Judy Will Love It

This is a HOME RUN.

I have next Valentine's Day covered, and I saved 50%. Does it get any better than that?

(Not So) Sweet Memories

Went for 20-minute steam bath at the gym today. Trying to get some of the gunk out of my sinuses and nasal passages.

It's been 48 years since that first, very memorable, steam bath.....

There was a sign on a hut in Vung Tao* advertising STEAM BATH AND MASSAGE, and I was just adventurous enough to try it out.

*Vung Tao is a town near the mouth of the Mekong River. Occasionally, for a few hours on a Sunday afternoon, some of us sailors were allowed to go to town and wander around, maybe get a few beers at some crappy little bar.

I went in alone. The women inside told me to take all my clothes off and put them in a box, which I did, reluctantly, because they could have stolen my money. They told me to climb into a steel chamber that was maybe big enough for three people to sit inside, and I did, reluctantly, because I could see very well that it locked from the outside. Alone, I climbed into the cold steel chamber and the hatch closed and locked. Steam started coming in through a little stub of a pipe that penetrated the chamber from the outside, and this felt good because it was cold in there initially. It got warm, then very warm, then hot, then very hot, and the steam just kept coming out of that pipe stub.

My situation, which was now starkly clear to me: I’m alone, locked in what was essentially a prison cell and somebody I’ve never seen before has control of the lock and the steam valve. This is a country that is known specifically for its segment of the population that is fitting in with the local culture during the day, and conducting effective guerilla warfare against the American aggressors at night.

I knew I was a dead man. I’d be cooked and suffocated (yeah, it was getting tough to breathe), then my body would be disposed of, and there wasn’t anything I or anybody else could do at that moment to prevent it. I would have shit my pants if I had any.

The noise stopped. Before my brain could register this fact, it registered the optic nerve impulses telling me that the white plume of steam disappeared. My eyes had been riveted to the pipe stub and the white death rushing out of it.

On the Welcome Sight scale, this was a real 10.

Today, in the pretty tiled room, the door was not locked from the outside. No rusty pipe stub. But the heat and the hiss brought the memories right on back.

One of the Good Guys

We all bump into a lot of people as we go through our lives. Some of them leave a mark. In my own “Big Influence” category, very few belong. Gary Morse was one.

Gary was fearless when facing a challenge, and he would always prevail. Electronics, plumbing, carpentry, woodworking, automobile repair, computers, pottery, stained glass – it didn’t matter what it was. If it (a) needed doing, or (b) interested Gary, he could do it. He would just figure it out and get it done.

Both of us were U.S. Navy Electronics Technicians on the USS Hector for a couple of years back in the 1960s. When my disastrous marriage broke apart and I needed a place to stay, Gary and his then-wife Joyce gave me a bedroom and hot food. He was always generous with his time, his money, his attention, his knowledge.

In many ways, Gary gave me more than I could ever repay. And taught me many times as much as he ever learned from me.

Mesothelioma. It’s generally caused by asbestos exposure. Gary told me that he’s not the first Hector alumnus to be stricken by it. Apparently, in some of the repair shops, asbestos insulation got stripped off valves and such, and the dust got carried throughout the ship by the ventilation system. There is ongoing class-action litigation, I understand, on behalf of the victims.

Gary didn’t follow doctor’s orders (“Get your affairs in order; you have six months”) when he was diagnosed over a year ago. He sought out an experimental treatment at UCLA, and, along with now-wife Suzie, endured an ungodly series of treatments. There were positive signs along the way, but backward steps seemed to outnumber the forward.

I talked to Gary a couple weeks ago. He was feeling better and looking forward to finally using his new, super-sophisticated, numerically-controlled wood lathe. To say he was upbeat would be an understatement.

Gary died yesterday. The world lost one of the good guys, and it makes me really sad.

Me, Joyce Morse, Gary Morse in Long Beach, California, 1966

Strange Tree

In spite of a couple of months of winter weather, this tree, adjacent to our deck, appears to be growing reddish sprouts at the ends of small limbs. Plus, there are these bud-like things on the limbs. It's February, fergodsake.

You gotta love the fortitude.

I didn't know what kind of tree this is, but the tree guide on Wikipedia says it's a Grandiosa Spitinwinterseye. That's Latin, I guess.

If They Don't Know, They Should

Lyrics from Everybody Knows, the Leonard Cohen song released over 25 years ago:

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied...

Seems appropriate to trot this song out as we begin the 2016 election campaign in these United States.

Darlin' Cora

It was 1959, and Harry Belafonte was a singing star. His Jamaica Farewell and Banana Boat Song (most well-known line: “Day-O”) had made him famous. Belafonte, the “king of calypso,” was one of the first black entertainers to headline a show at Carnegie Hall.

He opened the show with a song named “Darlin’ Cora,” which became the first song on his Belafonte at Carnegie Hall live album.

Wake up, wake up, Darlin’ Cora,

Wanna see you one more time,

The sheriff and his hound dogs a-comin’,

I gotta move on down the line.

I don’t know why, Darlin’ Cora,

Don’t know what the reason can be,

But I never yet found a single time

When me and the boss man agree.

I ain’t a man to be played with,

I ain’t nobody’s toy,

Been workin’ for my pay for a long long time,

How come he still calls me boy?

Well I’d rather drink muddy water

And sleep in a hollowed-out log

Than to hang around in this old town

And be treated like a dirty dog.

Well I whomped that man, Darlin’ Cora,

And he fell down where he stood.

Don’t know if I was wrong, Darlin’ Cora,

But Lord it sure felt good.

If it wasn’t so dark, Darlin’ Cora,

You’d see tears trickling down my face.

It breaks my heart, Darlin’ Cora,

But I got to leave this place.

Wake up, wake up, Darlin’ Cora...

The lyrics are powerful, and Belafonte’s voice even more so. For 99¢, you can download the song from iTunes and listen for yourself. He had a really fine voice.

And huge balls. This was years before the civil rights movement got any traction. Belafonte is a black dude and it was the 1950s in America.

   

Show and Tell

Back in 1942, U.S. military strategists worried that Japan might capture the Hawaiian islands. If they did, Japan would capture millions of U.S. dollars in currency. So they had the mint print a bunch of bills marked "Hawaii" and the government replaced the currency in the Islands with the specially marked bills.

Judy found this one in some stuff her grandmother gave her years ago.

The plan was to declare these bills valueless if Japan took the Hawaiian islands. That didn't happen, and, according to Wikipedia, the U.S. government collected and incinerated the Hawaii bills in 1944 after the Japs were retreating, island by island, back toward their homeland. 

There are a billion stories about WWII, and I am fascinated by all of them.