New Swimming Pool!

Yep! I've got one IN my house this year. First we bitched all winter about how far we were behind in the accumulated water department. "The ground water level is going down fast" we cried! "OMg we might have water problems again this summer" we lamented. Well guess what? For anyone not living along the RI shore, we have reduced our water deficit to an over abundance of same commodity! I'm up to my ass in it down in my new pool. eerr, cellar! Pumps and vacuums going full bore and all of my model planes want to become amphibians. For the last eight days I believe, we have not even had a glimpse of the sun. It must be restricted to SPI in Texas where Sam, the Wiff&Poofs guy, says it was up to 100 the other day. Or was that 100% hum-ditty? But that would be rain huh? duh.

Anyway, I keep on trucking,aah bailing, and hope that we will soon be able to put out the tomato and pepper plants that are threatening to break through the glass of the greenhouse in order to find some sun. Onward and Upward! TIFN

New Highway

I see that there is a nice new dirt road here on the Island. I'm assuming, (bad thing to do), that it was one of the Conservancy groups that owns the old Preston Dunn property out on the cliffs past Black Rock, that had it built. I'm told it was done so that rescue vehicles could access that property from the main road. It certainly was a risk too the vehicles if you went in through Snake Hole road. So after all that work, I understand that it will be blocked off to anyone else but Conservancy and or service/rescue vehicles. I have also heard throught the inimitable BI grapevine that they are concerned about the proliferation of "rogue trails" on that property and that they intend to restrict access to that form of trespass also. So if all the property owners who own the Snake Hole road access suddenly decide to restrict travel over their right of way too just homeowners and service vehicles, where does that leave all the would be fishermen, surfer dudes, and sunday walkers nee birdwatchers. I was always under the impression that this "preserved" land was for the use of the public, but only in ways that didn't destroy the reasons it was saved in the first place!

What is up with all these Conservation groups? Most times shortly after they acquire a piece of the Island, it becomes off limits to the general public except on their own strict rules that "let" you trespass. Witness the old Beane property and Hodge properties. For years my family used to go out there, the Beane property, with their permission, to have picnics swimming, clamming etc. Shorty after the confiscation by the Feds, it turned into a private little "get-a-way" enclave strictly for their use and little signs popped up all over the beach threatening you with prosecution if you dared to trespass on "their" land. For generations the original owners let Islanders travel over their land freely as long as you closed the gates etc. after yourself. Now you have to practically have to have a signed pass from god, whoever that is. Comments anyone? TIFN

This Will Elicit a Giggle!

I was online checking up on a tax question with the wonderful State of RI and came across this little gem!
TAXATION OF MARIJUANA AND OTHER CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES


The law requires dealers of illegal drugs to purchase tax stamps from the Rhode Island Division of Taxation and have them affixed to marijuana or other controlled substance packets, bags, bottles, etc. Holders of drugs seized without the appropriate tax stamps are subject to an assessment plus a penalty equal to 100% of the tax. The tax rates are as follows:

$400.00 on each 10 dosage units of a controlled substance that is not sold by weight or portion thereof.

What I want to know is, Who is the guy that goes to all the dealers and checks for the stamps? I want that job.

An Indication that I'm still in business

Here is a little poem composed by someone who lives with me and is married too me but will be mortified that I put this up here. So I'll name no names!

Acorns to Oaks

The tiny acorn fell to earth and rolled upon the ground,
Looking for a place to rest, before the sun went down.
A place was offered, soft and warm, on which to lay his head,
Without a thought he covered up, as he lay upon the bed.
The seasons came, the seasons went, with rain and wind and snow,
Inside the tiny cap and shell, his limbs began to grow.
The warming sun encouraged growth, till limbs reached for the sky,
Now this stately oak, freely, gives shade for you and I.

What is missing in this picture?

   Have you figured it out? It is that derelict boat that has been thee all winter and for some time before that. Yesterday, for most of the day, a few guys working in concert got the thing winched up on the beach. Then along came Mike McGinnes with his big excavator and picked it off the rocks and into a flatbed truck where it made a short overland trip to the dump, eerrr, landfill where it is assumed it will be reduced in volume in preparation for a trip to the landfill.
Who did this job? Well lets see, there was Bob Littlefield with his big old red Hummer with a 12 ton winch dragging it ashore. Chris Willi, Troy Milstead and John Swienton, were in and on the water doing the line rigging and riding herd on it as it made it's way ashore. It was mostly an all day affair, but in the end all hands worked very well together to get a job done that has needed doing for some time. Good Job Guys, Free beer at McGovern's, the Town Manager is buying!! or should be. TIFN

Cyber-Sniper, Where are you?

After going through all the previous posts and re-reading the answers put forth by the person whom we call The Cyber-Sniper, we have concluded that this is the person to lead the town forward, out of it's present quagmire, and into the future with all of his political acumen and ideas he has so vociferously put forth!!

So, Mr. Sniper, if you will call this number 466-2949 extension 11, and speak to the person who answers, we will be sure and get you on one of the tickets for the forthcoming election in November. We will be waiting to hear from you!TIFN

Another "Take" on the RoP

This is also an email sent to me by a very learned friend. It seems to me that we should be listening to the victims of the last thousand years or so instead of all the PC apologists from our current era. Islam has NO GOOD intentions toward we 'Infidels' and that means ALL of us! Now let the SHTF!

Because They Hate
By Brigitte Gabriel
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 20, 2006

[Editor's Note: Below are selected excerpts from Brigitte Gabriel's speech delivered at the Intelligence Summit in Washington DC, Saturday February 18, 2006].

Preview Image

We gather here today to share information and knowledge. Intelligence is not merely cold hard data about numerical strength or armament or disposition of military forces. The most important element of intelligence has to be understanding the mindset and intention of the enemy. The West has been wallowing in a state of ignorance and denial for thirty years as Muslim extremist perpetrated evil against innocent victims in the name of Allah.

I was ten years old when my home exploded around me, burying me under the rubble and leaving me to drink my blood to survive, as the perpetrators shouted “Allah Akbar!” My only crime was that I was a Christian living in a Christian town. At 10 years old, I learned the meaning of the word "infidel."

I had a crash course in survival. Not in the Girl Scouts, but in a bomb shelter where I lived for seven years in pitch darkness, freezing cold, drinking stale water and eating grass to live. At the age of 13 I dressed in my burial clothes going to bed at night, waiting to be slaughtered. By the age of 20, I had buried most of my friends--killed by Muslims. We were not Americans living in New York, or Britons in London. We were Arab Christians living in Lebanon.

As a victim of Islamic terror, I was amazed when I saw Americans waking up on September 12, 2001, and asking themselves "Why do they hate us?" The psychoanalyst experts were coming up with all sort of excuses as to what did we do to offend the Muslim World. But if America and the West were paying attention to the Middle East they would not have had to ask the question. Simply put, they hate us because we are defined in their eyes by one simple word: "infidels."

Under the banner of Islam "la, ilaha illa allah, muhammad rasoulu allah," (None is god except Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah) they murdered Jewish children in Israel, massacred Christians in Lebanon, killed Copts in Egypt, Assyrians in Syria, Hindus in India, and expelled almost 900,000 Jews from Muslim lands. We Middle Eastern infidels paid the price then. Now infidels worldwide are paying the price for indifference and shortsightedness.

Tolerating evil is a crime. Appeasing murderers doesn't buy protection. It earns one disrespect and loathing in the enemy's eyes. Yet apathy is the weapon by which the West is committing suicide. Political correctness forms the shackles around our ankles, by which Islamists are leading us to our demise.

America and the West are doomed to failure in this war unless they stand up and identify the real enemy: Islam. You hear about Wahabbi and Salafi Islam as the only extreme form of Islam. All the other Muslims, supposedly, are wonderful moderates. Closer to the truth are the pictures of the irrational eruption of violence in reaction to the cartoons of Mohammed printed by a Danish newspaper. From burning embassies, to calls to butcher those who mock Islam, to warnings that the West be prepared for another holocaust, those pictures have given us a glimpse into the real face of the enemy. News pictures and video of these events represent a canvas of hate decorated by different nationalities who share one common ideology of hate, bigotry and intolerance derived from one source: authentic Islam. An Islam that is awakening from centuries of slumber to re-ignite its wrath against the infidel and dominate the world. An Islam which has declared "Intifada" on the West.

America and the West can no longer afford to lay in their lazy state of overweight ignorance. The consequences of this mental disease are starting to attack the body, and if they don't take the necessary steps now to control it, death will be knocking soon. If you want to understand the nature of the enemy we face, visualize a tapestry of snakes. They slither and they hiss, and they would eat each other alive, but they will unite in a hideous mass to achieve their common goal of imposing Islam on the world.

