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Senior Crew
Posts: 192
| Subject: Anybody know this guy??
Sure sounds alot like DEX's writing...don't believe me, then read on towards the bottom, I copied it from the After Battery...
Billy Bob
(Sent to me by JDawg)
From: Tom Pauls [mailto:tompauls1@cox.net]
Sent: 24 March, 2009 15:08
To: Tom Pauls
Subject: FW: Liberty Bars
Subject: Liberty Bars
This should bring back a few memories for all who sailed the seas.
(Make sure you pass this one on even with the colorful language.)
LIBERTY BARS
Our favorite liberty bars were unlike no other watering holes or dens of
iniquity inhabited by seagoing men and women. They had to meet strict
standards to be in compliance with the acceptable requirement for a sailor
beer-swilling dump.
The first and foremost requirement was a crusty old gal serving suds. She
had to be able to wrestle King Kong to parade rest. Be able to balance a
tray with one hand, knock bluejackets out of the way with the other hand and
skillfully navigate through a roomful of milling around drunks. On slow
nights, she had to be the kind of gal who would give you a back scratch with
a fly swatter handle or put her foot on the table so you could admire her
new ankle bracelet some "mook" brought her back from a Hong Kong liberty.
A good barmaid had to be able
to whisper sweet nothings in your ear like, "Sailor, your thirteen button
flap is twelve buttons short of a green board."
And,"Buy a pack of Clorets and chew up the whole thing before you get within
heaving range of any gal you ever want to see again." And, "Hey animals, I
know we have a crowd tonight, but if any of you guys find the head
facilities fully occupied and start urinating down the floor drain, you're
gonna find yourself scrubbing the deck with your white hats!"
(and my favorite from Jack's Anchor Inn..."Rack 'em up, stack 'em up.
You don't have to go home but you sure as hell can't stay here.")
They had to be able to admire great tattoos, look at pictures of ugly,
bucktooth kids and smile. Be able to help haul drunks to cabs and comfort 19
year-olds who had lost someone close to them. They could look at your ship's
identification shoulder tab and tell you the names of the Skippers back to
the time you were a Cub Scout.
If you came in after a late night maintenance problem and fell asleep with a
half eaten Slim-Jim in your hand, they tucked your peacoat around you, put
out the cigarette you left burning in the ashtray and replaced the warm
draft you left sitting on the table with a cold one when you woke up. Why?
Simply because they were one of the few people on the face of the earth that
knew what you did, and appreciated what you were doing. And if you treated
them like a decent human being and didn't drive 'em nuts by playing songs
they hated on the juke box, they would lean over the back of the booth and
park their soft warm breasts on your neck when they sat two Rolling Rocks in
front of you.
Imported table wipe down guy and glass washer, trash dumper, deck swabber
and paper towel replacement officer. The guy had to have baggy tweed pants
and a gold tooth and a grin like a 1950 Buick.. And a name like "Ramon",
"Juan", "Pedro" or "Tico". He had to smoke unfiltered Luckies, Camels or
Raleighs. He wiped the tables down with a sour wash rag that smelled like a
skunk diaper and said, "How are choo navee mans tonight? He was the
indispensable man. The guy with credentials that allowed him to borrow
Slim-Jims, Beer Nuts and pickled hard boiled eggs from other beer joints
when they ran out where he worked.
The establishment itself. The place had to have walls covered with ship and
squadron plaques. The walls were adorned with enlarged unit patches and the
dates of previous deployments. A dozen or more old, yellowed photographs of
fellows named "Buster", "Chicago", "P-Boat Barney", "Flaming Hooker Harry",
"Malone", "Honshu Harry", Jackson, Douche Bag Doug, and Capt. Slade Cutter
decorated any unused space.
It had to have the obligatory Michelob, Pabst Blue Ribbon and "Beer Nuts
sold here" neon signs. An eight-ball mystery beer tap handle and signs
reading:
"Your mother does not work here, so clean away your frickin' trash."
"Keep your hands off the barmaid."
"Don't throw butts in urinal."
"Barmaid's word is final in settling bets."
"Take your fights out in the alley behind the bar!"
"Owner reserves the right to waltz your worthless sorry ass outside."
"Shipmates are responsible for riding herd on their ship/squadron drunks."
This was typical signage found in classy establishments catering to
sophisticated as well as unsophisticated clientele.
