America’s 911 Ride

Posted on November 12, 2001 by Freejack

rec.motorcycles.harley #395301 (1 + 2494 more)
From: Carl Schelin
Subject: America’s 911 Ride (very long)
Lines: 265
Date: Mon Nov 12 19:03:37 EST 2001

Hey all,

I’m back and the drinks are on me. Diet Coke for me bartender.

I just did a quick scan back and didn’t see anything about this weekend’s ride. I’m not sure if no one knew, cared, haven’t had a chance, or what so here’s my ride report.

URL:http://www.americas911ride.org there are pictures up now.

I’ve been trying to get my wife out on a group ride. Arguments mainly being that it’d be safer in a group and she’d enjoy the ride better than alone.

She must have heard this on the local classic rock station (94.7) because she brought the web site to my attention.

The purpose of the ride, as stated on the site, was to honor the folks who gave their lives in New York and the Pentagon and to _bring_ funds to New York instead of sending money.

So we made our arrangements, grabbed our gear, and headed to DC Saturday morning. (By the way, I think we were one of the few with orange vests on over our jackets, in case you were there and saw us.)

It was a bit on the nippy side so I had my longies on as well as my belly belt. We pulled in at the Washington Monument and there were probably 1000 bikes of all types and styles. I wandered around looking for someone I might know and the wife headed to the porta-potties.

I get the feeling the coordinator didn’t expect so many folks to show up. There were three porta-potties and only two were in use. The third one being locked. Rita said that while she was waiting, a police office came up to cut the lock off of the third one when a lady from the teepee (there’s a teepee set up on the lawn) ran up and said that the porta-potties were hers and that she was letting us use two of them out of the kindness of her heart. I say we raise a glass for her right now (_salute_).

We had a blessing of the bikes at pretty close to the official kick-off (10am) and Rita trotted up a few minutes later. We got geared up and hopped on the bike.

As we were pulling out of our parking place, I saw someone’s white and power blue bike start forward (about 20 bikes up from us) and almost tip over. A couple of guys grabbed it and helped him get it up. Close call.

So we headed out of the parking lot, to the right. As we were making our right turn on 14th street, my right floorboard dragged on a hump in the road. Pretty heavily too.

We went up behind the Holocaust Museum and on to 395, police escort all the way. We hit the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and headed north. At times we were hitting 80 mph to catch up with the pack. At other times, we were inching along with the accordion effect.

We got stuck in traffic up towards 695 (Baltimore Beltway) as the police stopped the folks in the right lane. We slid over to the right as we got there and headed out at speed again.

We zipped up to the exit for 95 north (nice curved exit) and headed through Baltimore. Along the way the police were stopped at entrance ramps to 95 stopping oncoming traffic. At places, people were standing outside their cars and waving at us as we drove by. It had to be impressive (and a little annoying) to see all those bikes going by but it was exciting.

We approached the first toll booth. Back at the beginning, everyone paid for the tolls up front. They tied an orange plastic tape around everyone’s arm. This was so they could count the riders as they went through the booths.

At the first booth, the Maryland Police paid for all the tolls so we all drove right through. Raise a glass for the Maryland Police (_salute_).

From there we headed to our first stop. Maryland House service area. This completed the first leg of the trip. 72 miles according to the web site and it took about two hours to get there. We were running behind schedule since we were supposed to be there at about 11:15 or so.

We all hit the pumps, bathrooms, and food areas. I took my long john top off and we all took about a 30 minute break. Several of the folks at the area stopped us and asked what we were doing.

At the end of 30 minutes, we all gathered our gear, hopped on the bikes, and moved out.

Again, the police were blocking traffic. At the next service area, they were at the exit ramp, forcing the cars over to the side of the road.

The next leg was about 40 miles and the stop was at Mike’s Famous Harley-Davidson in Delaware. There isn’t really much to say about this leg. When we stopped at Mike’s, we pulled off of 95, around the front of Mikes, looped around to the back and to the front of the parking lot. The folks there gave us a ticket for a free fountain soda and 15% off of merchandise at Mike’s.

I got in line for hotdogs and Rita headed in for the sodas. She didn’t like the line and bailed.

We went into Mike’s and checked out the store. One guy came up to the cashier with about 200 bucks of t-shirts. I was checking out the bikes (there were about 30 on the floor) and saw the one I have (’02 FLSTC) going for $23,999. The FLSTCI was marked at $23,499. I wanted to pick up a leather vest but not for $200, thank you very much.