This is the ugly face of the enemy we are fighting. We are fighting a powerful ideology that is capable of altering basic human instincts. An ideology that can turn a mother into a launching pad of death. A perfect example is a recently elected Hamas official in the Palestinian Territories who raves in heavenly joy about sending her three sons to death and offering the ones who are still alive for the cause. It is an ideology that is capable of offering highly educated individuals such as doctors and lawyers far more joy in attaining death than any respect and stature, life in society is ever capable of giving them.

The United States has been a prime target for radical Islamic hatred and terror. Every Friday, mosques in the Middle East ring with shrill prayers and monotonous chants calling death, destruction and damnation down on America and its people. The radical Islamists’ deeds have been as vile as their words. Since the Iran hostage crisis, more than three thousand Americans have died in a terror campaign almost unprecedented in its calculated cruelty along with thousands of other citizens worldwide. Even the Nazis did not turn their own children into human bombs, and then rejoice at their deaths as well the deaths of their victims. This intentional, indiscriminate and wholesale murder of innocent American citizens is justified and glorified in the name of Islam.

America cannot effectively defend itself in this war unless and until the American people understand the nature of the enemy that we face. Even after 9/11 there are those who say that we must “engage” our terrorist enemies, that we must “address their grievances”. Their grievance is our freedom of religion. Their grievance is our freedom of speech. Their grievance is our democratic process where the rule of law comes from the voices of many not that of just one prophet. It is the respect we instill in our children towards all religions. It is the equality we grant each other as human beings sharing a planet and striving to make the world a better place for all humanity. Their grievance is the kindness and respect a man shows a woman, the justice we practice as equals under the law, and the mercy we grant our enemy. Their grievance cannot be answered by an apology for who or what we are.

Our mediocre attitude of not confronting Islamic forces of bigotry and hatred wherever they raised their ugly head in the last 30 years, has empowered and strengthened our enemy to launch a full scale attack on the very freedoms we cherish in their effort to impose their values and way of life on our civilization.

If we don't wake up and challenge our Muslim community to take action against the terrorists within it, if we don't believe in ourselves as Americans and in the standards we should hold every patriotic American to, we are going to pay a price for our delusion. For the sake of our children and our country, we must wake up and take action. In the face of a torrent of hateful invective and terrorist murder, America’s learning curve since the Iran hostage crisis is so shallow that it is almost flat. The longer we lay supine, the more difficult it will be to stand erect.
The picture didn't come through, but she appears to be about thirty years old and a very beautiful Lebanese Lady! TIFN

Islam- The Religion of Peace

Now this is Not a topic that I should be delving into as I am a self professed athiest and have been since I was old enough to read and understand a few of the teachings of different religions. But here are a few things that you might not know as regards the ROP and Allah, Peace be upon him!

This is something everyone should understand thoroughly because it is factual and to the point. If there is no Commitment or loyalty to this nation no matter how they cloak it a Muslim will never be and American.

Can Muslims be Good Americans?

Can a devout Muslim be an American patriot and a loyal citizen? Consider this:

Theologically, no. Because his allegiance is to Allah, the moon god of Arabia.

Scripturally, no. Because his allegiance is to the five pillars of Islam and the Quran (Koran).

Geographically, no. Because his allegiance is to Mecca, to which he turns in prayer five times a day.

Socially, no. Because his allegiance to Islam forbids him to make friends with Christians or Jews.

Politically, no. Because he must submit to the mullah (spiritual leaders), who teach annihilation of Israel and destruction of America, the great Satan. Democracy and Islam cannot co-exist. Every Muslim government is either dictatorial or autocratic.

Domestically, no, because he is instructed to marry four women and beat and scourge his wife when she disobeys him (Quran 4:34).

Religiously, no. Because no other religion is accepted by his Allah except Islam (Quran, 2:256)

Intellectually, no, because he cannot accept the American Constitution since it is based on Biblical principles and he believes the Bible to be corrupt.

Philosophically, no, because Islam, Muhammad, and the Quran do not allow freedom of religion and expression.

Spiritually, no, because when we declare "one nation under God," the Christian's God is loving and kind, while Allah is NEVER referred to as our heavenly father, nor is he ever called love in the Quran's 99 excellent names.

Therefore, after much study and deliberation, perhaps we should be very suspicious of ALL MUSLIMS in this country. They obviously cannot be both good Muslims and good Americans. Call it what you wish, it's still the truth. The more who understand this, the better it will be for our country. This war is bigger and will be fought longer than all presently living. TIFN

20 New Homes Update

If you can't stand MaryJane Balser/Logan, then you had best quit reading this particular post.
Remember all those twenty houses that are going to be built over by the cemetary? Remember that they were to have an unfinished second floor because of lack of money? Well she has been at it again. Writing grants again, although the Town Manager won't let her write them for the Town anymore because she is so "inept" at it. Anyway, she has come up with enough more money so that all 20 of the houses will now have a completely finished second floor including the bathrooms! This from an incompetent and inept grant writer. Just for this project alone, the total so far comes to about $3.277 million and it is not quite done yet. And the best part of all is that there are NO matching funds required from ANYBODY! That works out to about $164,000 per house.
Over the years she has brought into the coffers of this town over $18 million in various grants for a lot of projects. Yet at the Council meetings she and her ideas are routinely dismissed by Dodge, Savoi, Smith, and Sisto as being of no import and of no substantive good to the town.

When it comes time for us to elect the new Town Council in the fall, let's see if we can remember who it is that has done a lot of VISIBLE good for the Town and it's people. Compare those accomplishments with the output of the rest of this present Council and you will immediately see there is no comparison. TIFN

Champlins dead?

Probably not. Even though the CRMC came to a stalemate last night, I don't believe it can be regarded as a permanent checkmate. I'm absolutely tickled to see a developer get his head handed to them for a change instead of getting everything they wanted. I am absolutely sure we will see a slightly different proposal coming back in a year or two.

I would be really interested in seeing just who it was that voted for, and against the proposal. Do ANY of us think that our "resident" representative on the board did the "right" thing and voted against it? Come on now, let's see a show of hands/comments on that.

What does this decision do to the application by Paynes dock to expand? Maybe they just put theirs in to counter the Champlin's grab attempt. Hopefully now it will be withdrawn. The first one to get okay-ed will spawn about fifty more, as every home owned abutting the water will want a dock then.

Looks like we are going to get another little dose of 'poor mans fertilizer' shortly. Better get those peas and spuds in the ground. Whadda ya mean the ground is frozen?

$7 Million+ Leaky Roof

After all the concern over there being a performance bond posted for the New Town Hall, I certainly hope there is one in force as regards the new school addition! I was up there today in the brand new gym with the nice hardwood floor and there, dripping from the netherlands of the ceiling were two seperate cascades of water onto the floor! Apparently the horizontally driven snow got inside the roof somehow, in sufficient quantities to cause some good sized puddles down below. How in the hell do we manage to spend that much money on a new construction building and have the damned roof leak? And how do you fix it in the middle of the winter? You can't strip it now I wouldn't think. When the wind blows NW or SW and it is raining, you can hear and FEEL the raindrops hitting the wall covering "inside" the tin covering on the outside of the building. How can THAT be possible? Someone needs to give someone else a good ass kicking and hold back a good sizeable chunk of money until this is all fixed!! TIFN

Happy Valentines Day

 
Roses and Chocolate
Up the gazoo
ALL from me
And all for you!
I palagerized(sp) it from another post 'cause it's the best I could do with only a months notice! 

Response To BIB Anonymous Request

 
 

Heard Any Good Rumors Lately?

Try this one on for size. The grapevines are beginning to sizzle with this one. It seems as if there is a leetle bit too much water in the Towns resevoir. Which by the way doesn't completely belong to the town. It seems, because the water has reached a certain level that the Town Manager, at the behest of a private property owner has requested that the town take on the responsibility and handle the cost of draining down the pond by quite a few gallons. Lets see now, the pond is approximately 7.2 acres as of this date and has an average depth of, (I forgot to ask), so that in the end, in order to bring down the depth of the pond by one foot, 5 million gallons of excess water has to be, evaporated? trucked off? dumped down the road? or, pumped to the south across about three to four pieces of private property and down the South East Bluffs! How much of the bluffs are going to eroded in a short period of time with that much water running down them? How much is it going to cost to buy the trespass rights from each of the land owners? Or is the town just "going to do it"?

