This week, we’re going to be revisiting the classic Turkey Day series from 1996, one of my favorites. I did some of my best work that year, and to this day I’m not sure why. I do know it was one of the rare periods in my life when I lived alone (just sayin’!), and I had relatively few outside distractions compared to other times. Perhaps that’s all very telling, but as I’ve told you before I’ve never been one who lived and breathed cartooning. I love the art form and am honored to call it my profession, but I have a lot of other interests. Still, the year 1996 makes me wonder what might have been if I had been able to train—or force—myself to, indeed, live and breath cartooning. On the other hand, a lot of readers hated what I was doing in 1996.
Stuffing Nonsense
By Jimmy Johnson
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74 responses to “Stuffing Nonsense”
Trucker: My cleaning lady took me and her husband out to lunch today, one of 2-3 wings places in town. She got a salad. Total bill $4.60.
Llee: ‘. . . without admin personnel, no one gets supplies or paid.’ True. But w/ no prev. admin. experience and w/ abysmal ROTC instr. and OJT orientation, it was the noncoms who insured that. I signed stuff and very occasionally offered some wisdom or resolved an issue; usually actually they resolved it once I said something to clarify what the issue was.
The OJT orientation, at Mitchel AFB on LI, consisted of giving me a cc. to read of the AF regs that governed off-duty AFRES activities [MAFB governed those in eastern USA]. The regs were easy enough to read physically, but in much like today’s corporation-speak, and largely in a context that I had no concept of. Nobody, for instance, ever said, ’emb, what we do here is oversee the activities of units of reservists who are not on active duty.’ Kind of like writing C2H5OH + O2 [arrow] CO2 + H2O on the board without first teaching what an element, compound, atom, and molecule are, and w/out balancing the equation.
The only orientation overseas to being a postal officer was what the noncoms taught me. Yet I was technically responsible for the proper execution of the local postal service.
Peace, emb
From that earlier post: ‘Probably not much different than many civilian jobs.’
Wife would have caught that. ‘Probably not much different from many civilian jobs.’
Peace, emb
emb, believe me, it’s not at all unusual for the NCO’s to have the knowledge and skills to get the job done, while the Officer-in-Charge is basically a figurehead. 🙂
Meanwhile, my heart-felt thanks go out to these obviously heart-felt thanks…
http://twowheeledmadwoman.blogspot.com/2015/11/armistice-day-2015.html
All, it was an honor to have served you.
Friend and I took an assortment of weapons to a local range, range fees waived for vets. We capped several boxes of ammo. Then proceeded to the nearby Twin Peaks: burgers, fries, beer, and a great display of freedom bosoms.
My WW2 veteran husband has been gone for four years now, but when he was alive, most of the children would telephone on November 11 wanting to speak to “their favorite veteran”. He often told us his memories from the two years in the Army, reminiscing about basic training — crossing the Atlantic in the troopship, awfully seasick — landing in Normandy, but not until July, 1944. Thank goodness, he wasn’t in on D-Day. He and the other guys were sent to replace soldiers who’d been killed or wounded. He was still only 18 years old.
Combat Infantry — he and his squad carried, and fired, a machine gun. Through the hedgerows, through bombed and burned villages, sleeping in foxholes — through the whole winter. He liked telling us about it, and we enjoyed listening. If he saw anything REALLY awful, and he may well have, he didn’t tell us that.
Yes, we owe those boys a great debt of gratitude. Chris was older than I, and now he’s gone, with so many veterans his age. But we remember what they did for us.
My uncle had a very hard-earned degree in food chemistry by virtue of taking nothing but night courses in NYCity for years while he worked a job as well. Came WWII, he, being 29, was drafted…or so I think. In any event, he managed to get the point across to whatever power was in charge that, while he was a chemist, he was not a “boom-boom” chemist [his word] but a food chemist. To the credit of those powers, they saw fit to place him on a hospital ship in the Pacific, working in the pharmacy. No doubt someone appreciated that in the dispensing of drugs, being able to measure things properly was a benefit. He spent a lot of time off New Guinea on that ship, and kept a log of where they went on what dates. I have that log and am surprised at how many times they crossed the ocean. Maybe they were often needing supplies not carried by supply ships, but I cannot speak to that.
