Mmmmick
Well-Known Member
Bigger and better. Don't know where you get the energy OMM.
Lots of great strains.
Good to see you getting back outside. Good luck.
Lots of great strains.
Good to see you getting back outside. Good luck.
OldMedMan Goes Indoors Part 2
- Thread starter OldMedMan
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #22
There is no substitute for the hardening of our ladies that occurs in the out-of-doors. The wind is like natures LST, the sun heats the soil above ambient air temps, the spectrum is right on, and this doesn't mean squat:
The Pope's Tree Viper, in my opinion, is the best arboreal watchdawg on the planet, small, stealthy, and a great deterrent. Perhaps you know of this creature? Or like my Roman ancestors, you could get a goose or two!
Bona Fortuna with your current grow, bro.
That's one beautiful Viper.
Nice!That was quite poetic
- Thread starter
- #23
Bigger and better. Don't know where you get the energy OMM.
Lots of great strains.
Good to see you getting back outside. Good luck.
Hey Thanks Mmmmick !
It's funny, but as I was looking at my spreadsheet, it just came to me to grow the ones I always wanted to, so I am. That's why I bought the little mothers in the first place..
I'm feel good at the moment. I do push myself so I can stay healthy enough to keep doing my favorite endeavor. In other words...get it while you can.
MSquared
Well-Known Member
good morning omm!
Nice to see you had a great weekend and what beautiful strains!
pulling up the chair as always.
The revamped room looks just great!
many hands makes lite work!
so can you grow all year round outside over there?
thanks for starting a new journal, it wouldn't be the same without you
Nice to see you had a great weekend and what beautiful strains!
pulling up the chair as always.
The revamped room looks just great!
many hands makes lite work!
so can you grow all year round outside over there?
thanks for starting a new journal, it wouldn't be the same without you
- Thread starter
- #25
Your right Mr. Gator is the best!
You must know about the Muskrats then. Very dumb!
- Thread starter
- #26
I'm elated to see you doing an indoor/outdoor my man! The girls look healthy and green as always..great mix of yummy flavors in there. All the best to you and Aunt Jo and to your helpers
Hey Thanks Nephew !
Had to get back to the great outdoors. Hawaii's perfect.....most of the time.
Aunt Jo thinks I've lost my marbles again.
- Thread starter
- #27
good morning omm!
Nice to see you had a great weekend and what beautiful strains!
pulling up the chair as always.
The revamped room looks just great!
many hands makes lite work!
so can you grow all year round over there?
thanks for starting a new journal, it wouldn't be the same without you
Good Morning to you too MS.
Thanks!
I'm thinking of putting a few more CFLs in, that ought to do it. My helpers are the best!
Yep, all year around. We are so close to the equator that it is almost 12/12 all year. Hey, thanks for the good thoughts about my journals.
MSquared
Well-Known Member
Good Morning to you too MS.
Thanks!
I'm thinking of putting a few more CFLs in, that ought to do it. My helpers are the best!
Yep, all year around. We are so close to the equator that it is almost 12/12 all year. Hey, thanks for the good thoughts about my journals.
yeah the more light the better. how much wattage do you have in there?
that is just great, i guess i didn't realize it was that close to the equator, man that would be great! paradise
- Thread starter
- #29
yeah the more light the better. how much wattage do you have in there?
that is just great, i guess i didn't realize it was that close to the equator, man that would be great! paradise
Tell you the truth...I don't know......I just try to get as many lumens as I can get in there. I'll try to add them up for you. I'm going to put some more in this week. Really ugly DIY fixture.
I didn't know it either until I started growing.
Chopper
New Member
There is no substitute for the hardening of our ladies that occurs in the out-of-doors. The wind is like natures LST, the sun heats the soil above ambient air temps, the spectrum is right on, and this doesn't mean squat:
The Pope's Tree Viper, in my opinion, is the best arboreal watchdawg on the planet, small, stealthy, and a great deterrent. Perhaps you know of this creature? Or like my Roman ancestors, you could get a goose or two!
Bona Fortuna with your current grow, bro.
I have Eyelash Vipers and Squamies....sold my Trigons
We have been known to throw an EDB in a car or two on the lot......something like that gets around....it cuts down on the 2am battery shoppers.
****EDB=Eastern Diamondback. There's a big cage in the shop with (mostly rescued) rattlers from around the area
Subbed!!! And Chopper, I used to rescue rattlers too...EDB and Pygmy are my fav. I was bitten by a pygmy at 9...
- Thread starter
- #32
Hi All !
I was writing a story in the first part of this grow. If your interested in catching up with the story here is a recap of the story so far.
For all of you that didn’t read “The Story” that started in the first part of this Journal here it is.:
OK.....here is a seemingly unimportant story. It's part one of a long story that I will post in parts. This story impacted the rest of my life later on although it just seems pretty meaningless.
When in Greece our headquarters was on a Greek Air Base at the other side of Athens. Very few of our troops lived there. On the weekends it was desolate. I worked in a comm center and it was a high security site. We had 8 Nuclear Missile sites to support. I had a Cosmic Top Secret clearance, if you can believe that. I'd never heard of it before.
My duty shifts where 24 hours long. More on that latter on. On the weekends it was usually me and the Officer of the day. Sometime a few guys would be at the little theater/snack bar next door watching porno movies or NFL reruns. It sold booze too. That is where the trouble began.
One Sunday about noon the Base Commander called and wanted to talk to the Officer of the day. The OD that day was a Chief Petty Officer. I went out to look for him, he was supposed to right there by the phone. I couldn't find that sucker! I told the CO he was out doing his rounds and I would have him call when he got back. I looked all over for that dude!
At around 3 pm the CO called back. I told him he had just missed the OD and that he was making his rounds again. The CO said if OD didn't call him within the hour he was coming out there.
I'm thinking "Holy Crap! Where is this guy?"
I found him on the floor of the snack bar, behind the counter. He was plastered. I thew cold water on him and drug him back to Headquarters. I slapped him, made him walk and finally got him awake barely. I dialed the number for him and handed him the phone......He said all the right things some how and the Co was happy. Whoooow!
I had saved this guys butt. He never forgot it either.
Thats, part one of a long story.
This where the story actually starts.
In 1973-4 I was living in a junk yard apartment and going to college on the GI bill. The apartment was great. $125 dollars a month including utilities...and I could change furniture when ever I wanted. So what if there were little green frogs in the toilet. When ever I could afford it I sold a little weed. I worked in the college library putting away books as they came in. I would usually get the first three or four books put away and then one would catch my eye and I would stand there and read it. Always stoned ya know. In fact one of my friends had the first hydro grow I had ever seen. Really basic stuff back then.
I also did part time jobs. One of the those jobs was walking a picket line in downtown Napa. A perfect stoner job. I met a young lady there who was a trip.
She always walked bent over and wore a wool jacket with a hood. She looked like she was hiding all the time. Let's call her RS. She was so negative it was funny. She was permanently pissed off. At any and everything.
As we walked I got her to talk her and found out a bit about her. Her parents were older and her father was a teacher. Even my boys had heard about him being one person that you never wanted to take a class from. A mean SOB.
I found out that when she was born, all her mother's hair fell off....everywhere...no hair. She blamed RS for it. Not good. One summer her father and mother took her on a historical drive across the US. Before they left her father got all the homework assignments for her next year in school.
So as they drove, she studied. When they got to Virginia she popped a cork and went nuts. They put her in Napa State Hospital, a mental Hospital. She was in there for 6 months.
So finally she was out, but the father made her work at any job she could find, that's why she was on the picket line with me. A month of walking with her was a trip. She was 21 by then and she was brilliant, just confused. We would eat lunch together and I liked her, she was so funny without meaning to be.
After couple of months I asked her to have dinner with her. She got really pissed and started bitching during dinner. I just looked at her and said I didn't ask you to dinner to fight and she calmed down. We went to the junk yard and a had few glasses of wine. Once we kissed..we headed to the bedroom.
She was hopping up and down and making birds sounds?? Nervous as could be. She shed the frumpy cloths while hopping up and down and guess what?
She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen! I was stunned.
From that point on we were inseparable. This crazy girl had stolen my heart.....to be continued.
The story continues.......
By now you've figured out I am a dirty old man. RS was 21 and I was 33. A big difference in age. I knew better, but I couldn't think of life without her. We had been together for 4 months and were happy. Then of all things her father forbid her to see me any more. Say What? Oh! No you don't!
I put on my best jeans, put my hair up in a pony tail and told RS to meet me at her fathers place. I was outraged. To make long story short, when it was all over, RS moved in with me in the junk yard. Her father visited us, but never came in. RS and I loved our life style. You may remember me saying that this was what I, now we, wanted for the future, to live the same way forever. Months passed by. We had a small out door wedding, just a few close friends and family. RS danced for me on our wedding night, which I will never forget.
So I went back into the service...the Army this time. The plan was I would go through a 2 weeks training course at Fort Leonard Wood Missouri (better know as Fort Lost in the Woods). In was a special course for prior service people. Can you say dopers? It was a fun two weeks. RS and I met in St. Louis and flew down to Fort Gordon Ga. By the time we got there she was sick. The medics gave her two aspirins and said come back in the morning.
In the morning she was sick as hell and couldn't walk, I literally carried her to the doctors. Her fever was going through roof and she was swollen at every joint. They finally came out and told me they didn't know what it was and that they were going to give her a million ccs of penicillin or she would die from the fever. It worked and the fever came down. In the end they found she had a form of spiral meningitis and she would probably never walk again. I didn't tell her that. In a month and a half we were jogging to gather.
From there on we lived pretty happily. We were stationed in Virgina for couple of years and loved it. Having been in the service before, I started calling and asking to be assigned to Europe some where. I called them everyday and finally they gave in and gave me an assignment to Greece. We were able to fly over together...there was plenty of local housing there.
When we landed RS said to me,,,”we just came home”. Boy was she right!
To be continued......
More of the story
A little about Greece as I saw it. Even though there's only about 9 million Greeks. They are very proud of their country and it's history..with the exception
of Alexander the Great ...who they think was a savage person....He destroyed everything in his path including the great library at Alexandria. The world lost valuable histories in that fire.
Athens did not have even one freeway until they hosted the Summer Olympics a few years ago.....the Olympics bankrupted the county and they are in deep trouble now. Such a shame.
The very first day RS and I took a bus into Athens to look around. We were waiting for the bus and when it pulled in everyone just pushed their way in and we were left standing there. The Greeks do not believe in lines...it's every person for themselves. We got on the next bus ...lesson learned.
Going to a movie is a trip.....I was taller than most of them and we got right in.
They have 19 political parties and 19 news papers. Communist...whatever...it's a free country.
They like us are individuals, but not as a country. Twice we've had a hand in overthrowing their government. However back then we paid them 450 million a year to have our bases there...mostly missile sites.
I am sure there are still places that have no electricity. When we first got there we had an old VW bug. Noisy bugger too. We would go riding through the country side and as we came to small villages, every person would come out to wave and watch us go by.
Having a girl is a time of aghast to families there. Almost a time to cry. They still believe in putting to gather a small fortune to make the girl worthy.
The wealthy Greeks would go to the villages and more or less buy young girls
as servants. The would promise to give the girls a good education and would make sure they married well. A win win for everyone.
The Greeks have no industries. Wool, fur, and vegetables are all they have.
In other words everything is taxed 100 or 200 % that is imported. Autos are incredibly expensive.
We found out when we got there.....don't expect to eat in the middle of the day.....everything is closed from noon to 4. The whole country takes a nap.