It also will involve digging a couple of trenches across two town roads unless we are to undertake horizontal boring. It is also going to entail the installation of a pipe that doesn't come free and the use of some sort of a pump to do the job. And I expect this will be a 24/7 job till it is done. Who's paying the troops to do that? And finally, just why in the hell is the town going to take on this job when private landowners own MOST of the pond? To top it all off, the powers that be say that we cannot even use the pond for water anymore because it is "impaired"! I guess it doesn't hear very well or is somewhat blind.

So where are all the people who screamed so loud when Fresh Pond was being "killed" by the oh so obscene and destructive pumping that went on there in the 90's? Where is the Department of Environmental Mis-Management on this one? I think I've heard it said that they said," it is okay to do so, so have at it"! Wonderful folks up there in PVD. They worry themselves and property owners sick over inconsequensial(sp) tiny things but give the go ahead on this without batting an eye. I guess they don't really care what happens to the bluffs. Oh yeah I forgot, that jurisdiction belongs to that OTHER department that gives private land to developers and guards our natural resources with uncommonly zealous zeal! Oh yeah, they don't care either, 'cause they can't give that piece of ground to anybody. Sick of reading this rant? Thats all. TIFN

Remember This??

Subject: Do you Remember THIS???? An incredible look back to what now seems like ancient history!! An early look at an old foe's name!





?Thought you might be interested in this forgotten bit of information..........

It was 1987! At a lecture the other day they were playing an old news video of Lt.Col. Oliver North testifying at the Iran-Contra hearings during the Reagan Administration.

There was Ollie in front of God and country getting the third degree, but what he said was stunning!

He was being drilled by a senator; "Did you not recently spend close to $60,000 for a home security system?"

Ollie replied, "Yes, I did, Sir."

The senator continued, trying to get a laugh out of the audience, "Isn't that just a little excessive?"

"No, sir," continued Ollie.

"No? And why not?" the senator asked.

"Because the lives of my family and I were threatened, sir."

"Threatened? By whom?" the senator questioned.

"By a terrorist, sir" Ollie answered.

"Terrorist? What terrorist could possibly scare you that much?"

"His name is Osama bin Laden, sir" Ollie replied.

At this point the senator tried to repeat the name, but couldn't pronounce it, which most people back then probably couldn't. A couple of people laughed at the attempt. Then the senator continued. Why are you so afraid of this man?" the senator asked.

"Because, sir, he is the most evil person alive that I know of", Ollie answered.

"And what do you recommend we do about him?" asked the senator.

"Well, sir, if it was up to me, I would recommend that an assassin team be formed to eliminate him and his men from the face of the earth."

The senator disagreed with this approach, and that was all that was shown of the clip.


By the way, that senator was Al Gore!

Also:

Terrorist pilot Mohammad Atta blew up a bus in Israel in 1986. The Israelis captured, tried and imprisoned him. As part of the Oslo agreement with the Palestinians in 1993, Israel had to agree to release so-called "political prisoners."

However, the Israelis would not release any with blood on their hands, The American President at the time, Bill Clinton, and his Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, "insisted" that all prisoners be released.

Thus Mohammad Atta was freed and eventually thanked the US by flying an airplane into Tower One of the World Trade Center. This was reported by many of the American TV networks at the time that the terrorists were first identified.
It was censored in the US from all later reports.

If you agree that the American public should be made aware of this fact, pass this on.



Do Not Break - it is 3 years strong


This is why I always say I love YOU....


This has not been broken since 9/11/01, please keep it going...
This has been kept alive and moving since 9/11. In memory of all those who perished this morning; the passengers and the pilots on the United Air and AA flights, the workers in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and all the innocent bystanders. Our prayers go out to the friends and families of the deceased.

Deadly Dull on BI

I guess we are going to have to wait till next month for the beginnings of cabin fever to take effect and have people rampaging around, trying to relieve the boredom and dullness that has pervaded the Island this winter. Man there is nothing of note going on that is worth getting all in an uproar about. Althought there is a good one in the works in the form of the new management plan for the Old Harbor put forth by the Harbormaster Chris Willi. It is a good plan, and one that I have to say I advocated way back when I sat in a council seat. At that time it was poo-pooed by two fellow council-people as not being appropriate to BI as it would change the whole look of the down town area and not be something that the townspeople would want. Yeah right! Just like the tourism bldg. and Interstates freight shed was going to screwup the "viewsheds" down there so bad as to be intolerable to the normal person! What a crock ! Had it been done the Town would have been enjoying the fruits of it for the last ten years and it would be by now all paid off. So If this council has any fortitude left in their guts and hearts, they will immediately get on the stick and get the damned thing in the process of completion! Come on folks, do something proactive for a change without talking and analyzing it to death!

Oh BTW, the new, long, ongoing saga of the school looks as though it will be coming to an end in the very near future. Lots of little things left to do but all the major stuff is "virtually" done.

And if you need something entertaining to do on these not so cold winter days, go up to the new gym on Tuesday afternoons and watch these young kids in the 4th 5th 6th grades playing basket ball. There are a lot of "commers" in this group. Also hie thee hence and take in a few of the last home games of the JV and Varsity teams. They will provide you with an enough adrenaline to get you through the last dregs of the winter. I find it hard to believe the level of play that goes on up there. GO HURRICANES!!

To Kill an American

> > Written by an Australian Dentist...
> >
> >
> > To Kill an American
> >
> >
> > You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American.
> >
> > So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is . so they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!)
> >
> > " An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan.
> >
> > An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.
> >
> > An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim.
> > In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan . The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses.
> >
> > An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.
> >
> > An American lives in the most prosperous land in the history of the world.
> > The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence , which recognizes the God given right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.
> >
> > An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.
> >
> > When Afghanistan was over-run by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country!
> >
> > As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan . Americans welcome the best of everything...the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services. But they also welcome the least.
> >
> > The national symbol of America, The Statue of Liberty , welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America.
> >
> > Some of them were working in the Twin Towers the morning of September 11, 2001 earning a better life for their families. It's been told that the World Trade Center victims were from at least 30 different countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.
> >
> > So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.

Bad News for Certain People!

Well, I went off the Island yesterday to see the old Cardiologist, to see if I was still alive. It went well as he said it appears on the surface that I will probably be around for another annum(sp) to inflict continued torment upon the Island Voice blog readers. But I guess that is only true if you log on.

We all still sit here with bated breath, waiting for the infamous, I KNOW that is what it is going to be, CRMC decision as to the fate of the New Harbor and its environs.

It looks as though we will be "scooter" less for at least one summer anyway. That is until all the crooks and collaborationists wreak their particular form of wrongheadedness on the rest of us, up at the State house and give back to a 'very few', the right to deluge us again with them. Can you imagine going up route 4 where it joins to US195 at the usual speed of about 75 mph, and having to dodge unskilled moped drivers that can at best go 35 to 40 mph? I own one myself, but would not by any stretch of my imagination take it up there! It is bad enough on an 1100 cc Yamaha motorcycle that most car drivers can't see to see! TIFN

Seawinds, The next Disaster!

I haven't followed the saga of the Seawinds fiasco too closely so I don't really feel qualified to make any comments on it other than to say that it is an abomination to the Island, and to the area for which it has been proposed. It continues to sound like business as usual as far as D Packer is concerned. For some reason or other he thinks he IS one of the council members himself and acts accordingly. It is time for him and that other useless being to be shitcanned, and somebody with at least a first year law students knowledge of the law to be hired. If it wasn't for BI, these guys would be in the bread and soup lines somewhere! Comments anyone?? TIFN

Just something to chew on

Good Deeds Aren't Always Punished, But They're Not Always Recognized, Either
By Francis W. Porretto Francis W. Porretto

The president of the United States gets no holidays. Frequent Old Media references to his "vacations" are rather misleading; no matter where he is, he has to remain available to his lieutenants, and conscious of national and world affairs. In effect, he wears an electronic leash, by which he can be hauled back to the Oval Office, figuratively or literally, at an instant's notice.

Which is why it's so important for Americans to be aware of reports such as this one:

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (AP) -- President Bush began the new year on Sunday at the bedsides of wounded servicemen and women, and awarded nine Purple Hearts to U.S. troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The president, as commander in chief, feels it's one his most important duties to visit with those who are serving in the armed forces and providing great sacrifice for this important mission," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said.

The president boarded the Marine One presidential helicopter before dawn on his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and flew more than an hour to Randolph Air Force Base. His motorcade drove to Brooke Army Medical Center, a 224-bed hospital at nearby Fort Sam Houston, to meet with about 50 injured members of various branches of the armed forces and their families.

"He thanks them for their service. He asks how they're doing. He is always interested in seeing if they are getting the kinds of care they need," Duffy said, adding that not all the troops' injuries were sustained in combat.

