Today, Raymond V. Murphey on the Castle Heights Facebook page, posted the following:

Does anybody remember the command you call to order the platoon to turn into it’s self? Been trying to remember for sometime. Kinda like, to the rear march, but not…

As Richard Zack, Jr. informed us, “Counter column” was the correct answer. Raymond was thankful for helping him remember.

Several other responses followed.

Gary Moor: “Moor, get your head out …”

Cliff Kyle expanded the exact command to “Counter column march.”

Amy Beth Hale: “Oh, I was going to say column right. Well, I was close.”

The question and the responses brought back many memories. Army (J) ROTC drill was an amazing thing to me. At Castle Heights, we all took pride in doing it well, and we all claimed we hated it. There were some amazingly great lessons in the time we spent on the drill field.

And there were some humorous moments also. i vividly recall when the football team came to practice after a rare drill session at the beginning of the 1958 school year. Snookie Hughes and Gordon “Happy Harper,” two post graduates from Carthage who were recruited for the football team were in Company C when the drill was held.

The squad leader had been giving instruction on how you should never execute a right face when at right shoulder arms. Snookie and Happy were at the head of the squad line. After the instruction session, the squad leader put the squad through several right, left, and about face commands. Then he ordered right shoulder arms. Happy, unused to such drill, hoisted his M1 and held it parallel to the ground, rather than at a 45-degree angle on his shoulder. The squad leader to test his boys ordered “Right face.”

Everyone properly did not execute the order…except for Happy. He turned quickly and whacked Snookie in the back of the head. The tellers of this tale said it knocked Snookie out. i cannot verify that.

My response to Raymond and the responses:

Are you kidding? The Navy got all of that kind of knowledge out of me. In 1974 when discussing the change of command ceremony to be conducted on the USS Hollister in Long Beach, the outgoing captain, XO, and department heads considered what the options were when it rained.

Our dilbert weapons officer suggested that we move the ceremony from the 01 deck (with attendees in folding chairs on the pier) to the reserve armory about 3/4 of a mile away. The captain asked how were we going to get the crew there.

The weapons officer replied, “We’ll march the crew there, sir.”

At that, the captain, the XO, the Ops officer, and yours truly, the chief engineer fell out of our chairs laughing at such a debacle.

The discussion reminded me of a story from one of my best golfing buddies, Marty Linville. Marty, an Army major who was awarded the Silver Star for his actions as an artillery officer in Viet Nam, was stationed at the Naval Amphibious School primarily as the director of the Navy’s gunfire support range on San Clemente Island.

During a rare command personnel inspection, Marty was in charge of the gunfire support personnel. He was having them take position for the inspection as was about to give them the command “dress right, dress,” but had second thoughts. He called his master chief petty officer to the front to consult.

“Master Chief, what should I expect if i order the troops to “dress right dress?”

Without hesitation, the master chief replied, “Chaos, sir; absolute chaos.”

So Raymond, i don’t think my answer has any credibility.

This may end up as a Lebanon Democrat column, but the wonderful afternoon has made me post this in advance.

Maureen and i are looking at options. She is now officially, if not actually, old, and i passed that stage a bunch of years ago. We are now on a fixed income with the exception of stock market and bonds fluctuation, and my continuing thoughts of changing this site to a subscription-base blog (with the help of my friend and freaking brilliant multi-media expert, Walker Hicks).

So we are constantly looking for ways to ensure we can enjoy the rest of our lives in the manner we desire. Relocating is a major consideration. Why? California is one hell of an expensive place to live.

Then things happen like today. Maureen went to yoga, and i did some heavy lifting (for me) yard work. We had Maureeen’s smoothies and her chicken salad for lunch. Then, Maureen suggested we take the rest of the afternoon off.

We did.

