash into the ceiling, probably grazing the light and the fan on the way, and could be seriously injured.  Maybe concussion--which can be deadly.  You're welcome."

"Suddenly immune to gravity?"

"It can happen in a (then came a paw action I can only interpret as a canine attempt at finger snapping.)"

"No one becomes suddenly immune to gravity.  That's not how immunity OR gravity works."

"I will remind you," inserted Tommy, "That both immunity and gravity are merely Theories."

"Well, I have never felt even a twinge of immunity to gravity," I said

"I've been there to hold you down, and keep you from even feeling it," smugged Tuppy.

"Wait," I said, "I thought you wanted to talk about naps."

"You just don't listen," yawned Tuppence, and they both circled three times and  snoozed out.

Five For a Dollar

Being a college arts major in the 1970s required creative survival strategies.  This was true in every arts field--visual, music, theater, whatever.  As a rule of thumb, few who studied art had rich parents.  Most, particularly at a state university, were surviving on student aid, loans, money saved from summer and part time jobs, some subtle forms of grift, and, in my case, my GI Bill.  (In the 1970s, the Bill allotment paid a whopping $175 a month--during the school year only.)  But I could live on it, paying $80 a month in rent, and was going to a state school that charged $150 a semester full time tuition.

We all lived in cheap old housing, almost slums, with lots of roommates; our clothing consisted of blue jeans, t shirts, sweatshirts, and winter coats from Goodwill--males and females.  And, of course, we had multiple strategies for eating on the cheap.  No one was better at this than Big R.

Don’t get me wrong.  We were pretty much happy as could be, doing art we loved with people we loved--and the group produced some VERY successful people, including two academy award winners, a couple of Golden Globe winners, and successful people in a variety of arts-related jobs and industries.  As they say, “Do what you love. The success will follow.”

But we were poor.  There certainly weren’t any Frat boys or Sorority girls hobnobbing with the “hippie artsy fartsy bunch.”

Back to the food strategies, and the stomach tactics of Big R.  Some of the group had found ways to qualify for Government Commodities--a forerunner of Food Stamps, and picked up weekly boxes of pasta, cheese blocks, and peanut butter from a county loading dock down on Commercial Street, and we all share communally.  And, of course, student frugality also meant knowing where to get the cheapest beer and Strawberry Hill wine.  Our supermarket safaris consisted of searches for cheap, bulk, on sale food, or near food, like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese at five boxes for a dollar.  Spam on sale, (and even some of the “house brand” Spam knock offs).  We ALL gathered at a local greasy spoon named “Casper’s” on every Friday. The café was housed in a surplus WWII metal building. Casper’s great claim to fame was their grilled ham sandwich on a bun. They sold more than you’d imagine.  Every Friday, they would take all of the leftover ham bones from that week and make them up with Navy Beans to offer as an “all you can eat” with corn bread for 99 cents.  Since Casper’s was owned by a local artist, Chuck Lederer, it was the default Friday dining destination—the finest in Quonset Hut Cuisine.

A couple of other strategies Big R followed, and some of the rest joined in with, was the Tuesday 15 Cent Coney Day at the A&W drive in--and a carhop brought them out to you.  R would eat several sitting in his car on the parking lot, then get a bag to go, and eat them cold from his refrigerator for several days. AND there was the Wednesday Pizza Buffet at the Pizza Hut. (No CiCi’s in those antediluvian days.)  It ran from 11:00 til 3:00, and The R would take full advantage.  He’d arrive at about 30 seconds past eleven, and feast until three.  Getting up and walking around occasionally to “take a smoke and shake it down.”  If he was on his game, he’d need no dinner that night, nor breakfast or lunch on Thursday. He could get that full.  As luck would have it, these two establishments were right across the street from each other on Sunshine just West of Campbell.  Maybe two miles from the campus.

The previously noted supermarket strategies were mostly practiced at an older neighborhood Safeway.  This was a small store by supermarket standards--especially today’s standards.  It was a 50s throwback to the beginnings of the transition from corner grocery stores to supermarkets.  Some of the group would arrive for an evening shopping excursion in a chemically altered state--usually involving having been in proximity to small quantities of Mexican weeds burning in Zig Zag papers.  On those trips, in addition to the bulk sale items, the checkout clerk was likely to see bags of Fritos, Doritos, Potato Chips, boxes of Screaming Yellow Zonkers, cans of Vienna Weiners, and even, occasionally, fried pork rinds and Tabasco—one must temper one’s frugality with attention to existential needs.

