Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
After I finished my morning download ritual this morning and prepared to go outdoors to bring up Old Sol and turn out the chickens I checked Ask Old Jules Biggest Regret?to see which of my brainstorms of the past she’s picked for the day. I take a lot of things about myself for granted and occasionally one of my answers rattles me a bit, gets me asking questions about me and what makes me tick. This morning is one of those.
Sitting out there under the tree I found myself asking, “What in the dickens is wrong with me that I feel so content and can’t come up with anything to regret? It ain’t as though I haven’t gone the last mile to assure myself of plenty any sane person would prefer to be otherwise.”
I can’t guess how many people live the way I do, close to the cuff, physically having to force myself to maintain a comfort range that includes whatever the Universe tossed my way. Probably a lot do in the poorer countries, but likely not too many within the boundaries of the US. But when I see some evidence of them, I generally find myself on the edge of feeling sorry for them.
But meanwhile, I’m about as content, almost euphoric about my own life most of the time as a person could be. Yeah, there are nagging things need doing, need changing, forever being pushed forward in time for one reason or another because of limited options. But they whisper from the wings and mostly I don’t pay them any mind.
“Would I like, or trust someone like me if I came across him?” That’s what I finally found myself asking. And the answer’s a bit confusing to me. “No,” I’m forced to admit, “I probably wouldn’t. How the hell could you trust someone like that? “
“So, do you want to change it?”
“I’d hate to. I’m more-or-less fond of being happy. But it might be better to cultivate some regrets, some yank-your-heart-out-things I wish I’d done differently. This satisfaction thing can be taken too far.”
Cultivating regrets, yearnings, deep feelings of loss might just be what it takes to live a life of fulfillment. It would open the door to finding things to be scared of, frightened they’d happen. Angry because they did, or didn’t.
I’ve been coming across the word disambiguation somewhat frequently on the web lately. It always brings a smile when I see it, gives me a momentary ambition to disambiguate something.
But the problem is that I don’t know anything much. Even inside the 21st Century where uninformed opinion is respectable, almost universal, and carries the certainty and power of positive speaking, I just don’t know anything much.
Besides, the dialup connection, or WordPress is being a pure D Communist this morning. It’s taking me forever to even load the site. I’m rolling on the floor with joy everytime it tells me it can’t find the webpage.
So instead of disambiguating you readers on some uninformed opinion I have, I think I’ll give you a quick and dirty on something I know something about because I’ve discovered it around here and watched it happen.
I’ve told you about the Great Speckled Bird and how he’s in decline because of something he did in his youth to cripple him up something awful. One side of him just doesn’t work the way it ought to, and it causes him a lot of pain and distress. I’ve expected him almost every morning to be dead when I go out to turn them out for free ranging.
But I’ve been making up orange-peel tincture and treating him with it for a longish while, and it always makes him feel better after I’ve done it. Sometimes when he’s in particular pain he actually volunteers, gimps over and sits around near where I am, hinting.
I don’t have arthritis troubling me, but if I did, the Great Speckled Bird testifies it’s the way to the truth and the light, orange peel tincture. He says it’s the difference between Chit and Shinola.
Costs almost nothing to make, too. Just put your orange or grapefruit peels into a jar of vinegar instead of throwing them away. In a while you’ll have a tincture.
If it hadn’t been for an old friend who was a pilot telling me I could fly an airplane as cheaply as I could spend an hour on the range practicing with a large-bore pistol every week, I’d probably never have thought of doing it. But something about the idea grabbed me.
I went out to the Killeen, Texas airport and took a few lessons to find out whether flying was one of the adventures I wanted to give myself this lifetime. Turned out there was no question in the question.
But being a man of ideas, not much time passed before I decided I could buy an old aircraft and save a lot of the cost of renting one while I learned. A 1947 Cessna was sitting on the strip with a for sale sign on it, that one at the top of the post, so I bought it.
But finding an instructor to teach me to fly a taildragger cut down a lot of my options. I ended up with a guy named John Rynertson, who introduced himself by saying he was one of the best pilots around. He owned a Cessna 120, and John taught me enough to get me started.
But we had a falling out, him not soloing me in a timely manner, me thinking he wasn’t doing so because he wanted to maximize the trainer fees. One day we landed, me thinking this was the day of the solo, and he sneered I wasn’t ready yet. We were standing by the airplane, so I climbed inside, started the engine and taxied down to the end of the runway, gave myself my first solo flight, illegal.
John and I didn’t have much truck with one another after that. I flew that old Cessna without having a ticket allowing me to do it, while he flew his C120 up one day and pulled the wings off it in a snap-roll, killing himself exactly the way a man ought to do if he’s going to pull the wings off a Cessna.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I’d taken off downwind for the first time. I couldn’t find another instructor, and I was relocating to another town at the time, where nobody knew me. So for several years I flew that Cessna, 500+ hours flying time, as though I was entirely legal. Flew out to New Mexico, over to Savanna, Georgia, sleeping under the wing along the way, with no license to pilot an aircraft.