Still, it was an interesting place, with lots of cool stuff.

We bailed from there and headed for the third stop in New Jersey.

We headed up to 195, 130, 1/9 and towards New York.

The police would ride up to the lights and keep people from going through the intersection. Then they would fly by us at a pretty good clip to the next light. At some points, they would force cars to the side of the road. We got separated from the front of the pack by some lights that weren’t blocked or by someone who moved into the flow and stopped for the light. A couple of times, the two rows of bikes split to either side of the stopped cars so we could continue on.

I saw several riders stopping at gas stations.

We hit the third stop, a small gas station where we overwhelmed them with our service. Several folks were pointed to another gas station a couple of miles up the road. When we got to the pump, I found that the nozzle leaked gas on my tank. We whipped out our rags and stemmed the flow. We paid the guy but he didn’t have any change so we got the tank for 3 bucks.

Several of the guys couldn’t wait for the gas station bathroom so headed out behind the station to take leaks. No no, we didn’t take any pictures 🙂

One of the organizers (Ted maybe?) hopped out as we were getting ready to go and apologized for us getting split up. He told us that he would personally run the cars off of the road if they got in our way again.

So we headed off again on the final leg of our journey to New York.

It was getting dark as we came over to bridge leading to New York. We stopped at the beginning of the Holland Tunnel as toll arrangements were made. The picture at the lower left (the dark one) might have even been us sitting and waiting.

Once that was taken care of, we headed in. It was the loudest most awe-inspiring sound you’ve probably ever heard.

As we hit Manhattan, Rita had us pull out of the pack and head to our lodgings. The YMCA at 63rd Street and 8th Ave just off of Central Park. Going up 8th Ave was quite interesting as traffic was everything you might expect. There was a crane in the middle of the street and we were close to be nudged several times by the cabbies.

We found the YMCA, got our keys, and dragged our stuff to our room. Bunk beds, a TV, and a bathroom/shower down the hall. The height of luxury.

We headed out to New York and grabbed something to eat. We wandered around a bit and headed back to our room. We watched TV for an hour or so and hit the sack.

My sleep was broken several times by me trying to wake up. I thought we were still on the road and I was forcing myself to wake up before I hit the guy in front of me. That was a restless night.

In the morning (6:30am), we got up and headed out to the city. We hit breakfast at Cafe Edison on 47th street and took in some sights.

We hit the subway and headed down to Ground Zero. The concrete dust was blowing around, getting in your eyes. The police were blocking access to the site so we skirted around. We stopped at the church with all the signs on the fence and read them. Some of the faces I saw as we walked around were very grim. Others were just tourists (“quick, get a picture of me with the WTC behind me”).

As we hit the side where Battery Park is, we were able to see what was left of the World Trade Center. It was sobering, I’m sure.

We went down to Battery Park and looked out to Lady Liberty and Ellis Island.

We headed back uptown. We stopped in at Lincoln Center (we were across the street from it) and one of the Trump buildings. We went back to our room (the bike was still there in front and totally unmolested), grabbed our stuff, suited up and headed home.

We left at about noon and headed out Lincoln Tunnel to the NJ Turnpike. We hit the first service area, stopped in line behind some other riders but decided to head to the next one because of the lines.

We gassed up at the second one and headed south. We skipped the third one but stopped at the fourth. There were three bikes there that we saw and more pulled up as we were hanging around. One of them was the guy we were riding behind on one of the legs north. As he put on a second pair of pants and socks (it was quite cold going home), he brought us up to speed on his adventures from when we split off.

There was some further delay after getting in to Manhattan before they finally hit their rooms.

In the morning, the riders went down to the same church we were at (but later in the morning) and left a sign (you’ll see it in the pictures). Then they were escorted out of New York. I’ll let someone who was there detail that part if they want.

For the rest of the trip down the Turnpike, I used the thumb wheel (cruise control 🙂 which actually worked pretty well. The quick spin off at the toll booth was interesting though.

At the first toll booth we were ready and had the money out, but at the next couple, I had to take off my gloves and get the money out and keep moving. An experience I’m sure many of you have experienced.

We stopped at Maryland House again on the way south and took a few minutes break. The sun was almost down in our eyes and it was colder. Rita threw on another pair of pants, a shirt, and had a towel under her jacket to keep warm.

