Army IQ, Capt.Gooch, Shooting The Rapids

"Grandpa, are you rich?"

"Yeah Jake, but only from time to time." The story of my life. These days I'm working at making a 'from time to time' come back.

The Army was the great equalizer. It had its own definition of stupid. Stupid was being an enlisted man in the Army, particularly a private. All directives were written so that a moron could understand them.Written for the lowest common denominator.

Naturally, if you had an an IQ over 85, you didn't read them. Plus you could depend on the fucking sergeant to scream them at you.

When Captain Gooch came to see me in the barracks at Schofield Barracks, I was certain he was going to try to fuck me and give me something distasteful to do.Gooch really didn't like my big mouth (which was attached to the rest of me) which Gooch considered to be an enormous asshole.

"Feshbach, I really hate to do this but I'm going to make you a corporal. General Buckner asked for two personal radio operators and I chose you as one of them and I can't say that you're a terrific radio operator and still a private. Try giving up being a pain in the ass, it will only hurt for a minute."

Learning how to control and fire a 50 caliber machine gun from a half track, made me edgy. My Mom and Pop wouldn't even allow a BB gun in the house. Joining the Boy Scouts with its uniforms was also out.(Mom and Pop had emigrated from the old country where uniforms and guns were equated with pogroms.)

But when I heard that digging the General's latrine was also part of my job I decided that being busted back to private was better than digging latrines for anyone, except me.

So I became, deliberately, a classic Army fuck up. It was kind of fun, dropping radio transmitters and not being able to dismantle and rebuild the machine gun. It got so that the Sergeant quit asking me to do things. Even taking books off of bookshelves. He said that he was afraid that I would figure out a way to ruin the books.

It was perfect. My fuck up routines got me sent back to the 241st Signal Corp Company, as happy as a pig in shit. Gooch was pissed and the poor bastard that took my place was killed with the General on Okinawa.

And I didn't get busted. Promoted to Sergeant, to replace Sgt. Boggs from Texarkana who was also killed on Okinawa. He wasn't with General Buckner. He was just there.

One of the real great things about being a salesman is that being rejected becomes a way of life. Like breathing. But knowing that each rejection puts you a step closer to a sale makes someone telling you 'no', 'fuck off' or worse becomes another 'so what?' experience. Great training for staying married.

My kid, Joe, used to say a big key to staying married was to always say, "I'm sorry. It's all my fault". Worked for me for 27 mis-spent years while that approach ginned up Guilt, with a capital G.

When you're 20 years old you think you're going to live forever. When you're 91 you hope not but still try to be fit and escape Alzheimer's. Sometimer's is the preferred alternative. This is Noah, talking about the flood.

At my Mom's 70th birthday party my toast to my Mom started with,'Well Mom, everyone knows who their mother is but only God knows who their father is.' When the Princess got knocked up the first time, she hated me. That convinced me that I was the father. The other times she barely spoke to me and hated herself.

Shooting the financial rapids, at 91, one more time. Breathing hard but still breathing, while traveling the Fitness Road, blissfully single.

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