If you went to a restaurant or Taverna to eat they will pretty much ignore you. All we knew to order was Bonn Fillet. (steak). After a while watching Greek customers, we learned to walk right into the kitchen and ask the cooks was good that day. After that we were waited on with much love and respect.
Eating in a restaurant or Taverna was great. They would never ever bring you the check unless you asked for it. Not like America where they can't wait to get you out so they could seat someone else.
There are over 2000 islands there and almost everyone is different. Some with trees, some with nothing but rock, some have cars or buses and some do not any vehicles at all . They are all very different and beautiful.
The Greeks do not like dogs at all, when Germans occupied Greece during WWII they would stack bodies on the streets and dogs would eat them, Cats on the other hand are all over the place.
A bit more of the story......
Like I said before, when we landed in Athens....RS said "We just came home"".
During the taxi ride to our hotel...it looked like the place had been bombed. We saw very few homes that were finished....they all looked unfinished. Later we found out that if you are still working on your house, you paid no property tax.
People would add a few bricks every year and pay no taxes.
RS and I attended a "Welcome to Greece" class. A few survival words,.like Hello and how much is that? All kinds of stuff, including handing out Ration Cards that told us how much booze, beer and cigarettes we could buy each month. Then they gave us list of things that were controlled...such as sheets and pillow cases and a few other items. I sat there and thought to my self......you mean anything that's not that list we can sell? Well what do you know? I think I might do a little business here. Hehehe!
Now to find someone to sell to......
I did a booming business in Coat Hangers In Thailand. I have no idea what they wanted them for?
To be continued......
The story continues.....
In all the time before moving to Greece. RS and I never had any real arguments.
Once we moved from the hotel to our first Greek apartment....we had quite a conflict. I mentioned that I wanted to bring my two sons over to live with us, there was a DOD school for them and I wanted to let them have the experience of living in a foreign country.
From RS....I don't want any f**king kids here! Never. In fact if I had one, I would probably kill it!......note to self...time to get that vasectomy.
Her behavior was changing......
We met a Greek Harley rider down on the beach, he had an all white one,
with Iron crosses all over it. He had ear rings and wild hair and a big beard. We became good friend with him and his Egyptian girl friend. He would lead the way and we would putt along behind in our VW. Man had some great hash too. We had traveled along the sea shore for a while and he turned across the hywy and stopped. Off jumped his girl friend who was a knockout, she turn towards the traffic and took off her top and waved at everyone. I turned around and there was RS sprawled across the VW hood tits flying, An other new behavior....which I loved..this is getting to be fun.
The story continues.....
In all the time before moving to Greece. RS and I never had any real arguments.
Once we moved from the hotel to our first Greek apartment....we had quite a conflict. I mentioned that I wanted to bring my two sons over to live with us, there was a DOD school for them and I wanted to let them have the experience of living in a foreign country.
From RS....I don't want any f**king kids here! Never. In fact if I had one, I would probably kill it!......note to self...time to get that vasectomy.
Her behavior was changing......
We met a Greek Harley rider down on the beach, he had an all white one,
with Iron crosses all over it. He had ear rings and wild hair and a big beard. We became good friends with him and his Egyptian girl friend. He would lead the way and we would putt along behind in our VW. Man had some great hash too. One day we had traveled along the sea shore for a while and he turned across the hywy and stopped. Off jumped his girl friend who was a knockout, she turned towards the traffic and took off her top and waved at everyone. I turned around and there was RS sprawled across the VW hood tits flying, An other new behavior....which I loved..this is getting to be fun.
Unfortunately they had to go back to Egypt. Bummer.
The base I was assigned to was on the other side of Athens. The place we lived in was a seaside town named Glyfada. It was a suburb east of Athens.
It was know as little America. It was populated by Navy, Air force, and the Army families...all renting. It was pretty cool.
Since we lived there, there was a bus to take us to work and back each day. I if you wanted to take your own car, that was fine too. The Bus was a big old deluxe Mercedes. It took a long route and went though one of the Communist districts. Every day they would throw stuff at us and raise hell...we just waved and smiled. If you drove your own car it was a great ride, you would go by the Acropolis each way. Just beautiful.
Believe me I will tell you about my job in detail later...big part of the story.
To get to the point, I rode the Bus over to the base one day, but I got off early and grabbed a ride with young black guy. He drove a gold Mercedes.
As we drove along, this guy said to me "God gave me this Mercedes".
What's when I asked how's that? The Lord introduced me to Vula. Vula and I do business. She tells me what to buy and she pays me very well for it.
OH! Yeah! Can I meet Vula? Sure, he said.
Remember...I had been wondering who to sell to.
Now I had a who. To be continued......
The story continues....
My Job.
When I checked in on the Greek Airbase to my job I was in for a surprise.
I was promoted in route....so they pinned some new stripes on me. I was now a Buck Sargent. A little more money in my pocket. The big surprise was yet to come.
I was assigned to the comm center. It was a very secure place...push button keys to get in. Typical. It had a beep button on the message window, so we could have folks sign for any messages that they got...all the way up to top secret. More on that later.
As I saluted the Comm Center Officer......he said "Everything that happens in the comm center, stays in the Comm center". I thought. well duh!
He said "We have 3 times the people that we need and you will work one 24 hour day and be off six days." It was all I could do to not start jumping up and down. I had walked into heaven.
We worked our 24 hour shifts with one other person. If you had someone work our shift for us, we could be off 12 days in a row...or taken farther, 18 days.
Our duties were....keeping 6 old beat up Teletype machines going for messages. We answered the green phone..which was a secure phone to the 8 missile sites we had and notify those who rec'd messages so they could come get them and sign for them.
The other duty we had was to change security cards in a big old machine we had. It was the world com security net. We usually changed cards once a day. We did have nights where we changed the cards 6 or 8 times, because some one breached it. This was way before good computers came along.
Since I had checked in on Friday...my first shift...was the following Friday.
I went home to tell RS the good news!
And more of the story.
Vula!
Vula was about 50 and loved veils....she wore a lot of them. You could hardly see her face. She spoke very little English and I didn't speak much Greek, so she brought pictures and samples of what I should get for her. I did business with her for a while, but I found more and better customers later on.
Glad I did, because she got busted later on. By her husband! He was the chief of police in Glyfada. No joke!
It was rough at first, until one of my friends introduced me to Johnny. Big mistake by my friend. Johnny was not happy with him.
Johnny. He was a Greek that had a bar in New Jersey and one day some Italians came in and said "Can we use your bar and back room for our meetings? We will pay you well. 10 grand a month. Obviously Johnny said yes.
They would leave 50 dollar tips for a drink. He was in heaven.
Some years later there was a big soccer game being held in Athens and he flew over. Right after the game Johnny had a heart attack and could never travel again. Johnny faced reality and bought three big buildings on one property and they were full of condos. Johnny lived there in one of them.
But Johnny was bored....he had to be doing something...so he wanted to impress his rich Greek friends and stated to buy and sell. Johnny was well organized and needed some one who was reliable......that person turned out to be me. He gave me big orders and it was my responsibility to fill them.
So my little business turned into a big business.
How did I do it? It was easy....I would just tell couples "Buy what I ask for and I will double your money". In the end I had 23 couples working for me and I would keep everything over double...which was everything! Fat City!
Once every 6 months are so, I would take them all out to dinner at the same time and we had fun.
I remember that first run to Johnnies. RS and I took it over to Johnny's and had a drink with he and his wife. RS and I giggled and yelled all the way home. We were set! That was what I did until I left Greece.
Next up...my other business.
Some more of the story....just a bit.
After I had been there for a year and a half my OIC in the comm center called me to his office, There stood a young PFC. Then he told me the young soldier was going to send his wife back to the sates because he couldn't afford his rent.
The OIC said Sgt OMM would you tell this young man how to pay his rent here?
I thought to myself "Holy Sh*t" he knows what I'm doing!!! And I think he did, but it didn't matter evidently.
So I had another couple for my business. He was recruiting for me!
My greedy story continues............
The other business. In my hippie days I was known to sell a few buds here and there. In Greece the penalties were pretty stiff.
A oz of hash was as at least two years. One Lucy was a life sentience. Gulp!
One did not want to go to a Greek prison.
I didn't know anyone when I got there, so what to do?
Guess I should talk a bit more about we Americans living there. As a nation we were not popular. They blew our commissary twice. They also blew part of our PX up too at the the Air Base in Glyfada. Both times were at night, so they weren't trying to kill us, just bother us.
Here's a crazy thing too.....they blew up our cars.....we had black and white license plates that said "US Forces Greece" on them. We used to joke..why not paint a big target on our cars?
It included Embassy Staff, and the Marines that guarded it, and all US personnel stationed there in Greece.
Now here's the big kicker! Unknown to the Greek population, our two governments had a deal. They would buy a new car for any American cars that were blown up!!!!!
We started making it even more obvious that we were Americans and parked anywhere we thought that our cars had a chance to be blown up.
I kind of hung around the MATS terminal on the Airbase in Glyfada just to get a feel for the place and to see how well they checked incoming US planes, also they blew up any packages or suitcases that were found just sitting around there. That was kind of fun too. I was there one night with RS having a milk shake (only place to get one) that we could find. And the alarms went off, they had found another brief case without an owner. Bomb squad came running and so did most of us to watch. We hid behind concrete pillars and waited. They blew it up as usual....but this one did have bomb in it! Whooa!
What a blast! No one was hurt, but it scared the crap out of us. Maybe we shouldn't watch next time!
One day I was cruising around and saw an Airman in work fatigues that was pacing back an forth...he looked like he was looking for some one. I walked over to him and started talking to him. He was in fact waiting for some one and he was way late. I just ask if there was anything I could do. He looked me up and down and said "not unless you want buy some hash". Hello there my friend, of course I wanted to!
It quickly became a partnership. I would buy whatever he had. He was an on board aircraft mechanic and before he left Turkey he hid the hash in the engines. When landed he would pull maintenance and recover the hash. Fact was he was standing there with it in his pocket.
We drove down the Glyfada beach and sat down. He had 40 sticks of green colored hash that had been pressed into 4"x1" strips. He wanted 15 bucks for each one. I bought it all. I sold it for $35 a stick. Should have asked more really...it was really good. As we sat there he and I became partners. He made two or three trips a month. He would try to write me before each trip, if he couldn't he would just call me when he landed. Was great for 5 months, then he never came back. Who knows what happened to him.
Actually as we sat on Glyfada beach I noticed that there were other deals being made. Hummmm! To be continued..........
The Story Continues.......Two Crazy Englishmen !
RS and I had been in Greece for a year and we decided to move up town so to speak. We moved all the way up to the top of Glyfada, so far up the sheep herders would drive their sheep right down the street in front of us. It was great! We could see the three closest islands clearly. The sunsets were picture postcard stuff. The landlord was a marble cutter and marble dust designer. All our floors were marble and the designs were incredible.
We found out marble was cold as could be in the mornings. The landlord only turned on the heat 1 hour in the morning and one hour at night. That just wouldn't do for two spoiled Americans. I had a talk with him and he had a 3 ton tank to hold the fuel oil. He said it was too expensive to burn longer than 2 hours a day. I told him to let me take care of it. Service people got a discount and I kept it full from then on. His family loved it and so did we...heat all the time. It had a intercom and a push button door downstairs and we could buzz people in or not. By the way rent was $200 a month.
We had balconies front and back and if we leaned over we could pick lemons right off the tree. Through the years I would stand on the front balcony
and think to myself "Life will never be this good again". I was right!
We has two kittens...Nuts and Buns. Nuts fell into the fuel oil and after much washing..he lost all his hair. RS and everyone else would not touch him...poor pink little thing. I did.