You had to have a juke box built along the lines of a Sherman tank loaded
with Hank Williams, Mother Maybelle Carter, Johnny Horton, Johnny Cash and
twenty other crooning goobers nobody ever heard of. The damn thing has to
have "La Bamba", Herb Alpert's "Lonely Bull" and Johnny Cash's "Don't take
your guns to town" in memory of Alameda's barmaid goddess, Thelma. If Thelma
is within a twelve-mile radius of where any of those three recordings can be found on a
jukebox, it is wise to have a stack of life insurance applications within
reach of the coin slot.
The furniture in a real good liberty bar had to be made from coal mine
shoring lumber and was not fully acceptable until it had 600 cigarette burns
and your ship's numbers or "FTN" carved into it. The bar had to have a brass
foot rail and at least six Slim-Jim containers, an oversized glass cookie
jar full of Beer-Nuts, a jar of pickled hard boiled eggs that could produ ce
rectal gas emissions that could shut down a sorority party, and big glass
containers full of something called Pickled Pigs Feet and Polish Sausage.
Only drunk Chiefs and starving Ethiopians ate pickled pigs feet and unless the last three feet
of your colon had been manufactured by Midas, you didn't want to get any
where near the Polish Napalm Dogs.
No liberty bar was complete without a couple of hundred faded ship or
airplane pictures and a "Shut the hell up!" sign taped on the mirror behind
the bar along with several rather tasteless naked lady pictures. The pool
table felt had to have at least three strategic rips as a result of drunken
competitors and balls that looked as if a gorilla baby had teethed on the
sonuvabitches.
Liberty bars were home and it didn't matter what country, state, or city you
were in. When you walked into a good liberty bar, you felt at home. They
were also establishments where 19 year-old kids received an education
available nowhere else on earth. You learned how to "tell" and "listen" to
sea stories.
You learned about sex at $25.00 a pop! -- from professional ladies who
taught you things your high school biology teacher didn't know were
anatomically possible. You learned how to make a two cushion bank shot and
how to toss down a beer and shot of Sun Torry known as a "depth charge."
We were young, and a helluva long way from home. We were pulling down
crappy wages for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a-week availability and
loving the life we lived. We didn't know it at the time, but our association with
the men we served with forged us into the men we became. And a lot of that
association took place in bars where we shared the stories accumulated in
our, up to then, short lives. We learned about women and that life could be
tough on a gal.
While many of our classmates were attending college, we were getting an
education slicing through the green rolling seas in WestPac, experiencing
the orgasmic rush of a night cat shot, the heart pounding drama of the
return to the ship with the gut wrenching arrestment to a pitching deck. The
hours of tedium, boring holes in the sky late at night, experiencing the
periodic discomfort of turbulence, marveling at the creation of St. Elmo's
Fire, and sometimes having our reverie interrupted with stark terror.
But when we came ashore on liberty, we could rub shoulders with some of the
finest men we would ever know, in bars our mothers would never have approved
of, in saloons and cabarets that would live in our memories forever.
Long live those liberties in WestPac and in the Med! They were the greatest
teachers about life and how to live it.
(Been there... Done that.)
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Remembering Submarine Bars
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Bob 'Dex' Armstrong
Submariners always stuck together. They worked and played as a crew and they gravitated to places where they could be with fellow submariners in locations where people who could tolerate the obnoxious conduct, impure verbiage and rollicking nonsense that was the standard by which smokeboat submariners were measured… Their hallmark, so to speak.
The submarine bar was unlike other naval watering holes and dens of iniquity inhabited by seagoing elements. It had to meet strict standards to be in compliance with the acceptable requirement for a boatsailor beer-swilling dump.
Loudmouth Barmaid.
The first and foremost requirement was a crusty old gal serving suds. She had to be able to wrestle King Kong to parade rest… Be able to balance a tray with one hand, knock bluejackets out of the way with the other hand and skillfully navigate through a roomful of milling around drunks. On slow nights, she had to be the kind of gal who would give you a back scratch with a fly swatter handle or put her foot on the table so you could admire her new ankle bracelet some ET brought her back on a Med run.
A good barmaid had to be able to whisper sweet nothings in your ear like,
"Sailor, your thirteen button flap is twelve buttons short of a green board."
And,
"Buy a pack of Clorets and chew up the whole thing before you get within heavie range of any gal you ever want to see again."
And…
"Hey animals, I know we have a crowd tonight, but if any of you guys find the head facilities fully occupied and start pissing down the floor drain, you're gonna find yourself scrubbing the deck with your white hats!"