It was such an early evening trip that I write about. Three or 4 of us went in, and scattered throughout the store. Big R marching to a REALLY cosmic drummer. In those days, in that type of store, all frozen foods were sold from “coffin freezers”.  Open top freezers running down the middle of the store.  Specials and such were announced by hand-lettered poster board signs. Any one of an age will remember the signage style of inch wide red, blue, and black markers on the white board. 

As we all finished our forage, we went in search of the absent R.  He stood at the end of one of the coffin freezers, staring quizzically and fixedly at a 3x3 sign that announced, “Banquet Pot Pies, 5 for $1.”  On approach we heard R muse, “Wow, and I didn’t even know they’d made it legal.”

Coffee Saw Dog

The Beagle Posse marched in using their stiff-legged “on a mission” walk.  Tuppence spoke first, “You have obviously lost count.”

“I see two beagles.  I see one me.  I see one wife.  I don’t have enough money to bother counting, I’m lost.”

Tommy said, “Our bowls. You’re a couple short.”

I said, ”You each have a dinner bowl. You share a giant, bottle-fed water bowl.  One. Two. Three.  Nope, I don’t see any dogware missing.”  And I tried to go back to composing brilliance for Facebook.

Tuppence kind of growled.  Tommy ‘acked in an attempt at throat clearing.  I was given to know that I had not ended the planned discussion.

Tommy demanded, “What do you have every morning that we don’t have?”

Tuppence added, “Afternoons too.”

“Reasoned thought,” I essayed.

“In a mug…..”  Tupp prompted.

“Well, coffee, of course.  But that has nothing to do with beagles.”

“So you say,” responds Tommy.  “You never share it with us like you do other snacks, and we’ve decided that’s because you haven’t given us coffee bowls to put it in.”

“I’m not about to……………”

Tuppence jumped in.  “You two huminz swear you can’t function without it.  We deserve a share.”

I decided to try the explanatory route, though when in beagle discussion, that seldom works.  “There are things we don’t share with you because they will hurt you.  Wine, chocolate. Coffee.”

“We never told you those weren’t good for us.”

“Well, veterinarians told us.”

Tommy yelped.  “Veterinarians?  Aren’t those the guys who shove thermometers up our…….”

“Stop!” I said.  “I’ll need to report this talk on a basically family blog.”

“We need coffee.” Demanded Tuppy.

“May I remind you,” I said, “of that time Tommy stole the bag of dark chocolate-covered espresso beans?”

“Didn’t steal,” said Tommy.  “I negotiated it.”

“Yeah, sure, you negotiated it off the counter when I wasn’t looking.”

“Successful negotiation,” he said.  “The art of the deal.”

“And you zoomed up and down the hall, and in and out the dog door for three hours, then had diarrhea for two days.  No thanks.  I don’t think I’m up for an encore.”

“We NEED it,” Tuppy repeated.

“Why?” I asked.

“OK,” she said, “Tell me, what have you said was your very favorite kind of coffee?”

Thinking….”Café’ Sua Da,” I said.  “Vietnamese coffee.”

“Bingo,” shouted Tommy.  “Coffee Saw Dog.”

“There’s no ‘dog’ in it,” I said. “Café’ Sau Da, means Sweet Strong Coffee in Vietnamese.  It’s made with espresso-strength coffee and Sweetened Condensed Milk.”

“Da, Dog,” he dismissed, “We hear what you call it.  You call it VRF.”

“Yeah, sometimes.”

“And what does VRF mean”

“I made up VRF as short for, ‘Vietnamese Rocket Fuel.”

“And that’s what we need,” jumped in Tommy.  “Rocket Fuel to help catch the Texas squirrels.  They’re fast, and here we only have the length of the patio to catch them before they’re out of reach.”

“So,” I said, “you want coffee to help catch squirrels?”

“VRF,” said Tommy.

“Zoom! Wham!” said Tuppence.  “I can just hear their little chirrupy voices screaming, INCOMING!”