As we were moving a friend came over and said there were two English men down on the Glyfada beach and they had something to sell. Away I went to find them. I did. They had two keys hash oil to sell. Oh! Boy!. We made arrangements for them to come over to our old place the next day. I had to get the money out of the bank.
Sure enough they came over. You could run a toothpick's worth over a cigarette and it would knock you silly. I paid them one dollar a gram for it all!
Remember this was long ago.
I never ever sold on the street.....I was always the middle man. I sold it for 10 dollars a gram. The people I sold it too would double it, if not more. We furnished our new place with the money. A note...fisher men were making $500 a day back then, so folks did have plenty of money.
Talk about something hard to work with it was that oil in plastic bags. So I froze it and cut it off with a knife. Then weighted it.
This was not the last time I would see these guys.
What these guys did was leave England with something to sell. Their first stop was Morocco......Casablanca. There the would sell their goods and buy something else. They traveled all across Northern Africa buying and selling, then through the Holy Land and finally to Turkey, then Greece. I honestly don't know how they got the hash into Greece. The Greek borders were very hard on drugs. Usually nothing came across the boarders. That leads to another story later on.
By the end of their journey, they had something to sell when they got home to England. What a pair these two were. Really good dudes.
Like I said, I would see these guys again.
For you sex nuts.....RS was the same...in public very shy and demure.
At home she was totally different. Our house was typically Greek. It had another floor above us, which was unfinished. the brick at a time for tax reasons. When RS saw it...she wanted to have some pictures taken up there of her in a bikini. Who was I too refuse....we did this many times...each time she would lose her bikini in minutes. I always thought the neighbors with telescopes loved it.
The Story Continues.....Crete
This was at the end of year three in Greece. Not only did I supply Johnny, I had other customers too. There were 4 really nice young Greek Guys that wanted to stock a new bar on the island of Crete. Obviously that was right up my alley.
So they left Glyfada with enough stock to start a bar. About 6 months later they called me. There was an Egyptian lady there that I should meet. She would go to Amsterdam and bring back goodies. I never asked her how she did it, she would probably not tell me anyway.
So I flew down to Crete. RS didn't want to go, so it was just me. The airport there was on the opposite side of the island from my destination, so I rented a car. The drive across the island was beautiful. I drove by the Palace of Knossos. A very ancient civilization once lived there...all there is now is ruins. They are still trying to figure out what happened to them.
I was headed to Agia Galini. Translated it meant "House of the Sun". Was it ever! As I got closer the mountains got steeper...I was thinking "What the hell?" Then I turned into a small road that looked like it ended in a cliff .
Then the road took a turn and down below was Agia Galini shining brightly by the sea. It was beautiful.
Finding the bar was easy and in I went. After much hugging and slaps on the back, the guys turned around and said here is whom you came to see. Sitting in the corner was one the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. The Egyptian lady. She took me by the hand and we walked to her place. I can't tell you what she had to sell because of 420's rules. The following day I would make a pretty big buy from her.
She wouldn't let me buy anything, because she said it was going to be a big night all around town. As we walked along anyone that passed by she gave something to them. When we got back to the bar it was dark. She gave everyone in the bar a present too. Low and behold she introduced me to a band called "Dire Straits". You old timers have probably heard of them. They weren't playing they were there to party. The whole figgin town was partying.
Some how I ended up with a young blond lady and she took me to a place called "The Singing Rocks". It was amazing. The waves washed in and moved the rocks each time . It was beautiful to listen too. We stripped and jumped in. We played for what seemed like forever. That was close as I ever came to cheating on RS, but I didn't. Well, there was another time, but that's another story.
I woke up the next morning on a table in the bar, my arms around the Egyptian girl. All the tables were full. A couple of guys from Dire Straights was on one too. We had a party!!! The Egyptian lady and I ate and drank some strong coffee, Then we walked back to her place to do business.
I left with allot of what she had. again I can't say what it was because of 420's rules.
I wasn't too worried about flying back to Athens. The Greeks didn't check in country flights. When I got back home RS said "Did you have a good time ?"
All I said was yep...you should have gone with me.
In all my dealings, this was the biggest profit margin of all. I paid 2 bucks each for them and sold them for 1000 Drachmas ......$27 dollars. The folks I sold to would sell them for twice that or 3 times that. Fat City again. Nice two day trip.
The Story Continues...........Tasos Panos
I should have talked about this before. It starts before I ever set foot in Greece.
When I was stationed in Virginia. I was in charge of a Mars station. Mars = Military Amateur Radio Station. I would run nets between the Military and Voluntary Amateur Radio Stations. Was a wonderful job. We ran phone patches to folks stationed in Germany. This was way before digital anything was invented. So it was like a free call to loved ones separated by their assignments.
I had a Armature license so on snowy days I could run the nets from home. My Commander had given me his old rig to use....I was stoked. After my business was over I would start looking for distant armatures to talk to. One day as I was looking around I heard a SV call sign....Greece!
So I called back.....that's how I met Tasos Panos. He was a private detective in Athens. Very friendly guy and insisted that soon we arrived in Greece to come see him.
Well RS and I did. We were still living in a hotel at that time.
His office was top notch. Then he started talking about all the things he did.
He was an official currier for the Greek Government. He traveled with a suitcase hand cuffed to his arm. This where it started to get weird. He had diplomatic immunity where ever he went. He loaded the suitcase with hundreds of thousands of Greek drachmas. As he went from country to country he would exchange the money for the current currency. One can make thousands this way. All totally illegal. RS and I started feeling that we wanted to get out of there fast. Then he started telling us how many M-16s he was selling to other governments. That did it we were out of there!
We went straight to the CID office on the Air Base and told our story. They said they would look into it and to come back in two days.
Well, we did. When we came back the CID investigator took us to a little room with a big smile on his face and looked right at us and said " You can do whatever you want to with Mr. Panos.....He works for us!". Say what?
To be continued...........................
I was writing a story in the first part of this grow. If your interested in catching up with the story here is a recap of the story so far.
For all of you that didn’t read “The Story” that started in the first part of this Journal here it is.:
OK.....here is a seemingly unimportant story. It's part one of a long story that I will post in parts. This story impacted the rest of my life later on although it just seems pretty meaningless.
When in Greece our headquarters was on a Greek Air Base at the other side of Athens. Very few of our troops lived there. On the weekends it was desolate. I worked in a comm center and it was a high security site. We had 8 Nuclear Missile sites to support. I had a Cosmic Top Secret clearance, if you can believe that. I'd never heard of it before.
My duty shifts where 24 hours long. More on that latter on. On the weekends it was usually me and the Officer of the day. Sometime a few guys would be at the little theater/snack bar next door watching porno movies or NFL reruns. It sold booze too. That is where the trouble began.
One Sunday about noon the Base Commander called and wanted to talk to the Officer of the day. The OD that day was a Chief Petty Officer. I went out to look for him, he was supposed to right there by the phone. I couldn't find that sucker! I told the CO he was out doing his rounds and I would have him call when he got back. I looked all over for that dude!
At around 3 pm the CO called back. I told him he had just missed the OD and that he was making his rounds again. The CO said if OD didn't call him within the hour he was coming out there.
I'm thinking "Holy Crap! Where is this guy?"
I found him on the floor of the snack bar, behind the counter. He was plastered. I thew cold water on him and drug him back to Headquarters. I slapped him, made him walk and finally got him awake barely. I dialed the number for him and handed him the phone......He said all the right things some how and the Co was happy. Whoooow!
I had saved this guys butt. He never forgot it either.
Thats, part one of a long story.
This where the story actually starts.
In 1973-4 I was living in a junk yard apartment and going to college on the GI bill. The apartment was great. $125 dollars a month including utilities...and I could change furniture when ever I wanted. So what if there were little green frogs in the toilet. When ever I could afford it I sold a little weed. I worked in the college library putting away books as they came in. I would usually get the first three or four books put away and then one would catch my eye and I would stand there and read it. Always stoned ya know. In fact one of my friends had the first hydro grow I had ever seen. Really basic stuff back then.
I also did part time jobs. One of the those jobs was walking a picket line in downtown Napa. A perfect stoner job. I met a young lady there who was a trip.
She always walked bent over and wore a wool jacket with a hood. She looked like she was hiding all the time. Let's call her RS. She was so negative it was funny. She was permanently pissed off. At any and everything.
As we walked I got her to talk her and found out a bit about her. Her parents were older and her father was a teacher. Even my boys had heard about him being one person that you never wanted to take a class from. A mean SOB.
I found out that when she was born, all her mother's hair fell off....everywhere...no hair. She blamed RS for it. Not good. One summer her father and mother took her on a historical drive across the US. Before they left her father got all the homework assignments for her next year in school.
So as they drove, she studied. When they got to Virginia she popped a cork and went nuts. They put her in Napa State Hospital, a mental Hospital. She was in there for 6 months.
So finally she was out, but the father made her work at any job she could find, that's why she was on the picket line with me. A month of walking with her was a trip. She was 21 by then and she was brilliant, just confused. We would eat lunch together and I liked her, she was so funny without meaning to be.
After couple of months I asked her to have dinner with her. She got really pissed and started bitching during dinner. I just looked at her and said I didn't ask you to dinner to fight and she calmed down. We went to the junk yard and a had few glasses of wine. Once we kissed..we headed to the bedroom.
She was hopping up and down and making birds sounds?? Nervous as could be. She shed the frumpy cloths while hopping up and down and guess what?
She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen! I was stunned.
From that point on we were inseparable. This crazy girl had stolen my heart.....to be continued.
The story continues.......
By now you've figured out I am a dirty old man. RS was 21 and I was 33. A big difference in age. I knew better, but I couldn't think of life without her. We had been together for 4 months and were happy. Then of all things her father forbid her to see me any more. Say What? Oh! No you don't!
I put on my best jeans, put my hair up in a pony tail and told RS to meet me at her fathers place. I was outraged. To make long story short, when it was all over, RS moved in with me in the junk yard. Her father visited us, but never came in. RS and I loved our life style. You may remember me saying that this was what I, now we, wanted for the future, to live the same way forever. Months passed by. We had a small out door wedding, just a few close friends and family. RS danced for me on our wedding night, which I will never forget.
So I went back into the service...the Army this time. The plan was I would go through a 2 weeks training course at Fort Leonard Wood Missouri (better know as Fort Lost in the Woods). In was a special course for prior service people. Can you say dopers? It was a fun two weeks. RS and I met in St. Louis and flew down to Fort Gordon Ga. By the time we got there she was sick. The medics gave her two aspirins and said come back in the morning.
In the morning she was sick as hell and couldn't walk, I literally carried her to the doctors. Her fever was going through roof and she was swollen at every joint. They finally came out and told me they didn't know what it was and that they were going to give her a million ccs of penicillin or she would die from the fever. It worked and the fever came down. In the end they found she had a form of spiral meningitis and she would probably never walk again. I didn't tell her that. In a month and a half we were jogging to gather.
From there on we lived pretty happily. We were stationed in Virgina for couple of years and loved it. Having been in the service before, I started calling and asking to be assigned to Europe some where. I called them everyday and finally they gave in and gave me an assignment to Greece. We were able to fly over together...there was plenty of local housing there.
When we landed RS said to me,,,”we just came home”. Boy was she right!
To be continued......
More of the story
A little about Greece as I saw it. Even though there's only about 9 million Greeks. They are very proud of their country and it's history..with the exception
of Alexander the Great ...who they think was a savage person....He destroyed everything in his path including the great library at Alexandria. The world lost valuable histories in that fire.