We hit the road again and caught up with three other riders. We pulled in behind them and kept up with the pack, safety in numbers don’t you know. When we got to the last toll booth, I pulled up next to the last rider and basically asked if they didn’t mind if I tagged along. He said sure and shouted to Nick at the front. We had our dollar out and ready for the booth but apparently Nick paid for us too. We didn’t expect it but wish to express our thanks for his generosity and want to raise a glass to Nick and the others (_salute_).

As we were pulling out, I experienced something that I’d read about, and even tried to be careful about all the other times. We slid a bit in the slick at the booth. The guy next to us pulled over just past the booth. We stopped to make sure everything was ok and he was just putting his glove back on. We were almost clipped by a car as we stopped.

We picked up the other riders on the other side of the tunnel and headed through Baltimore and south on 95. Just past the rest area, the guy at the rear peeled off and left. Home or gas, we didn’t know.

At the 95/495 turn off, Nick headed west and we headed east. We headed on to the beltway and took off ourselves at 295. We waved at the last guy while we hit the exit ramp.

We went down New York Ave to 385. Damn near got hit at “The Mixing Bowl” by two cars who were arguing about who should be in the left lane. We hopped off at the Fairfax Parkway, hit Rt. 1 and headed home.

All in all, it was an interesting trip since it was my very first group ride. The police blocking traffic for us was an experience. Rita loved the ride up and complained about our speed on the way home. In a pack at 80 is one thing. On our own at 75 is a bit too fast for her.

Still, I had to wipe a few tears away when I think about my friend Jeff Simpson, a VA EMT who lost his life at the WTC. It was a moving experience.

If you’re still here, raise the glass to the folks who died doing their job at the WTC (_salute_), raise a glass to the folks who died at their job and their families (_salute_), and finally, raise a glass to the veterans who died and may be dying for our country now (_Salute_).

Carl
’02 FLSTC (Natasha)

Posted in 2001 - America's 911 Ride, Motorcycle Trips, Motorcycles, Virginia | Leave a comment

Motorcycle Accident!

Posted on February 14, 1990 by Freejack

I was riding my motorcycle north on Rt 1 just south of Stafford Virginia, Feb 14th. I was doing 55mph in the left lane and a 10 wheel flatbed truck was slowing down to make a right turn into a DOT lot which is back in the woods a little. A small Ranger sized truck was waiting to make a left turn from the DOT lot to go south and decided to make room for the 10 wheeler and pulled out and stopped crossways in the left lane, right in my path.

I could see he was looking to the right as I tried to stop. I immediately crossed off going in front as he wasn’t looking and I might hit him anyway. I crossed off sliding the bike and going straight imagining the damage. I decided to try and thread the needle by going behind and between the two trucks hoping the guy would pull forward.

Unfortunately he didn’t and I failed to thread the needle running into the wheel well and flying over to land in the road.

I had a Vetter windscreen on the bike which is mounted on the frame using a square metal support. My left knee hit that as I was propelled forward and ripped a 3″ x 3″ ‘L’ shaped flap just above the knee and also lifted the skin below the ‘L’ off the kneecap. I also fractured the cartilage between two toes. I also tore my left rotator cuff. There were various cuts and scrapes as well.

Weirdly while the knee looked the worst with a hanging flap of skin and all, the small cut below the knee was the worst based on the doctors as it cut a nerve trunk. As a result my left shin is partially numb. Other issues is a hyperextended ligament on the outside left knee causes pain now as I get older combined with the cracked cartilage in the foot causes limping.

But I did get to use a great line. I was in the emergency room on a gurney and allowed to call my now ex-wife.

“Hi, I have good news and bad news. The good news is I won’t be riding the bike anymore. The bad news is I’m in the emergency room.” 🙂

I spent a week in the hospital with the knee left open and packed with sterile gauze which was interesting. I used to have a picture but I don’t know where it is any more.

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Yamaha 250 Motorcycle

Posted on March 17, 1977 by Freejack

When I lived with my Aunt and Uncle for a year, my uncle “gave” me a broken down motorcycle. I have no idea what it was and he said the “seals were broken” which made no sense to me at the time (about 14 I guess). I actually thought the freeze plugs were seals.

