"Out of true" moments

OC it may be, I have to have sharp pencils before I start rabbiting away, even when the bulk of my work is done on the computer. I dislike a dull pencil when a sharpener is an armlength away. First pencil grinds away, too long a time. Second, the same. The points are unevenly sharpened, with more lead/graphite showing on one side than the other. I remember what Henry Petroski said in his book on the pencil: the lead is off center, out of true....Is this another sign of the Decline of the West? Lazy manufacturing processes, or is my 'lectric sharpener going rogue?

We lost "Doc" from rehab over the holidays. Charlie, who has been attending rehab for over ten years, told me Doc had Gone West. I did not know Doc well: we exchanged greetings. He was over 80, carried an O2 bottle around through rehab. Gotta admire those old guys, they press on with a minimum of fuss.

C. Aubrey Smith, team captain of the Hollywood Cricket Club, looks like a fellow who would do little fussing. Caught him in von Sternberg's Scarlet Empress last night. A fascinating film: I had never seen it, I am ashamed to say. Sets by Hans Dreier (thank you, IMDB! ), who got his start in Germany and worked on over 500 films, were gorgeous, as were the uncredited (Travis Banton )costumes. Freakish sculpture by Peter Ballbusch lent a creepy feeling to the interiors. And of course, there was Marlene, Josef's little pal since Der Blaue Engel; beautifully shot by Bert Glennon the cinematographer, though with von Sternberg's rep as an early auteur, I'd say he had a thing or two to do with some of those shots. Sam Jaffe, in his screen debut, was cast as the half-wit heir to the throne. The film is a beautiful depiction of an out of true royal court.

Tankin' tonight !

O yeah.,
originally uploaded by scp2695.

We have snow on the ground;a decent amount, too. The right snow (with an icy crust on top) will reflect the moon's light, illuminating the woods ; that reminds me of the rough beauty of flares against snow, and that reminds me of tanks.

I joined the Reserves for a whole 'nother blog entry's reasons. I trained on M-60A1s at Fort Knox; when I got to my unit, Troop D, 5th Armored Cavalry at Fort Devens, they had 'straight' M-60's, the first version of the M-60. Later we were issued the last version of the '60, the M60A3. A sweet shooting and scooting tank. It was our first 'digital' tank,with an excellent main gun fire control system. After the hand cranked range finders of earlier models, just pushing the button to get the range with the laser range finder was swell. Excellent tight turret stabilization helped with firing on the move, a big plus.

We had two training cycles: gunnery , followed by a maneuver year. Gunnery cycles were spent on the tank range (think a 2 mile wide by 5 mile deep gravel pit); maneuver training was spent in the boonies.That was when the black berets came out. See, other NATO tankers have worn black berets since before there was a NATO, so some of our older tankers thought American tankers should do so. In the New England spring and summer, maneuvers were great, knocking down trees and conducting tank and wingman exercises. Winter training was more rigorous. No bumping trees, the tc hated it when the snow fell on him..... We had excellent cold weather gear , but 58 tons of steel can hold a lot of cold. The tanks had heaters, which worked most of the time. After a night road march, crews would sleep on the back deck of their tank, above the warm diesel engine. An extreme violation of doctrine (if an rpg hits a track one is sleeping on, all bets are off), but in that flip dark chill winter night it felt great. Nothing illustrates the expression 'hog on ice' better than a tank on the road in winter. I never lost control while driving one, but had a couple interesting rides. A tank commander told me the tanks have less ground pressure per square inch than a refrigerator, even though they still had a tendency to pack snow to ice.

There are other aspects of tanking I have not jabbered about; that will have to be a future post. I would like to wish all 7 of my readers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, with special greetings for Barret Bonden and The Crow, two people who inspire, entertain, and inform me. Thank you.

FNG, again.

Cardiac rehab is interesting. Always jumping, always a line. Pop. is generally white male 48-80ish, tho' there is a guy looks about 38, and about 4 or 5 females of "a certain age". Working class to executives judging from clothes. NASCAR t-shirts, shirts with bible quotes, and garage/wrecker shirts on the former; street clothes, surprisingly, on a couple; and athletic suits (?) for the exec.types. There are farmers too, judging by hands and clothing. One gent wears a belt AND suspenders; the hairs on the back o' me neck rise, cannot 'splain why.....