But eventually word got around the Georgetown Municipal Airport and someone cautioned me the FBO was going to rat me out to the FAA. I decided it was time to complete my training. Found an old outlaw pilot to sign me off and made an appointment with the FAA examiner in Austin.
When he looked at my log and saw I had 500 hours he shook his head a longish time. “I’ve been checking out pilots for thirty years. Before you the one with the most flying hours I’d ever seen was a guy with 100 hours, and he almost killed me during the check ride. Couldn’t fly an airplane.”
I grinned at him. “You care to watch me take it around the patch a few times before we do the check ride? I’ll get the numbers every time around and turn off by the first taxi way.”
We did the check ride and I flew back to Georgetown legal, for the first time.
NCOs dressing down fresh arrivals who didn’t clean their rifles or had Frito Lay in their gas-mask bags always began, “When Joe Chink comes across that line [fill in the blank]. Joe Chink. The imaginary Chinamen poised across the DMZ sharpening their bayonets. We were there to scare them into not coming South, and whup if they did. 50,000 of us.
They’re still over there waiting, those GIs, 25,000 of them, but nowadays I doubt they’re being threatened with Joe Chink. Joe Chink makes the parts for all their weapons, ammunition, their boots, every item of their equipment. Joe Chink loans money to their overlords to pay for it and pay their salaries.
And back in the God, Country and My Baby heaven Joe Chink’s athletic shoes carry America’s finest boys and jerseys up and down pastures carrying Joe Chink’s footballs for the edification of cheering spectators wearing Joe Chink’s clothing, head-t0-foot.
Back then most of us who had any knowledge of the Republic of Korea military didn’t have much doubt the ROK Army [South Korean] could whip the pants off the US Army if they wanted to, and have plenty left over to take care of Joe Chink if he came across the DMZ.
But nowadays it’s probably North Koreans the US Army’s scaring into not doing anything ugly to all those factories in South Korea making the rest of what US consumers need but can’t get from Joe Chink. Factories, and the ROK Army which could almost certainly still whip the pants off those 25,000 GIs still over there.
“Thank you for your service,” romantic patriots are fond of saying.
Even for people who lived it, the past squirms around and tries to avoid close examination of how things looked going in, compared to how things appeared later.
It’s not easy for the mind to put itself into a time when Vietnam wasn’t a name anyone would recognize. But in 1962 when all the enlisted men in my unit in Massachusetts were required to attend counter-insurgency training the first session required an explanation: “Vietnam is Indochina. Next to Laos.”
Everyone had vivid recollections of a ‘brink of war’ incident in Laos a short while earlier. And Everyone remembered the daily news reports from a few years earlier of the French getting themselves soundly booted out of French Indochina.
Counter-insurgency training turned out to be the pointee-heads in the US Army feeling around for soldiers interested in one of two particular types of duty. ‘Special Forces’ units were being organized, mainly for people who’d already gone through Airborne and Ranger training. Some were already serving in Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. “Sneaky Petes” they were dubbed.
The other type was the Military Advisory Group. MAG. Regular troops stationed in remote areas with Republic of Vietnam units to provide advice, which we Americans were already good at giving a lot of without following it ourselves.
We went through the training, but nobody from my unit volunteered for either of those duties. But within a couple of months three of us who’d attended the training were levied for overseas, to Military Advisory Groups in Vietnam. May, or June, 1963, we’d arrive there.
In those early days a soldier, even an enlisted one, had a number of options regarding assignments, despite the initial levies, if he played his cards right. Sitting down with a friendly Sargeant-Major early in the game and asking advice was the first step.
Vietnam and MAG duty was considered a ‘hardship’ tour, as was Korea, and at that time, Alaska. It wasn’t combat duty. It was just one of the particularly lousy places a troop could be sent in the service of Queen Jacqueline Kennedy.
“It’s a tough call.” Sargeant-Major Griggs had served all over the Pacific during WWII and afterward. “Korea’s colder than hell in the winter. It’s the reason we call it ‘Frozen Chosen’.” He held up his hand showing me the finger he’d had shot off while he watched the Chinese coming across the Yalu River during the Korean War.
“But unless you want to take a chance on getting Malaria, you might be better off in Korea. All that crap down in the South Pacific is a mosquito hell. If you’d like me to I can call the Sargeant-Major of the Army in the Pentagon and see if we can get you a tour in Korea instead of Indochina.”
So, after kicking it around a while, I asked him to make his call and find me an assignment in Korea. May, 1963, I found myself on the USNS Sultan with around 2000 other GIs headed for Frozen Chosen.
