Tuna In a Can

This afternoon, around 1200 hours, I decided to prepare myself a lunchtime sandwich of tuna and mayonaise on white bread. I'm told this is a classic. Anyhow, I sat down in my reading chair and watched some afternoon television, which is ghastly. The only show I found even mildly entertaining featured a blonde lesbian woman who hoots and dances around while she interviews "guests." Enough of that.

As I drifted off to sleep, after my lunch, my mind slowly began to stir and old memories flooded in, warmly and lucidly. It was the Summer of 1939 and I had just met a strapping chap up at Fort Bragg in northern California. His name was First Mate Rodney Burns. Rod Burns and I took to one another like two constructively interfering waves. Both of our persons were bolstered and rejuvenated when we were in each other's company.

Rod Burns and I, Dick Butler, forged a pact that we were going to taste more lady that summer than we ever had before. The best way we figured---to do this---was by purchasing a portable sleeping quarters. Something we could tow behind an auto on our love quest. We wound up buying an old, beat-up Airstream, the shiny sliver aluminum things that have wheels. It was comfortable to sleep in but I must say did not circulate air very well which was not very desirable in the summer months.

One evening we stopped off at a small base in a truly backwater segment of Utah. It was nothing but a few Army men and their wives and other itinerant women who were there to service the Army men who did not have wives. We danced and drank the night away. I knew better than to expect any kind of lady tasting in an area so overrun by bucks. But old Rod Burns---he did not quit that easily.

Rod settled his sights on a straggler who was all alone at the end of the bar. No one bothered to pay her any attention, the poor thing. She was slim up top, a decent countenance, not bad. To shorten a drawn out courting, Rod Burns managed to get her home back to the Airstream. I did not immediately follow. In fact, I wound up drinking too much rum sauce and fell into a drunken stupor under the bar.

The next morning I gathered myself and went back to where we had parked the Airstream for the evening. Well, let me tell you something. The inside of that trailer smelled worse than any mackerel dump I have ever witnessed on any wharf anywhere in the world. Holy hell. I love you!

The Great Muskellunge

What was the Lord thinking when he melded the fire of Satan with the survival instinct of a roach?

The great Chippewa Flowage is a crystaline, cool body of water that sprawls southward from Canada down into the wastelands of Wisconsin; carved not by the indiscriminate hand of the glaciers but by the gentle touch of time and sediment.

This was where I found myself on a rather nasty and brutish morning in the Autumn of 1928; the heart of the inter-war years; a well-rounded good time for all.

A good friend of mine at the time, Jules Gotleib, was living near the flowage running a saw mill, capitalizing on the great timber harvests happening along the Canadian frontier. During the relatively brief time that he had been living in the area of the flowage, he managed to develop a very hearty appetite for muskellunge roe. This roe you see is not easy to come by. In fact, a man can fish his entire life and never catch a muskellunge. But Jules Gotleib pined for the muskie roe with a desire as depraved as that which he craved the loins of his deceased wife.

He begged me to go fishing with him.

As a Retired Rear Admiral, or any Navyman for that matter, I take to the sea for one reason, and that reason is warring. To fish for pleasure is to insult the sea. But, to see the way Jules Gotleib was aching and writhing for the roe...I could not take it. I capitulated and agreed to go muskellunge fishing with him.

So onto the flowage we rode in a respectable mahogany dingy named "The Musker."

The first half of the early morning was spent chumming with salmon fry and worm guts. Then, after a quick repast of raccoon liver and brandy we took to the actual fishing.

Alternating between casts and chants, Jules and I sang and entreated the fish. "Oh ye faithful mutt of the lake come see what is me, I have hand over snout to tear it out, the roe that lies within thee." I did find this rhyme rather strange and not something that I wished to repeat, but I could see that Jules had begun to sweat, falling deeper and deeper into roe withdrawal. And so, I indulged him.

If you are still reading this entry and looking for some kind of happy ending then I suggest---urge rather---you to stop reading, for this story has none.

By the arrival of day's end, Jules Gotleib's muskellunge roe withdrawal had reached a pitch that I have never seen before. He was frothing at the mouth, wagging his tongue back and forth, and wild eyed. I did not relish being alone on a boat with him at that moment. I knew that something terrible was bound to happen: his roe lust had reached an unquenchable point.

With out any ceremony, Jules Gotleib leaped from his seat, rapidly disrobed, and grabbed his flacid member, pulling it at a 90 degree angel away from his pale belly. He then retrieved his fillet knife from his trousers on the floor of the boat and with his member still in his clutch and he lopped it off.