“First, the last thing I need is souped-up beagles.  Second, why catch the squirrels?  What would you do with one if you caught him?”

“We’d catch him,” said Tommy.  “Then he’d be caught.”

“But what’s your plan beyond caught?” I probed.

Tuppence gave me the look.  “Beagles catch squirrels.  It’s our thing.”

“Well,” I countered, “you don’t really catch many, and it’s not like you need any extra food around here.”

“Food!!??” shrieked Tommy.  “Yuk.  I’m not chewing on one of those furry things. Pfft. Pffft.  Fur in my mouth.  Nope.”  (Tommy is among the persnickety line of canines.)

Tuppence tried to return me to the thread.  “We’d CATCH them.  That’s all.  Now, when do we get the VRF?”

“About never,” I said.  “I don’t think you’ve thought this plan through.”

“We don’t plan,” said Tommy.  “We zoom and catch.”

“You also seem to have failed to consider,” I said, “that if you are all ramped up on coffee, particularly Vietnamese coffee, in preparation for the squirrels, you will be too jazzed to nap.”

“And when that squirrel flicks his tail at me, I’ll kick in the rockets, and……….wait.  What?”

“The caffeine, I said, it will not only speed you up, it will keep you awake.  You won’t be able to nap between squirrels.”

“That’s not fair,” said Tommy. “Napping is our art form.”

“And the squirrels?” I asked.

“The age old question,” explained Tuppence. “Naps between squirrels, or squirrels between naps?  Buddhist Beagles even wonder if there is any meaning to the order.”

“Sheesh,” I said. “Beagle Zen?  Really?”

The dogs looked at each other for a long time.  Doing that telepathy thing they do.  Then, as Tommy led off toward the couch, Tuppy said, “We’re gonna sleep on this a bit.  We’ll get back to you.”

They went to nap.  I went to the kitchen for coffee.

A Toad Suck Christmas

Christmas dawned frosty and clear over Toad Suck, Arkansas.  Twenty-something Fahrenheit along the banks of the Arkansas River.  The Beagle Posse was snuggled with their humans in the travel trailer, and the propane heater chugged along keeping everyone toasty.  It had been a beautiful starry night, with the mournful sound of Towboat horns as they and their barge loads worked through the locks on the other side of the river—about ¾ mile away. Still, Tommy was pleading his case.

“You told me we moved to Texas so I wouldn't have to go out in the cold to pee anymore.”

“No,” I said,”I told you it wouldn’t be as cold as often.  And we aren’t in Texas right now.  So, let's go on out, it’s clear, sunny, no wind, and you’ll be finished and back on the settee before you know it.”

“Oh, I’ll know it,” he yipped.  “Last night, you knew it would be so cold that you unhooked the water hose from the camper.  I watched out the window.”

“Yes, because I didn’t want a burst hose, or damage to the RV plumbing.”

“Well, this beagle ain’t contemplating any damage to his plumbing either.”  (Since we moved to Texas, Tommy’s language has acquired more ‘ain’ts’, ‘reckons’ and ‘fixin’ tos.’) “Take me back to Texas and I’ll go out.”

“Tommy, it’s 9 hours to Texas.”

“I’ll hold it.”

“I doubt that. You used 4 rest stops on the way up here.”

“Yeah,” Tommy replied, “the trees looked thirsty. And 3 of the stops were in Texas. Hook up and let’s get going.”

Concepts of time and distance are not firm with Beagles.  Plus, since we haven’t owned this trailer for long, and this is only the second trip in it with the Posse, they are still working hard at finding all of the possible soft places to nap on the settee and bunks.  Their first order of business, obviously, having been to ascertain the onload of the kibble.

“WAIT!” Tommy suddenly yelped.  “I hear them.  They’re here.  Come on, come on, come on.”  And then Tuppence joined in the chorus.  It took me a while to figure out that this was all because they’d either heard or smelled that Toad Suck Park had squirrels.

All hesitance about exiting the trailer evaporated into the elemental urge to pursue the Order Rodentia.

The Tinkle Trip Tirade having ended, we all settled down into this year’s Christmas routine.  Wonderful days with the family at my sister’s house (6 miles from the Sucking Toads), and cozy cold evenings tucked up with just us and the Posse in the trailer under starlit skies, beside one of the nation’s mighty rivers.

