FRIDAY The second load is clinking and swooshing in the dishwasher, the crystal lined up on the countertop waiting its turn.  The door and sawhorses that were used as an extension of the dining room table are taken apart and waiting to be returned to the garage.  The echoes of all the 21 kids and grandkids (HBW and his crew were the only ones not here) enjoying each others' company have faded. Last year MamaCharlie and I had Thanksgiving with just the two of us.  ...

It started with belly aches.  They got to the point that we took MamaCharlie to the little clinic we had on Patch Barracks to see a doc.  I think the first diagnosis was gas or pre-ulcer or something;  they gave her some stuff for it that gagged her and didn't do any good at all.  Then one night she wound up writhing on the floor in agony and we flew across Stuttgart to the Army Hospital at Bad Cannstadt.  Our clinic on Patch was not an overnight operation...anything af...

Things have changed.  If you flew out of Rhein-Main AFB to the States in the sixties or early seventies, the passenger terminal was not much different than it was in the forties, pretty plain and a bit austere.  Once you checked  your luggage in, you were herded upstairs to the "passenger lounge" to await the call to board your flight.  The lounge was a large room with huge windows on one wall that looked out on the flight line.  Seating was plastic chairs on metal leg...

MamaCharlie refers to it as the "House of Our Heart".  We spent more than five years at Patch Barracks in the suburbs of Stuttgart, Germany.  The little town of Vaihingen is about five miles from downtown Stuttgart, and Patch sits on the northwest edge of the town.  It is a small kaserne;  it houses the Headquarters, United States European Command.  We loved it there.  We could walk from one end of the post to the other in less than ten minutes.  There was a P...

I was kind of surprised to watch Joe Biden placing a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown this morning.  Firstly because that is an honor usually reserved for the president...the current one has conveniently arranged his schedule to avoid such pro-military activities today...correct me if I am wrong, but secondly, it is an honor usually conducted on Memorial Day.  And that is the crux of what has busted through my recent malaise and got me back at the keyboard. When I was a kid, we un...

I was watching Mythbusters tonight;  the episode was about trying to fool working dogs with different methods:  distractions, disguise, etc.  One of the set-ups they used was trying to get contraband into a mock concert.  They got a crowd of "extras", set up a taco truck, had a low-rider complete with a blasting stereo to drive in, and had lots of loud talk and confusion...like a real concert.  Well, they couldn't fool the dogs.  They did distract one of the dogs ...

It was forty-three years ago;  a warm Saturday evening in El Cajon, California, in a church on the corner of Third and Something.  I wore the suit the Chief bought me for graduation three years earlier;  MamaCharlie wore a dress my grandma put together.  Charlie stood as my Best Man (not the Charlie I married, but the one who had been my best friend for about five years).  MamaCharlie's folks and two brothers had driven over from Phoenix.  My folks were there. &nb...

In one of those old WWII submarine movies I used to love as a kid, during the inevitable depth-charge attack, one of the crew men was struggling to stop a leak.  A female "passenger" on the sub...a nurse or nun or something who was being "rescued"...approached and asked the crew man what she could do to help.  He explained that there was not really anything she could do;  that sometimes all you could do was "spit teeth and cuss".  She said, "Okay, I'll spit teeth..."  ...

Most of us learned to measure the distance that lightning was from our house by using the "Flash-to-Bang" method...when you saw the lightning you would begin to count "one Mississippi...two Mississippi...three Mississippi..." until the sound of the thunder arrived.  Then you divided the number of Mississippis by five and you got the number of miles away the lightning strike was.  When I joined the Army, I learned a new "Flash-to-Bang" formula:  it had to do with nuclear explosio...

I promised to post this recipe a few weeks ago and got lazy on it.  But here it is, hope you like it: Start with about a pound of either browned ground beef or shredded pot roast.  Season to taste with Chili Powder, salt, and pepper.  (First trip out, please don't use any of those pre-packaged mixes or "salts".) As with the Chicken Enchiladas, heat corn tortillas in oil until they are pliable, then roll a spoonful of meat, and one-third of a slice of velveeta or American ch...

I don't like Mustangs.  They are stylish and some are pretty quick, but most are uncomfortable to sit in and drive.  They are made by Ford;  they are everywhere these days in their lastest incarnation, and they have little tinny- sounding exhausts.  They are kind of effeminate. For that matter, I don't care much for Chargers, Challengers, Camaros, or Subarus, either.   I don't mind if you like those cars.  I support your right to buy and drive whatever you wa...

This morning I went to a simple ceremony in honor of those who died on September 11, 2001. A group of high school students gathered on the lawn near the flag pole of their school and blew Taps in rounds; they call it "Echo Taps". They blew Taps four times, at the time each plane struck its target, times adjusted for the time zones. This was a semi-coordinated effort by a group called "Bugles Across America". The idea was that by adjusting for the time zones, all of the ceremonies would be takin...

Some of you may not have met my oldest;  he once blogged on JU under the alias of Hyperborean Wanderer.  He is a good writer and his articles on his experiences in Iraq were excellent.  He always has been an articulate young fellow.  MamaCharlie and I decided early on that we didn't like the sound of the "baby talk" that so many adults revert to when they are confronted with a wee one.  So we made it a rule that we never talked like that to HBW and discouraged anyone el...

I sat here typing up my last article, trying to express the anger and dread that the second oil rig explosion has caused me.  I had a hard time bringing up  really harsh expressions, though.  I made the mistake of putting the "Bluebird" CD by Emmy Lou on the player before I started.  It is one of my very favorite albums, ever.  It always brings me to a quiet, simpler place.  I first heard it playing at the little PX on the main post in Hohenfels.  The piece th...

On September 11, 2001, I was in front of the repair shop at work talking to the maintenance chief and a couple others about this and that to do with keeping a truck fleet in operation.  Angela, the receptionist, came out of the office and told us that an airplane had flown into the World Trade Center.  After a couple of cracks about pilots and drinking, I remembered that after WWII sometime, a B-25 had flown into the Empire State Building.  I wondered how such a thing could happe...