First we dabble in misogyny

The Test!

A dog is truly a man's best friend. If you don't believe it, just try this experiment.

Put your dog and your wife in the trunk of the car for an hour.

When you open the trunk, who's really happy to see you?

Incredibly enough, this post is about respect. We were out in the shed, trying to get my Mercury outboard to consistentantly run right, which pretty much consists of me standing around observing someone who actually knows what they're doing and occasionally fetching a tool or flashlight. Hey, it's my maintenance system and I find it to be pretty easy and reasonably priced. Somehow, though, I have digressed.

So I was telling G-Man about these retired squids we ran into at a Winghouse who, at 50+ years old, were in some serious arrested development, acting like stupid teenagers away from home for the first time. They wanted to play napkin basketball, using the waitress' cleavage for a basket and, unfortunately, were making sure all around them could see what fun and crazy guys they were....not. They made sure to recount wild tale after wild tale about the incredibly cool whorehouses to be found in the ports that they had visited, again for the benefit for those around them.

Now, I have seen the aforementioned whore houses, and without submitting a lot of detail here, am familiar with how they operate. I am not, however, under the assumption that the only thing any of these countries has to offer are cat houses on the dark end of the street. But these guys rated every country they had ever been to solely on the looseness and cheapness of their prostitutes. They even offered up this gem that, and I do quote, "Forget Costa Rica. They wised up and the hookers are not as cheap as they used to be." Yep, a ringing endorsement, especially when coming from a 50 year old child in a USN ballcap and another in an American Airlines pilot's uniform. Pretty much without even trying, the group managed to completely offend both me and DRE (married to a Thai and Filipina, respectively). And really, the two of us are neither naive nor easily offended.

My wife has had occasion to see me "in the wild" as it were. I was just another tourist in Bangkok, a single man with plenty of time and spending money. I was unencumbered, and that is important to the story. Because I would stop by and chat with her as I headed out around lunchtime, and stop by again as I was returning home, usually not particularly inebriated, and always unaccompanied. Seeing as how a willing companion could be found starting 2 doors down and stretching for several blocks, it was obviously my choice to be solitary. So now, as a married man who travels, it is easier to be believable when I state that I don't fool around on the road because she knows I was not real prone to it when I was free to.

She has also seen me hit town with some of my young petty officers from the ship. A few years after we were married she told me that seeing me with my guys was when she knew I was a good man. We would all be in a group talking and laughing and one of my guys would say or do something exuberent, but inappropriate. Maybe disrespectful. And she said she couldn't hear what I would say, but heard my voice get hard and saw my smile disappear. She said she would watch the youngin snap back into focus after being corrected. She liked the way I was proactive in teaching them to be citizens of the world and made them apologize when they acted stupidly. Then we would get to laughing and enjoying ourselves again. I was never one to squelch a good time, you just had to be polite about it.

I saw too much disrespect in the 80s, when we were still hitting PI regularly. I saw it, to a lesser extent, in other ports, but Olongapo/Barreto/Subic City is where I formed my style. Guys would get all liquored up and have the full attention of a whole bevy of young women, although the girls were more interested in the huge wad of pesos in their pocket than in anything else. We called it having "peso-nality". The guys got away with pulling a lot of crap (slapping asses, talking dirty, and more)and began to feel like this was the norm. Trust me, in a society that is heavily Catholic, it is not the norm. It was tolerated near the base only because letting squids get drunk and horny successfully separated same squids from LARGE sums of money with what was, realistically, minimal effort. Smile, laugh, flash a tit, rake in money. In the PI, life was normally much harder than that.

But then some guys would take to throwing money into sewage ditches to see the kids scramble in after it. Or throw peso coins off the bar roofs at the children below. Not to the children, at the children. I saw a guy piss on a beggars feet, and another yell at an old woman with a beggars cup. I saw much arrogance and stupidity and all that stuff really offended my sensibilities. And as I rose in the ranks, I did what I could to stop it.

My troops were required to go out with me on the first day. I showed them how to deal with the provost marshalls at the gate, as those guys would just smack you down rather than bother arguing with you. I showed them where and how to exchange money, how to catch a jeepney, how much to pay a jeepney, where the cold beer was, and how to get laid without getting took off into the hinterlands, robbed, stripped, and left to walk home in your skivvies (assuming you were wearing skivvies). They were only with me an hour or two, but my knowledge was vast and I got them right to the point. I wasn't looking for steaming buddies out of the little peckerheads, just needed to show 'em the ropes so I didn't spend my time off trying to get them out of the brig later. And being polite and respectful in dealings with the locals was a big part of my spiel.

The one point I always came back to was this. If tourists from another country came to your town, you'd be OK with that. If they spent a lot of money locally, that would be cool too as the benefits would tend to trickle down. And if they hit the local nightclubs, laughing and drinking and getting exuberant, you'd be happy that they were having a good time. But then, when they yelled at your mom, pissed on your dad, and hit your brother in the head with a projectile half dollar, well then you'd probably start re-thinking your whole outlook on these folks. Once I had agreement with that, I would point out that they did not want to be that person and I would not put up with it if they did. I turned out some well behaved young sailors, evidenced by the extremely low number of my younginswho wound up in front of the old man for liberty incidents.

I have watched the Democratic Convention and the Republican Convention (so far) and am still largely undecided. Not a big fan of Palin up til now. A lot of tough talk, and that's about it. In fact, the only thing I like about the McCAin campaign is John McCain. I have always liked him, I just wish he had some ideas to throw around. I get it... Obama is wet behind the ears and you don't like him. Fair enough. Now, what are you going to ACCOMPLISH if elected?

Been very busy working with the software folks in California, making sure that I am completely comfortable using a networked version of our latest upgrade, and test driving the new training library. Don't sound like much, but it's work.

Have also accidentally had a week home, so I got a doctors appointment took care of, went fishing twice, and did the yard work that comes with owning a small suburban territory in what God originally intended to be jungle. I also planned and booked a 3 day mini-vacation in Cocoa Beach for later this month. Been a fruitful couple of weeks. Jaw at you later.

We built this city with crocs we stole, out

Ramblin' Ed