Anyway, when in The Army in Ft. Meade Maryland, and after my incident with my first car, I bought a little Yamaha 250cc motorcycle. I’d wanted a motorcycle since living with my Uncle but I didn’t know how to drive one. A friend of my in the platoon (Maury) was willing to show me how to ride so we took the little 250 out to the abandoned barracks and practiced riding up and down the parking lot. I of course killed it a few times but never dropped it. Maury was pretty strict about being safe while riding (I want to say he had a Honda 454; four cylinder 450cc); wearing a helmet and keeping both hands on the handlebars at all times.

After tooling around post on it for a short time, I rode it, smoking (needed a tune up), into Laurel and traded it in on a bigger bike. It was also my first new vehicle. A 1976 Honda CB360T blue in color.

Posted in Maryland, Motorcycles | Tagged | Leave a comment

1974 Ford Pinto

Posted on September 17, 1976 by Freejack

My first car was a yellow 1974 Ford Pinto.

I was stationed at Ft. Meade Maryland as a Military Policeman and needed to have a car. One of the guys in the platoon headed off to Korea so I bought the Pinto from his wife. I think it was for $600.00.

It’s tough not having transportation to get around on post. Most of the time I can hitch a ride or catch a post bus but it’s still not easy.

Since I was paying installments to the guy’s wife, I didn’t get the title or anything. Being a fresh young kid, I didn’t know any better. I rode around on the original Georgia plates which had expired. I took a few trips out to my girlfriend’s house to hang out, go to the movies, etc. We both had attended Linganore High School, me for my last year of High School before joining The Army. Once when taking her home coming out of Baltimore on 70, we got pulled over by the state police. We’d been “making out” while I was driving so I suspect it was for distracted driving. I was advised to pay more attention to the road and sent on my way 🙂 Her brother had kept the registration for some reason, I don’t recall why.

About 6 months after getting the car, I’d just paid it off and had the title. I was heading off to the DMV to get my plates etc. I’d left Ft. Meade and Odenton and was heading north when I realized I didn’t have the title with me. I stopped to make a left turn intending to pull into the parking lot and turning around. While stopped, I was watching the mirrors in addition to watching for an opening. While waiting, I looked in the mirror and saw a blue car with two broad white stripes coming up behind me. As I saw the rear of the car come up, I pushed harder on the brake and clutch and covered my head with my arms. She hit the left rear of the car and careened across traffic running into the street sign before coming to a stop.

When I looked up and looked around, I noticed the car had died and the spare tire, which was in the rear (it’s a hatch back) had broken the rear seat popping through and pushed the passenger seat up to the dash. The seat back was pushed forward and the tire was sitting on the seat.

I tried to start the car, I don’t know why. It didn’t start so I climbed out and saw that the gas tank cap was off and gas was running down the side of the car. The impact had popped the cap off and spurted some of the gas out of the car and on to the road.

In the aftermath, the car was towed and I was in the back of the police car explaining about the accident. I did get a couple of tickets; no registration (remember, girlfriend’s brother had the registration), out of date plate (which I was on my way to take care of), and no insurance (I didn’t think I could get it since the car wasn’t in my name).

I didn’t tell anyone in the platoon about the accident, figuring I’d just take care of the tickets and such myself. Again, not knowing any better.

My Platoon Sargent found out about it; I suspect now from the police blotter and confronted me about it. He was understanding and very helpful. He went with me to court, of which I was pretty scared. The accident was discussed and at the end, the judge asked me if I’d paid for the accident. I said, “I wasn’t at fault.” They were a little taken aback, I guess they though I was the cause of the accident. I had to pay the no registration ticket but the other two were dropped.

I did go to where they towed the car and picked up my tapes but left the car as it was totaled.

I didn’t get another car for another 18 months.

Posted in Maryland | Tagged | 2 Comments

Ft. Meade Maryland, Old Barracks

Posted on August 6, 1976 by Freejack

I was stationed in Ft. Meade Maryland at the 293rd Military Police Company, 519th Military Police Battalion. The other company was the 209th Military Police Company. I originally stayed in the older barracks, I was upstairs, third room from the end on the left. The door locks wouldn’t work so you had hasp locks. One of the favorite things the guys would do is lock folks in their rooms at night. All you needed was a spare lock and there you go. Fortunately there was an overhang outside the window so you could climb out and get the lock cutters. Another thing was to hide from being grabbed for some task or another. You could reach through the door and lock yourself into your room. You wouldn’t miss morning assignments of course but you could use it to miss being grabbed if someone was unavailable for duty such as Security Patrol.