Athens did not have even one freeway until they hosted the Summer Olympics a few years ago.....the Olympics bankrupted the county and they are in deep trouble now. Such a shame.
The very first day RS and I took a bus into Athens to look around. We were waiting for the bus and when it pulled in everyone just pushed their way in and we were left standing there. The Greeks do not believe in lines...it's every person for themselves. We got on the next bus ...lesson learned.
Going to a movie is a trip.....I was taller than most of them and we got right in.
They have 19 political parties and 19 news papers. Communist...whatever...it's a free country.
They like us are individuals, but not as a country. Twice we've had a hand in overthrowing their government. However back then we paid them 450 million a year to have our bases there...mostly missile sites.
I am sure there are still places that have no electricity. When we first got there we had an old VW bug. Noisy bugger too. We would go riding through the country side and as we came to small villages, every person would come out to wave and watch us go by.
Having a girl is a time of aghast to families there. Almost a time to cry. They still believe in putting to gather a small fortune to make the girl worthy.
The wealthy Greeks would go to the villages and more or less buy young girls
as servants. The would promise to give the girls a good education and would make sure they married well. A win win for everyone.
The Greeks have no industries. Wool, fur, and vegetables are all they have.
In other words everything is taxed 100 or 200 % that is imported. Autos are incredibly expensive.
We found out when we got there.....don't expect to eat in the middle of the day.....everything is closed from noon to 4. The whole country takes a nap.
If you went to a restaurant or Taverna to eat they will pretty much ignore you. All we knew to order was Bonn Fillet. (steak). After a while watching Greek customers, we learned to walk right into the kitchen and ask the cooks was good that day. After that we were waited on with much love and respect.
Eating in a restaurant or Taverna was great. They would never ever bring you the check unless you asked for it. Not like America where they can't wait to get you out so they could seat someone else.
There are over 2000 islands there and almost everyone is different. Some with trees, some with nothing but rock, some have cars or buses and some do not any vehicles at all . They are all very different and beautiful.
The Greeks do not like dogs at all, when Germans occupied Greece during WWII they would stack bodies on the streets and dogs would eat them, Cats on the other hand are all over the place.
A bit more of the story......
Like I said before, when we landed in Athens....RS said "We just came home"".
During the taxi ride to our hotel...it looked like the place had been bombed. We saw very few homes that were finished....they all looked unfinished. Later we found out that if you are still working on your house, you paid no property tax.
People would add a few bricks every year and pay no taxes.
RS and I attended a "Welcome to Greece" class. A few survival words,.like Hello and how much is that? All kinds of stuff, including handing out Ration Cards that told us how much booze, beer and cigarettes we could buy each month. Then they gave us list of things that were controlled...such as sheets and pillow cases and a few other items. I sat there and thought to my self......you mean anything that's not that list we can sell? Well what do you know? I think I might do a little business here. Hehehe!
Now to find someone to sell to......
I did a booming business in Coat Hangers In Thailand. I have no idea what they wanted them for?
To be continued......
The story continues.....
In all the time before moving to Greece. RS and I never had any real arguments.
Once we moved from the hotel to our first Greek apartment....we had quite a conflict. I mentioned that I wanted to bring my two sons over to live with us, there was a DOD school for them and I wanted to let them have the experience of living in a foreign country.
From RS....I don't want any f**king kids here! Never. In fact if I had one, I would probably kill it!......note to self...time to get that vasectomy.
Her behavior was changing......
We met a Greek Harley rider down on the beach, he had an all white one,
with Iron crosses all over it. He had ear rings and wild hair and a big beard. We became good friend with him and his Egyptian girl friend. He would lead the way and we would putt along behind in our VW. Man had some great hash too. We had traveled along the sea shore for a while and he turned across the hywy and stopped. Off jumped his girl friend who was a knockout, she turn towards the traffic and took off her top and waved at everyone. I turned around and there was RS sprawled across the VW hood tits flying, An other new behavior....which I loved..this is getting to be fun.
The story continues.....
In all the time before moving to Greece. RS and I never had any real arguments.
Once we moved from the hotel to our first Greek apartment....we had quite a conflict. I mentioned that I wanted to bring my two sons over to live with us, there was a DOD school for them and I wanted to let them have the experience of living in a foreign country.
From RS....I don't want any f**king kids here! Never. In fact if I had one, I would probably kill it!......note to self...time to get that vasectomy.
Her behavior was changing......
We met a Greek Harley rider down on the beach, he had an all white one,
with Iron crosses all over it. He had ear rings and wild hair and a big beard. We became good friends with him and his Egyptian girl friend. He would lead the way and we would putt along behind in our VW. Man had some great hash too. One day we had traveled along the sea shore for a while and he turned across the hywy and stopped. Off jumped his girl friend who was a knockout, she turned towards the traffic and took off her top and waved at everyone. I turned around and there was RS sprawled across the VW hood tits flying, An other new behavior....which I loved..this is getting to be fun.
Unfortunately they had to go back to Egypt. Bummer.
The base I was assigned to was on the other side of Athens. The place we lived in was a seaside town named Glyfada. It was a suburb east of Athens.
It was know as little America. It was populated by Navy, Air force, and the Army families...all renting. It was pretty cool.
Since we lived there, there was a bus to take us to work and back each day. I if you wanted to take your own car, that was fine too. The Bus was a big old deluxe Mercedes. It took a long route and went though one of the Communist districts. Every day they would throw stuff at us and raise hell...we just waved and smiled. If you drove your own car it was a great ride, you would go by the Acropolis each way. Just beautiful.
Believe me I will tell you about my job in detail later...big part of the story.
To get to the point, I rode the Bus over to the base one day, but I got off early and grabbed a ride with young black guy. He drove a gold Mercedes.
As we drove along, this guy said to me "God gave me this Mercedes".
What's when I asked how's that? The Lord introduced me to Vula. Vula and I do business. She tells me what to buy and she pays me very well for it.
OH! Yeah! Can I meet Vula? Sure, he said.
Remember...I had been wondering who to sell to.
Now I had a who. To be continued......
The story continues....
My Job.
When I checked in on the Greek Airbase to my job I was in for a surprise.
I was promoted in route....so they pinned some new stripes on me. I was now a Buck Sargent. A little more money in my pocket. The big surprise was yet to come.
I was assigned to the comm center. It was a very secure place...push button keys to get in. Typical. It had a beep button on the message window, so we could have folks sign for any messages that they got...all the way up to top secret. More on that later.
As I saluted the Comm Center Officer......he said "Everything that happens in the comm center, stays in the Comm center". I thought. well duh!
He said "We have 3 times the people that we need and you will work one 24 hour day and be off six days." It was all I could do to not start jumping up and down. I had walked into heaven.
We worked our 24 hour shifts with one other person. If you had someone work our shift for us, we could be off 12 days in a row...or taken farther, 18 days.
Our duties were....keeping 6 old beat up Teletype machines going for messages. We answered the green phone..which was a secure phone to the 8 missile sites we had and notify those who rec'd messages so they could come get them and sign for them.
The other duty we had was to change security cards in a big old machine we had. It was the world com security net. We usually changed cards once a day. We did have nights where we changed the cards 6 or 8 times, because some one breached it. This was way before good computers came along.
Since I had checked in on Friday...my first shift...was the following Friday.
I went home to tell RS the good news!
And more of the story.
Vula!
Vula was about 50 and loved veils....she wore a lot of them. You could hardly see her face. She spoke very little English and I didn't speak much Greek, so she brought pictures and samples of what I should get for her. I did business with her for a while, but I found more and better customers later on.
Glad I did, because she got busted later on. By her husband! He was the chief of police in Glyfada. No joke!
It was rough at first, until one of my friends introduced me to Johnny. Big mistake by my friend. Johnny was not happy with him.
Johnny. He was a Greek that had a bar in New Jersey and one day some Italians came in and said "Can we use your bar and back room for our meetings? We will pay you well. 10 grand a month. Obviously Johnny said yes.
They would leave 50 dollar tips for a drink. He was in heaven.
Some years later there was a big soccer game being held in Athens and he flew over. Right after the game Johnny had a heart attack and could never travel again. Johnny faced reality and bought three big buildings on one property and they were full of condos. Johnny lived there in one of them.
But Johnny was bored....he had to be doing something...so he wanted to impress his rich Greek friends and stated to buy and sell. Johnny was well organized and needed some one who was reliable......that person turned out to be me. He gave me big orders and it was my responsibility to fill them.
So my little business turned into a big business.
How did I do it? It was easy....I would just tell couples "Buy what I ask for and I will double your money". In the end I had 23 couples working for me and I would keep everything over double...which was everything! Fat City!
Once every 6 months are so, I would take them all out to dinner at the same time and we had fun.
I remember that first run to Johnnies. RS and I took it over to Johnny's and had a drink with he and his wife. RS and I giggled and yelled all the way home. We were set! That was what I did until I left Greece.
Next up...my other business.
Some more of the story....just a bit.
After I had been there for a year and a half my OIC in the comm center called me to his office, There stood a young PFC. Then he told me the young soldier was going to send his wife back to the sates because he couldn't afford his rent.
The OIC said Sgt OMM would you tell this young man how to pay his rent here?
I thought to myself "Holy Sh*t" he knows what I'm doing!!! And I think he did, but it didn't matter evidently.
So I had another couple for my business. He was recruiting for me!
My greedy story continues............
The other business. In my hippie days I was known to sell a few buds here and there. In Greece the penalties were pretty stiff.
A oz of hash was as at least two years. One Lucy was a life sentience. Gulp!
One did not want to go to a Greek prison.
I didn't know anyone when I got there, so what to do?
Guess I should talk a bit more about we Americans living there. As a nation we were not popular. They blew our commissary twice. They also blew part of our PX up too at the the Air Base in Glyfada. Both times were at night, so they weren't trying to kill us, just bother us.
Here's a crazy thing too.....they blew up our cars.....we had black and white license plates that said "US Forces Greece" on them. We used to joke..why not paint a big target on our cars?
It included Embassy Staff, and the Marines that guarded it, and all US personnel stationed there in Greece.
Now here's the big kicker! Unknown to the Greek population, our two governments had a deal. They would buy a new car for any American cars that were blown up!!!!!
We started making it even more obvious that we were Americans and parked anywhere we thought that our cars had a chance to be blown up.
I kind of hung around the MATS terminal on the Airbase in Glyfada just to get a feel for the place and to see how well they checked incoming US planes, also they blew up any packages or suitcases that were found just sitting around there. That was kind of fun too. I was there one night with RS having a milk shake (only place to get one) that we could find. And the alarms went off, they had found another brief case without an owner. Bomb squad came running and so did most of us to watch. We hid behind concrete pillars and waited. They blew it up as usual....but this one did have bomb in it! Whooa!
What a blast! No one was hurt, but it scared the crap out of us. Maybe we shouldn't watch next time!
One day I was cruising around and saw an Airman in work fatigues that was pacing back an forth...he looked like he was looking for some one. I walked over to him and started talking to him. He was in fact waiting for some one and he was way late. I just ask if there was anything I could do. He looked me up and down and said "not unless you want buy some hash". Hello there my friend, of course I wanted to!
It quickly became a partnership. I would buy whatever he had. He was an on board aircraft mechanic and before he left Turkey he hid the hash in the engines. When landed he would pull maintenance and recover the hash. Fact was he was standing there with it in his pocket.