This, however, was certainly not to be a routine Yule.  For in the middle of the night of the 25^th, I suddenly woke, grabbing a wall, as I sensed the trailer violently tumbling end to end. And it tumbled, and tumbled, and tumbled as my stomach began to protest into my throat.

It turned out, the trailer was not tumbling a bit, but you could not convince my inner ear of that fact.  Some malevolent soul had given me a whole Christmas Stocking full of Vertigo.  And I was not thankful for the gift.

It was just dawn, and our daughter and son in law were staying with my sister.  We called them to come help by taking charge of the Beagle Posse while Deborah got me to the ER.

A couple of things were discovered by the medicos.  Nothing immediately life threatening.  (However, part of the reason we moved so fast was that this kind of vertiginous feeling was exactly how my stroke had started in 2004, and it scared me so bad I forgot Trump was president.)

I did have vertigo, which I amply demonstrated to the ER doc by throwing up all over his scrubs and Nikes when he did that head turning, twisting maneuver they do to loosen your inner ear crystals.  But they also discovered that part of my light headedness was due to the fact that my heart rate was down to about 40 beats per minute.  The good doctor said that this was probably because I needed to reduce my dose of Beta Blocker, and they shot me up with some meds to bring my pulse back to around 70.  

Within the hour, I was free and out the ER door.  Still not 100%, but up to perhaps 67½%--they had taken good care of me and treated me both kindly and well.  (Follow up, of course with my own doctor this week.)

But I digress.  We were talking about Beagles and small travel trailers.  The trailer, by the way, is still to be named.  I’m leaning toward “The Starship Beagleprise,” but I don’t think Deborah is.

Night time in the trailer.  Heater warming away, hearts warm from Christmas and health fixes.  Deborah and I were snuggled in blankets with Tuppence already snuggled under the covers and way down at our feet.  Tommy was on the floor, rocking back and forth like a high jumper preparing for his run—it’s how Tommy psyches himself when deciding where to jump onto a bed or a couch.

Tommy is the athlete member of the Posse.  He can easily leap aboard any bed or couch, even if needing to jump over a human or Tuppence in the process.  BUT—and it is a huge but—Tuppence uses Beagle mind force to control both the trajectory and landing points of any leaps he makes to furniture where she is already resident.  We’re not sure just how she communicates it to him, or what consequences may later be extracted for him failing to choose an acceptable flight plan, but he must be, and is, careful to never overfly her prone body, or even come too close to her border protection zone.  She puts up a canine force field that could double as a wall on any border of the country.

Tommy chooses his route and leaps.  At the same time, I am nearly knocked over by aroma.  The trailer takes on the atmosphere of a Vietnam War latrine.  I swear the Formica on the countertop begins to curl.

“Tommy!” I yell. “We just walked you.  Dammit, you know the trailer is like the house, you don’t deposit those packages in here.”

Landing and curling up to snooze, Tommy says, “I didn’t deposit anything.”

“I can smell it.  Now, I’ve got to get up and pick it off the floor.  You’re in big trouble.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then what do I smell?”

“Jet Assisted Take Off,” mumbles Tommy, as he stretches.

From under the covers we hear Tuppence say, “He’s been working on that.”

Tommy says, “Bottom-centered gaseous propulsion to make my leaps longer.  Kind of like an after burner.  I read about it.”

“Well,” I growled, “my eyes are burning.  Don’t do that again. I don’t think you need the extra thrust.”

“It’s like a carrier take off,” he says, “a real thrill.”

“I’m not thrilled, Tommy.  And wait, you can’t read.”

From under the covers we hear Tuppence once more.  “Tommy, before next time……”

“Yeah,” he asks cautiously.  As explained, he recognizes her authority, not ours.

“Before next time, “ Tuppy says, “eat more peppermint.”

"I don't want to hear about his reputation."

I promised this tale to a friend, and decided to just make a blog post of it. 

In the late 1970s, the ad agency I worked for in Houston had Gulf Oil as a client.  One of our jobs was to help write, produce, and stage their annual sales meeting.  This was a big deal.  There were several hundred in their sales force, and oil was at $40 a barrel.  Cost was, basically, no object.

