Hot Diggity's Carolina Story telling thread.

I'll see if I can write about these a couple at a time and will just edit the list and add more as I have time. This is a fun stroll down memory lane for me.
I'm finding pictures online that are even the same color as my cars. I'm also refining the years, and finding it easier to do working backwards because I scrapped everything when it was 10 years old over there. The compulsory safety inspection became terribly expensive after ten years.

* Memorable cars I had overseas.

'74 Mitsubishi FTO

This was my first car on Okinawa. My friend Noah found it for me. By the time I got rid of it (because it was 10 years old and re-inspection would cost a fortune) it had flames painted on the hood and fenders, a 2" front end lift, Toyota rally wheels (that didn't fit without machining) and knobby Bridgestone rally tires. The exhaust diameter was increased to 2" and the muffler had a nice growl that matches the dual SU carburetors. I put in lots of mountain miles in this car and only stopped curve racing it when I realized the hard tires made neither marks or noise when they slid, and I could hit some coral dust on the road and go over the side of a cliff without a trace. I had a couple mishaps with the car. First was on a morning when I was due to go on leave in the States. Beautiful morning. I was driving around looking at cars with those Toyota Rally Wheels and didn't see the sign pole in the vacant parking lot. I called my buddy Noah and he told the MP's that he'd been driving. The pole was okay, but my bumper and radiator were bent like a V in the center. I asked the guys if they could straighten my bumper out and get a new radiator while I was gone. They straightened it out. Hammered it completely FLAT and hung it on the front of the car with wire.
During the repair was when we painted the flames, and shortly after that I hit a huge slab of concrete that was hidden in a puddle and bent the front of the frame so badly I couldn't steer. I chained the cross member to a tree and with several abrupt stops at the end of the chain while backing up, managed to get the car to steer, but only if I didn't hit the brakes.
When we reinforced the frame we raised the front end considerably to give more ground clearance. This also altered the caster angle and made the car very stable on the loose coral back roads. Last picture I have of the car was when it was being hoisted onto Cowboy's scrap truck for its' ride to the crusher.

'79 Nissan Cedric


I'd made a good bit of money speculating on the currency exchange (and making payday loans) and imported this beautiful luxury sedan from mainland Japan. It was the only brown Cedric on Okinawa. Big 2.8L engine that I had to pay extra road tax for, automatic transmission, velour seats, front and rear A/C (two evaporators, not just vents in the back) and more bells and whistles than anything I've ever owned. I got rear ended while sitting at a red light on base the first day I owned the car. The American lady that hit me wanted to just give me $50 for the damage.
I declined and waited for the MP's. It cost her insurance company more than $1200 to fix my bumper and rear fenders.

'70 Toyota Toyopet Corona (Blue Betsy)



Faded blue four door. I parked it outside the South Gate of Camp Kinser by the sea wall and left the keys in it. Anybody that needed it to get back from town could use it as long as they put it back the next day. Rear axle bearings were shot on the right side and the inner bearing race had eaten a slot in the axle tube. That turned out to be the ONLY thing keeping the axle from leaving the car. After we jacked it up to investigate the noise and pulled the whole axle out with the wheel we swapped the only rear end we could find into it. This one was from an even older Toyota station wagon. We realized when we test drove it that this was a much lower geared rear end. Betsy would now smoke the tires all the way through first and second gear... but it took three shifts to get across an intersection.

 

Concrete Coating Plant

It was one of the many unpleasant jobs I had in the summer of '78 thanks to the CETA program. I reported to work at this concrete coating company on a Monday. I was told to bring my lunch.

They had me stand on a pallet that was raised by a forklift to a platform that protruded from the side of the building about 30' up. I must've indicated on my application that I had no fear of heights, because this was the second job I'd had that involved riding on a forklift with zero safety equipment. (the other had been a warehouse inventory job that they probably do nowadays with a really long selfie stick or a drone.)

Big fella shows me the routine. Menu for the color mix is sent up with each load on the forklift. I mix the required number of each color bags in the chute and then for each bag I chip out two measuring cups of this rock salt looking stuff and add that to the mix. When I'm done I hit the intercom button and let them know it's ready to mix.

There was a blob of concrete with a blade sticking out that I used to slit the bags open and chip the salt with. Between loads, and there was lots of time between loads, I was stuck up there. That's why I was told to bring a lunch. I was up there all day. I cleaned up the whole platform, chipped the salt off the sides of the barrel so it was an easier task to fill the cup than digging into a deep inverted cone. I even had bags of coating arranged to recline on comfortably. I had things running smoothly. I tried the intercom once when I had to pee, but nobody answered. I finally just peed in the mixer. First day I went home a dull gray color. Boogers were the same shade for hours. Next day I was green. As the week progressed I came home red, then blue, and finally black.