We drove down the Glyfada beach and sat down. He had 40 sticks of green colored hash that had been pressed into 4"x1" strips. He wanted 15 bucks for each one. I bought it all. I sold it for $35 a stick. Should have asked more really...it was really good. As we sat there he and I became partners. He made two or three trips a month. He would try to write me before each trip, if he couldn't he would just call me when he landed. Was great for 5 months, then he never came back. Who knows what happened to him.
Actually as we sat on Glyfada beach I noticed that there were other deals being made. Hummmm! To be continued..........
The Story Continues.......Two Crazy Englishmen !
RS and I had been in Greece for a year and we decided to move up town so to speak. We moved all the way up to the top of Glyfada, so far up the sheep herders would drive their sheep right down the street in front of us. It was great! We could see the three closest islands clearly. The sunsets were picture postcard stuff. The landlord was a marble cutter and marble dust designer. All our floors were marble and the designs were incredible.
We found out marble was cold as could be in the mornings. The landlord only turned on the heat 1 hour in the morning and one hour at night. That just wouldn't do for two spoiled Americans. I had a talk with him and he had a 3 ton tank to hold the fuel oil. He said it was too expensive to burn longer than 2 hours a day. I told him to let me take care of it. Service people got a discount and I kept it full from then on. His family loved it and so did we...heat all the time. It had a intercom and a push button door downstairs and we could buzz people in or not. By the way rent was $200 a month.
We had balconies front and back and if we leaned over we could pick lemons right off the tree. Through the years I would stand on the front balcony
and think to myself "Life will never be this good again". I was right!
We has two kittens...Nuts and Buns. Nuts fell into the fuel oil and after much washing..he lost all his hair. RS and everyone else would not touch him...poor pink little thing. I did.
As we were moving a friend came over and said there were two English men down on the Glyfada beach and they had something to sell. Away I went to find them. I did. They had two keys hash oil to sell. Oh! Boy!. We made arrangements for them to come over to our old place the next day. I had to get the money out of the bank.
Sure enough they came over. You could run a toothpick's worth over a cigarette and it would knock you silly. I paid them one dollar a gram for it all!
Remember this was long ago.
I never ever sold on the street.....I was always the middle man. I sold it for 10 dollars a gram. The people I sold it too would double it, if not more. We furnished our new place with the money. A note...fisher men were making $500 a day back then, so folks did have plenty of money.
Talk about something hard to work with it was that oil in plastic bags. So I froze it and cut it off with a knife. Then weighted it.
This was not the last time I would see these guys.
What these guys did was leave England with something to sell. Their first stop was Morocco......Casablanca. There the would sell their goods and buy something else. They traveled all across Northern Africa buying and selling, then through the Holy Land and finally to Turkey, then Greece. I honestly don't know how they got the hash into Greece. The Greek borders were very hard on drugs. Usually nothing came across the boarders. That leads to another story later on.
By the end of their journey, they had something to sell when they got home to England. What a pair these two were. Really good dudes.
Like I said, I would see these guys again.
For you sex nuts.....RS was the same...in public very shy and demure.
At home she was totally different. Our house was typically Greek. It had another floor above us, which was unfinished. the brick at a time for tax reasons. When RS saw it...she wanted to have some pictures taken up there of her in a bikini. Who was I too refuse....we did this many times...each time she would lose her bikini in minutes. I always thought the neighbors with telescopes loved it.
The Story Continues.....Crete
This was at the end of year three in Greece. Not only did I supply Johnny, I had other customers too. There were 4 really nice young Greek Guys that wanted to stock a new bar on the island of Crete. Obviously that was right up my alley.
So they left Glyfada with enough stock to start a bar. About 6 months later they called me. There was an Egyptian lady there that I should meet. She would go to Amsterdam and bring back goodies. I never asked her how she did it, she would probably not tell me anyway.
So I flew down to Crete. RS didn't want to go, so it was just me. The airport there was on the opposite side of the island from my destination, so I rented a car. The drive across the island was beautiful. I drove by the Palace of Knossos. A very ancient civilization once lived there...all there is now is ruins. They are still trying to figure out what happened to them.
I was headed to Agia Galini. Translated it meant "House of the Sun". Was it ever! As I got closer the mountains got steeper...I was thinking "What the hell?" Then I turned into a small road that looked like it ended in a cliff .
Then the road took a turn and down below was Agia Galini shining brightly by the sea. It was beautiful.
Finding the bar was easy and in I went. After much hugging and slaps on the back, the guys turned around and said here is whom you came to see. Sitting in the corner was one the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. The Egyptian lady. She took me by the hand and we walked to her place. I can't tell you what she had to sell because of 420's rules. The following day I would make a pretty big buy from her.
She wouldn't let me buy anything, because she said it was going to be a big night all around town. As we walked along anyone that passed by she gave something to them. When we got back to the bar it was dark. She gave everyone in the bar a present too. Low and behold she introduced me to a band called "Dire Straits". You old timers have probably heard of them. They weren't playing they were there to party. The whole figgin town was partying.
Some how I ended up with a young blond lady and she took me to a place called "The Singing Rocks". It was amazing. The waves washed in and moved the rocks each time . It was beautiful to listen too. We stripped and jumped in. We played for what seemed like forever. That was close as I ever came to cheating on RS, but I didn't. Well, there was another time, but that's another story.
I woke up the next morning on a table in the bar, my arms around the Egyptian girl. All the tables were full. A couple of guys from Dire Straights was on one too. We had a party!!! The Egyptian lady and I ate and drank some strong coffee, Then we walked back to her place to do business.
I left with allot of what she had. again I can't say what it was because of 420's rules.
I wasn't too worried about flying back to Athens. The Greeks didn't check in country flights. When I got back home RS said "Did you have a good time ?"
All I said was yep...you should have gone with me.
In all my dealings, this was the biggest profit margin of all. I paid 2 bucks each for them and sold them for 1000 Drachmas ......$27 dollars. The folks I sold to would sell them for twice that or 3 times that. Fat City again. Nice two day trip.
The Story Continues...........Tasos Panos
I should have talked about this before. It starts before I ever set foot in Greece.
When I was stationed in Virginia. I was in charge of a Mars station. Mars = Military Amateur Radio Station. I would run nets between the Military and Voluntary Amateur Radio Stations. Was a wonderful job. We ran phone patches to folks stationed in Germany. This was way before digital anything was invented. So it was like a free call to loved ones separated by their assignments.
I had a Armature license so on snowy days I could run the nets from home. My Commander had given me his old rig to use....I was stoked. After my business was over I would start looking for distant armatures to talk to. One day as I was looking around I heard a SV call sign....Greece!
So I called back.....that's how I met Tasos Panos. He was a private detective in Athens. Very friendly guy and insisted that soon we arrived in Greece to come see him.
Well RS and I did. We were still living in a hotel at that time.
His office was top notch. Then he started talking about all the things he did.
He was an official currier for the Greek Government. He traveled with a suitcase hand cuffed to his arm. This where it started to get weird. He had diplomatic immunity where ever he went. He loaded the suitcase with hundreds of thousands of Greek drachmas. As he went from country to country he would exchange the money for the current currency. One can make thousands this way. All totally illegal. RS and I started feeling that we wanted to get out of there fast. Then he started telling us how many M-16s he was selling to other governments. That did it we were out of there!
We went straight to the CID office on the Air Base and told our story. They said they would look into it and to come back in two days.
Well, we did. When we came back the CID investigator took us to a little room with a big smile on his face and looked right at us and said " You can do whatever you want to with Mr. Panos.....He works for us!". Say what?
To be continued...........................
- Thread starter
- #33
Part two of the catch up post of the story.
The story continues.........Christos
During my second year in Greece two friends brought over a young Greek
Named Christos on first sight I didn't trust him. He was maybe 23 and handsome as hell, a six pack body, but there was something I didn't trust about him. .RS would me tell me how much Christos loved me.. I had no choice but to work with him......he could supply keys of hash almost monthly.
I guess he was my friend in kind of a distant way. He did change RS and my life style.
He introduced us to his father...another Christos.
Christos Sr. was a millionaire. Like many Greeks have done and are still doing now, he came to the states and made millions....then he skipped out with out paying taxes. When I met him he was waiting for the five years to pass, before he could go back to the states
He had a 110 foot wooden Yacht. It had every bell and whistle you could imagine at that time. It was not a sailing Yacht, but one with twin inboard diesels.. After talking to RS and I for a while he asked us if we wanted to crew for him. Say what! Hell yes!
What our jobs would be was that I would caste off the line when we left port and then to throw out the line when we got back to port.. I can do that!! RS had the pleasure of serving ice cream to any of his special guests. RS and I had the forward cabin to ourselves He also had two girls from the villages that He was putting through school and would make sure they married well. Need less to say they were beautiful.
With my work schedule we went every where he went.. We even chugged to Italy once..
Sometime we would just drop anchor off an island and just scuba dive. One of the best things about the yacht was that it had been registered in the US, so we flew old glory as our flag. I just loved to come into a harbor with the stars and stripes flying in the breeze..
RS and I spent allot time sitting at the very front of the boat with our legs wrapped around the main keel and ride the waves. Sure wish I could post the pictures I took on the long rides at sea. We also learned why young Christos was so buff. He dived when we were docked and cleaned the barnacles off the underside of the boat..
More about Christos Jr later on.......
The story continues......OMM's Second Temptation.
There is an island named Mykonos and its famous for being an ancient historical meeting place for 5 thousand years. If it was described today it is were the rich and famous play ,,,the ancient jet setters would meet there. Over the years it hasn't changed a bit.. Note: I did a Google and it has changed and in my eyes not for the better....big ass Hotels have moved in. I stopped reading it right there,.a sacrilege .
Fist of all there are no automobiles or vehicles at all on the island. All the houses are white with blue trim. There are no streets, just white washed paths, There is a Church for every day of the year..When I was there it had great tavernas and restaurants. It also had windmills. and also 6 nude beaches accessible only by water taxis.
I had heard enough about it to want to go see it myself. RS didn't want to go so I took a ferry over. Ferry's in Greece were like really big ships with 4 decks. Ist class was like 200 dracs.. When I got to Mykonos there were women waiting to rent you a room for how ever long you stayed. The room I had was great..old Greek furniture and all. The best part was the shower was on the roof.. It was a stall and it wasn't totally enclosed. While you showered you could see most of the island and you could hear music floating through the air..
Of course I took a water taxi to one of the nude beaches.. To be kind to me lets just say I am a pretty normal guy, but it didn't matter. I was there, so I threw my towel down and stripped. The Beach was full of people.
The next water taxi pulled up and a tall as me beautiful woman got off, she walked right over next to me thew her towel down and striped. Then she asked if I would put sun screen on her. Yes indeed I would. Turns out she was a model from Milan, Italy one of the fashion capitals of Europe.
And she was just taking a break. We walked over to a snack bar and they only sold one thing...strawberries and honey. It too was delicious. We spent the rest of the evening having a wonderful meal at an open air taverna.. She asked if I wanted to come with her to her room. Slap me in the head, with all my will power I said no. I still don't regret it, I was in love with RS. Well, now I do regret it! Who know where that would have taken me.
Later on I don't know how many times RS and I went there. She loved the nude beaches too and would bear all. And show off.. We met many ex-pats who lived there. For some reason it always reminded me of a northern Cali town named Sausalito. Don't know how it is now though..in some ways it was a very hippie place. Lots of art and hand made things. I bought a kind of swordsman shirt with billowing sleeves. On Guard!
There was another island right next to Mykonos called Delos. Very few folks visit it. There was once a thriving civilization there, now it lays in ruins. It is supposed to be evil. You can see it all in the daytime. Creepy. It's worth a Google look.