They had to be able to admire great tattoos, look at pictures of ugly bucktooth kids and smile… Be able to help haul drunks to cabs and comfort 19year-olds who had lost someone close to them.
They could look at your ship's identification shoulder tab and tell you the names of COBs back to the time you were a Cub Scout.
If you came in after a late night battery charge and fell asleep with a half eaten Slim-Jim in your hand, they tucked your peacoat around you… Put out the cigarette you left burning in the ashtray and replaced the warm draft you left sitting on the table with a cold one when you woke up… Why? Simply, because they were one of the few people on the face of the earth that knew what you did, and appreciated what you were doing.
And if you treated them like a decent human being and didn't drive'em nuts by playing songs they hated on the juke box… They would lean over the back of the booth and park their soft warm tits on your neck when they sat two Rolling Rocks in front of you.
Imported table wipe down guy and glass washer, trash dumper, deck swabber and paper towel replacement officer.
The guy had to have baggy tweed pants and a gold tooth… And a grin like a 1950 Buick… And a name like "Ramon", "Juan", "Pedro" or "Tico". He had to smoke unfiltered Luckies, Camels or Ralieghs. He wiped the tables down with a sour washrag that smelled like a skunk diaper and said,
"How are choo navee mans tonight?"
He was the indispensable man… The guy with credentials that allowed him to borrow Slim-Jims, Beer Nuts and pickled hard boiled eggs from other beer joints when they ran out where he worked.
The establishment itself.
The place had to have walls covered with ships plaques, many of which had made the trip up the river to the scrap yard, ten years before you enlisted… The walls had squadron pennants and a hundred or more old yellowed photographs of fellows named "Buster", "Chicago", "S-Boat Barney", "Chief Boiler Maker", "Malone", "Honshu Harry", Jackson, and Capt. Slade Cutter.
It had to have the obligatory Michelob, Pabst Blue Ribbon and "Beer Nuts sold here" neon signs… An eight-ball mystery beer tap handle and signs reading;
"Your mother does not work here so clean away your gahdam trash."
"Hands off the barmaid."
"Don't throw butts in urinal."
"Barmaid's word final in settling bets."
"Take your fights out in the alley."
"Owner reserves the right to waltz your worthless ass out to the sidewalk."
"Shipmates are responsible for riding herd on their boat's drunks."
Typical signage found in classy establishments catering to sophisticated clientele.
You had to have a juke box built along the lines of a Sherman tank loaded with Hank Williams, Mother Maybelle Carter, Johnny Horton, Johnny Cash and twenty other crooning goobers nobody ever heard of. The damn thing has to have "La Bamba", Herb Alpert's "Lonely Bull" and Johnny Cash's "Don't take your guns to town" in memory of Norfolk's barmaid goddess, Thelma. If Thelma is within a twelve-mile radius of where any of those three recordings can be found on a juke box, it is wise to have a stack of life insurance applications within reach of the coin slot.
The furniture in a real good submarine bar had to be made from coal mine shoring lumber and was not fully acceptable until it had 600 cigarette burns and your boat's hull numbers carved into it.
The bar had to have a brass foot rail and at least six Slim-Jim containers, an oversized glass cookie jar full of Beer-Nuts, a jar of pickled hard boiled eggs that could produce rectal gas emissions that could shut down a sorority party, and big glass containers full of something called pickled pigs feet and Polish sausage. Only drunk Chiefs and starving Ethiopians ate pickled pigs feet and unless the last three feet of your colon had been manufactured by Midas… You didn't want to get any where near the Polish napalm dogs.
No submariner's bar was complete without a couple of hundred faded boat pictures and a "Shut the hell, up" sign taped on the mirror behind the bar… And several rather tasteless nekkit lady pictures.
The pool table felt had to have at least three strategic rips as a result of drunken competitors… And balls that looked as if a gorilla baby had teethed on the sonuvabitches.
Submarine bars were home, but they were also establishments where 19 year-old kids received an education available nowhere else on earth. You learned how to "tell" and "listen" to sea stories… You learned about sex at $25.00 a lesson from professional ladies who taught you things your high school biology teacher didn't know were anatomically possible. You learned how to make a two cushion shot and how to toss down a beer and shot… Known as a "depth charge."
We were young… A helluva long way from home. We were pulling down slave wages for twenty-four hour a day, seven days a-week availability and loving the life we lived. We didn't know it at the time, but our association with the men we served with, forged us into the men we became.
And a lot of that association took place in submarine bars where we shared the stories accumulated in our up to then, short lives… We learned about women and that life could be tough on a gal.