During the week I had plenty of time to look out at the scenery, which was all dust covered and shabby, and to think about my future. One thing that captured my attention was the tool I used to cut open the bags and chip the salt. I had made the job much easier by replacing it with a hawkbill box cutter and a garden trowel so I didn't have to dig the salt into the cup with my hands. I had just set the blob with the blade aside.

During a quiet afternoon I started wondering what was inside that blob. I chipped away with the trowel and box cutter until I could begin to see what it was. I may not have gone back the last two days had it not been for the time I had to chip away on the years of accumulated concrete coating that covered the knife. It turned out to be a Buck 301 three blade Stockman. It cleaned up like new.

They told me that they'd never had anybody work the job for more than a week. They might still be looking for somebody that will come back to work for a second week. It sure wasn't going to be me, even with the upgrades I'd made to the equipment. I took my last ride down on the forklift with the Stockman in my pocket and a smile on my face, knowing that Monday I'd be looking for a new job.

I still have that Buck 301 in my tool box. Every blade is still sharp and it's my go-to blade at work when I need something cut.

 

Diggity I also had a 76 Volare` had a slant six decent power and great gas mileage

 

Mine had a 360 V8 and had been sold and repossessed several times by the previous owner, who was my college professor. He taught automotive technology, but I found a psychological angle for selling the beast that worked.

I drove around the airfield on Futenma on a hot sunny day and picked up six exhausted Marines as they were hiking the long half circle around the airfield to their barracks. I had the A/C so cold that they were initially shivering as we drove to their barracks. They jumped at the offer to buy the Volare' and since they split the payments six ways I finally sold the car outright and was done with it. I'm sure in their limited commute it was ideal. For me, driving all over the island, left hand drive quickly went from a novelty to a blinding headache.

 

That reminds me of another car that Harry sold and repossessed. It came back with big rounded dents in the rear fenders on both sides.

It took some thought to figure it out. The Air Force guys that bought the car were divers. It was their tanks that had made the dents as they drove to remote dive sites.

 

Believe it or not mine was purple too. Gave mine to my Dad for a run around car only drove 15-20 mile an hour retired and in no hurry. Reverse came out of it so he sold it to a neighbor for almost nothing and he fixed it lost track of it after that.

 

Daughter-In-Law told me this one.

Darn Socks -

When my parents were married my dad would always walk really heavily towards the balls of his feet and his shoes were sized so closely that his toes would often become calloused from rubbing against the material of his sneakers. Needless to say this resulted in many a pair of Walmart bulk pack socks having holes and being in need of darning. his mother was a master seamstress, military wife and Great Depression survivor so growing up my fathers socks would see repair with skill and efficiency. My dad, thinking my mom also knew the craft of darning, would present the socks to my mom (who knew nothing of the trade) would take the socks, walk over the trash, give the socks one last glance and utter loudly "darn you sock!" Before pitching it in the trash.

 

That's a good one there .
On a serious note ,, I have noticed the walmart socks have gotten cheap ,, I've had them toe holes pop up after 2-3 wears ,, I check my toenails to make sure they don't need trimming ,, and nails are short ,, but holes keep popping up .

Darning socks isn't something I've ever tried to do ,, but this is starting to get expensive.

Where's a good place to get good socks ? I've still got a few pair of them PX Marine Corps thick socks ,, but they get hot in the summertime .

 

I learned to darn socks from my grandmother. Don't know that my mom ever learned that trick. I taught it to my wife and my daughter.

 

I would spend most of my summers at my grandparents home out in the country ,, spent many a day and night snapping and shelling beans , shucking corn . Don't know why I liked it so much ,, it was boring at times ,, but it was peaceful ,, and kept me out of the city , and out of trouble . Grandma would do a bunch of knitting with yarn ,, and making hand stitched quilts. Being bored 1 day ,, I was watching her knitting ,, and asked her to show me how to do it ,, I can't do it now ,, but for a while ,, I was learning how to knit .

I watched her hand stitch a few quilts ,, and been thinking about trying to do one for my granddaughter . O'course I won't be hand stitchin ' ,, might get a sewing machine and do it . Just to try it cause I've never done one .

I may have to google darning socks .