One of the Gulf executives was enamored of a popular comedian of the time, Professor Irwin Corey, “The world’s foremost authority,” and asked that we contract with him to provide entertainment one evening.

The agency Account Manager for Gulf Oil was a control freak, jug-headed German named Max.  He had a marketing degree from Oklahoma State University.  He’d gone to college on a football scholarship, and his primary skill was being able to speak “Oil Field.”  When he relayed the client’s request, I said, “Max, I think that guy has a reputation for being pretty flakey.”

Max snarled, “I don’t want to hear about his reputation.  I want to hear that you have him booked.”

The way you did things like that in those pre-internet days was that you contacted the Union and found out the name of the performer’s agent; then contacted the agent.  We tried SAG/Aftra, no record.  We tried Actor’s Equity, no record. Finally I remembered the most obscure of the performers unions, AGVA (American Guild of Variety Artists.) This was the union for the Rockettes, Las Vegas show girls, circus performers, and strippers.  Called them.  After a long while, the rep came back on the phone and said, “Yeah, he’s ours, but he doesn’t have an agent, here’s a phone number.”

Corey answered the phone himself.  I explained the call, and said, “Is there an agent I should negotiate with?”  He blew up.  “Agent’s rob you.”

I got the feeling he was about to slam down the phone so quickly said, “Fine, fine.  Let’s make a deal.”  And went on to explain the date of the gig, 6 months out, and that it was in Atlanta—the site of that year’s meeting.

He said, “I don’t book that far out.  Call me back.”.

I yelled, “Wait! Our client demands we have this all nailed down within the next two weeks.”

He said, “How much you paying?”

I had a budget of $15,000 plus expenses, but was not a negotiating novice.  I said, “What’s your rate?”

He said, “I won’t take a penny less than $10,000, plus First Class Airfare.”

I agreed, and said, “Now, about…..”

He said, “Wait, dammit.  That’s $10,000 cash, no bill bigger than a twenty, in a brown, not black, briefcase, on the bed in my hotel room when I arrive.  Handle pointed toward the door.  And you send me the airplane ticket to my post office box.  I don’t give out my address.”

“OK.”

“And my hotel room,” he said, “must be on the 6^th floor or lower.  Any higher, I walk.  And I keep the money.”

I said, “The views are better from higher rooms.”

He said, “Idiot, Fire Department Hook and Ladder trucks can’t reach above the sixth floor.  I want to be rescued when the fire starts.”

“Fire?” I asked.

“Lots of times.” He replied.

“OK.  Now, Mr. Corey,…..”

“Professor,” he interrupted.

“OK, professor, what are your requirements for your dressing room?”

“I won’t use a dressing room.  Don’t trust ‘em.  I’ll come dressed.  They trap you in dressing rooms.”

“OK.  And do you have a list of music and light cues?”

“I’ll see if I trust them when I get there.”

So, the deal was struck.

We got to Atlanta, got a briefcase for $9.99 from an office supply store, and went to a bank where one of the Gulf biggies had a friend who would agree to hand over $10,000 cash in small bills.  This particular Gulf guy was one of my favorites.  An oil executive who actually had a sense of humor.  So, as we’re putting the banded bills into the briefcase, the banker says, “What do you need this for?”

The Gulf guy picks up the case, says, “If you’re a loyal American, you won’t ask,” and walks out of the bank.

We took the money to the fifth floor hotel room, put it on the bed, and waited for the “talent” to arrive. We had sent a limo to the airport to meet the flight.

The limo driver calls from the airport and says that Corey never showed.

Luckily, before we could panic, we get a call from the hotel front desk that a bum was in the lobby making a scene and yelling that we were supposed to meet him.  Yep.  Sure enough.

It turns out, he had cashed the First Class ticket, and ridden Greyhound from NY to Atlanta.  I asked him about it, and he said, “Kid, stay off of airplanes.  They have bankers on ‘em.”

At the theater, we tried to show him his dressing room, and he just said, “You’re not trapping me.” He walked on to the stage and looked around nodding.  I said, “About your light cues..”

He said, “Yeah, light the stage for me.” And refused to elaborate.

I said, “If you aren’t in your dressing room, how will we find you when it’s time for your act?”

He said, “You just have them announce me.  That’s all you got to worry about.”