At this point, I was in utter shock, not knowing what Jules was capable of next. To my surprise and horror, he put his severed member into his mouth, biting it in the crazed way a pirate bites his bowie knife when he's about to maraud a ship, and yelled, "All muskellunges like the taste." He dove off the boat into the cold murky waters and was never seen or heard from again. I love you.

The Season of the Great Pestilence

The way I see it, there are relatively few things that Myrtle Beach (home to my retirement community condominium village) or the entire state of South Carolina, for that matter, has to offer. There are a few beaches, there is a large coastal swath (which every Admiral admires) but otherwise, the state is a wasteland for hillbillies and vapid vacationers.

Of course, every generalization has its exception. And I do believe that I have discovered the one diamond in the rough stream of transient carnies who visit our blasted town: The Women's Professional Volleyball Tour

Oh, the bronzed salt cured gams that I witnessed this past weekend when the athletes strolled into town.

Mind you, I have not seen someone playing volleyball since Captain Hornish made it onto one of the minor league professional teams in Papua New Guinea during the summer of '48. Eventually, he was removed from the league for making a deal to throw matches with a local child slave labor trafficker, but that is another story, to be told on another occasion.

On Saturday morning I retrieved 60 cash dollars from my sock drawer bank, put on a clean pair of sweatshorts, and decided to walk down to the beach to see if I couldn't get close enough to gaze the women who were there to play.

Much to my surprise, the tickets were discounted for people 55 and older. Moreover, after I flashed them my Retired Rear Admiral ID card, they asked if I would like to serve the inaugural first serve to the reigning women's beach volleyball champion Gabrielle Adams. Without hesitation, I obliged.

First, before the inaugural serve ceremony, there was a photo opportunity with the players and me, since I was chosen to serve the inaugural first serve. Let me make one thing abundantly clear, here, before I go any further. I have not achieved an erection since 1987. I might have achieved one in my sleep at one point or another but I have no documentation to suggest as much.

I will assume that you are capable of piecing together the rest of this story: I sat down in the chair in front of the photographer from the Myrtle Turtle Beach Comber;one Ms. Gabrielle Adams sat on the old Retired Rear Admiral's lap; that old Retired Rear Admiral came to life beneath her; she screamed; I celebrated; the Retired Rear Admiral was relieved of his inaugural first serve duties post haste. I love you.

You Learn Something New Every Day

Last night. Strike that.

First, forgive me for my lapse in publication. I have spent the better part of the past two weeks dealing with a case of recidivist syphilis. The physician tells me that even though the halfbreed of a doctor in Calcutta told me that I just had, "Dam Charabati" which loosely translates to love sores, I did in fact have something more serious, ie syphilis. And now that I'm older, with a weakened immune system, the whore's malady has come back to bite me, again.

It burns when I urinate and it hurts my mind when I'm not urinating just thinking about the next time I will have to urinate. I will grin and bear it through this entry though because there is something of superb importance that I need to tell you.

From the first day that I moved into my retirement community condominium I have been suspicious of a young lady (there are, by the way, not supposed to be young anythings living here, this is a retirement community for Godsakes) who lives in the first unit near the south entrance gate. She is a strange bird. She comes and goes at odd hours and does not have gainful employment, as best I can tell. I would expect that with her lack of employment she should look indigent and smell foul. But she does not. In fact, she is quite well put together---a real coquette, by my estimation.

Needless to say I was developing a middling obsession with her. I could not manage to stop thinking about her. If only I were twenty years younger, I thought to myself, I'd break into her condominium, wait for her on her bed wearing nothing but a Burmese loin cloth, and rob her of her essence while she appreciated and fell in love with my being. This of course was all in my head; I can barely lance the syphilis pustules on my groin let alone o'perch retirement community condominium walls with love's light wings.

In any event, this has all come to pass. I found out from Retired Deck Officer James Berphus that she's a Lot Lizard, that's truck stop whore for those of you who don't know. I love you.

Diluvial Condominium

Holy Heaven, the rains have come----prayers answered!

Our shortage of rainfall has been the big talk around South Carolina these past few months; my elder berries in the starboard side yard have not budded nor has my mountain grass in the port-side side yard. Up until yesterday morning, the entire retirement community looked like a dusty Hooverville circa 1931: barren, starved, and dry.

On Tuesday evening the tawdry weather woman on the local evening news broadcast predicted that we were in for some heavy rains. In rare fashion, she was actually right. By Wednesday morning the precipitation had begun. Starved soils and flora were being fed; all was wet and glorious, indeed.

All was glorious, that is, until my roof partially gave way. Exposing me and the interior of my retirement community condominium to the downpour.

