Jive Talk Update-G.I. Jive!

Ok, it's been a while since I had some entries from the HepCats Jive Talk dictionary. Here's a tribute to the amazing people who serve in the armed forces...of course I'm talking about G.I.Jive!!

Armored Cow- canned milk

Bean Gun-rolling kitchen

Cross Bar Hotel- guard house

Dog Show- a foot inspection

Ether- a radio telephone

Fly the Wet Beam- flying along a river

General's Car- a wheelbarrow

Higher than a Georgia Pine- unduly excitied

Ink- coffee

Jeeter- a lieutenant

Knuckle Buster- a crescent wrench

Let Her Eat- drive ar full speed

Maggie's Drawers- a red flag used on a rifle range to inidcate a miss

North Dakota Rice- hot cereal

Old Issue- an old soldier

Prop Wash= an expression of disbelief

Quartermaster Gait- a step longer than the regulation thirty-inch pace

Red Leg-artilleryman

Six and 20 Tootsie- any bit of a young and enticing femininity who is responsible for a Flying Cadet returning late from a weekend leave

Tar Bucket- full dress hat

Uncle Sam's Party- payday

Valley Forge- temporary tent city in cold weather

Wing-heavy- inebriated

You're Gigged- you've been reported for violating a rule or ordinace

As always, if anyone wanders across this site and would like to see more of these posted, just leave a note! If this is your first visit, look back at my old posts for more Jive Talk!

Olympic Thoughts

I've always had mixed opinions about the modern Olympics. On the one hand, you have to admire the dedication of the atheletes involved, whether they win a medal or not. The sacrifice and pain they must put up with dwarfs anything I have attempted in the past, and deserve unflagging admiration. On the other hand, the Olympics are frequently a political statement on the merits of one form of government or another, and the concept of "fair competition" between rich and poor countries is often questionable. There is also the arguement of "the money could be better spend doing....(fill in the blank)", but I've never really subscribed to that one, as it tends to belittle anything that isn't absolutely pragmatic, and I think humans gain their quality of life and identity through how they manage their non-pragmatic stuff (art, love, purely investigative science, etc.)

Here's a thought that surfaced this weekend. How about having an Olympic games founded soley on playground games? We could have Olympic Red Rover competition, or "line tag" (I don't know how many people played that one-you need a tennis court where the players have to stick to the lines when they move, but are considered "safe" when standing on an intersction of lines). How about Olympic "What time is it Mr. Wolf"? If you never played that, the "it" person is the "wolf", and the players advance slowly behind him/her asking "What time is it Mr. Wolf?" The "wolf" answers 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, etc. until they think the line of players is close enough to "tag" one of them, when they scream "It's lunch time", and turn around and run at the screaming hordes behind them. I love picturing a group of Olympic hammer-throwers running away while shreiking at the tops of their lungs.

There are enough playground games for a winter Olympics too. Olympic "king of the hill" is a natural, along with Olympic snowball fights and Olympic snowman knock-down (how long does it take you to knock down another kid's snowman?). I remember kids spending their entire winter recesses trying to roll the largest snow-ball they could make, often rolling one or more kids under the mammoth snow-ball as they went.

I forsee "Nerf" being a major sponsor of the games, and host nations introducing their own country's kids games as demonstration sports. I oould easily identify with a marble-shooter more than a decathelete, and enjoy watching the laughter of thwe kid rolled down the snow-hill more than the distress of the sprinter who lost a medal by 1 1/100's of a second.

Better Than Awesome moments!

Once in a while I like to think back to those moments where I gained a temporary or passing victory of some kind, but which has since, gained a signifigance far beyond the implications of the actual event. On other words, life's greatest moments. Here's a sampling.

This year: I was sitting in Chicago's O'Hare airport, waiting out a 2.5 hour layover. It was during the lunch hour, so I had plenty of time to burn off by sitting down and having lunch somewhere. I selected one of the ubiquitious restaurants that seem to breed in airports these days (I think it was called "Chili's" or something like that). I ordered a lunch from the menu and a beer. The waitress asked me for some ID before she would bring me my beer. I'm 47 years old, and I was "carded". That was the best beer I ever tasted.

Flash back to High School (grade 10 I believe). I don't know how many people have a personal tormentor in school, but I'd suspect it's probably more common than the "High school is the best time of your life" set would admit to. Mine was a gap-toothed little troglodite with a permenent scowl who, before I even knew who the heck he was, started calling me the word to suggest my sexual preferences lay within my common gender. Now please understand, when I went to High School, suggestions of homosexuality were the worst kind of epithet. While it wasn't true in my case, I found out that I had to endure regular snide comments by this little troll who apparently just didn't like my looks (for this I also gained somewhat of an appreciation for the torment that gays and lesbians have had to deal with over the years....not a total appreciation, mind you , but this little sampling was sickening enough for me). I wasn't a kid prone to fighting (the thought of it quite frankly scared me), so I tried the "avoidance" technique, which occasionally worked, but which also occasionally left me lurching away with hunched shoulders after another verbal tirade. Well, one day in a gym class, our "teacher" (gym teachers always seemd to be Vince Lombardi wannabees, ignoring the general physical health of the masses, to pander to the jocks of the group) had us divide up for a game of flag football. To make a lengthening story short, I found myself lined up against the troglodite, who instantly started promising humiliation beyond my wildest dreams. The first time he charged at me, I raised both arms and smashed the little bugger in the chops. I still remember walking back to our side's "huddle", to the congratulations of my side's guys. as the little toad writhed in the dirt. Just as a post-script, I think he's a cop now. Take from that what you will.

Primary school. I remember (vaguely) making a clay figure of an Ankylosaurus ( a 4-legged plant eater with a hard shell on it's back and a club at the end of it's tail-kind of like a cross between a rhino and a tank). I was REALLY big on dinosaurs as a kid, and while other kids were dreaming of being pilots or cowboys, I was dreaming of being a Paleontologist. Anyway, I remember making my little clay Ankylosaurus, and my teacher being so impressed I was asked to take it to the Principal's office to show the Principal himself. Now aside from the chance to linger outside of class, I was also able to show up the Principal, who had no idea what an Ankylosaurus was. I remember starting to doubt the intelligence of adults at that time as well. I still do.

Other little victories:

-the first time I got a haircut I wanted (Beatles) rather than the one my parent's wanted (mental patient)

-when I beat my best buddy in a game of badminton (he always beat me in everything, up to then)

-being called the "coolest guy ever" by a girl I had the hots for

-winning a Mexican yodelling contest in a Caribbean resort

Notice than none of these include things like "getting my degree" or "buying my house". I guess the sweetness of the Better Than Awesome moment is in the brevity and personal nature of the event.