So, an evening of boring corporate speeches from the stage, then time for the comic, who had not been seen since afternoon, and could not be found back stage.  Control freak Max was showing signs of a classic stress breakdown.  I soothed him by saying, “You told me you didn’t want to hear about his reputation.”

With fingers crossed, and breath held, we had the MC introduce the comedian.

He comes climbing onto the stage from the orchestra pit.  He then does about 40 minutes of the funniest material I have ever heard, and walks off stage Right into the back stage darkness.  And, I guess, leaves, because we never saw him again.

Oh You Kibble Pickers

Free Range chickens show up at the bird feeders.

Someone made the mistake of leaving a magazine where the Beagle Posse could read it. It was evidently open to pages about “More natural diets.”  Stuff like the “Raw Food Movement,” “Probiotics,” “Paleo Diet.”  (You might follow one of those, so I won’t delve into that.  Just the beagle take away.)

Tuppence pushed my laptop closed and said, “We need to talk to you about the ingredientianal compositional paradigm of our daily caloric intake.”

“Ingredientianal?” I asked.

“Yes, the ecologialistically ultimated sourceing and processatory functions employed in getting our nourishment to supper bowl.”

I realized we had traveled to the very borders of jargon and magazine-diet-fad-speak land. “First of all, a magazine is a horrible place to get advice on your food.   They’ve pushed everything from Grapefruit Diets to Bone Broth and dinosaur livers as the perfect meal plan.  Second, even if a jargon spouting Community College journalism dropout WAS a good source for food information, the magazine is talking about human diets, not dog meals.”

Tommy began to steam a little. “You mean you don’t eat what you feed us?”

“Tommy, you know we don’t.  You beg for bites of mine every time I have a meal or snack.”

“But not the chicken bones.”

“No, I won’t give you chicken bones.  But what’s this all about, don’t you like the kibbles we feed you?”

“Oh, we like ‘em.  Can we have some now?”

“I thought you wanted to talk about ingredientianal composition.”

“Beagle rule 1,” said Tuppence, “Ask for food every chance you get.”

“And I know,” I said, “you follow that rule to the letter.”

“Not to the letter, to the supper bowl. Now, it says on the bag that there’s chicken and lamb in our food.”

“Yes.”

“What part of the chicken does a kibble come from?” asked Tommy.

“And why are chicken kibbles and lamb kibbles the same size?” said Tuppence.

“Hmmmm,” I said, “I can see a lot of beagle thought has been going on.  Well, on your average hen, the kibble is located just behind the nugget. I think you’d have to ask a Scotsman or a New Zealander about where sheep kibbles are.”

Tommy was still pressing. “The food writer said we should know where all of our food comes from, and how it’s handled.  What steps do you take to serve us fresh kibbles?”


“First, Tommy, I don’t think ‘fresh’ and ‘kibble’ work together. As to handling your food, I scoop it out of the bag and into your bowls with a measuring cup, add the very freshest tap water from the kitchen sink, then try to set it on the floor before you knock it out of my hand.”

Tuppence had a definite look of suspicion on her brow.  “OK, chicken and lamb kibbles you’ve explained, but there’s lots of other stuff.  Where do those other kibbles all come from.”

I ran a quick calculation of beagle brains and beagle attention span and said, “That’s easy.  Kibble trees.  All the rest of them grow on kibble trees. Most are grown in kibble orchards these days, and picked by migrant kibble crews, though there are a few brave adventurers who travel into the mountains in search of wild kibbles.”

“Ummm, yes, yes,” said both dogs.

“And,” I said, “If we  build a border wall, and keep out a bunch of agricultural workers, there might not be enough kibble pickers and packers.  You can see what a problem that would be.  Kibbles just sadly falling from the untended trees, and rotting on the ground.”

Worried looks on both dogs. I knew I’d dodge another round robin discussion.

“Oh, yes, yes,” they mused as they turned to go nap and ponder.  “Big problem.  Really Bigly. Sad.”

The honest crooked major.

(This Vietnam tale may not be as outright funny as some of the others. It probably won’t be the very last VN story I post, but probably will be the final chapter when I gather them all into a book. With the current Burns broadcasts on PBS, this seems like a good time to talk about a certain Major.)