When I got there, I was looked upon with some suspicion. See a week or two prior to my arrival, according to stories, almost the entire platoon was busted for drugs and they missed the Platoon Sargent by only minutes. Since I didn’t drink or smoke, I was looked upon with suspicion and since I didn’t drink or smoke, I never really connected with the platoon so was pretty much always an outsider.

One weekend I had headed home, when I returned, I found a crap load of drywall in my room and one of my posters being used to cover up a hole in the ceiling. I called the platoon Sargent in and he investigated. First though I got yelled at for having an extremely messy room. I had lots of album posters up on the walls, Pink Floyd to Traffic and Chicago. But the room itself was in pretty bad shape. It turns out that a couple of the guys got drunk and decided to get into my room, don’t know why. In their drunkenness, they crashed through the ceiling in to my room. They tried to hide the hole with one of my posters.

Another time, in winter, while waiting in formation for the start of the day, I took a snowball to my right eye. I remember seeing white but shook it off. It was my effort to be “one of the guys.” I did get some at-a-boy’s from the guys for not snitching but it didn’t really help all that much. I often wonder if that’s why my right eye is a bit blurrier than the left and why it has more floaters in it.

One of the cool things was the officers were trying to keep us on post. They had the various companies pony up and they opened a post “diner.” You could go any time at night and using your ration card, pick up a burger and fries with a drink. It didn’t stay open for long though.

One of the things you’d do when on clean up is clean the barracks. The main thing would be to buff out the floors from all the boot scuff marks. We’d get some Johnson’s paste wax (the yellow can) and a metal clothes hanger. It’d be wrapped around the can so we had a long handle then the was would be set on fire. This melted the top bit. Once it melted a little, we’d drop the lid on top to snuff the fire then dribble the hot wax on the floor. Then the buffer would be run to smear the wax across the floor. An old towel would be dropped on the floor and the buffer put on top of it then we’d put a final shine on the floor buffing out the wax. Once, in a panic, I missed putting the lid on the burning wax and slammed it against the wall to put it out. Unfortunately the walls were wooden. Fortunately for me, it actually put the fire out but think of what might have happened if it hadn’t and had started the barracks on fire! But it didn’t so I’m good 🙂

Posted in About Carl, Maryland, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Military Policeman

Posted on June 6, 1976 by Freejack

As I approached the end of High School, I didn’t have any real prospects. We’d moved across country from California to Maryland so I didn’t have any contacts, not that I had any back in California because we moved so much. I was already in the Marine Reserve so I investigated going active duty. I really didn’t want to go active as an Infantryman though. I’d originally selected it because Dad had suggested that working a brain job during the week should be offset with doing something physical. While it was fine for a once a month distraction from home and school, it wasn’t something I wanted to do full time. I checked in to the other services and only The Army was willing to let me transfer to Active Duty. They were going to do an Inter-Service Transfer so I could make the transfer. My choices were limited though. Either I could go Active as a Infantryman (well, I was trying to avoid that anyway), a Cook (not that interested really), or as a Military Policeman. Given the choices, I went with being an MP. I signed up and my departure date was a few days before graduation. As I’d only spent a year at Linganore Junior/Senior High School, I couldn’t come up with a good reason to actually go to my graduation. So Mom talked to the school and got my diploma early and I headed off to Ft. McClellan, Alabama.

At the recruiting station, we hung about waiting on a load for the trip to BWI. Then I caught my flight south. At one point we transferred to a prop job. It was an interesting flight as I could see one of the screws in the ceiling coming out. But I’d never been on a plane before and expected someone to tell me when I needed to get off. I was a real newbie about a lot of things. I actually missed where I was supposed to get off and ended up at the last stop in Texas. After some discussion, I was put on the flight back to Alabama.

Upon reaching the post, I was upbraided a little because I didn’t have any gear. See a fresh recruit has all their gear from boot camp. Since I was doing an Inter-Service Transfer, I didn’t have any Army gear, just Marine. So I had to spend a few hundred bucks to get myself dressed appropriately.

Military Police School was pretty interesting. It was self-paced so you worked on something until you passed then moved on to the next course. There were scheduled courses so if you didn’t finish with the class, you might have to wait for a week or so for the next class to start. I actually did pretty well in general. I think there were two I recall. The first which I enjoyed was the Accident Scene course. You had an Accident form and had to make a bunch of drawings to show the accident and how it happened. The other was one of the FM’s I’d read on deaths in The Military. There were a couple in the book that really struck me. One was a soldier who hung himself using a phone cord from a doorknob. That showed me you didn’t need to hang from the ceiling. The other was the description of self defense wounds in a machete attack. Pretty gruesome. The stories from the folks in the Barracks were a bit on the scary side though with bar fights and MP’s being killed. Particularly by the folks who went to Korea.