We had a wild old time on the Sultan. The cruise was a long one because every few hours they’d shut down the engines and lower some kind of sensor to the ocean bottom as part of an ongoing undersea research project. The sea was generally calm, almost glass most of the way, porpoise and flying fish cutting the surface, sometimes banging themselves against the side of the ship.
Below-decks fortunes by enlisted-man standards were lost and won in 24/7 poker, gin, and rummy games. So long as there was no fighting nobody cared what went on down there.
We reached Pearl Harbor and everyone got shore leave for a few hours, preceded by dire warnings about HASP. Hawaii Armed Services Police. “Don’t mess with them. Do what they say or you’ll end up in the stockade or back here on a stretcher.” But 2000 GIs with cabin-fever were too many even for the HASP to keep in line. “Be back on board by midnight. Anyone who isn’t checked in here at midnight is going to wave us goodbye from the stockade.”
Hotel Street briefly had all the usual suspects of merchant mariners, US Navy, and enough wild-assed drunk youngsters off the Sultan to satisfy the most discerning needs of the community. At 11:30 I was standing in line at a tattoo parlor waiting to get a tattoo on a dare. The guy in front of me was getting a cherry tattoo with the words, “Here’s mine! Where’s yours?”
As the artist finished up someone shouted, “We’ve got to get back to the ship. We’ll be lucky if we make it!”
Luckyluckyluckylucky. Back on board as everyone began sobering up the head was full of GIs trying to wash off tattoos. One guy had “In Memory of My Mother” with a rose vine wrapping itself around a tombstone on his bicep. “She ain’t even dead. What the hell did I do that for?”
More endless days at sea, a brief stop in Japan for half-dozen of us toughees to get the socks whipped off us outside a bar by three Australian Merchant Mariners, and on to Inchon.
13 months later the trip home on the USNS Breckinridge was a different matter entirely. The sea was rough, pervasive odor of vomit on all decks. Discipline severe, pecker checks every few days to ferret out the multitude of VD cases. I’ve sometimes thought those troop-ship pecker-checkers might have found the sorriest job a human being could have. Imagine hitting the floor in the morning knowing you’re about to have to watch 2000 of those things milked down before breakfast.
And everyone suddenly knew exactly where Vietnam was. Rumor had it anyone who was going stateside reassignment would be going there in a few months.
Morning to you readers. I’m obliged you came by for a read.
If I’m going to get anywhere in this life I think I’m going to have to learn how to not be so stupid.
Yesterday I made that post about the F350 wiring, which I’d been fretting and gnashing my teeth about for months. Ben offered to try to find me a wiring diagram, and tffnguy recommended a Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forum. I felt fairly uppidy and hopeful, but not sky-high enthusiastic because I’ve learned the hard way to suppress my melodrama.
But I went to the Forum site and immediately remembered I’d been there before, several months ago. The reason I remembered was the popup advertisement for Phoenix University that blocked the entire screen and came back as soon as I clicked the X, every time. The site took forever to load on a dialup, too. So I blew it off and spent the next few months twiddling my thumbs trying to find ways to fix the immediate problem.
But yesterday, because of tffnguy’s recommendation I fought my way through the esoterica, waited while things loaded, killed popups as though I could dress them out and have them for supper. Registered, posted a question about the wiring, along with pics, and asked for any help anyone could offer.
In a matter of hours I had a reply and a wiring diagram. Now I’m back where I could have been several months ago if I’d had the patience and determination to wait for that site to load and posted an identical request back then.
Gale’s fond of saying that during the 40-odd years we’ve been friends every mutual acquaintance, if asked to list my traits would have had, “If there’s an easy way and a hard way, he’ll pick the hard way and stay to the end.”
Maybe I’m beginning to understand what they were talking about. If I can get that grapefruit out of my mouth I might try to sort it out and change it.
Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.
Maybe I was too much like the guy in the picture above trying to find a vet to work on his dog. I borrowed Little Red yesterday and drove into Harper to talk to the Real Mechanic I had in mind to work on the New Truck.
He seemed a nice enough guy, but when I explained what I had in mind, described the truck and the problem, he explained he didn’t care to have anything to do with it.
There’s another Real Mechanic in town, but I decided to back off and think about how to approach this a bit more rather than ask and have him say, ‘no’, too.
The frustrating thing about it all is the fact I could get that truck running well enough to drive it into town myself if I could find photographs of the wiring on a running 1983 F350 with a similar engine. I’d replace the wiring myself, then just take it in to get whatever else needs doing for an inspection sticker.
Today I’m posting a plea on Kerrville and Fredericksburg Freecycle groups for under-the-hood photos with the air cleaner removed from anyone owning a running truck of that vintage. If that doesn’t turn up anything I’ll post on Kerrville Marketplace group offering whatever price it takes to get photos, I reckons.