Your Curmudgeon is a promoter of individualism in politics, but he sees immense value in charitable communalism in the private sphere. When a public official behaves in a fashion that implies that stance, it's worthy of note and wide dissemination. When a man as heavily burdened and as widely assailed as President Bush takes time away from his ranch, his pastimes, his family, and his not-all-that-remote official duties to do simple but memorable kindnesses such as are reported above, he deserves our praise.

The author asked that this one be passed around if you are so inclined!

Copy of letter to Editor 12/23 BIT

Well anony, here is the letter so that YOU can state your answers to my liking or not. It would be nice though if you were to leave a name other than anonymous so that we can all differentiate you from all the other mice(mouses)?
Messer’s Spier and Wood et al,

What? Only two weeks to prepare? That is not enough time! It takes me that long to rub and massage a few disparate thoughts, and or ideas into some sort of a cogent reply. So I guess I am going to have to pass for now.

“Another blowhard”? Moi? A “blowhard” by definition is a “braggart”. I don’t think it exactly fits or falls in line with the content of your diatribe as I wasn’t bragging about anything. Was that intended to grievously lacerate my psyche? If so it only partially succeeded, as I have found no blood leaking from any mysteriously appearing cuts etc. After examining my psyche more in depth, I had a revelation and I became exultant as I realized I had been raised high beyond mere mortal men, raised to the heights required to join two of the most exalted in the business! As your sentence was constructed, it appeared to include you as the writer, and Herr Spier by inference, as one of this elite club also. If you are thinking of giving up your position, then I would gladly suffer to have you confer the mantle and title of Blowhard of Block Island on me! I will endeavor to do my utmost to uphold, and yea, to even supercede the exceedingly high standards of the office that you have set for yourselves!

I don’t think you can, with any sort of reality in mind, consign me to the trash bin where all the right wing whacko’s reside. Just how far Mr. Delay has journeyed in that direction I have no inkling and further, I have no inclination to find out. I know for a fact that deep in my withered and shriveled little heart and mind, that I do not adhere to, nor subscribe to their espoused line of craziness. I’ve never burned a cross, and I am not a John Bircher. If you accuse me of that because I believe in continued freedom for all of our citizens, safety from attacks by any and all enemies of our way of life, and backing our military to the HILT in any endeavor in which they are legally engaged, Iraq for instance, and it is a legal operation as virtually all the members of the House and Senate voted “FOR” the action. Albeit many of them are now experiencing severe memory loss as regards their vote. And if that accusation includes defending and upholding the Constitution of the U.S. as IT WAS WRITTEN? Then yes, I plead guilty to being some small distance to the right of center in my leanings.

Two last things. One: It is a damned good thing the “Bushie” government is not upholding the letter and spirit of the law concerning acts of sedition during a war, as that word was perceived and applied during WWII, or there would be a wholesale decimation of the population on the left side of the aisle in Washington. Two: Mr. Wood, we all know the high esteem in which you hold yourself as regards being the Scrivener, Arbiter, Guardian, and Protector of the English language here on old Block Island. In that vein, I hope you won’t skewer me too thoroughly and publicly for my poor sentence structure, syntax, spelling errors, and punctuation. After all, what more could you expect of a graduate of only twelve years of school starting and ending here on the Island along with Mr. Gaffett. We really do know how low on the ladder of erudition we are held by some folks of your ilk with a lot of letters after their names. Oh yeah, I just LOVE starting a sentence with prepositions and conjunctions and ending them with exclamation marks! WFB would be sorely tried.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to you Sir’s, and to all my other detractors as well. Have a wonderful holiday and, ah, get well soon!!!!

As Ever, Everett R Littlefield

My Five Little Christmas Treasures!

 
Verna and I wish for ALL of you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and a happy New Year! Trite though the exclamation may be, it is from the heart and meant sincerely. Those five faces in the picture above, are what the season is all about as far as I am concerned! Peace to All, and to all, Goodnight! 

A Beautiful Girl From BI

 
 

Iraq and The USA,circa 1863

I was watching the movie called, "The Blue and The Gray" a few days ago and it finally came to the part where Lincoln began to give his Gettysburg Address. As it began, I wasn't paying too much attention, but then he came too the end of the second paragraph, and then the third paragraph, both copied below. Read it closely and imagine it applying to Iraq. Lincoln was dedicating a cemetary. []are my additions. ()are used to delete his words.

"For those who here gave their lives [so] that (the)[this] nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground [called Iraq]. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought so nobly advanced. It is for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God shall have a new birth of freedom; and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
So with this post I am sure to have pissed off a lot of people for daring to equate our Civil War with a country where we are trying to avoid one from beginning. Read it again sentence by sentence and I can't believe that anyone could be "put out" by it. It is striking to me that seven score and two years ago, what someone said applies EXACTLY to what is going on today. TIFN

A Christmas Poem for ALL

The following was sent too me as an Email, and I thought it was so good it should be shared with a larger audience. Please enjoy it!


The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light, I
gazed round the room
and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest, My daughter
beside me, angelic
in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a
winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe, Completed
the magic that was
Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep, Secure
and surrounded by
love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem, So I
slumbered, perhaps I
started to dream.
The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near, But I
opened my eyes when
it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the
sure sound of
footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear, And I
crept to the door
just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night, A
lone figure stood,
his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old, Perhaps a
Marine, huddled
here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled, Standing
watch over me, and
my wife and my child.
"What are you doing?" I asked without fear, "Come in
this moment, it's
freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at
home on a cold Christmas Eve!"
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift, Away from
the cold and the
snow blown in drifts..
To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he sighed and he
said "Its really all right, I'm out here by choice.
I'm here every
night."
"It's my duty to stand at the front of the line, That
separates you from
the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me, I'm proud to
stand here like my
fathers before me.
My Gramps died at 'Pearl on a day in December," Then
he sighed, "That's
a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam', And
now it is my turn
and so, here I am.
I've not seen my own son in more than a while, But my
wife sends me
pictures, he's sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag, The
red, white, and
blue... an American flag.
"I can live through the cold and the being alone, Away
from my family,
my house and my home.
I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a
foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another, Or lay down
my life with my
sister and brother.
Who stand at the front against any and all, To ensure
for all time that
this flag will not fall."
"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright, Your
family is waiting
and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I
asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done, For
being away from
your wife and your son."
Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret, "Just
tell us you love
us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own
watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead, To
know you remember we
fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust, That
we mattered to you
as you mattered to us.

If that didn't make you leak a tear or two, you have a harder heart than I do!

 
 

Thanksgiving Day 2005

HREF='http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4288/744/640/Winter%20North%20Light.jpg'> 
One of the things that I will always be thankful for is the fact of THIS forum/venue.It is truly one of the wonders of the modern world in which we live. I read way to many of these blogs, but it has become the best way I know of keeping in contact with old friends, friends I never knew I had, and the new friends I have made since I started my small contribution to the blogosphere. Nice name BTW! So I would like to wish each and everyone of you a wonderful Thanksgiving day and hope that as I am, you are sourrounded by friends and most importantly, family, on this day. It is raining and blowing a little here on, "Gods Little Island, but nevertheless, it is a beautiful place to be on a day such as this. Take care all and don't each so much that you explode, as I probably will! TIFN 

A Letter From Iraq

When you click on the link below you will be brought to a letter written by a soldier in Iraq,(2nd tour). When you read it,here, read it slowly, stop and digest just what it is he is saying and see if it means ANYTHING to you! This letter too his Mom is about as eloquent as it gets. When you are done, look around your house, your town, your country, and then look at the members of your family, and recount to yourselves just what this FREEDOM thing is all about and what it allows you to do and say every damned day of your life. There are over two thousand guys who have already give THEIR lives, just in this venue, so you could continue to live YOURS as you see fit. Maybe I'll also send this too Mr.Murtha. He needs a reminder apparently. TIFN

Does the BIT follow the MSM's Lead?