The story continues .......Ken and Barbie
When I fist went out to our part of the Greek Air Base.....I met Ken and Barbie.
They were beautiful people. Ken was an Errol Flynn looking guy, very dashing.
Barbie looked like Barbie. He worked in the office. Barbie worked with me in the Comm Center. She was a real cool girl. They had been married a few years.
Our first shift together she sat me down and said "I love my husband" and I said back "I love my wife". She said "Good, No fooling around". Perfect......well kind of. Since we worked 24 hour shifts, each of us would would bring in a fitted sheet set for the one twin sized mattress that was on the floor. When there was no work in the middle of the night we took naps on it. It was always cold as hell in the comm center, so from the very first night, we would spoon and cuddle to keep warm. That was great...course we made no comments to Ken or RS. No use starting trouble.
They were our first real friends and they were the first to come over and visit our first apartment. We became good friends, so much so Ken was one of my first sellers of hash. In the end he became a partner in my hash business and was for a long time. These two would have a part in this on going story that I didn't like too much. More on that when the time comes.
The Story Continues.............Moses
Mo and I meet up later in a most unexpected place.
Mo was a black pimp, plain and simple.......however ...a high class pimp. He had 4 drop dead beautiful Swedish girls in his stable. He only did favors for Greek politicians and the very wealthy. He was the first and only pimp I have ever met.
Mo loved to smoke. I don't even remember how we met. It was like we all just knew him.
He would invite us to his house...quite a house by the way....and we all were there, our circle of friends and his girls. He would pay for everything. He furnished food and drinks and paid us for the hash.
Sometimes he would talk up Barbie and RS, telling them they were perfect for the work and the they would make money hand over fist. They would always turn bright pink and giggle. That is when Ken and I would stand up and say "Not our girls...Not on your life" and every one would crack up. I swear everyone loved the guy.
Later in life he would fly from Sweden and come to my place and stay for a week.
He truly was a fine friend. I hope he had a long life.
The story continues.............RS Blames Me !
As you've probably realized by now, I've always been one those people that can walk up to a stranger and start a conversation. RS hated that part of me and finally she blew her top at me. Remember this is the woman that told me more than once that she would never join a club that would allow her to be member. No joke.
She was just throwing a fit..."No one likes me, They all like you!" . Lets face it , her parents spoiled hell out her and so did I. What ever she wanted she got. Furs, boots, a trips, what ever. The only person, besides me that she liked was Barbie.
We would go to parties or whatever and she just didn't talk to people unless they asked her a question. Otherwise she just sat there. No social skills at all.
So we had a conversation about making friends. I asked her if when she saw someone, did she ever ask how they were doing or complement then in some way? You know..."Wow I love that blouse!", "Your hair looks great!".
In her brilliance, she would say I don't like anyone, why would do that?
Oh! Boy! So, this was a dialog we would go through allot. She really just didn't get it.
In fact, if she felt that if someone was doing something wrong...she would try to get me to put them in their place, by chewing them out. Of course I would never do that. I'm quite sure she built up allot of resentment against me for that. Talking to her was no use. But I tried.
It was getting close to our last year there, so I put in for an extension and it was approved....we had another year to go. She was all for it, because she loved Greece. She loved the islands and the general feel of Greece. She was woman of many moods.....actually too many. This was the woman I loved and I kept thinking she would grow out of all this nonsense. Yep, and cows can fly.
The story continues................Disaster Strikes!
I was on duty in the comm center and the buzzer sounded by the message window. I opened it up and there was the First Sargent standing there with a big smile on his face. He said "Congratulations you made E-6!". I actually asked him if he could postpone it, like an idiot. He looked at me like I was crazy. Never mind I said, smiled and took my promotion orders and closed the window.
I had too much rank now to work in the comm center!
No more Yacht, no more two weeks off! No nothing!!!!
The next day I was in the real Army again. Running 5 miles a day, working 9 to five or whatever they wanted. A real disaster. Poor me!
The Story Continues.................The Terrible Christmas Party
For months Ken and Barbie talked up their coming Christmas Party. All our good friends were going to be there, so we started planning. All Barbie would let us do was plan the dinner, which would be at our favorite Taverna. Before the party. We would all go down and pick which lamb we wanted to eat. They were skinned and hung outside the entrance. As they cooked it we all had a good Greek Salad and Ouzo bread. If you never heard of Ouzo, please Google it. It's not welcome on 420.
We had a hell of a good dinner and we were ready to do some serious smoking. It was a costume party. The Greeks at the tavern loved us.
I was Santa and RS was my Pixie helper. Damn she looked cute in that outfit!
People came as elves, Santa's helpers, reindeer and wrapped packages. I passed out some ridiculous and not so ridiculous gifts for all. Mo wasn't there....Christmas eve was one of his big nights.
After all that madness,.most of us removed what we could of our costumes and drove over to Ken and Barbie's house. We sat on the floor with our backs to walls with the Christmas tree in the corner. Just a good buzz going around.
GT , the person I thought that might be your dad was there. Big old strapping guy from somewhere in Dixie named John. He was with his two Hawaiian ladies.. that's right 2. They lived together, in a great Greek house, court yards and all...The girls were in the Air Force.
Christos Jr, was there slithering around the room too.
Finally everyone was partied out and were getting their things together. Ken was standing by the door waiting to say goodbye to us.
That's when Barbie stood up with Christos Jr. and said "Wait everyone we have an announcement to make!". "I am going to divorce Ken and Christos and I are getting married!" Total silence. I looked at Ken and he was white as a sheet. He didn't know!
I didn't see or hear any congratulations at all. The place emptied in less than a minute.
People, me included tried to hug Ken. He wasn't having any of that.
Until that point I thought, I knew the depths of what bad things we humans do to each other. I was furious!
Two days later Ken drove his motorcycle into the side of a city bus. It didn't kill him, but he was in the hospital for a long, long time.
He will pop up again in the story.......to be continued.....
The Story Continues.............RS and I make a plan!
After years of living with constant paranoia. We stopped and thought things over and decided to stop selling dope of any kind. We didn't want to deal with Christos Jr. any more and just wanted to be happy and enjoy our life without getting busted. Our bank account was fat enough. We would still deal with Johnny, there was not much danger in that and besides it was fun.
This was right after I made another run to Crete, so we had to get rid of that as soon as possible. I kept a couple of grams of hash in the house and that was that.
All these years RS and I had practiced on what to do if the Greek Police ever knocked on our door. I would stall them and she would put the hash in the pipe in the bathroom, that was for the exhaust for the dyer we didn't have. It would just plop out under the house. We practiced and practiced.
Now to get rid of the stuff from Crete. I was ready to sell it at cost, just to get rid of it. Since I was coming home every night we would have some real quite time together. Just the thought of no more running to the window to see whose car just pulled up. Some of you know that feeling, I'm sure. It was coming to an end finally.
The Story Continues.........Just something I for got to mention.
Months had actually past before RS and I made our plan. I want to update you on Ken. He finally was released from the hospital. He was still really messed up.
Mainly his thinking, he seemed confused all the time. I was glad to give him a bit of hash, but I wouldn't sell him anything from Crete....in my eyes that was one thing he did not need. He got really mad and quit talking to RS and I. Later I found out how mad he was.
The Story Continues........................Busted !
Two days after RS and I made our plan. It was 7 am and our door buzzer went off. I punched the button and said "Just a moment. I have to get dressed". We were already up, I had to go to work. We knew something was up, none our friends would be buzzing us that early. RS went into the bathroom.
Who ever it was, was now outside my door knocking......they had been let in. Crap!
With a big smile I opened the door. There stood two Greek plain clothes men.
They said one our neighbors had seen us selling guns and knives.
*Give me break guys I know what your here for! I thought.*
Of course I said "We don't have guns and knifes take a look for yourselves". So they turned to go into our bedroom, then the toilet flushed and they went nuts...beating on the bathroom door. I thought to myself "A flush? Not supposed to happen. Something went wrong. When RS came out of the bathroom she wouldn't look me in the eye. She had panicked. The Greek cop only took a few seconds to walk back out of the bathroom holding the film container that the hash was in. He swirled his finger around in it and came out with less than a quarter of a gram of hash.
Crap!
Then they tore our place apart. We had three big bookcases loaded with books. RS and I both liked reading.. They just turned them over and started kicking the books. They did the same all over the house. Then they searched our car. We had a big load ready to go to Johnny's. They didn't even notice. Finally, we locked the house and got in their car for the trip down town. When got there, they searched us, then put us in a holding cell.
By the way...the idiots never looked in the freezer........ everything from Crete was still in there. Many life sentences.
A couple of hours later, they took RS back home. An hour later an MP picked me up.
He took me out to our base on the Greek Air Base. He turned me over to the Officer of the day. He explained that I would live on the base under house arrest until I had a court date. Later on I found out that getting a court date might take over a year. Wonderful.
I picked out a room in the barracks. On the base at night there was the Office of the Day, The Comm Center Crew, and the guy that kept our bar/tv room open until midnight, then he went home. There was one guy living out there by himself. I called him "Mutt" to myself . In uniform or not he always looked rumpled and kind of dirty.
RS would come out once every week with friends. I never did ask her what went on in the bathroom. She knew she blew it. Truthfully I wasn't happy with her and I'm sure she knew it..
After I had been there for a bit over a month, my Commanding Officer came over for a talk. He said he knew that it might take over year for a court date and that I had a wife living alone. His next words were like music to me. He told me if I took a chaperon, someone in the Army to go with me, I could go home every night!
Before everything closed for the night, I had Mutt agreeing to do it...I told him he would make a bit of money too. I marched his ass over to the Commander's office and I went home that very night and every night after that for a long while. RS and I just hugged for a long time. We had an extra bedroom for Mutt. RS had flushed the Crete stuff down the drain. Fine with me.
Well having Mutt there all the time was a bit uncomfortable at first. Then we decided to let him in on the fun, we made trips to Johnny's and he doubled his money too.
This went on for almost 10 and a half months. We had a court date!
To be continued........
The Story Continues.................The Trial.
Well I did have a Greek Lawyer.......all he ever said was "Not to worry, you won't have to serve any time". Of course I admitted the Hash was mine and RS didn't know a thing about it.
The Greeks, had a strange law system set up, for big time crimes they used 7 judges. My trial was a 3 Judge trial. Of course none of them spoke English....Oh! Great!
There was an American Lawyer present.....just to make sure it was all legal.
By the way the court room was full...guess they wanted to see the American Criminal...It was in all the papers. Jezz.
The trial took about 10 minutes. My Greek Lawyer presented my case. Then the 3 Judges talked a bit. Then passed down their Judgment. I was given a one year sentence. Thank goodness they counted all my time waiting for the trial.
I hugged RS and away I went to the holding House...as they called it.
To be continued.......
The story continues...............Three days of pure hell!
When I left the Courthouse, I was led to a police van that looked like an armored car.
There was a big crowd trying to get a look at me, what the hell, for a quarter gram of hash???
When we got to the "Holding House". It was only three rooms. It had a Dutch door, so you could open the top of it only. In side there were three rooms. The bath room had no sink only a hole in the concrete floor to go in...no toilet paper. The other two rooms were about 24 feet by 24 feet with no windows. It was the filthiest thing I had ever seen any where. Even Nam was not this bad. There were about forty men in each room. There were maybe 29 single bed mattresses on the floor in each room. The floors, walls, and mattresses were all black with filth. I thought to myself....I'll never lay on one of those things. After standing for about 12 hours I changed my mind. If you opened a pack of smokes, they were gone in seconds. Twice a day they would give us a scoop of uneatable rice...The prisoners were from all over the world....mostly mid-eastern. I was the only English speaking person in there. Well, there was Hans.