Crazycrazycrazycrazy. I honestly never anticipated a man in the bidness of fixing cars would refuse to fix one. Guess the economy isn’t as bad as I’ve been hearing it is.
Maybe I need to find a vet.
Old Jules
Today on Ask Old Jules:
Old Jules, what was the happiest time in your life?
Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
Nobody much uses a tow bar anymore. The only thing available to rent in town was something called a ‘car dolly’, and I didn’t like the idea of renting one, even a little bit. But Gale’s reluctance to pull the New Truck into town with a chain was expressing itself full volume without him having to say anything outright.
I’d put notices on Kerrville Freecycle, Kerrville Marketplace, done everything I could think of without success. But a week or so ago Gale mentioned he’d seen one for $100 at a thrift store in Kerrville. At least he thought it was a tow bar. He said it had been sitting there a goodly while.
Those of you who read here probably know the idea of paying price-tag prices for something isn’t in my makeup. And $i00 for a tow bar, while probably a reasonable price, just wasn’t something I was about to do. I’d rent a car dolly first.
I borrowed Little Red and made a special trip to town in the hope it was a tow bar, and in the further hope they’d be ready enough to see it gone to be willing to do some horse trading. When I arrived unsuspecting began a bargaining session lasted maybe two hours. Tough, tough, tough, those people have become.
The only time in my life I ever recall having to dicker that hard for anything was in Mexico when I was 17 years old bargaining for a pair of needle-toed, fancy-stitched turquoise-dyed-stovepipe topped boots. I’d only tried one of them on and the fit was perfect. Got that guy down to $17 for the pair. But when I got back to Portales and put them on, turned out they were two different sizes. Killed my feet, wearing them.
But I’ve digressed.
As you can see from the pic, the tow bar’s now here, same size for both feet. And now it’s only going to be a matter of prying Gale away from whatever else he thinks he ought to be doing to get the New Truck to a Real Mechanic.
Savor sugar words
Pulse rushing to a touch
Hold tight the triggered yearning
From a voice on the phone
While it lasts
Swim in honey
And be glad
Let it hold you
Over breakfast dirty dishes
Stale cold coffee
Of the years
Sustain you through emergence
Of a human side of humans
Viewed by humans
Toenail clippings
Bad-breath mornings
PMS
And milk gone sour
In the fridge
Sit back remember
Savor sugar words
And be glad
I’ve been mildly curious watching myself for a considerable while. Weight was peeling off me and I was forgetting to eat. My body would notify me I hadn’t eaten anything in a day or two by a dose of the blind staggers, or just a dizzy spell to get me thinking back on when I last ate something.
Most of what I cook around here’s cheap and simple because of the fact I ran out of propane early last year and haven’t refilled the bottle, and because hauling water makes washing cookware an expense measured in hauling trips. So I was living mostly on potato combinations, yogurt combinations, fruit combinations and various bean concoctions. I was at the point of hating to look any one of them in the eye.
Then one day in the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Kerrvillle I saw that rice and veggie steamer still in the box for sale for a dollar. It didn’t appear to ever have been used. So, I bought it, thinking rice and steamed veggies would at least be different.
Sheeze, the best purchase since my High Roller back in 1972. The tow bar I bought the other day might turn out to be a better deal, but I haven’t figured out anyway to cook with it. But I’ve digressed.
What I’ve re-discovered is the absolute, euphoria-laden joy of food. I’m making better meals on that thing than I could even find in a restaurant in town, but if I could, couldn’t afford them. I’ll make up a batch of one or another Asian-like mix thinking it will last two days, then find I have to fight a war with myself to keep from eating it at a single sitting.
It does require loads of fresh onion, garlic, jalapeno, cayenne, curry and ginger. I buy bags of trail mix of various sorts, dried mango, papaya, raisins and cranberrys at the Dollar Tree and pour on top, a little of each. The food bills went up something awful last month. But I don’t forget to eat.
And the simple truth is, some of these meals turn out to be classed among the best I’m able to recall having anytime in my life.
Anyone says an old dog can’t learn new tricks is kidding himself.
74 years old, a resident of Leavenworth, KS, in an apartment located on the VA campus. Partnered with a black shorthaired cat named Mister Midnight. (1943-2020)
Since April, 2020, this blog is maintained by Jeanne Kasten (See "About" page for further information).
https://sofarfromheaven.com/2020/04/21/au-revoir-old-jules-jack-purcell/
I’m sharing it with you because there’s almost no likelihood you’ll believe it. This lunatic asylum I call my life has so many unexpected twists and turns I won’t even try to guess where it’s going. I’d suggest you try to find some laughs here. You won’t find wisdom. Good luck.
So Far From Heaven 
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