We went to Coronado, a place which should be called heaven when i lived there as a single Navy Commander and remains one of my favorite places on earth.

i parked about a half-block from Ocean Boulevard. We walked down the beach access steps, and i was in my wonderful world of long ago. On my last Navy tour, my job was at the Naval Amphibious Base. Nearly every day i was there during lunch, i would run the beach almost six miles to the Navy’s North Island security fence and back. At the west end (the beach faces south), there is a dog beach.

My old lab, Cass, would body surf there. i would wade to waist deep, toss his toy beyond the breakers. Cass would crash into the breakers, find his toy, and body surf back to me. Sometimes i would turn around and as many as one hundred beach goers would be gathered to watch him. i could have kept doing it until he would have given out and drowned.

This place is a solace for me.

First sight walking onto the beach. Point Loma and the Pacific is in the background. Bike racks and beachgoers loving the 70-degree weather.

On the horizon, two “Ro-Ro’s,” large vehicle carriers so named because they are “Roll on, Roll off,” these most likely from Japan or South Korea, that have not been able to enter the bay, moor, and discharge their cargo for reasons i don’t understand (Please explain, Alan Hicks). This folks, is big, big money while the large person sitting in the surf and the others frolicking didn’t spend a dime to be on the beach (of course, they could have spent a fortune to get there).

A young girl, her two brothers, and their young mother admiring their sand castle.

Our walk took us to the Hotel Del Coronado. Some of you who have not traveled to San Diego may remember it from the Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemon movie, “Some Like It Hot.” It has changed, expanded, gotten more expensive, but remains one hell of a place to visit.

I cannot ever create the photographs of Brian Lippe or Lotus Carroll, but this catches the flavor of the walkway at the “Hotel Del” as we call it on the walkway extending toward the beach. i took this photo sitting at the bar of the Gazebo towards the end of the walkway. They used to have a new age combo perform on afternoons like this where all the umbrellas are. The pina coladas are the best  (perhaps it’s just the atmosphere). My parents, Bob and Carol, and many other family and friends have been escorted there by us for the atmosphere and the pina coladas — my parents, especially my mother loved them.

The two small windows in the top center to the left of the famous cupola is the suite where Maureen and i stayed for our twentieth anniversary. We had made reservations for our “getaway” weekend about 15 miles from our home. Upon arrival, we were taken to an interior room about the size of a large closet, the going room for the price we paid. Vowing to make the most of it, we laid down to take a nap.

The phone rang and the receptionist announced that since it was our anniversary, they had upgraded us. The suite was large and the two windows has one of the best views ever. It reminded me of the enormous suite Blythe and i had at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, B.C., again a room assignment sheerly out of luck.

This is the interior courtyard of the Hotel Del Coronado. i would like to have had my older daughter’s wedding and reception here, but that was a wonderful venue in Austin. i would like to have it for my younger daughter’s reception there and a renewal for Maureen and i at some far away time, but i simply don’t have a gazillion dollars to pull it off. Still, it is a nice place to just sit for a while.

On our walk back along Ocean Boulevard, we passed the Spreckles’ home. It has had many owners since the original Spreckles family, notably Larry Lawrence, who owned the Hotel Del Coronado and was the United States ambassador to Switzerland in Clinton’s administration. In the old days, the island was actually two islands, Coronado and North Island, separated by a marshland filled with the Pacific during high tide. Coronado’s polo field, now houses, was on the edge of the Spanish Bight. Spreckles would house a complete polo team in this house and their horses were stabled in the back…a different time.And we took one more look as we turned down the block to our car. Point Loma, beach goers, dunes: a world apart from just across the street.

But folks, i gotta tell you: this kind of stuff makes it awful hard to even consider anywhere but the Southwest corner.

It is quiet now. Maureen, now well into sixty-five is trying to stay awake in her usual place: stretched out on our den love seat with the two cats languishing, one asleep on her legs and the other  next to her side.

Her day has been mostly quiet except for her yoga and numerous phone calls from well wishers.