What I'm talking about is, do they follow the lead of the Main Stream Media in that they are going to allow nothing into their sheets that might have a positive outlook on GWB? I sent an email to them in response to the ongoing,(and just ended, apparently), discourse between John Foster and myself, hoping to get one more chance at rebutting his last submission. But, no go on that idea I guess. Maybe I'll wait one more week and see what happens.
In the mean time, has anybody had a chance to check out LittleGreenFootballs and the new OSM blogs? Being a conservative blog, it is amazing that they include in their postings, links to some of the more vociferious lefty blogs! There were a couple of kind of nasty ones up there this morning!
Is there anything on the MSM this morning about the vote last night in the House of Reps? Those "Nasty, double dealing, posturing, political animals" the GOP, put a question to the whole mob of them last night and had an immediate vote on it. The vote was on a resolution that said in effect, that we should pull out of Iraq immediately. Well for the last few months, all of Bush's critics have been screaming for him to get out of Iraq and now here was their chance to do it! Guess what the vote was? 403-3 AGAINST the resoultion!!!! Jeez, I wonder what happened to all the rethoric of the last fews weeks? Here was your chance all you two faced bastards! No standing by your convictions for these guys! No sir, we don't want our constituents to know what we 'really' stand for. Oh yeah, midterm elections are coming up next year and there just might be a lot more people out there that want us to continue to support our people in Iraq, than there are dissenters despite what "the polls" say. Funny how all these polls are comissioned by left leaning organizations and then touted to the roof tops by the MSM as an absolute inidcator of every single persons feelings in the whole USA! I take all these polls with so many grains of salt I can't swallow them and neither should anyone else with half a brain!! Have I completely pissed off everybody who reads this! Oh well. TIFN

"OSM" a new kid on the Net

If you just can't stand any more of the biased and spun news stories that dominate all the major news services, try this new one for a different view. It is called Open Source Media and is run by a few of the bloggers who brought out the real truth about the story that got Dan Rather canned from CBS. They have twenty five of the best known bloggers from around the world on board as the people who will get and post the "other side" of the story. They will be able to immediately refute or confirm whether the story as reported was and is true, or whether salient points are being left out of the story by the MSM. SO if you are interested in what is really going on out there in the world, log on and check them out! If you think they are wrong or are putting their own spin on an item, you can click on the comments section and call them on it right then and there and get a reply pretty quickly! You can't do that with the TV news or the papers. In fact THEY, won't EVER deign to answer you using either email or snail mail! I know, I've tried many times.
Duh! I thought I put the address on as a link. Here is the address again, I hope: www.osm.org Sorry about that.Then again maybe I can get it to work here.

Navy Chronicles Chapter Six-- Final One!

There was a good-sized hill outside of Naples on the road to Rome. It was in the little town of Pozzouli, where Sophia Loren was born and lived. They called it Cuma Mountain, but was not much bigger than Beacon Hill here on the Island, only a lot steeper to get up. There was only a foot trail that we could see, so of course that just begged us to try and cram our bikes up there. We finally succeeded one day only to find ourselves in the middle of a good -sized vineyard. After talking to the guy who lived there for a while, he invited us into his house, which was built in the mouth of a cave in the side of the mountain. In the back, he had barrels and barrels of wine all made and ready to go to the city for sale. He broke out a few old glasses and dipped them into a small barrel he had right there in his kitchen and passed them around. We immediately lived up to our reputations as drunken sailors. When we got ready to leave and were about to start down the winding and dangerous trail, the old guy says, “why don’t you go down the road on the other side of the vineyard?” DUH! There wasn’t one of us, smart enough, to have wondered how he got those big-assed barrels down that small trail to go to the city! Smart boys we were!
At the bottom of that self-same mountain, there was a set of railroad tracks that ran between Naples and Roma. They were set up on a raised roadbed or berm. Again, it was an obstacle that just begged for us to do something stupid and dangerous. We backed off a little ways and started up the side of the berm at a good clip intending to jump over the tracks and land going down the other side of the berm. In theory and in actual practice it should work and did. The only trouble was figuring out just how fast you had to be going when you hit the top of the hill at the takeoff point. The first try didn’t even get us too the tracks. The next try landed the flyer right in the middle of the tracks to the huge detriment to his bike! Bent wheels. The next guy to try, not wanting his wheels to suffer the same out-come, cracked it on pretty good. He looked good flying through the air all the way over the tracks. The only trouble he had was on the landing, because he completely missed the taper of the berm on the far side and landed on the front wheel mostly, on the flat ground. This separated him from his steed in a most uncomfortable manner. Eventually we figured it out, that the optimum speed was just 35 mph, and thereafter we would scare the hell out of the engineers on the trains, by jumping across the tracks in front of the slow moving trains.
Through out Naples and the rest of Italy, there were a lot of fountains in the main piazzas, or squares of the city. One day while riding around on our bikes and looking at the big fountain in the main square of Napoli, the Piazza Munichipio, we got the bright idea that the local populace needed a little more color in their lives. So back to the base we went and on to the parachute loft. There we obtained about six packets of the US Navy’s best shark repellant. When this stuff is put in water it turns a beautiful shade of fluorescent green. Off we go back downtown to brighten the drab lives of all those people forced to live in drab old Napoli. Man, after throwing in the dye packets on a couple of circuits around the fountain, we pulled over to the side and stopped at the only place in Napoli that made pizza. It took a few minutes, but eventually the color started to show. As more and more of the dye got into the water, it turned a lot darker than we had anticipated. It was a closed water system and after all the dye dissolved, it wasn’t a nice fluorescent green, it turned a dark forest green! Virtually every car on the road and around the square came to a stop and the people all got out and went over to the fountain to feel and look at the phenomena. Needless to say I suppose, that the excrement hit the rotating airfoil over that little trick. The next night someone who shall remain nameless dumped a whole bottle of liquid soap into the same fountain, and now there were thousands of cubic feet of green bubbles all over the main piazza. They eventually had to drain all the contaminated water out of the fountain and refill it. The “word” was put out at the base, that if this occurred again someone on the base would be getting Court Martialed and spending some time in the brig! That pronouncement brought about an immediate cessation of water coloring.
Another night, another try at getting thrown in jail. This one occurred because it was a rainy night and we didn’t want to get wet walking from the car to the barracks when we got back to the base. So we just rode around till we saw a likely prospect standing on the sidewalk waiting for a bus. He was right at the edge of the sidewalk, and had his umbrella in his hand in the open position. I’m driving, so I swoop right close to the walk, while my partner in crime reaches out the window of the car and rips the brelly right out of the guy’s hand! Woosh, off we drive with our prize in our hand. Only trouble was, he couldn’t get the damned thing closed, and as I’m going at a pretty good clip now, it managed to turn itself inside out. Oh well, there must be someone else out there waiting to part with their umbrella. We didn’t find him though and had to be satisfied with our everted one. Remember those great big license plates that I mentioned before? They were also good for giving away who you were, when you were trying to be a beginning crook. Anyway, the next morning about ten in the AM, I get a summons from the Exec. of the base, requesting, nay, demanding my presence at his office forthwith! Not only did our big red and white plates give us away, it also made it easy for the Mayor of Naples to locate the two dastardly people who stole his son’s umbrella right out of his hands, right in front of the La Scala opera house! Whoops, BIG no-no. We were directed to take the offending object directly back to the office of the Mayor and to suffer whatever punishment he deemed it necessary to inflict upon the two of us blackguards! The first stop was at a shop where we could buy one that was of at least the same value as the one we stole and broke. Then off to the Mayors office to face the music. All in all, he was very gracious, and understanding of young people’s hijinks. After apologizing profusely, we beat a hasty retreat and went back to the Exec.’s office to report on our humiliation and punishment. When he found out the Mayor did little more than verbally chastise us, he immediately put us both on two weeks restriction to the base and docked us $50 apiece! That was a most unsatisfying and expensive experience! $50 dollars was about three weeks pay back then, plus the cost of the new umbrella!
One day my future wife, myself, and about three or four other guys, were on a little excursion in the backcountry. Two guys on a Vespa motor scooter, came up alongside of us, and were doing some fierce ogling of the rear end of the only female rider in our bunch. Granted, it was unusual to say the least, to see a female astride of a motorcycle. Even more unusual was the fact that she was driving the thing! Unheard of in those days in Italia. Women always rode on the back of ANY motor scooter or cycle, and absolutely NEVER astride! They always sat side-saddle. Well these two guys just couldn’t believe what they were seeing and kept edging in closer and closer. Finally I goosed my bike and cut in front of them and behind Verna’s bike. Well, they didn’t like being relegated to the rear of our entourage and again they came abreast of her and cut right in behind her. Only this time they decided to take a few more liberties with this uncouth and “low” woman. The driver pulled right up close and the passenger guy reached out and gave a good firm pat to the derrière of “my woman”! Well, how dare the little snot! At the moment, we happened to be going along the top of a long low hill with a fairly steep down hill embankment to the right of us, all nice and grassy. So I pulled right up along side of them again and reached out with my foot and gave the handle bar grip of the scooter a fairly stiff kick. The wheel immediately snapped hard right, and the last I saw of the two and their scooter; they were tumbling head over heels down the side of the hill. No more pats on the po-po from those two!