It was nearing the end of Major Shoat’s tour, and he was morose.  First, because there would be an audit of the supplies in the warehouse when he left, and he wasn’t sure he’d really done enough to fudge all the records.  You can only cover up so much with the stamp, “Combat Loss.”  Second, it was obvious that he was enough of a piker he was not going to get that promotion to Lt. Col. before he left Vietnam, and that meant he would probably never get it, so his military career and his “secondary” source of income were both coming to a close.

It doesn’t really matter that this major wasn’t a very good officer.  I wasn’t in his chain of command, and therefore his lacks were of no real threat to me.  We met this ROTC Wonder because of our Company Scrounger, Mike Pilchuck.  (If you don’t recall the story about Sp. Pilchuck, see Turning Tent Pegs Into Lobster Tails)It was 1970, post Tet, and even the career officers knew the war was finished, and that we were only still stuck there fighting because the politicians didn’t mind spending a few more of our lives while they tried to figure out a way to pull out of S. E. Asia and still get re-elected.

Pilchuck was a scrounger, Maj. Shoat was a crooked supply officer, so, of course, there was shared utility.  Also, Pilchuck ran a Thursday night “game night” in our hooch—the games consisting of poker and craps-- and the major was a compulsive gambler. The Army has strict non-fraternization rules for Enlisted Men and Officers, but the major wasn’t about to turn himself in, and we welcomed the presence of a bad poker player with officer-level money into the game.  He made regular unintentional contributions to our beer fund. This is not just a guy who would draw to an inside straight, this was a guy who would bet a pocket 3-5.  We all thought of him as an old man.  He was probably 34.  He wasn’t really stupid.  Just driven by private demons, and blind in some areas.  What brains he had kept him from being booted out of the Army.

Our base was on the northern edge of the Mekong Delta, only about 14 miles from Saigon, down a highway that was passable during daylight hours. (A Newbie once ask our platoon sergeant how much territory the VC controlled around our post.  Sarge said, “During the day, just about all of it.  At night, all of it.”)  There were enough APCs, armed jeeps, escorted truck convoys and such on the highway in the day that you could get to and from Saigon ok if you never slowed down or left the pavement.  Heaven help you if you had a break down. Being Supply (S-4) the major had a jeep, and he had a weakness for the cheap drinks and cheap “companionship” found in the B-Girl bars and “Turkish Baths” up and down Saigon’s famous Tu Do Street. Hiding out from work was called “Ghosting,” and Major Shoat was also a major ghost.  He managed to spend more time in the Tu Do clubs than at his job.  Of course, his work got done.  The sergeants did it whether he was on base or not.

By now, the major wasn’t doing much in the clubs other than power drinking. Spending the afternoon at the end of the bar, waving the girls away and knocking back watered down black market booze. The vision of drunken jeep races and Moped tag with the Viet civilians weaving in and out on the two lane back up the highway as he rushed to get back on base before sundown is not pleasant.  Sundown held both the danger of the VC, and much more intense questioning by the MPs manning the post gate.

There were always Vietnamese boys hanging around these bars.  They shined boots, ran errands, dealt small amounts of pot and heroin, touted girls, and generally scrambled to get a few Piasters a day.  They also listened, because, of course, most were at least part time spies for the VC.  These kids looked 10 or 12, but could have been any age up to 17 or so.  For $1 MPC (Military Payment Certificate-the funny money GIs were paid during the war to try to keep real green backs out of the hands of the communists) one of these boys would sell you a perfectly sealed pack of Park Lane cigarettes.  Cellophane, tax stamp, foil, and all.  Inside, would be 20 perfectly packed filter-tipped joints of Uncle Ho’s finest herb.

This afternoon a persistent “boy san” was bugging Shoat.  Either he hadn’t made much that day, or saw the drunk officer as an easy mark.  He pushed dope, he pushed drinks, he touted the various contortions and hand/mouth skills of the girls in the booths.  The major was having none of it.  He pushed the boy away and said, “Di Di Mao,” get away, you VC.”

The kid jumped back and protested, “No. No. Sao.  No VC.”

“Yeah, you VC.”

“No, GI. No VC. Hate VC. No VC.”

The major then looked through bleary eyes and said, “Well, kid, if you ain’t VC, you better hurry and join up, ‘cause I think Charlie’s got this one in the bag.”