39,000 ft somewhere over Canada…..some time around 3:00 pm your time, which is ….who the heck knows here….
There I was, in the Marine Corps Recruiting center. It was Feb 1966. The Corporal at the desk hollers “hey Sarge, this guy is drunk…what do I do with him?” “Sign him up before he sobers up” he says. My lucky day, I thinks to myself….that was before boot camp! (true story, up to this point) I think the rest might be too. So off to boot camp and the wonderful nice men that took care of us. So what has this got to do with Safarislim? You ask. Nothing, I just like telling that story……just kidding, I’m already running out of material and so I needed some filler……so after boot camp when they couldn’t feed us freshly ruined food, they would give us C rats. Although it had nothing to do with rats, we weren’t always so sure. Anyway, our C rats (C rations…the Marine Corps answer to fast food) were all dated 1943, 1944, and 1945. Now it was 20 years later and we were still ‘eating’ those things….I’m not sure if they just made that many, or that the Marines in combat during WWII just refused to be abused any more. Went something like this: “Hey Jarhead, come get your rats” “*x%*%## , not going to happen! Do what you want, but all you’re getting from me is Name Rank and Serial Number”. So anyway, I never really missed C rats during the intervening years. So, fast forward to Jan 31, 2011. Now it’s 45 years since my mista….ah enlistment, and 65 years since the last C rats were concocted. Imagine my surprise when the stewardess, yes I said stewardess offered me some in-flight ‘dinner’. Holy cow, talk about deja vue all over again. As I looked at the ‘meal’ I said to myself “I wish I had a copy of my DD214”……(proof of my insanity and also my separation papers from the Corps.) So, after a consult with my God, I came to the conclusion that He was involve with this and is getting me ready for more of the yummy “food” in Kenya. Needless to say, I dug in with gusto…much to the surprise of the stewardess….I think if I had asked for seconds, she would have brought the Air Marshall back to have a talk with me…..come to think of it she had a 5 o’clock shadow…..maybe she is the AM.
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