After I had proved to the powers that be, that I could fix virtually any problem with any of the Navy’s big round engines, and that I was a rather resourceful sailor, I got a huge step up! The guy who had been 1st wrench, (head mechanic) on Admiral Browns R4Y-5Z Convair was transferred back to the States. The 2nd wrench moved up to take his place and they needed a replacement for #2. It was up to Chief Baker to assign him, and somehow I got the job! Now this was going to get me to all those ‘nice’ places to go on an RON. No more carrier trips, no more weeks of living like an animal in the belly of a small plane. On this baby, we went to wherever there was a United States Embassy, on a regular basis! The only bad thing about the whole job was the fact that whenever we landed in a foreign city, when you walked down the stairs of that plane you had to be wearing a dress uniform! Huge pain in the butt. Trying to keep an all white uniform spotlessly clean while working around an aircraft was a task that I was not good at. They used to call me Pigpen around the hangar, because I attracted dirt just like a magnet. I used to keep six sets of brand new “whites” stashed on board the aircraft at all times, just in case! But right after the Admiral and all the “Digs” (dignitaries) had left the area, we jumped right back into our dungarees. Then it was time to service the aircraft with fuel and post flight it. We would fix any minor discrepancies that the pilots had noted on the yellow sheet. Those big old R2800 hundreds managed to leak out oil from various orifices and so we would wipe it all up so that the plane shown like a diamond. Once our “baby” had been attended to, we were free to go exploring in the city where we were. Over the course of the next year and a half, I went to virtually every major city in Europe and a good part of the ones in Africa and the Middle East. I would send my folks a post card from each one of the city/countries, and they would track me on an old Atlas they had. There were some of those cards that didn’t get back to the States until after I did! A few of these cities that we visited were in the Soviet Bloc and when we would go to them we never wore a uniform, not allowed by the local powers that be. When and if we did get to go into the city, it was in civilian clothes and then only to designated places. There were also ALWAYS, two guys who followed you where ever you went. In most of these places you hardly ever saw people just walking around have a good time or fun. Everyone and everything looked grim and foreboding. Places like Warsaw, Poland and Split, Yugoslavia were particularly unhappy looking places. Once in a while some brave soul would come up to us and try to talk to us about the US. All the while your two tails would edge up close and listen in. I often wondered what happened to those people after they had the temerity to talk to us.
After having spent three plus years gallivanting all over Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, one of the countries that I liked to visit the most was Greece. As was always the case in a foreign country, as far as I was concerned, the local people in the villages were absolutely delightful to deal with! It was only when you had to deal with the bureaucrats that it became less than satisfying! One of the Greek Isles that I had the good fortune to visit was the Island of Rhodes. It was kind of bare and desolate in the outlying areas, but the little village on the water was absolutely beautiful. I spent about two hours one day, at a small outdoor restaurant trying to explain to two people that the name of the State in the US where I lived was named after this particular little Island. I’m not even sure that that is true, but I can’t imagine where Roger Williams got the name for our patch if it wasn’t from there.
In each one of these countries, I’d wind up with some of the local currency in either coinage or paper form. After three years plus over there, I had quite an exotic mix of money. I kept it in an old shaving bag and it added up to about $500. I could have traded it in for American green, but I wanted to bring it home to show my Mom and Dad. On the way back, we were routed through Port Layutey in French Morocco where we had a two day layover. Well, one of the times we were all out of the barracks at chow, a gang of the local hoods went through the place like a scourge of locust and cleaned out every damn locker in the building. So there went my coin collection and a Kodak Retina Reflex camera with a 70 mm telephoto lens and a good wide angle one as well. That was about $2000 worth of camera and lenses back then. It put an abrupt end to my photography career! A few hours after this, we were all on one of those newfangled Boeing 707 jet airliners that MATS had recently acquired, on our way back to the good old US of A and the end of my tour in Bella Italia! Ciao everybody! Now on to the hinterlands of the State of Maine for my next duty station that had absolutely nothing to do with airplanes!

AD-5N Tow Plane had The reel on the center station

 
 

SNB-5

 
 

R4D-8

 
 

