Sabotoge

It was a dark and stormy night. The wave were high. The wind was strong.
The rain was horizontal. The ship was in the water half the time and out the other
half. Snoopy and the Red Baron were no where around.

Of course this is precisely the time when something would malfuction and it
did. The syncro motor between the radar and the antenna quit working. The
results of this is you can not get a true bearing of the objects in your way.

The Captain was in the radar room immediately. I told him what was wrong.
He ask if I could fix it. I advised that I could make it work on a relative bearing
basis until we got to port and picked up a new synro motor, but I would have
to climb the mast to the antenna to do it. He said "Will you do it." I said I would,
but he said it was to dangerous. I probably would have ended up hanging upside
down in my climbing safety belt with my head bouncing off the mast if I had tried it.
I told him I could interpet the radar well enough to give the relative bearing every
ten seconds until morning when the storm abated and the lock it in on relative
bearing. That is what we did.

This goes on to a part two of the story. When a new Third Class Petty Officer came
aboard (this guy was my new boss) he put a modification in the radar but got it in
backward. I took it out and put if in right and told him not to touch another item of
equipment on the ship. He didn't. During the next few days after the storm I
noticed someone had taped over the switch that controls the synro motor. I ask
the new Third Class Petty Officer if he did that so someone wouldn't turn it off.
He said yes. I said, good idea. We were on our way home and stopped in Pearl Harbor.
This is where the Petty Officer left the ship and was flown home. I was getting ready
to repair the radar and had to turn the syncro switch off to do it. When I removed
the tape, the switch was off and had been every since the storm. I climbed the mast,
removed the relative bearing lock on, went back down, threw the switch to ON.
There never was a defect in the syncro system. I never did find out what happened
to the Petty Officer. Maybe I should have been suspicious. Earlier in our tour in Korea
the Captain called another Technician and me in for a conference to ask if this Petty
Officer had ever done anything to damage any of the equipment. I could only tell
about the mod kit he put in the radar backwards.

So goes the Enlish Navy

It was a dark and stormy night. No actually it was a very dark and
quiet night. No moon. We were sailing along the west coast of North
Korea, minding our own business. We had the ship completely darkened.
There was a blip on the radar, but that wasn't unusual. As we approached
the object that showed up on radar we receive a coded challange that we
were suppose to answer with the answer code. Well, the challange was
yesterday's code, so we didn't answer it. They send the challange a couple
of more times and evidently got fed up. The next thing we saw was a shell
fly across our bow to wake us up.

Time for action. No we did not go to general quarters. The captain had the
signal man light up his trusty signal light and advise the other ship who we
were and that their code was a day old. At this, they turned tail and left
the area at a very high speed. The captain had a meeting with the captain of the
British Frigit and an an incharge Admiral next time we were in port. I Don't
know what the outcome was. It could not have been very pleasant the captain
of the Frigit.

Beating The Odds

I have a neighbor and a good friend a few houses down the street who is one of the good guys. He gets to wear the white hat. Now I can't let him read this because he would get the big head and his hat wouldn't fit.

He moved here from Texas a few years ago. Before that he lived in California and New York and places in between. He worked at some jobs that kept him on the road. At times his wife would meet him at the airport with a suitcase full of clean clothes and take the one he had home with her.

Now Jonesy was raised in southern Illinois. There's an old saying the folks in central Illinois are fond of saying. " Well I'll be dipped in Southern Illinois."

Now my wife is always giving Jonesy a hard time, but he gives in back more then he gets. The real story here is about an individual who made it against all the odds of living with an alcoholic mother and no father. He now says," "Hard work never hurt anyone." He started young.

During the time he was living with his mother he had a Sunday morning paper route. This was before he reached the fifth grade. He carried his papers in a two wheeled cart. After picking up his papers, his first stop was the Catholic Church just about the time Mass was going on. He was not a Catholic and I sense his church was The Wild Side as he grew older. He would complete his first sales there after Mass and then he would start on established route. If the customer left money out for the paper, they would get a paper. No money, no paper. He would make a second stop to fill his cart and then complete his route. Then to the paper pick up point to turn in the money based of the price and the number of papers sold.

On his way home he would sometimes have to stop at the local tavern, knock on the window for his mother to come out to take about 90% of his money. If she wasn't there, he would fork it over at home.

When he was about 11 years old he went to live with his sister who was 15 years older and now married. He no longer had his paper route. He got himself a job mowing yards for a group of customers once a week. He purchased a mower on credit which he pulled behind his bike. His brother-in-law cosigned for him. He felt good about buying a mower for his business on credit at the age of 11 years. He still sent money to his mother to live (drink) on. His parents were divorced before he was born. He has never seen his dad.

While he was in high school, his sister moved to another town. He moved with them but soon
came back to his home town and lived with foster parents. Any time he got into mischief or
trouble his foster would hold out his hand for the car keys. Sometimes he would he would keep them for as long as six months. You never ask for them back. He would return them when he was ready.

During all this time he was still sending his mother money. At this point his foster parents wanted to adopt him. His mother would agree to the adoption for a large cash payment to her.
At this point his foster father put a stop to Jonesy sending any more money to his mother. He
still bailed her out of debt in later years. He always had a job. Sometimes two or three.

Then Uncle Sam took him under his wing for two years during which he got married and soon had two young ones. When he was about 25 years old the State of Illinois was going to force him and his brother to support their mother. Jonesy's lawyer indicated that the only was to avoid this was to prove to the judge that she was an unfit mother. He said that was the hardest thing he ever had to do. He plead his case and won when he told the judge that she had tried to sell him. His brother had to pay until he passed away. His mother lived until she was a couple of weeks shy of 100 years old.

Can it be true or was true in 19 65 that the State if Illinois can force a child to support his parents and their drinking problems. The story has two endings. The main subject of the story is ok and is leading a normal productive life. His sister didn't fare as well. She will hardly leave the house and will go into the back bedroom when someone comes to the house for fear they might hve know her mother.

Music

To all of you that were with me in the rain forest of Equador I want
you to know that I watched The Grapes of Wrath on a Netflex dvd
last night and the theme song and the song they played through out
the movie was ----"""""RED RIVER VALLEY"""""-----. TADA.
My harmonica never sounded that good. The book was a lot better
than the movie.

My next blog will be about a neighbor and his life with his mother who tried
to sell him when he was a youngster. TUNE IN EARLY.

The Hunt

I have spend the last few weeks trying to get rid of some moles.
I was able to dispatch two of them the first day of the hunt with
my spade but the third one was very elusive. I tried waiting it out
at a spot he was espected to surface each day for many days but
the heat drove me to seek a different solution.

First was the poison pellets. The mole would have none of that. Next
was the mole trap. The mole set the trap off twice but escaped
unharmed. Now was the time to put out the noise makers. The effect
of the noise makers kept the mole from ranging far enough to obtain
enough food to make him happy. Next, I sprayed the area with mole
repellent. So with each of the above in use all at the same time, the
mole finially got hungry enough to eat some of my poison pellets.
Just decided to commit suicide.

Now with this under control I find a new challange. I discovered we
have a bag worm infestation in all the new 500 small pines I put out
two years ago. This pines are now about 8 feet tall. Also infested are in
several 30 to 40 foot tall cedar. I have been able to spray the small
pines and pickoff and burn the bag worm but I am in the process of
cutting down all the infested cedars, collecting and burning the bag
worms and using the tree to prevent erosion on a neighbors property.
There are about 15 trees to cut and pick off the worms. I have completed
four. It sure is hot out there.

My thought for today

Its may be ok to burn your bridges if you don't want anyone to pursue you,
but you had better be able to walk on water if you want to come back.