Another uncle, a chaplain in Europe, was seen giving his great coat to a German prisoner who was in the process of, otherwise, freezing to death. Many years later, my uncle was walking down some street in Manhattan (that’s the tall building borough of NYCity) when a total stranger neared him and absolutely blessed him! It was the former prisoner who had survived, emigrated, and kept a mental picture of my uncle during the interval. I imagine that reunion was highly satisfactory to both parties.
I’ve been holding on to a new early 70’s vintage army coat that I wish I could somehow get to some guy that has managed to get to Serbia with the t-shirt he left home with. But I’m not going to hand it over to Goodwill. In years past I tried to get a few clothes from them for people who had nothing and they informed me that they don’t give clothes away.
I still have my dad’s Army dress jacket from WWII. At age 47, it still fit him.
Dad was to have been part of the main landing force on Japan, but the two bombs prevented that.
He became part of the occupational force stationed at Nagasaki – two weeks after the detonation.
He had several internal cancers over the years, as did many who were stationed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Gave lots of wife’s clothes to GW in ’11, later they did not give them away, though not a bad place for bargains. Sev. local churches, incl. BUMC, formed ‘Churches United’ in the ’90s, clearing house [at the RC church] /pleas for gas money, clothes, other stuff. Clients are sent to one of 2-3 church-run clothing depots. Two churches, incl. BUMC, do soup kitchen 1-2 nights a week, others run SOS [Servants Of Shelter] a week at a time during winter [weather, not astro.]. Has to move weekly to avoid classif. as a hotel. Folks from BUMC often monitor shifts there / strict rules / behavior, what cannot be brought in, etc. [No ‘carrying.’] Our new pastor often eats at soup kitchen, to be available, not proselytize. Has established trust w/ several. Good man. Lots of families come. TG and Christmas, large churches [not those which do SK] host holiday meals. Doesn’t work at Easter / festivities at most churches. UMC my older son pastors itself does a TG meal every year which gets a good crowd from a cluster of 3 small central MN cities. Started long before he ? pastor.
Peace, emb
‘later learned they . . .’ That ? was an arrow, standing for ‘became’ this time. emb
Some interesting veteran stories…thanks to all who related them. I’ve heard it said that no one has truly passed from the Earth until the last person who knew them personally passes away. So in that respect many of our departed veterans are still with us.
My high school history teacher admitted he was not unbiased regarding the propriety of using nuclear weapons to end the war, as his Army infantry division was to be part of the first wave of the invasion of the Japanese islands.
Jerry
Goodwill is not a charity – it is a business with a very savvy name.
C e-p
Just proves how small the world really is. And someone had his head out for a brief
period.
Occasionally there must have been some sanity – my uncle ( a printer ) worked as a
printer on a Sub. Tender in the Pacific.
emb
It is the wise officer (in military and most business) that steps aside and lets the
NCO get in with the job, then gives praise.
To our veterans – thank you.
“Animals die, plants die,
but as long as we tell stories about them,
our loved ones (people) will never die.”
GR6
Saw one interviewee the also was biased – it was not the other
million men that did not die in the invasion of Japan – he was not killed that concerned him.
This is a test to see if I can display code without it the site acting on it: [code]Italics[/code]
Nope. Another test:
ItalicsForget it and good night, Gracie.
Good COs and good business execs both know that micromanaging is futile and destroys morale. Too bad so few are that good!
Possibly my favorite name for a blog: “My Muse shanked me”
How’d ja do ‘at, Trucker?
An anthem for all Veterans…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9oakm9-vjo
“No one hates war like a soldier hates war.” – GEN Tommy Franks
Rick, I knew a man for many years who was a medic in the Pacific. He was in a live-fire exercise on (I think) Saipan, training for the invasion of Japan, when they got the word of the surrender. The marines in the exercise were told not to stand up, but continue the exercise because the pilots providing the live fire hadn’t gotten the word yet and they didn’t want any accidents.
Good morning Villagers….
I loved reading all the stories above… your personal stories, your relatives, your husband Miss Charlotte, your fathers. To quote Plato, “only the dead have seen the end of wars”….so true, and they will go on.
No babbling here today……
ya’ll have a blessed day
….can’t believe you didn’t go to Hooters, GR 😉
=^..^=
Sideburns:
My dad told me that the Marines would have been the very first ones to hit the beaches and that only a small, small few would survive.
After them, Dad and the other soldiers were to follow in successive waves until a foothold had finally been established.
Is the medic whom you knew still with us, or has he passed?