Navy Chronicles Chapter Five

Even before I had bought my VW car, I had bought a Triumph Bonneville T-650cc motorcycle within a month of arriving in Bella Napoli. This was an English bike that was about twice the size of ANY motorcycle in existence in Italy at that time. It cost me right around $1500 if my memory serves me correctly. I didn’t have a clue how to ride the thing so a friend of mine let me keep it at his house right down the street from me. He also taught me how to ride the thing on the beach out in front of the house. I was getting pretty good at doing the, “up-shift” but not to swift at doing the “downshift”. Well, one day I’m out there on the beach going at a pretty good clip when I notice this big Boxer dog making a beeline for me. I was trying real hard to stop when he decided to take a big bite out of the front wheel! I was still doing about 15 mph when this obstruction glommed onto my trusty steed and we all crashed in a heap on the beach. Now the dog is howling to beat hell because his mouth hurts and me and a 600 pound motorcycle are lying on top of him. He keeps biting at anything he can reach and occasionally gets a piece of me. I’m smacking at him and trying to get the hot exhaust pipe off my leg when the dog owner arrives and commences to scream at me for running over his stupid assed dog. A huge fight is about to ensue when along comes another guy who saw what happened and calmed everyone down. I say everyone, cause about 15 people immediately showed up to participate in whatever was going on, as always happens in any situation in good old Napoli! The only down side of owning the bike, was that the Commanding Officer of the base would not let us bring one on the base. So we had to take our big time investment and chain them to a lamp post out side the main gate of the base. We used lots of chains and a couple of case hardened locks on each one of them. I am still amazed that the chains weren’t cut and the bikes stolen by the locals, but it never happened. I had the misconception that everyone in Italy was a member of the Mafia. Apparently, not so with the people of our local area. I was in fact, to become friendly and totally in love with an older Italian couple. They were to become my mentors and surrogate family for the last two years of my sojourn in Napoli. Their names were Maria and Roberto Guilio. He ran a small motorcycle repair shop, which we had gone to strictly by chance, to get some crash bars made for our bikes. They would correct my poor Italian, and endeavor to set me on the right word usage path. While I lived with them in their house for the last eight months I was there, I was treated to some of the best meals I’ve ever had in my life. It was simple stuff, and I really enjoyed living like, and eating like the local people. Every night just before dinner, Roberto would get a couple of mugs and go over to a fifty gallon wooden barrel in the corner of the kitchen and take off the lid. Inside was some of the best Chianti wine I’ve ever had. He’d bail out two mugs full and come back to the table. Whereupon, I would begin working on my nightly buzz. Man that stuff was powerful. At that time in my life, I still weighed in at a scrawny 145-150 lbs. It didn’t take too much alcohol to get me totally besotted. I asked Roberto one time how they got that big barrel of wine into the house when the last one had gone empty as it was on this particular night. He said to come home early, by five o’clock the next day and I would find out. Well I arrived by the appointed time the next day and up pulls a huge wooden barrel on a truck. This barrel was at least big enough to hold a thousand gallons of liquid. The guy driving it pulled right up on the sidewalk of Roberto’s house and passed a long hose in through the window and right to the wine barrel in the corner! Viola! Instant refill. The three of us would sit at that table and talk about everything under the sun for an hour or two after supper. They had a friend who lived in the same complex and who was a devote Communist. He would occasionally stop by and join in on the conversation. He was forever trying to engage me in conversations about how great communism was for the common man, and how decadent the US was. I told him that I was about as common a man as there was, and after watching what was going on in all the communist controlled countries that I knew about, I didn’t want a damn thing to do with his type of politics! I would love to talk to him now to find out his views on the total decline and fall of that “wonderful” doctrine of his!
Supper usually took an hour or more to eat as there were always four or five courses. Not a lot for each one, but it still had to be cooked and eaten one at a time! By the time dinner was over and my mug had been refilled two or three times I was ready for bed. There was no such thing as central heating in that apartment house either. Each tenant had to supply his own heat source. When in the kitchen, it was a kerosene fired cook stove. Also there was a big heavy tablecloth hung almost all the way to the floor and contained the heat right under the table, because there was a big charcoal burning brazier under there! I used to get the damnedest headaches while I lived there and finally figured out that it was from the fumes of the charcoal being burned and contained right in the room and under the table! I am amazed that we all didn’t die from carbon monoxide poisoning! We all sat around the table with your stocking feet propped up on the edge of the brazier. After a lot of wine, it was prudent to remove your feet from the rim and put them on the floor, where the danger of catching your socks on fire was a lot less! When you went to bed, you crawled under about three or four heavy quilts, and snuggled up in the middle of a big feather bed. I will have to say though, that I did bring quite a lot of the staple foods into the kitchen. Old Roberto just loved American peanut butter once I had introduced him to it. It was another of those idyllic times in my life, living out there with them. It was in the little town of Caserta, just a mile or so from the base. When it came time for me to leave to come back home, I left them my 24’ day-sailer and my motorcycle. He was the only Italian in the whole city of Naples, and probably all of Italy, that had a 650cc souped-up English bike! I also made sure to buy as much peanut butter as I could, so it would last him for a long time. It wasn’t something you could buy on the open market back then. It was strictly a US Navy Commissary item. The day before I was to leave was one of the saddest days of my life, as we knew that we’d never see each other again. There was a lot of crying and hugging and then it was time to go. I felt worse about leaving them then I had my own family, as I knew I would be seeing them again soon.
The biggest police motorcycle at that time, was a 350cc Gelera. The police had a little paddle that was colored red on one side and green on the other that they used to control traffic. They never could catch us on their bikes if they thought we were speeding, so they would wait till they found us stopped somewhere and come up and assess a fine for speeding. They said they knew we had been speeding at some time in the course of our trip, so they were collecting while they could! A bird in the hand don’t you know! Sometimes though they would stop you on the road by holding out the red side of the paddle if they saw us coming and we’d be obliged to stop and fork over a little more of the green stuff. You couldn’t just blow on by them, knowing they couldn’t catch you, because there was that big fat license plate advertising who you were. Beside that, they were empowered to stop you anyway they could, and that included shooting at you! Which did happen on one occasion to a friend and me. After having been stopped to have your pockets picked by the local constabulary a few times, we took to keeping most of our money wrapped around our ankles under the socks. You would keep about 2-3 mille, about $5 in your pockets in small bills and change, and when they demanded payment; we’d turn out our pockets with all the small stuff. They were usually happy with it, when they figured they had just taken all we had. Ha Ha on them!!
Almost every where we went for that first year was on the back of that bike. Even after getting the car, the bike was the preferred mode of transportation. It was the best for negotiating downtown Naples, as you could weave between cars, and even get right up on the sidewalk with all the other Vespa motorscooters, and the rest of the Neopolitian populace. Virtually every scooter was up on the sidewalk, because it was easier to make people move out of the way than it was to get a car to move over! Man what a madhouse that town was to drive in!
I was there when it snowed in Naples for the first time in about 80 years! They had no such thing as a snowplow, and after about a million accidents had happened because none of the locals knew how to drive in the snow; some “brain” had a storm in his head! They decided to have the fire brigade break out the hoses and wash all that nasty white stuff right down the sewers. It worked great for a little bit, but then all the water froze on the streets and they were worse off than with the snow! I have never seen so many wrecked cars in one place before or since! God what a mess.
These motorcycle trips were a regular occurrence on every weekend that was fairly warm. We’d put a bunch of money in our pockets, roll up a blanket and a poncho and strap them to the bike and off we’d go. We would leave as soon as we could on Friday afternoon and just pick out a direction and go. Usually we stayed off the main highways and went by way of the back roads. Some of the places we’d find were like stepping back three or four hundred years. Using our Neapolitan Italian, we could just barely communicate with the people out there in the sticks. There were a lot of nights that we slept on the floor of some small trattoria after having supper with the owners. Leaving un mille, 1000 Lira per person for the food and the use of the floor, was more cash than most of these people had seen in years if not their whole lives. That L1000 was worth about $1.60 back then. $6.40 (four guys) wasn’t much to we rich Americans but was an unimaginable windfall to these people.
Supper at these little, out of the way places covered the gamut of plain old country-food. Lots of pasta and veggies, various types of soups, minestrone turned out to be the kind I liked best, and occasionally some kind of meat. There always appeared on the table, lots of bread and copious amounts of Chianti type vino. Eating and staying the night with these people was a lot like being right back home. They were always unfailingly generous to a fault and polite as could be. They didn’t know about the Ugly Americans in the “outback”. They were for the most part still grateful to the US and others for being freed from Mussolini and his ilk, unlike their neighbors to the north in France! When we were on the road during the day, the drill was to find a small store and buy a stick of salami or some other kind of preserved meat, a loaf of bread and a bottle of the ubiquitous vino. That was lunch, taken on the seat of your bike or just sitting by the road watching the people go by. The military used to tell us not to eat any of the produce that was available at stores and roadside peddler carts unless they had been soaked in a mixture of one part bleach to ten parts water. This was to kill the hepatitis germs that abounded because of the use of human waste as a fertilizer. Well we didn’t give that to awful much thought while on our weekly excursions and after three years of eating “off the economy” I never contracted any sort of problems. Even the “gelati”, ice cream was supposed to be off limits.
There was a group of us sailors who owned these pretty high performance motorcycles, and of course we all thought that we had the fastest one. Naturally this led to competitions of a sort. There was an old unused WWII airport outside Naples that was the site that the local Italians used for the same thing. They graciously let us race our bikes there too. They never competed against us because as I said before, the biggest cubic inch displacement bike in Italy at that time was 350cc. We would line up on the start line and at a signal, take off for the finish line. After shifting into third gear, you would lie out flat on the seat and the rear fender in order to cut down the wind resistance. After crossing the finish line, you would pull yourself back up to a sitting position. At the end of one of my runs I did just that only to have the throttle assembly come off in my hand. This immediately yanked both carburetors wide open and left me hanging off the side of the bike and beginning to accelerate frighteningly. Well, it’s a good thing there was a pond right at the end of the runway, cause that is where I wound up going about 85 mph! The cold water and my hot engine did not like the close contact and immediately made the engine separate into a few pieces. It was no danger to me though because I had departed into the air and was tumbling ass over tincups well ahead of the machinery. It was fortuitous that the pond was only three or four feet deep or I most likely would have expired right then. Shortly after that incident I gave up racing motorcycles on the drag strip and took up scrambling around in the bushes with it instead. We used to have these things called Hare and Hound races too. One person would be designated as the “hare” and off he would go. With a five minute head start, it was then up to the rest of us “hounds” to go find him. We set limits of just how far into the hinterlands he could go, or we’d never catch him! This was great fun and kept us out of the barrooms for a while.
In Italy in the 50’s and 60’s the buses that were used, sat high off of the ground on huge wheels. You had to climb up three or four steps to get on board and that was a lucky thing for me on one other occasion. I had been out with a couple of my friends attending a function at one of the local bars. It was called drinking to excess. Well I lived up to my end of the bargain and was pretty well inebriated when we left to return to the base. There was a long stretch of straight road leading up the hill from downtown Naples to the airport. Then you came to two or three ninety-degree turns before the final leg of the trip to the front gate of the base. Of course it always became a race to see who could get to the first turn first. On this occasion I was winning until I hit a slick spot in the road and down I went doing about 45 mph. At the same time around the corner came one of those gigantic buses going the opposite way. Through some sort of fluke of perfect timing, I slid under the bus right behind the front wheels and came out the other side before the rear wheels had a chance to squish me. Right after emerging from under the bus, I had lots of thoughts of thanks to the Commanding Officer of the base for demanding that anyone owning and riding a bike under his command, would have a set of crash bars installed on the front and back of his bike, and had to wear a safety helmet to. It saved me from the worst case of road rash you can imagine. Not one piece of “me” touched the road throughout this escapade as I was hugging the bike pretty tightly! All the other guys behind me, saw me go under amid a shower of sparks, and assumed the worst. They were all standing there by their bikes, expecting to have to start crying and carrying on about my demise. Then imagine their surprise when I emerged unscathed from the jaws of death! Stupidity did reign supreme at times in my life!