We had folks from all the services; Marines, Navy, and Air Force as well as Army. Since I’d gone through Marine Corps Boot Camp in San Diego, I chuckled at The Army guys who complained that they didn’t get off post privileges until after being in boot camp for 3 weeks. Since you don’t get off post privileges ever when in Marine boot camp it was a bit amusing. And the Air Force SPs were worse with their whining about not being able to go off post while at McClellan.

A couple of recollections. 1, I recall one woman, Sorensen. She was rumored to be a full time Cop and walked like she had a gun on her hip. The second, I recall having one of the red Sony 8-track players and specifically having David Bowie’s Greatest Hits (ChangesBowieOne). It had the carry handle that you hit to change channels.

Once training was finished, I was sent to Ft. Meade Maryland.

There were three things you could be assigned to when working as an MP. Either straight street patrol where you drove or rode around in a military police vehicle with the big blue light on top or you could ride around in a jeep as a security patrol officer. Then there were the miscellaneous tasks too such as being a crossing guard for the post elementary school. That was my first assignment. I was assigned a 45 caliber pistol and an M-16 rifle. For the task, I checked out my .45 and a magazine with rounds in it and I had no idea how to carry the thing. I’d attended training at the ranges of course so I knew how to shoot it an all but had no idea how to carry it. I’d been assigned my standard equipment, belt, holster, lanyard, hat, badge, etc. So I carefully chambered a round and even more carefully, let the hammer down, certainly a mistake but again, I didn’t know any better.

I did perform the other tasks as well. Security patrol was pretty boring most of the time. Generally it was an evening or overnight shift so you spent time riding out to the ranges checking for unauthorized folks and checking the back gate to make sure they were closed. You’d also drive around the warehouses making sure shops were closed and no-one was out poking around where they shouldn’t be. Once one of the guys rode the jeep out onto the golf greens and messed one up pretty badly apparently. Another guy had lots of knowledge but almost no common sense. He once went to the Senior NCO Club and wrote tickets to all the cars parked in the loop while on security patrol. It was illegal sure, but writing tickets to Senior NCOs wasn’t a real smart thing to do.

The patrol car was the most interesting part of being an MP. We’d show up for guard mount about 30 minutes before shift started then head to the motor pool to check out a vehicle. Start it, walk around it making sure lights and all were working then head back to the station to pick up your partner who’d been getting paperwork in order. I pulled a few people over for speeding or running stop signs. We never had radar though so never got to do that. I’d have to occasionally go to court to defend one of my tickets. My first time at court, never being 100% sure of anything, I said I wasn’t able to 100% confirm my observation and the ticket was dropped. I was chastised a bit by my partner and my platoon Sargent. I was also given some ideas on how to remember things such as writing down details on the ticket so I could remember them months later in court. I had my biases as well. Since I absolutely never run stop signs, I was more open to writing a ticket for it. But I do speed, so not wanting to be a hypocrite, I would let folks off with a warning if they weren’t going too fast.

One of the most fun things to me was being the dispatcher. When an opening came up, I put in my request. I’d get to spend time at the station instead of driving around and respond to phone calls then send folks out to respond to problems. I recall a big desk with one of the old time (at the time at least) mics. We had a sheet of the standard MP radio codes and even a sheet of what to do if you pulled over a high ranking officer (Colonel or higher). Vehicles had post stickers on them. Red for enlisted and blue for officers. The higher ranking enlisted and officers had rank stickers that went next to their sticker so folks knew it was an officer or specifically a Colonel.