 

I've been wearing Hanes ankle length socks since I'm only wearing slip on shoes after the knee replacement. No Idea where they're made, but I'll guess it ain't locally. I can start my foot into them and then press them against the carpet and push my foot right in. I can't imagine anybody being harder on socks than me and they hold up well. They usually die a slow death in the dryer when I slowly kill the elastic and they start sliding under my foot and end up in the trash.

For boots I've not found a substitute for the old turned inside out USGI socks. They get holes eventually, but they're tough. I think CMC is still enforcing the Made In USA policy for all uniform items. I'll see what they have at the PX and let you know how they look.

 

These round bottom bottles are tourist bait.

I find them at thrift stores for a few dollars. They might be genuinely antique, but they're not exactly rare.

What they need is a good story, and I've heard a whopper.

The bottles are rounded on the bottom so they will be stored on their side aboard ship. This keeps the cork wet and prevents it drying out and causing the bottle to leak on a long voyage.

Next we have to introduce the man who found them. He was a very large gentleman who claimed to be a master diver. He sure didn't look like a diver, but in diving gear his size would be irrelevant to his buoyancy, or lack thereof.

He was diving in an area of Queens Creek, near Swansboro, after a viscous hurricane had torn through an area where the notorious pirate Edward Teach, who you might know as Blackbeard was known to conceal his ship Queen Anne's Revenge from the British.

The diver could get in serious trouble for removing these artifacts, yet here they are on display in our antique store.

They should probably be in a museum. They were made in the early 1700's.

There's no price on them... (But if you offer us stupid money for them you can take them home)

It's not the bottle you pay for. It's the story.

 

Best Range Story Ever

This is a short one. I know, shocking isn't it?

I had a guy show up at the range with a group. I watched him staple a target on the front of the target stand, and then spin the stand around and staple a second one on the back.

When I asked him what he was doing he said,

"I'm saving that one for later."

 

Sometimes I'm the story.

I was standing in line at the package liquor store on base leaning on my cart when I heard a young couple chatting behind me. I overheard them speculating as to whether I was male or female.

Maybe I have a nice butt, but I think it was the long gentle curls in my hair that threw the wife off. She gasped and said "I would've sworn that was a female." when I turned to look at a bottle on the shelf and she saw that my beard was as long as my hair.

Her husband had caught a glimpse of me when we were at the beer cooler, so he'd set her up.

Twenty-five years ago I'd occasionally see an old hippie on base. Now it's me.

 

Gas chamber memories.

Andy the Aussie inspired me to put some of these down on paper.

My first exposure to CS gas was in Boot Camp. We were all shuffled in around the outer walls of a low, dimly lit structure with a floor of loose gravel. When we had all gotten inside I was the last recruit to enter. The Drill Instructors put a couple capsules on the burner and fanned the smoke around.

We were instructed to un-mask and sound off our name, rank and service number when a Drill Instructor stepped in front of us. After we'd done that we'd get the command MASK, at which point we could don and clear our mask.

I made it through name and rank, but struggled with service number. The Drill Instructor said something like "Oh, nevermind... MASK!"

It was great to be able to breathe again. I got to watch the proceedings for quite awhile. I learned that simple one word commands worked better on recruits that were suffering to breathe. In the case of a panic the Drill Instructor would slap his hands over the mask outlet and yell BLOW! Once the bad air had been expelled around the side of the mask he'd slap his hands over the filters and yell SUCK! to seal the mask to the panicked recruit's face.

When it was time to exit we got the command to "UNMASK" and then "LEFT FACE". I executed a perfect RIGHT face maneuver, which left me facing the exit. I'll never forget the unseen hands that turned me around and put my right right hand on the shoulder of the man in front of me. I had to go all the way around the inside of the building to make my exit.

 

The whole exiting the gas chamber with your hand on the Marine in front of you usually worked fine. You just never wanted to let go of that shoulder.

I remember a Woman Marine at Camp Lejeune that lost her contact with the Marine in front of her. She made it to the exit with her right arm still in front of her and slammed her face right into the door frame.

 

I remember hearing a scream and curses while we were waiting for the rest of the series to finish their time in the gas chamber. We overheard from a couple of our Drill Instructors that it was Drill Instructor from another platoon that had stepped behind some bushes to relieve himself.
He hadn't been wearing gloves, and hadn't washed his hands, so the result was painful.
CS gas burns exposed skin, and we'd been warned to keep our hands away from our face and just let tears wash the gas away.

Definitely good training that day.

 

My turn!

Less than two years out of Marine Corps Boot Camp I found myself back in a gas chamber, but this time I was running the show.