Speaking of sure things: conversations run from football and deer hunting to pissing and moaning about President Obama. Unless there are black people in attendance; then there is no whining about the President. There is a radio, not always on, thankfully. Sessions last 45 minutes without a class, and an hour with a class. I enjoy the rowing machine, makes me feel all a-viking, and detest the Satan bicycle. Going for the gestalt here folks; we also get training on diet, stress relief (HA!), etc. I learned there is one thing no cardiac patient should do: shovel snow. It was news to me . Theories are the arteries constrict in colder weather, exacerbating even minor build-ups of plaque, causing blockages.

Being up to greet the sun, even to shovel snow, is good medicine. My first job in 1968, ink still wet on my Social Security card (thank you, Franklin! ), required me to be there at 0430. Newspapers to sort, count, and bundle for the delivery boys and stores. A great time o' the day. I felt, even those days I froze walking to Columbian Square, that I was getting one up on the day (o foolish youth!). Dad, a reticent Yankee, gave me one piece of advice: "mouth shut and ears open.". It worked at McGaw News Agency, APA Transport, Time-DC Trucking, The Tufts Library, Plaza Men's Shop, and Kellaway Transportation. It worked in the US Army, 3 colleges and two, no three, model clubs. It is working for me now in rehab. Nope,I don't mind being the FNG atall atall.

"The beatings will continue until morale improves".

Got that right, Captain Teach. Beaufort, North Carolina (34° 43′ 15″ N, 76° 39′ 9″ W ) associates itself with E. Teach, aka Blackbeard, the pirate; the presumed wreck of his ship (Queen Anne's Revenge) is nearby. So are crappy "Brethren of the Coast" souvenirs, etcetera. Notwithstanding pirate cargo cult trinkets, Beaufort is a good boat town. A gorgeous "Watercraft Center" for boat building and restoration is across the street from an excellent maritime museum.

The coast of NC was a jumping area during the Civil War, the name I was taught to call it growing up in the North. Down Here, 'bout the best moniker you can get is The War Between The States. Big topic: pops up all the time in one form or another. NC has 1 0f 3 extant ironclads; the timbers of the CSS Neuse were dug out of the river she was named for and dragged to a park in Kinston. There is also a 1/1 wooden mockup of her nearby, really cool. The Confederacy, with about 4,000 miles of coast to defend, a blockade along that coast to circumvent, and a big ol' river serving as a spine, had two shipyards: 2. The Federals put the kibosh to them, so the Southern ironclads were built in cornfields along a river. Live oak was the wood of choice; by the 1860's they were rare and in hard to reach areas, so pine had to suffice. Many a time an ironclad, steaming downriver like a snapping turtle, rang with the sound of hammers as she chugged into harm's way. The ironclad design of CSS Virginia and her brood are best for brown water operations, not the open sea. See, they were built like a house. A rectangular box, with angled iron (rarely more than 2, never more than 4 inches thick) casemates over them. A section of armor on the lower side prevent waterline shots. The armor worked: one story, I won't bore you with more. A Yankee lieutenant pulled the lanyard on a rifled 100 pounder gun (see, a revolution in gunnery is occuring with 2 other maritime revolutions: steam screw power and armor);to his dismay the round ricocheted off the reb ironclad 20 feet away, up into the air and landed on the deck of his ship. It exploded, killing him and several other men.


Bibliographic note: an excellent concise introduction to ironclads may be found in War at Sea in the Ironclad Age , by Richard Hill. Civil War Ironclads: The Dawn of Naval Armor, by Charles MacBride , is an excellent overview of the construction and use of ironclad ships by both sides. It is hard-to-find and often cited; talk about fetching up on the Isles of Serendip, I found one at a bookdealer at a local antiques show. A very interesting and quite well written one volume history of the reb navy is Raimondo Luraghi's A History of the Confederate Navy, translated by Paolo E. Coletta. It is very readable, and good scholarship by someone with no axe to grind.

Plan B. Or is this one C?

I have been concentrating on work and cardiac rehab. Things are getting tight : we lost $1 million from overall budget, our book budget halved, Middle and High school visits gone entirely; furloughs are under discussion, and what pops up today in a missive from The Director, may She live long? Early retirement, a new policy. Human Resources will be in contact with individuals eligible for this year's festivities.

Well, if the HR dementers find me, I will suck it up and put the Master Plan into operation. Whatever that is. Large food garden, get crackin' on my threatened novel, and assorted other retirement projects will keep me occupied. I hope.

Once the tedious dust settles , I promise some screeds on fun stuff again: Henry Knox, a very interesting Revolutionary officer; a journey to New England across my family's Styx; where the stimulus money is going; and triplanes.