It's Friday afternoon, I'm tired of looking at Oracle scripts and thought I'd relate a funny story from Dave V3.0. If I consider going to school, and all the normal things up to the point that some exception happened as V1.0, I'll skip what I consider V2.0, but V3.0 is definitely the 3 years I spent in the U.S. Army 1970-1973.
Maybe it's the fact that I'm listening to some rhythm & blues from the 60's back when I was playing lead guitar for a living in a rhythm & blues band (during Dave V2.0), but introspection seems to guide the afteroon.
At any rate, in Phoenix, the sky is SUPPOSED to be blue... deep blue. If there's even a cloud in the sky, it's an anomoly. So when it's ALL gray, or when it rains, I start to complain. It reminds me of September to May in Southern Illinois where I grew up, and why I live here and not there :)
The last time it looked like this outside, I complained to my wife, who has put up with me since V3.0, and she reminded me of this story, and it brought a smile to that gray day, and maybe will to yours also...
U.S. Army, probably 1971-ish, permanent party in Berlin, Germany (complete with pinko-commie wall)... we got all new furniture in the barracks and had to get rid of the metal bunks and wall lockers... a story all of it's own! Part of the conversion involved painting our rooms... another long drawn-out story.
The bottom-line on the room painting was I didn't want to... big surprise :) ... so I waited around until they told me I HAD to, then I went down and scrounged around in all the tint they had for the white latex base. I questioned the First Sergeant to make sure I could use *anything* down there. So, I painted my entire room battleship gray... radiator and all. I had a toilet seat I'd found and cleaned. I hand-lettered it in Old English "Home Sweet Home FSB" (Field Station Berlin). That was hanging on the wall.
Since we worked shift work, we really didn't HAVE to be around at any given time, and were usually alerted to any sort of inspection or any other nastiness going on. Somehow, I got caught in my room when the General and his people came by along with everybody that I reported to in my unit. Standing at attention, I watched the General take in the wonderfulness of my gray room... compared to all the pastel colors of the other rooms. Finally he said "Whose room is this"? "Mine, sir", was my response. He slowly turned (with everyone else in the room) and looked at me and asked "Why is it gray"?
Now if you know me, you'll maybe wonder why I wasn't smiling, but I was trying too hard not to drop a load in my pants with all that brass in there, so the concentration was keeping the smile off my face.
He looked at me after I responded, and you just know he was thinking "You lying &%##", but when I didn't change my story, he did an about-face, and everyone exited the room. I never heard anything about it!
I left the toilet seat for one of my buddies that remained after I left, but somewhere in all my junk I have a picture of me on a bunk, playing guitar, gray wall, toilet seat and all. If I can find it and get it scanned, I'll post it.
So when I start in with my "Oh geez ... another wonderful day in paradise... I have to remember my response to the General as to why my room was gray:
"It's my favorite color sir!".
Stay in the 'Light!
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posted @ Friday, February 15, 2008 3:25 PM