I finally found a bit of mattress to sit on. That's when I met Hans. He was a very sick German. He coughed up blood every once in a while. More filth for the mattress and floor. I went over and beat on the Dutch door. After a while the guard opened the door, listened to me, then slammed it in my face. Back over to Hans.. As the night wore on he slowly told me his story. He was a retired business man with nothing to do. A friend found him a job driving new Mercedes to the middle east. Then he would drive back in an old beat up car. This was his forth trip. When he reached the Greek border in the old VW bus he was driving. They tore it apart and it had a ton of hash inside. He honestly didn't know about it. I believed him. He had been in the holding house for over a month.
On the third morning I was there he died. They waited hours before they carried him out.
The second day. They read out everyone's sentences. They had me down for three years! Oh no you don't! They didn't even search us when we were put in, so I had some money. It took all of the money to bribe the guard to call my lawyer and tell him to call the Holding House and straighten things out. He did and they changed it to 34 days. Thank God! Not really knowing the language was hell too.
About 4 pm....a guess. We had an uproar.. In came a very rich Greek Black Marketer.
His wife and servants came in with dinner.. They treated this guy like royalty. Tell me that money doesn't talk. They cleared one of the rooms for.him. Talk about a crowed smelly room!
After he had dined....he came into our room and said "Let's eat!". We all got something to eat. This guy was a trip!. He must have bribed some powerful people and a lot of them.
The next morning the same thing happened. His wife and servants brought in Breakfast. we all ate again. I kept thinking of Hans laying there dead.
An hour later they let him out. He must have paid his sentence off.
Later that day they put me in the armored car thing and I was on my way to prison.
I remember thinking " If this was the Holding House.....what was prison going to be like?"
To be continued......
The story continues.............Korydallos
The Big House, just like an old James Cagney movie. I think it had 7 big wings.
If you would like to learn more about it. Google for Greek Prisons and you'll see what I mean. They've been in trouble for years for bad living conditions and prisoner treatment.
When they checked me in, they took everything I owned. Gave me some prisoner clothes. Ragged what else? First time I had a real body search....ouch and more.
Then they had me pick out a crappy single bed mattress that I drug through the halls on my way to my wing. My wing had all the foreigners, murderers, child molesters, and other dregs of the earth in it. They opened the door, what I saw was a steel and concert massive big room. It was three stories high and of course all the other prisoners were looking at me. I had the first cell on the left. It was immediately lock down time, signaled buy a bell ringing. Everyone disappeared.
I drug my mattress in the room and put it on the steel frame bolted to the wall. The door slammed and was locked. I looked at my cell mate. He was maybe 19 and his name was Nabil. He was from Iraq.
He told me his story.....he spoke 6 languages. He had bedded a Greek Politician's daughter. That was his crime !! 3 years, which had been increased to 6 years because he threw anger fits of rage in another prison. He hated everyone...but he liked me because I was an American. Go figure! He liked anything American.
Since it was lock down we talked for hours. I liked the kid. Man was he angry. .
I would be too, if bedding a girl was a crime. He was working his way out of prison.
Everyday he worked he got 2 days off his sentence. He absolutely hated the Greeks.
Our cell had enough room for 2 bunks, a place where we could wash our face and a hole in the floor for a toilet, It had a window that was barred and screened. No way out.
There were dirty food dishes in the corner. Welcome home.
They opened the door about 5 pm and we could go out and walk around. In minutes I was surrounded by 2 Americans and a couple of English men. They quickly told me to fight back if any one messed with me. Even if they were twice my size......they would leave me alone. They wanted the guys who didn't fight back. I later learned about 2 French guys that didn't fight back and they were turned in to bitches for two big ass Greeks.
Of all things, one of the Americans was Moses!
Too be continued..............
The Story Continues.........................General Prison Life
The prison was three stories high. Each level had the same number of cells.
There was a walkway around each level. And of course stairs at each end.
On the second floor there was a clear space at one end and people did exercises and actually put on shows. The mid eastern guys could contort their bodies into some shapes that seemed impossible, they could dance too. While I was there they put on two shows for everyone.
Believe me some of them were incredible. They would lock us up 3 times a day, once in the morning for an hour, afternoon two hours. At 10 pm it was lights out and we were locked in.
If you heard "Fogeto!" it was time to grab a plate and go downstairs, where the entrance was. It was time to eat.
Morning meal...an egg over rice.
Lunch boiled macaroni no sauce
Dinner Some really bad bean soup.
We got a loaf of brick hard bread at lunch.
That was that.
We had a cold water showers every Saturday.
Outsiders could bring you food and what ever. RS brought me two bags the first week....I was given one. She increased it to three, I got two then. If someone had put money in the store account for you, twice a week you could buy things.. Thank you RS. She brought me things very week. She was scared sh^tless, but she did it.
My Commander tried to see me.....He wasn't allowed in.
The Ladies of The Red Cross from the embassy visited once every two weeks and would give out care packages. I never received one because I was in on drug charges.
They wouldn't even talk to me. Thanks girls.
We had a court yard that we could sunbath, exercise, or just and hang out in.
There was an old man there named Papu. He had killed his wife 40 years ago.
I think he was 80 years old. He finished his sentence a few years ago, but had refused to leave. So he was still there. He was a trip.....when new guys were in the yard he would walk over bump into them and throw kisses to them and smack his lips.
If you were lucky enough to get a magazine....every picture of a woman was torn out.
I could see my house from the third story. I quit looking after a day or so.
There was a guy from Nigeria that ran all day every day. Some of us would lope along with him for a while. He had smuggled hash.
The rule of the land was "Live in the moment!". Don't worry about the past,. it was over. Can't change a thing. Forget the future, you can't live there It doesn't exist.. The present is where we live and we deal with that. as it comes. This was kind of drilled into me by all the friends I'd made. I still try to live by it. I did get better at it in the future. Not completely or I wouldn't be writing this.
About 15 of us were dopers. We traded secrets and learned where to go in different countries. Fat City Café in Amsterdam was one such place. Probably isn't there any more anyway. We were the French, American, English groups, but there were others Some how we translated it all.
There were 3 murderers in with us. Two pervert child molesters. No one would talk to them. They were spit on allot. They had mail call once a week....of course opened.
If the Greek Soccer team was playing ,we could watch it, no matter what time it was. There was some limits to cruelty. Miss a game...hell no!
Dice and cards were not allowed.. But Scrabble was! Yes sir!
To Be Continued.....................
....The Story Continues .....................................Moses
Of course Mo and I talked from the fist day I got there. He and his girls were having a private party with some Greek Politicians, some one found out about it and they were raided.. He was in to wait on his trial date. His girls were in the women's wing. He worried and worried about his girls.
Man can play a mean game of Scrabble.
He was absolutely terrified to go down for his court date. When they were raided, the newspapers had it all over the Front Page. There was crowd of over 20,000 women there to see the "The Big Black American Stud". Some of them broke through the police lines and grabbed him. Scared him to death. Same at the Holding House. Honestly he didn't like the attention, at all. Years later when he came to see me, I found out that all they did to him and his girls was deport them. He was happy as hell and they moved to Denmark.
Mo was my main man, my soul brother, my alter ego. We even agreed on the meaning of life. He kept me in the here and now, He would not let me wonder about what was happening in my house across town.. There was no subject we couldn't talk about.
Sam.
Sam was the other American there. He had been teaching the Greeks how to do maintenance on some planes they had purchased from the US. Sam drank allot.
One night he and his little Korean wife were having an argument. He was drunk,
of course. He slapped her and turned around and went to bed. He found her the next day.
She had fallen and hit her temple on the kitchen cabinet corner and it killer her. He called the cops.
He got life with no parole. Note...do not drink! Worst drug in the world....sorry folks but that is how I feel.
So it was us together as friends. He kept his head up and continued on, filled with regret forever.
To be continued.................
The Story Continues..............................The Holy Man
I have posted this story before on 420, but I couldn't find it.
During my second week in prison, we got a new person in. He was dressed in black and had both a long flowing black hair and a beard. No prison clothes, He looked starved to death. It was not lock down, so after they showed him his cell, he took off...searching every cell for left over food. It didn't matter to him if it was days old. He ate everything he found and thanked each person for what he ate.
We kind of cornered him and asked what he was doing in prison.
He was a man of God. He was from England. He had walked to the Holy Land and was there for a while, and then he started walking back. Someone had told him to go to a certain Greek church in Athens. Athens has hundreds of churches. When he reached the outskirts of Athens he asked someone for directions to the church. It was all the way across town, so he walked. When he got there he asked for more directions.. "Oh no, that church is right where you just came from.". Back he went across town. In all, he walked all over Athens and never found the church. He was starving, and completely exhausted.
He had enough! He found a truck with the keys in it and hopped in. He didn't know how to drive...he went about 10 feet and hit a parked car. He was arrested and ended up in with us.
This man was so sweet. He never preached to us. However, from then on he some how paid each of us for what we gave him. I still have the two pictures he drew for me. One was of our cell block and the other was a picture of me. They were good. THsea has seen them. He was a good story teller too and told us many stories about his journey.
After about two weeks, he was back in shape and his health was good. The Greeks gave him some money and let him out. It's amazing what the Greeks do at times. They just couldn't justify him being in prison to themselves. When he left, we cheered.
To be continued...................
The Story Continues...........Getting out of Prison
The day finally arrived. I had already said all my goodbyes. I gave what ever food I had to Mo. Lots of hugging and good wishes. I promised Nobil I would send him a care box full of American products, toothpaste and so on..He had mellowed out allot. Guess it was our talks while in lock up.
They called my name...I drug my mattress behind me down the hall. My friends shouted good wishes to me. I changed into my filthy cloths and I walked out. A beautiful sunny day.
There was my Commanding officer, RS and Mutt. Mutt? Then I realized I still needed an escort. Little did I know he had been living with RS all this time The SOB.
I had one night with RS....it was as if nothing had changed.
She also told me that Ken had been the one that reported us to the Greek police.
In the morning I was escorted to the plane that would take me to Italy for my Court Marshal. I was gong to be punished for the same crime again. Great! I kissed RS and was deported, not to enter Greece for 5 years.
To be continued in the second part of this grow..........
The story continues.........Christos
During my second year in Greece two friends brought over a young Greek
Named Christos on first sight I didn't trust him. He was maybe 23 and handsome as hell, a six pack body, but there was something I didn't trust about him. .RS would me tell me how much Christos loved me.. I had no choice but to work with him......he could supply keys of hash almost monthly.
I guess he was my friend in kind of a distant way. He did change RS and my life style.
He introduced us to his father...another Christos.
Christos Sr. was a millionaire. Like many Greeks have done and are still doing now, he came to the states and made millions....then he skipped out with out paying taxes. When I met him he was waiting for the five years to pass, before he could go back to the states
He had a 110 foot wooden Yacht. It had every bell and whistle you could imagine at that time. It was not a sailing Yacht, but one with twin inboard diesels.. After talking to RS and I for a while he asked us if we wanted to crew for him. Say what! Hell yes!
What our jobs would be was that I would caste off the line when we left port and then to throw out the line when we got back to port.. I can do that!! RS had the pleasure of serving ice cream to any of his special guests. RS and I had the forward cabin to ourselves He also had two girls from the villages that He was putting through school and would make sure they married well. Need less to say they were beautiful.
With my work schedule we went every where he went.. We even chugged to Italy once..
Sometime we would just drop anchor off an island and just scuba dive. One of the best things about the yacht was that it had been registered in the US, so we flew old glory as our flag. I just loved to come into a harbor with the stars and stripes flying in the breeze..
