SEVERAL BAD DECISIONS

Last night was edumacational. The entire town was filled with sailors, aka 'gentlepersons of a maritime persuasion', as San Francisco celebrated its annual descent into madness and militarism.
My mother would've liked it. She always had a soft spot for men (or women) in uniform. She grew up on military bases, and the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Alameda, were all thoroughly familiar to her.
During the World War, she managed to wreck three jeeps.
I think that may have been on Alameda.

I drive like her. Just a whole lot better. Even though I haven't driven in over twenty years, since crashing my car while roaring at nearly ninety miles an hour round a curve on a dirt road in the East Bay.
But I stress that I was never-the-less a safe driver.
No deaths, no injuries, no near-misses.
Just a freak accident, trust me.
I no longer own a car.


FLEET WEEK

Nor do I own a sailor suit. If I did, I might have worn it last night.
San Francisco was filled with sailors!

Sailors, boy, sailors! It's "Fleet Week". Which above all things means sailors! Depraved behaviour! Pizza with triple cheese! Selfies with hoochies! Two cigars at a time!
Sailors!

Break out that last pack of Lucky Strikes and pass them around!

I wisely decided to leave the Hello Kitty backpack at home before heading out for a drink. I happen to know that Hello Kitty is a shameless trollop, likely to behave disgracefully with our nautical pals.

She doesn't realize that sailors are our first line of defense against sharks.

We would've all be eaten by now otherwise.

Sailors!


FYI: if I had a Sailor Moon backpack, it would have been appropriate last night, but equally ill-advised. For a whole variety of reasons.



APPENDIX: HOW THE CAR GOT WRECKED

[Lifted from 'Dovbear is the Head of the Mukhabarat', first bloglished on Tuesday, August 15, 2006.]


Back in 1982, after a long lunch at a soul-food restaurant in West-Oakland with several friends (I can still remember that scrumptious corn-bread and collards with pot-liquor), I took a wrong turn on the way back to Berkeley. Somehow I ended up in Moraga, in a desolate area on a sand-road to nowhere. So I turned around and headed out, back to the noise of the freeway and the populated world.

At ninety miles an hour.

1. It is not advisable to drive ninety miles an hour on a dirt-road in the middle of nowhere at twilight.
2. It IS advisable to slow down when coming to a sharp bend in the road.
3. When you do not slow down, your car may turn over several times.
4. And come to a stop upside down.
5. Before slowly starting to slide down the slope.
6. And finally coming to a complete stop in a gravel pit fifty yards down-hill.
7. Where you have to wrestle yourself out of the passenger-side window.

At this point you may discover several things.
1) You. Are. In. Moraga.
2) Your car used to have corners.
3) Your car now has NO uncracked or shattered glass.
4) The car-frame is bent.
5) The doors are hosed - one can't open, the other won't close.
6) Your pipe (a black sandblast panel with a taper-stem) is still in your mouth, the tobacco is still lit, and has reached perfect cruising temperature - the Turkish leaf is coming into its own.
7) Baruch Hashem!


A marvelous voyage of discovery.
I learned several things I did not know.
Never stop learning.


Eventually, with the help of some passers by, the car was turned right-side up. It still worked, so I did drive back to Berkeley that evening, pulling to the left the whole time, because due to the frame being severely bent the vehicle veered to the right. The driver-side door would not open, the passenger-side door could not close completely; in consequence the alarm went off for the entire drive back. Which is irritating.

The car was considered a total wreck by the insurance company.

I haven't driven since.

There's a connection there. A link, if you will. Perhaps causal.


A meise she-personal-hoyo:

A few years before that, for a family event, my father and his wife, and my uncle and his family, had all come to Berkeley. Where both my father and my uncle had lived before going off to war in the forties; my father to the Royal Canadian Air Force and three years of flying a bomber over Germany, my uncle to the US Navy, and three years of toodling around Hawaii.

So I drove 'em around.

My uncle and my aunt got out white as sheets, and did not ride with me again.

One of my cousins, who had been warned by my uncle and aunt, nearly had hysterics after her turn. And needed help getting out.

I shan't mention the reaction of the other cousin. That would be mean.
I am not mean.


My father, when I drove him around, just had this big grin all over his puss. He rode with me several more times after that.

I think he approved of my no-nonsense style of manoeuvring.

Oh, I probably should mention that until he married the woman who a few years later was to become my mother, he had owned several small Italian sportscars and an aeroplane (she made him get rid of the dangerous things).

So anyhow, if I had my life to live all over again, I would do exactly the same thing.
Ninety miles an hour.
I just wish I still had that pipe (a black sandblast panel with a taper-stem).
And a double (!) helping of collard greens with pot-liquor.

[End cite.]




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