We capped the day in our preferred way, dining at The Rose in South Park. We shared their special salad and the margherita flatbread. Maureen had a glass of Amalya Malbec and i had two glasses of the Antano tempranillo, concluding with Maureen’s special dessert and my cup of coffee. The Rose is a small place with a relaxed, comfortable atmosphere, much like what we hope our future will be.

Even though we realize it is here, neither of us feel old. She remains beautiful, inside and out. i remain…well, a bit goofy. Life is good, even with all of its troubles.

This is in response to a post from my very good friend, Lisa Engle Lill. She is married to Master Sergeant Markus Lill, whom i also consider a good friend. They are stationed in Beaufort, South Carolina. Her post recalled a story i heard years ago:

In 1973, i learned from the wife of a neighbor in Fort Adams housing about an admiral’s visit to Guam. The neighbor was attending Naval War College while i was on the USS Luce (DLG 7) homeported in Newport and then in Destroyer School for the department head course. Fort Adams housing was for Naval officers and enlisted personnel.

At a neighborhood party, the neighbor related the story about when her husband was stationed in Guam and the Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, a four-star admiral, had visited the island.

He asked to meet with all of the officers’ wives. The meeting was arranged, and the wives entered the large conference room at the officer’s club. They were instructed to sit from front to back by rank. My neighbor and several other wives of mid-grade officers, lieutenants and lieutenant commanders, were confused, and not knowing where to sit, stood in the back of the room while the wives of captains, commanders, and others jostled to get the seats according to their husband’s rank.

As this seat controversy rolled on, the admiral came to the podium. He said, “I want to applaud all of you ladies who remain in the back standing up. You are correct. You don’t have rank.” Now, everybody please sit down like civilized people so we can discuss some important matters for dependents.”

i sure wish she had a video of the faces of the wives who had jockeyed for position.

dancing

before junior high (now an archaic term),
i envied the high school boys
with pompadours and ducktails,
swinging their hips,
lithely, rhythmically moving across the floor
with all the girls i loved
when
i stodgily stomped the steps of bop,
holding one hand with my partner
awkwardly.

then Mrs. Brown, according to Mother,
recruiting for her dance class
after Mother told her we couldn’t afford it,
gave me a free pass, telling Mother
if i went to the classes, the other boys would come along;
all of the girls had signed up,
but no boys yet;
so once a week on Saturday morning,
we would repair to the second floor
of the vacant building on the prep school campus fringe;
Mrs. Brown would put a record on the Victrola
for us to learn the foxtrot, waltz, cha-cha, mambo, lindy hop, samba, bossa nova,
but not tango; no, not tango.
then somebody, i think it was Mrs. Brown,
got us eighth graders invited to
“The Five O’Clock Hop,”
on the big television channel in Nashville
trying to emulate American Bandstand:
i felt like a big-time boy
in my white sport coat but no pink carnation,
with as much of a duck-tail as i was allowed;
so i became a tolerable, passable dancer, i thought,
learning the bop, strut, twist, monkey, jerk, mashed potato,
shaking my money-maker
when most of it was to get to the slow dance
to hold a girl close
and
dream.

i felt mechanical, structured,
having the idea, feeling the rhythm,
just not nailing it;
then i saw my cousins, brother and sister,
dance together at a high school hop in a land far away,
with grace, and rhythm, all the things a dance should be;
then i went to college, finding out
i was one hell of a dancer with a little booze poured in;
moving on, i learned western swing: the two-step, cotton eyed joe.

finally, there was this woman who danced with me
drawing raves from friends,
but
we were older then:
i didn’t like to sweat so much anymore,
which i did:
we sort of stopped.

now, i watch my grandson do moves at eight,
which i never could do,
and
i laugh with joy,
my dancing done.

yet, one afternoon when my wife was at a movie,
i was working on honey-do’s in the garage
with my old phonograph playing a lp of Major Lance;
inexplicably, i began dancing
next to the workbench, a screwdriver in my hand,
hoping to god,
no one discovered me
until “monkey time” played out.