In no more than two hours my living room went from resembling a stately Admiral's quarters to looking like a flooded galley on a ramshackle Carribean Rum Ship. Immediately, my seafaring survival instincts kicked in and I began building a float dingy. I took three rolls of aluminum baking foil and the cushions from my sofa and lashed them both to my walker. Finally, I mounted a metal pan on the walker to use as a fog horn.

For the next 36 hours I paddled my way around the retirement community condominium performing chores as usual: cooking, ingesting health pills, tending to pressure sores, and performing my twice-daily self-flagellation routine, working from the shoulders to the buttocks and 'round to the groin.

Quite honestly, I am glad that my domicile flooded. It was like being in The Navy all over again.

Today, I report from the deck of my float dingy: the waters have receded and I am dry docked in the middle of my living room with ruined sofa cushions and no walker for walking aid. No matter, it was worth it. For nearly two glorious days I was not Retired Rear Admiral Richard Butler but Rear Admiral Richard Butler, again.

I love you.

Losing the Craneheart Award

My minions,

This past Friday evening I was awarded the Craneheart Peerless Award for courage by The Navy. It was a great honor, a thrill, really.

The kind people at the church recorded the event and have sent me the acceptance speech transcript. I thought you might like to read it.


RETIRED REAR ADMIRAL RICHARD BUTLER ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

[Craig Scuntz addressing the attendees]

Mr. Scuntz
Hello and good evening fellow seaman. We are gathered here this evening to honor a great man, a great Navyman, the Retired Rear Admiral Dick Butler. Please join me in welcoming him to the dais, here he is. Here he is. He's coming now. Here he is. Rear Admiral Dick Butler.

[Mr. Scuntz begins weeping]

[Mr. Scuntz still weeping]

[Mr. Butler hobbles onto the dais]

[Mr. Butler to Mr. Scuntz]

Mr. Butler
Get a hold of yourself you ninny. Stop crying. Stop crying you sap. I'm here to talk, you're ruining it. Get off. You're a queer. You are why we have a bad reputation.

[Mr. Scuntz attempts to embrace Mr. Butler]

Mr. Butler
Away. Off of me.

[Mr. Butler hits Mr. Scuntz in the knee with his cane]

[Mr. Scuntz exits stage left]

[Mr. Butler into the microphone]

Mr. Butler
Am I on? Is this thing working?

[to Mr. Butler]

Transcriber
Yes. It's on. Go ahead.

[Mr. Bulter begins his speech]

Mr. Butler
The Sea has been good to me: As a child I never knew the Sea, then it was all I knew, and now, as an old man, it is all I can remember.

[A young man heckles Mr. Butler (unintelligible)]

Mr. Butler
Be quiet. You. Deck boy. Shut your yap.

Young Man
I’m your son you cunt.

Mr. Butler
Pardon?

Young Man
You raped my mother in Puerto Rico.

[Large Navalman escorts the shouting young man out of the audience]

Mr. Butler
Good grief. That’s not possible.

Ah. Ah. Yes. So it is a great honor to be here this evening…

[Mr. Butler begins staggering]

[Mr. Butler begins to moan]

Mr. Butler
Ohh. Hornish. Hoooooooorniaash. Ohhh.

[Mr. Butler removes his boots]

[Mr. Butler removes his pants]

[Mr. Scuntz approaches Mr. Butler]

[Mr. Butler begins urinating on Mr. Suntz]

[Mr. Scuntz shrieks]

Mr. Scuntz
Ahh. Oh my God. Heathen. He’s godless. Arrest him. Take him away. The award is revoked.

Mr. Butler
Good, you ninny. You’re why the Navy is the laughing stock of the armed services today. I would cut your throat if I weren’t drunk.

[Mr. Butler is taken into custody by a Naval Policeman]

I love you.

A Major Award

Today I retrieved the mail to find this:

Dear Retired Rear Admiral Mr. Richard Butler,

It is with great pleasure that we inform you of our plans to bestow on to you the greatest Retired Rear Admiral honor that a Retired Rear Admiral can receive.

Please join us on May 10th, 2000 hours at the South Carolina Methodist First Second Home Church to receive the Craneheart Peerless Award for Courage.

The award ceremony will be followed by refreshments and a chant along led by Retired Admiral Mr. Richard Dryfus.

We look forward to honoring you.

Sincerely,

Craig Scuntz

THE NAVY


It would appear that I will need to begin un-mothballing the formal dressy blues and finding a date. It has been too long since I've been awarded; I await the ceremony with great vim.

Time for some Chopin and mustard pudding. I am a happy man. I love you.