You really didn’t want to take your motorcycle (which I was riding at the time) to the station when you’re in gear so I’d get a ride in one of the MP vehicles. One morning after an overnight (mids) shift, we were riding by the company who was preparing for physical training (PT) and we drove past the Battalion Commander. Sitting in the back, I saluted and after we went by I said something like, “and you can kiss my ass too.” Well, I didn’t think I said it all that loud but the guy driving (Levesque) said the Commander turned around so he thought he’d heard my comment. He told the Patrol Sargent (Blakowski) (odd how I remember these names 🙂 ) who escalated it up to the Company Commander. He decided to give me an Article 15 “just in case” which had me lose a couple of bucks for a few months but also had me performing extra duty. The extra duty was to take sandpaper and sand all the paint off of a desk. I did do the sanding but while I was doing so, I sanded around an “FTA” (Fuck The Army; a pretty standard epithet in The Army) for which I received a little “talking to” by the Platoon Sargent and sanded it out the next day. I was a little PO’d at my “friends” (remember back at the beginning when I first got there, I still didn’t click with the Platoon) and said some threatening things about the Patrol Sargent which of course someone repeated on to the Platoon Sargent. This begins the next transition.

I was relieved of duty 😮 and sent to speak to the Mental Health folks. Of course I wasn’t interested in offing anyone, I was just spouting off but they did come up with an interesting proposition. Would I be happier if I transferred into being an Illustrator or Graphics Arts person working in the Battalion headquarters. That actually sounded interesting and I agreed that it would be best. It’s interesting how the smallest things send you off on different paths. This is likely the one that sent me off to Computers as you’ll see later.

Posted in About Carl, Alabama, Maryland | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A Year Away From Home

Posted on September 4, 1973 by Freejack

In 1973 when I was 16, dad was going to Bremerton Washington but only for a year. The family was to actually ride an aircraft carrier (The Enterprise I believe) up for some reason and then be back the following year. In an interesting turn of events, my Aunt Pinky and Uncle Rod offered to let me stay with them on Benecia Road in Benecia. My aunt and uncle were pretty cool guys and had two daughters; Susan (8 I think) and Chrissy (6 I think). They’d play pinochle with my grandparents. I thought this was the best thing so I of course decided to stay in the area.

They had the greatest Addams family type of house. A big musty basement, two main floors with a main staircase and a back staircase and a small tower in the front of the house with stairs up to it. Coming down the back stairs would put you in the linens and dishes storage area for the main dining room which was through the door. I had the front left room so I could look out onto the street. The walls were all plaster and lathe and they were working on restoring the place. At the back door was a big iron stove. The dining room had regular drywall but it wasn’t painted and the kids had a free hand to be creative by drawing all over the walls. They had a big open garage to the right of the house where Uncle Rod would make truck caps. Also, to the rear and left of the house was a smaller garage with a flight of stairs up to a “mother-in-law” apartment. Uncle Rod’s grandma stayed up there (my great grandmother).

Uncle Rod was pretty cool. He raced Bultaco motorcycles and would take his kids scrambling up the hill that was across the street from the house. He wanted me to ride with him once but I declined, it looked pretty scary. He did “give” me an old bike that he had sitting in his garage. He said it had broken seals and I had absolutely no idea what that meant. But it was cool to sit on it. Uncle Rod also hunted with a bow. And of course they played pinochle so we’d play three handed pinochle fairly often with him and Aunt Pinky (she was an American Indian).

Susan was 8 and had an Indian look; black hair and eyebrows. Chrissy looked more like Uncle Rod with mousy brown hair. Susan wasn’t real outgoing? Friendly? From all this time, I can’t really give a good description of that. Chrissy was a lot more friendly so we’d hang out more often.

Once we organized the basement cleaning it up spic and span. We had a great time cleaning and organizing and when we were done we lay on a raised wooden platform making plans to bring down a TV and generally using it as an inside fort.

For some odd reason I don’t know for sure, I had my bb gun with me and I leaned out of my window and shot the neighbor to the right’s car window. I was looking down pretty steeply so it wasn’t a straight shot but I must have hit it just right because it shattered. Of course Aunt Pinky and Uncle Rod replaced the window and I lost the BB gun. I don’t know what eventually happened to it.

One morning I was awoken by a small sound, like “oh oh” but I couldn’t clearly make it out and just went back to sleep. I found out later than great grandma had fallen down the stairs into the driveway and she was making that sound. Unfortunately she broke her hip. I did say that I’d heard a sound and got a little talking to about not investigating. I felt bad about not checking it out of course.

I’d walk to Hogan High School every day. It wasn’t a long walk, just a few blocks so it wasn’t a problem doing so.

I found two books when I was there. Mary Stewart – The Crystal Cave which I since replaced because I found out it was a series and I picked up the series from the Science Fiction Book Club, and The Edge of The Chair edited by Joan Kahn which, interestingly I still have.

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