Navy Chronicles: Chapter Four

After being indoctrinated by my new friends into the vagaries of the whole place and time, I started going to some of the wonderful places located around the Naples area. After having been there for about a year, I attempted to buy a car. This was an undertaking that you wouldn’t believe. I had the money all saved up from my business at my previous duty station. I was what was called a ‘Loan Shark” in polite company. I used to loan out $5 for $6, $10 for $12, $15 for $18, and $20 for $24. This was never for more than a two-week period. Then every body paid up and I started all over again. I think it is called “Usury” and it is frowned on mightily by the Navy. Anyway, that is where I came by my stash as I arrived in bella Napoli. It turned out that none of the Volkswagen dealers in Naples, make that “the” VW dealer, would sell me a car, because of all the regulations required by the military and the civilian government. I wound up flying up to Germany with three friends, and two of us went to the Volkswagen factory where they were only too happy to sell each of us a brand new 1959 VW for the grand total of $1050! Each that is. We then went to the nearest Army base and got a set of temporary plates to get us back to Naples. Once there, we were able to get our two vessels registered with the local controlling military authority, i.e. CIC AFSOUTH. That means, Commander-In-Chief, Armed Forces, Southern Europe. They were nice big plates too. About two-foot long and 8-10 inches high, white with red letters and a red border all around the outside edge! There was therefore, absolutely no doubt in any ones mind that here comes an American serviceman! Money on the hoof!
Now this next statement is no lie, as any person from that era can attest. As you drove through traffic in downtown Naples, it was usually at about 5 to 10 MPH, and people had no compunction about crashing into the front of your car and falling into the road screaming and thrashing around on the ground. When the Carribinary (State Police) arrived, there were always about fifty people who would come out of nowhere and all would most vociferously attest to the fact that you were speeding along and deliberately ran the poor person down! Never mind the fact that the traffic was almost dead stopped! Well, after about an hour of “negotiations” between the Carribinary, the victim and the driver, wherein they each received about L10,000 Lira, that was $16 bucks back then, the victim would miraculously be healed and cured and off every one would go, happy with the outcome. The other two parties because they had once again duped the “stupido Americano’s” out of their money, and the driver, because he wasn’t going to the notorious Napoli jail! After a while, you’d get real smart about watching people who looked like, “jumpers” and slamming on the brakes before they could commit the deed. In the course of the three plus years I was there, I managed to divest myself of about $300-$400 dollars in donations to the people of Napoli!
That little VW had about 8o,ooo miles put on it running all over Italy. One of my favorite places in the whole area around Naples was a little town called Sorrento. It was about 15-20 miles to the south of Naples, and it looked to me as though it hadn’t changed in the last five hundred years. It was at the end of the Amalfi Drive that ran from Napoli to Sorrento. This road was cut right into the side of the cliff and followed every curve that the cliff made. It was the best place in all of Italy to ride a motorcycle, because you were weaving back and forth around all the corners constantly. It was kind of scary though because the “guard rail” was about two feet high and would stop nothing from going over the edge to the bottom about 250 feet down!! It did make you a more cautious driver than you might ordinarily have been!
The streets in Sorrento were cobblestones and narrow, to the point that two small cars had to maneuver real cautiously to get by each other. We would go down there on a Friday afternoon and rent a small pensione for two days. The car would get parked for the entire time we were there. The pensione that we always rented had a little balcony that hung out over the street and you could sit there and watch the people go by under your feet, which I did by the hour. We took all our meals in a small trattoria (restaurant) right at the end of the street, which ended right at the waters edge. There was a small stone wharf that always seemed to have a couple of boats tied up as some fishermen worked on them or their fishing gear. Having come from a fishing village myself, it was a comforting feeling to just sit and watch them. After many weekends down there, and having become somewhat proficient in the use of pidgin Italian, they let me help a little with the nets they used when they found out I could use a mending needle. We would sit at the tables, set outside the door, and have a few glasses of vino during the times we weren’t out exploring the surrounding area. All meals were eaten al fresco at that place, and it was always what everyone else was having. Half the time I never knew just what it was I was eating, but it was always without fail, something really good. During the summer months when I was actually in Naples and not flying all over the European continent, I would spend at least two weekends a month down there in Sorrento.
I know this sounds really laid back for a USN sailor, but it was a wonderfully romantic and beautiful place. I’d love to go back but am afraid it wouldn’t live up to my recollections. I know we went there on some pretty cold and blustery days, but all the ones I remember are the balmy summer ones with the smell of the flowers in the air. The flowers seemed to grow right out of the rocks and their perfume scented every thing around, and the assortment of colors was absolutely astounding! The place to me is the quintessential location when I think of romantic interludes, and beautiful nights.

There are two other towns near by that we spent a few days exploring too. They are Pompeii, and Herculeaneum. Both were buried in the great explosion of Vesuvio back in the ????? Century. It is amazing how the towns were reclaimed from under all the ash and magma that was rained down on them on that fateful day. You could even see the ruts worn in the cobblestones by the passage of wagons and probably legions of Roman soldiers too, over the centuries. When you walk around those two small towns, you really get a sense of the passage of the previous two thousand years. It really makes you think of the number of generations of families that have passed.
Those Old Italian “nobles” from that time period were a bunch of lecherous old dudes, ‘because they had local artists paint very graphic pictures on the insides of their houses. It wasn’t just the naked form that was painted. It was the naked form in all sorts of shall we say “compromising positions”. They would have pictures of themselves, with certain parts of their anatomy grossly exaggerated! Talk about people with swelled heads! During the time period that I was there, women were not allowed to even enter those houses. I guess the head guy up in Rome, Mr. Pope and his minions, had convinced the populace that the naked form was something not to be viewed by the ladies!

Another nice place to visit was the Island of Capri. Whoever reads this should really try and take a trip to Italy and go see this Island! It was about 15-18 miles out from the Bay of Naples. About the best way to get there was on one of the then, new hydrofoil boats that ran between the two ports. They were called “Aliscarfi” in Italian, and would make the trip in about 30 minutes. Upon arrival we would take a taxi up to the top of the Island where all the hotels and most of the shops were. It was strictly a tourist trap place even back then in the sixties, but I thought it was just plain beautiful. You could go walking all over the place or hire one of the little donkey carts to take you on a tour. Those poor little donkeys were so small though, that we’d get out and walk up any sort of an incline so the poor little cuss didn’t have to work so hard. The owner of the cart thought we were all nuts for doing that. I guess there wasn’t much love lost between man and beast.
On one excursion over there I went with a young lady who was to become my wife in the near future. It was early in the spring and we had decided to take a tour of a place called the Blue Grotto. It is a rather famous cave in the edge of the Island, where the ocean flows in and out. Its main attraction is the cerulean blue of the water inside the cave. I never was able to find out what made it look like that, what with only my pidgin Italian to converse with the locals. Anyway, there we were in a boat with the guide, with our swimsuits under our clothes. When we informed him that we were going to get in the water, so that we could tell all our friends that we went swimming in the Blue Grotto, he looked at us as though we were completely nuts and kept muttering about the “crazy Americanos”. Back then we were just the “crazy Americans”, we hadn’t metamorphosed into the ‘Ugly Americans just yet. Well we jumped in, and immediately back into the boat, as he was right when he said it was too damned cold to be swimming in April! Well, we had our swim and in the ensuing forty odd years, I’ve never run across another single soul who had done the same thing. I guess there just aren’t as many nuts out there as you’d think. We used to stay in a pretty nice hotel there on the Island and they didn’t want you to be dressed like a street urchin. So I went out and bought myself a nice dark suit with some kind of sparkly threads running through it. It was the “in” thing back then. I also had bought a Homburg hat and a cane, and thought I looked the right proper English gent. So now I could get into any of the nicer hotels wearing that getup. Although when I wore it into the Loundres Hotel one evening to “do a deal” with Mr. Lucky Luciano, he told me I looked like a high class pimp! I guess it was all in where you decided to go when “dressed to the nines”!
Two other guys and myself, had taken a lease on a house about four doors down from the one my future wife lived in out past Pouzzouli, home of Sophia Loren, on the beach at Licola. At about the same time I had bought a 24’ day-sailer boat from another guy who was headed back to CONUS, Continental United States. It was a nice little wooden boat in great shape, and we kept it right on the beach in front of the house. We would sail it right up on to the beach where we had positioned a couple of round poles to act as rollers. After coming ashore we’d pull it up on them a little so the tide didn’t take it out in the middle of the night, and I’d tie it up to a pipe driven deep in the sand. Well after having it for a while we decided to take it on a long weekend sail over to Capri which could be seen in the distance. It was about 16-20 miles out into the big Bay of Naples. So off we go on a nice bright sunny Friday afternoon and in about four hours and just at dark we arrived at the Island. We spent that night and the next generally drinking and ogling the women, uh, people, and then decided we’d head back to Naples the next morning early. We left Capri about six AM and had been out for about an hour when in rolls this dense fog bank and the wind quits blowing. Now here we sit, right in the middle of the shipping lanes into Naples with no outboard motor, and worse than that, NO COMPASS! Nor any kind of signaling device! Well, we wound up sitting out there all day and most all of the next night till a breeze came up about three in the morning and we could see the lights of Naples and we managed to make it back to port in time for quarters that morning. When we explained where we had been and why, we were let off the hook because we had been declared AWOL, (absent without leave) and were subject to arrest by the Shore Patrol or any local Italian cop the saw us. I’ll tell you though; it was some damned scary sitting out there in the fog listening to those big assed ships going by in the night. If one of them had run us down, no one would have ever known what had happened to us! I only took one other trip across the water with that sailboat and it was over to the Island of Ischia, which was right out in front of our house about 3 or 4 miles distant. We went there because it was where they were filming the movie “Cleopatra” and we wanted to get a look at Liz Taylor if possible! Richard Burton? Who the hell was he?

AD-6 (A1E)