The chamber was a fifth wheel trailer with windows and a very narrow and steep metal ladder as the only way to get in and out. There were sliding steel covers for the windows. Very "tactical" looking. I kept the windows uncovered since the bright sun shining through them made the CS gas smoke all but invisible. If you looked closely you could see shiny flecks like glitter dust in the air when the gas was present. I wore a hood on my mask and gloves taped at the wrists so only a little gas that got under my hood could burn my neck. It was a small space, and I had no trouble keeping the concentration of CS high enough to make the training effective.



The difference in my chamber was that my trainees were all Second Lieutenants from The Basic School. This was part of their training while they were at the rifle range.

Because they has to descend the steep ladder to exit the trailer they all had to have their masks back on, cleared and be able to see before exiting. They thought it was a big game until the door was closed, they had removed their masks and put them in the carrier. About the time they had to take that first shallow breath I had their complete attention.

After they'd gotten their masks cleared and adjusted I checked each one. Looking at their eyes and having them give me a thumbs up if they were okay. Then they descended the ladder one at a time. Nobody was standing near the ladder because the gas was blowing out the open door.

Because of the drifting gas they were to leave their masks on and move into the wind with their arms outstretched to let the gas blow off of them before unmasking.

There's always one. There had to be that one guy who took his mask off as soon as he was outside the trailer. When his eyes slammed shut he never saw the steps in front of him, or the ground at the bottom. I'm sure he felt them. Hard to tell what hurt him more, the fall or the ding on his performance report under Judgement.

I had great fun at Weapons Training Battalion. My stay was cut short by a folded piece of paper drawn from the Company Gunny's cover. (hat) Mike Salazar and I were drawing for Mess Duty or orders overseas. I still have that piece of paper somewhere. It says "3FSG" (That was supposed to be Third Force Service Support Group, or FFSG, but the Company Gunny had never heard of it and got it a little off.)

I think I got the better end of the deal.

 

This one is a South Eastern Michigan story, but I'll tell it in an Eastern North Carolina accent.

In the winter we would ice skate, play hockey, and ice fish on the lake behind the gravel pit beyond Ray Shotwell's cow pastures. We had found a spot on the crest of a ridge that bordered our lake. In the summer it was probably a lookout spot for the growers tending the marijuana fields in the valley on the back side of the lake, but during the Michigan winter it was our spot to thaw out after playing hockey or ice fishing. It was just a big dugout in the back of the ridge. Just deep enough that you could stand against the wall of the hole facing the lake and see across the snow to the far bank. The lake had been dug when the whole area was a gravel pit, and there was odd metal junk strewn all through the woods. We found an old gas water heater that somebody dumped in the woods nearby. It had a massive tank that you couldn't wrap your arms around with big steel rivets where the tank seam was joined. Not some tin and pierced metal modern water heater. This was heavy, and would hold the heat. It had a big enough opening where the burner had been to make a great firebox. We stood it up against the back wall of the dugout and fed sticks into the fire from top and bottom until it was blowing flame out the top of the 6" center pipe and radiating plenty of heat to thaw us out. When the weather was just right we could skate all over the ice on that lake. I'll never forget the haunting sound of the ice as it moved and cracked with the changing temperature. I learned that if there was potential to cut too many holes in the ice with a gas powered ice auger my friends would try it. Good times. I also learned that a girl on figure skates who'd grown up playing hockey was not somebody to make fun of on the ice.
I married that little girl thirty six years ago.

 

"It gins over but it won't catch."

That's the kind of line we hear in the shop when we know it's going to get entertaining.

One such event was on me. I had hustled to get a new Silverado ready for delivery to a customer who would be arriving with the company owner in just a few minutes. I hop in the truck to drive it around for a final detail and it cranks over but will not start. We're all just about ready to panic, and the General Manager is trying to stall or create a diversion for us while we sort it out. There were a tense couple minutes.

I finally get under the dash to have a look at the pedal position sensor for the gas pedal and I can only see a brake pedal.

The gas pedal was flattened to the floor by the floor mat that the parts manager had helped to install. With teh truck in flood clear mode it would never start, but it would sure crank over.

The beat one ever was on the other side of the shop from me, but I could hear the engine cranking. It was the new guy that I'll call Shade Tree. He'd put lifters in the truck and had it all buttoned back up. Even the plastic engine cover was back in place. Almost everybody in the shop was standing around laughing by the time I got over there. It didn't take long for me to spot the trouble either.
Lined up on a couple shop rags on top of Shade Tree's table in neat rows were sixteen push rods. Eight exhaust and eight intake.
Without them the valves never opened, so the engine spun over with no hint of compression.