While many of our classmates were attending college, we were getting an education slicing trough North Atlantic black water… Running deep and plowing holes below the surface and rubbing shoulders with some of the finest men we would ever know in bars our mothers wouldn't have approved of.
Bars that would live in our memories forever.
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Great Sage of the Sea
Posts: 877
| Subject: RE: Anybody know this guy??
Sounds like Dex in proper English..  |
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Old Salt
Posts: 431
| Subject: RE: Anybody know this guy??
He changed it around to fit the Skimmer Navy. Except he missed this
A good barmaid had to be able
to whisper sweet nothings in your ear like, "Sailor, your thirteen button
flap is twelve buttons short of a green board."
Not something a skimmer would say |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 2254
Location: Foothills of the Ozarks | Subject: RE: Anybody know this guy??
I don't know him but this happens a lot. Usually the guy forwarding it on got it from someone else who got it from some other guy who stole it from the website. Whenever I get them I send a "reply all" informing them that it is Dex's work and if they don't believe me they can check the After Battery website for "the rest of the story"
This usually generates an apology from the person who sent it to me and a correction to their mailing list with the appropriate reference to the fact that the original author is Dex.
BTW; when did you learn to write ya knuckle dragger? Tell the "dawg" I said hello.
You still coming through Michigan this year?
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Plankowner
Posts: 9165
Location: Upper lefthand corner of the map. | Subject: RE: Anybody know this guy??
Jim, you know better than that. English and Proper do NOT go together no matter how hard you try and perform a fusion of the two when speaking about Dex. |
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Plankowner
Posts: 9165
Location: Upper lefthand corner of the map. | Subject: RE: Anybody know this guy??
Dex was talking about this to Jonny Krup and myself last week. He says his stuff gets stolen a lot and others claim it is theirs. |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 2357
| Subject: RE: Anybody know this guy??
Ric - 2009-03-27 12:11 AM
Jim, you know better than that. English and Proper do NOT go together no matter how hard you try and perform a fusion of the two when speaking about Dex.
lol...Dex also speaks like he writes too....I figured he has learn't how to do the 'continual breathing' like how the Aboriginals do when they play the didgeridoo! No need to stop talking and takea breath, just keep talking 
It was a pleasure to catch up with him a week or so ago now and once again listen to his marvelous stories....no doubt, some of them were even true! lol
Surely someone has worked out how to fix his computer by now?
Blue *_* |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1324
Location: Oxnard, CA | Subject: RE: Anybody know this guy??
I talked to Dex a couple days ago. He caught some sort of bug and has been laid up for a couple days. He also says OlGoat is under the weather too.
No his computer is still down, but he says he'll be working on it when he starts to feel better. |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 2672
Location: New Jersey | Subject: RE: Anybody know this guy??
This is not the first time that one of Dex's stories had been re-written to fit a skimmer's idea of being a story teller & writer.
Notice there are no run-on sentences in the copycat edition. That's 'cause Dex absolutely cannot put in comma's colon's semi-colons and new paragraphs......He's written about that many times....Ask him...
Billy Bob, how the hell is JDawg doing
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New on board
Posts: 3
| Subject: RE: Anybody know this guy??
Piracy right here in River City DAMN Interesting read. I have been away for a while. Missed you guys, the friends of my Dad who made his last years so wonderful for him. I was always partial to this offering by DEX:
Wonder What Old Gringo Is Doing
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Bob 'Dex' Armstrong
Did you ever wonder where old deep-water boat sailors go when they turn in their earthly issue and pick up their orders at St. Peter's receiving station?
We've all heard the Marines Hymn…
"When The Army and The Navy takes a look on Heaven's scenes, they will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines."
So we know that we'll have to deal with jarheads on the gates. Can you imagine spending eternity pulling gate duty? And writing a gahdam song telling the world that that was the extent of your eternal ambition? I guess somebody has to do it… I can hear the boot pushers at Parris Island…
"Listen up now… When you die, we make you an MP and detail you to stand watch on the Pearly Gates to see that those naughty submariners don't steal the gahdam streets."
"Oh goody… Tell me Sarge, do I get to wear my uniform?"
"You sure do… And you get to spend forever and ever, shining your shoes and brass."
"Wow!!"
Just another of the many reasons that submariners wouldn't have made 'worth a damn' Marines. The way I understand it, old worn-out submarine sailors get assigned to Hell but they are given liberty in Heaven… The part of Heaven where all the bars are located and cab fare is free. They don't issue them wings and the bastards hock their harps for beer money.
There is a bar up there called 'The Sterling Dolphin'… A real dump. It's on Admiral Burke Boulevard. Beer's a dime a quart and the furniture is made out of railroad ties. The barmaids are all big busted blondes… Farm girls from Kansas… And they hand out their apartment keys to all the qualified men. Old man Holland… You know, the clown who invented the first smokeboat and went around with that goofy walrus looking mustache and silly bowler hat… Holland plays the piano.
And there's an old Juke Box… With four hundred thousand cigarette burns on the top. It only plays Tommy Cox… And Glen Miller… Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman… Margaret Whiting… Peggy Lee and Pattie Paige. The walls are covered with old yellowed photos of "E" Boats, "R" Boats…"S" Boats and all kinds of Fleet Boats… Old Tenders, ASRs and Admiral Lockwood.
The head is a mess… Four old air expulsion, 'Freckle Maker' heads… And a urinal trough made out of the air flask of a Mark 14 cut in half… And the walls are covered with the names of angels who come with removable bloomers.
The wall behind the bar has soft pine paneling and thousands of silver dolphins have been pounded into the wood and an old 127 year old E-3 keeps them Brasso'd up.
The pickled hard boiled eggs fall out of the back end of the Golden Goose and they only sell 'Beer Nuts' in fifty pound bags… For two bits. The Shore Patrols are blind and the liberty cards have no time limits.
There's only one thing on the menu, the 'Rig for Dive' Cheeseburger… It's cooked in all that stuff that comes draining out of the George Foreman grill. The name of every sub ever built and their hull numbers are carved in the tops of all the table tops…
At the bar there is a stool that belongs exclusively to Tom Parks…it has 'Old Gringo' on it in solid gold letters… And late in the evening you can find Old Gringo perched at the bar, tossing down suds and wrapping his arm around the best looking gal in the place. Beer is free for any boat sailor who wears a combat patrol pin.
Old Gringo has a beer mug made out of a 5-inch shell casing with a hatch dog for a handle. The barmaids keep him supplied with hand-rolled Cuban cigars and reports on who's reporting in and when the bus is leaving for hell.
I don't know if that's the way it is… But that is the way it should be. An old hard-core Diesel Boat Sailor should get something like that.
One thing is for DAMN sure…Tom Parks isn't standing a damn Gate watch...
You can take that to the bank, Horsefly.
NOTE: I did no correcting on this, just copied it from the After Battery. Me thinks Ol' Goat did some tidying up on DEX's submissions.
Bee well, all!!
JG Parks
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1814
Location: Boydton, Virginia | Subject: RE: Anybody know this guy??
Hot Damn! Welcome back Jim!!!! Really good to see you have "reserected". Grab a seat in the after battery and join the fun. If someone lets Dex know you are back, surely he will "get that 'puter fixed".
Steamboat sends |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 6180
Location: Summerville, SC | Subject: RE: Anybody know this guy??
Whoa,whoa there Jon. Dex and Olgoat are both down with a bad cold? Got an email from Lumpy and she down with one too. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm  |
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Plankowner
Posts: 5024
Location: Gulfport, MS | Subject: RE: Anybody know this guy??
A long time ago I started my own personal crusade to "Reply to All" every time I receive one of Dex's stories that some idiot changed to sound like the wrote it. I want to make sure everyone that received it knows who the real author is. If you have the time, I suggest you all do the same thing. I feel we owe it to Dex, and to our Dolphins.
On the same subject, the other day a buddy sent me a link to a thread on the Military.com BB where a (claims to be) retired CDR ran a series of posts over several days of our "Goat on the Boat". He stole the entire story, including the pictures, from our Archerfish website... changed it to sound like he was writing it, and basked in the praise of all the readers for what a wonderful story tell he is. For what ever it may be worth... "Mac the Knife" is a fraud... just like these other wannabes. |
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Plankowner
Posts: 9165
Location: Upper lefthand corner of the map. | Subject: RE: Anybody know this guy??
I hope you jumped all over this guys ass for doing that. By the way, I saw Nasty Ness at a Seattle Base meeting not to long ago. We used your name in vain a lot. LOL Here is a pic I took. Interesting photo. Nasty Ness to the left in back row. Guy to his left is author Bill Lightfoot, author of "Beneath the Surface" and the guy second from the right partly obscured by the Cobra COB is author Don Ulmer. 
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Anybody know this guy??