RS and I spent allot time sitting at the very front of the boat with our legs wrapped around the main keel and ride the waves. Sure wish I could post the pictures I took on the long rides at sea. We also learned why young Christos was so buff. He dived when we were docked and cleaned the barnacles off the underside of the boat..
More about Christos Jr later on.......
The story continues......OMM's Second Temptation.
There is an island named Mykonos and its famous for being an ancient historical meeting place for 5 thousand years. If it was described today it is were the rich and famous play ,,,the ancient jet setters would meet there. Over the years it hasn't changed a bit.. Note: I did a Google and it has changed and in my eyes not for the better....big ass Hotels have moved in. I stopped reading it right there,.a sacrilege .
Fist of all there are no automobiles or vehicles at all on the island. All the houses are white with blue trim. There are no streets, just white washed paths, There is a Church for every day of the year..When I was there it had great tavernas and restaurants. It also had windmills. and also 6 nude beaches accessible only by water taxis.
I had heard enough about it to want to go see it myself. RS didn't want to go so I took a ferry over. Ferry's in Greece were like really big ships with 4 decks. Ist class was like 200 dracs.. When I got to Mykonos there were women waiting to rent you a room for how ever long you stayed. The room I had was great..old Greek furniture and all. The best part was the shower was on the roof.. It was a stall and it wasn't totally enclosed. While you showered you could see most of the island and you could hear music floating through the air..
Of course I took a water taxi to one of the nude beaches.. To be kind to me lets just say I am a pretty normal guy, but it didn't matter. I was there, so I threw my towel down and stripped. The Beach was full of people.
The next water taxi pulled up and a tall as me beautiful woman got off, she walked right over next to me thew her towel down and striped. Then she asked if I would put sun screen on her. Yes indeed I would. Turns out she was a model from Milan, Italy one of the fashion capitals of Europe.
And she was just taking a break. We walked over to a snack bar and they only sold one thing...strawberries and honey. It too was delicious. We spent the rest of the evening having a wonderful meal at an open air taverna.. She asked if I wanted to come with her to her room. Slap me in the head, with all my will power I said no. I still don't regret it, I was in love with RS. Well, now I do regret it! Who know where that would have taken me.
Later on I don't know how many times RS and I went there. She loved the nude beaches too and would bear all. And show off.. We met many ex-pats who lived there. For some reason it always reminded me of a northern Cali town named Sausalito. Don't know how it is now though..in some ways it was a very hippie place. Lots of art and hand made things. I bought a kind of swordsman shirt with billowing sleeves. On Guard!
There was another island right next to Mykonos called Delos. Very few folks visit it. There was once a thriving civilization there, now it lays in ruins. It is supposed to be evil. You can see it all in the daytime. Creepy. It's worth a Google look.
The story continues .......Ken and Barbie
When I fist went out to our part of the Greek Air Base.....I met Ken and Barbie.
They were beautiful people. Ken was an Errol Flynn looking guy, very dashing.
Barbie looked like Barbie. He worked in the office. Barbie worked with me in the Comm Center. She was a real cool girl. They had been married a few years.
Our first shift together she sat me down and said "I love my husband" and I said back "I love my wife". She said "Good, No fooling around". Perfect......well kind of. Since we worked 24 hour shifts, each of us would would bring in a fitted sheet set for the one twin sized mattress that was on the floor. When there was no work in the middle of the night we took naps on it. It was always cold as hell in the comm center, so from the very first night, we would spoon and cuddle to keep warm. That was great...course we made no comments to Ken or RS. No use starting trouble.
They were our first real friends and they were the first to come over and visit our first apartment. We became good friends, so much so Ken was one of my first sellers of hash. In the end he became a partner in my hash business and was for a long time. These two would have a part in this on going story that I didn't like too much. More on that when the time comes.
The Story Continues.............Moses
Mo and I meet up later in a most unexpected place.
Mo was a black pimp, plain and simple.......however ...a high class pimp. He had 4 drop dead beautiful Swedish girls in his stable. He only did favors for Greek politicians and the very wealthy. He was the first and only pimp I have ever met.
Mo loved to smoke. I don't even remember how we met. It was like we all just knew him.
He would invite us to his house...quite a house by the way....and we all were there, our circle of friends and his girls. He would pay for everything. He furnished food and drinks and paid us for the hash.
Sometimes he would talk up Barbie and RS, telling them they were perfect for the work and the they would make money hand over fist. They would always turn bright pink and giggle. That is when Ken and I would stand up and say "Not our girls...Not on your life" and every one would crack up. I swear everyone loved the guy.
Later in life he would fly from Sweden and come to my place and stay for a week.
He truly was a fine friend. I hope he had a long life.
The story continues.............RS Blames Me !
As you've probably realized by now, I've always been one those people that can walk up to a stranger and start a conversation. RS hated that part of me and finally she blew her top at me. Remember this is the woman that told me more than once that she would never join a club that would allow her to be member. No joke.
She was just throwing a fit..."No one likes me, They all like you!" . Lets face it , her parents spoiled hell out her and so did I. What ever she wanted she got. Furs, boots, a trips, what ever. The only person, besides me that she liked was Barbie.
We would go to parties or whatever and she just didn't talk to people unless they asked her a question. Otherwise she just sat there. No social skills at all.
So we had a conversation about making friends. I asked her if when she saw someone, did she ever ask how they were doing or complement then in some way? You know..."Wow I love that blouse!", "Your hair looks great!".
In her brilliance, she would say I don't like anyone, why would do that?
Oh! Boy! So, this was a dialog we would go through allot. She really just didn't get it.
In fact, if she felt that if someone was doing something wrong...she would try to get me to put them in their place, by chewing them out. Of course I would never do that. I'm quite sure she built up allot of resentment against me for that. Talking to her was no use. But I tried.
It was getting close to our last year there, so I put in for an extension and it was approved....we had another year to go. She was all for it, because she loved Greece. She loved the islands and the general feel of Greece. She was woman of many moods.....actually too many. This was the woman I loved and I kept thinking she would grow out of all this nonsense. Yep, and cows can fly.
The story continues................Disaster Strikes!
I was on duty in the comm center and the buzzer sounded by the message window. I opened it up and there was the First Sargent standing there with a big smile on his face. He said "Congratulations you made E-6!". I actually asked him if he could postpone it, like an idiot. He looked at me like I was crazy. Never mind I said, smiled and took my promotion orders and closed the window.
I had too much rank now to work in the comm center!
No more Yacht, no more two weeks off! No nothing!!!!
The next day I was in the real Army again. Running 5 miles a day, working 9 to five or whatever they wanted. A real disaster. Poor me!
The Story Continues.................The Terrible Christmas Party
For months Ken and Barbie talked up their coming Christmas Party. All our good friends were going to be there, so we started planning. All Barbie would let us do was plan the dinner, which would be at our favorite Taverna. Before the party. We would all go down and pick which lamb we wanted to eat. They were skinned and hung outside the entrance. As they cooked it we all had a good Greek Salad and Ouzo bread. If you never heard of Ouzo, please Google it. It's not welcome on 420.
We had a hell of a good dinner and we were ready to do some serious smoking. It was a costume party. The Greeks at the tavern loved us.
I was Santa and RS was my Pixie helper. Damn she looked cute in that outfit!
People came as elves, Santa's helpers, reindeer and wrapped packages. I passed out some ridiculous and not so ridiculous gifts for all. Mo wasn't there....Christmas eve was one of his big nights.
After all that madness,.most of us removed what we could of our costumes and drove over to Ken and Barbie's house. We sat on the floor with our backs to walls with the Christmas tree in the corner. Just a good buzz going around.
GT , the person I thought that might be your dad was there. Big old strapping guy from somewhere in Dixie named John. He was with his two Hawaiian ladies.. that's right 2. They lived together, in a great Greek house, court yards and all...The girls were in the Air Force.
Christos Jr, was there slithering around the room too.
Finally everyone was partied out and were getting their things together. Ken was standing by the door waiting to say goodbye to us.
That's when Barbie stood up with Christos Jr. and said "Wait everyone we have an announcement to make!". "I am going to divorce Ken and Christos and I are getting married!" Total silence. I looked at Ken and he was white as a sheet. He didn't know!
I didn't see or hear any congratulations at all. The place emptied in less than a minute.
People, me included tried to hug Ken. He wasn't having any of that.
Until that point I thought, I knew the depths of what bad things we humans do to each other. I was furious!
Two days later Ken drove his motorcycle into the side of a city bus. It didn't kill him, but he was in the hospital for a long, long time.
He will pop up again in the story.......to be continued.....
The Story Continues.............RS and I make a plan!
After years of living with constant paranoia. We stopped and thought things over and decided to stop selling dope of any kind. We didn't want to deal with Christos Jr. any more and just wanted to be happy and enjoy our life without getting busted. Our bank account was fat enough. We would still deal with Johnny, there was not much danger in that and besides it was fun.
This was right after I made another run to Crete, so we had to get rid of that as soon as possible. I kept a couple of grams of hash in the house and that was that.
All these years RS and I had practiced on what to do if the Greek Police ever knocked on our door. I would stall them and she would put the hash in the pipe in the bathroom, that was for the exhaust for the dyer we didn't have. It would just plop out under the house. We practiced and practiced.
Now to get rid of the stuff from Crete. I was ready to sell it at cost, just to get rid of it. Since I was coming home every night we would have some real quite time together. Just the thought of no more running to the window to see whose car just pulled up. Some of you know that feeling, I'm sure. It was coming to an end finally.
The Story Continues.........Just something I for got to mention.
Months had actually past before RS and I made our plan. I want to update you on Ken. He finally was released from the hospital. He was still really messed up.
Mainly his thinking, he seemed confused all the time. I was glad to give him a bit of hash, but I wouldn't sell him anything from Crete....in my eyes that was one thing he did not need. He got really mad and quit talking to RS and I. Later I found out how mad he was.
The Story Continues........................Busted !
Two days after RS and I made our plan. It was 7 am and our door buzzer went off. I punched the button and said "Just a moment. I have to get dressed". We were already up, I had to go to work. We knew something was up, none our friends would be buzzing us that early. RS went into the bathroom.
Who ever it was, was now outside my door knocking......they had been let in. Crap!
With a big smile I opened the door. There stood two Greek plain clothes men.
They said one our neighbors had seen us selling guns and knives.
*Give me break guys I know what your here for! I thought.*
Of course I said "We don't have guns and knifes take a look for yourselves". So they turned to go into our bedroom, then the toilet flushed and they went nuts...beating on the bathroom door. I thought to myself "A flush? Not supposed to happen. Something went wrong. When RS came out of the bathroom she wouldn't look me in the eye. She had panicked. The Greek cop only took a few seconds to walk back out of the bathroom holding the film container that the hash was in. He swirled his finger around in it and came out with less than a quarter of a gram of hash.
Crap!
Then they tore our place apart. We had three big bookcases loaded with books. RS and I both liked reading.. They just turned them over and started kicking the books. They did the same all over the house. Then they searched our car. We had a big load ready to go to Johnny's. They didn't even notice. Finally, we locked the house and got in their car for the trip down town. When got there, they searched us, then put us in a holding cell.
By the way...the idiots never looked in the freezer........ everything from Crete was still in there. Many life sentences.
A couple of hours later, they took RS back home. An hour later an MP picked me up.
He took me out to our base on the Greek Air Base. He turned me over to the Officer of the day. He explained that I would live on the base under house arrest until I had a court date. Later on I found out that getting a court date might take over a year. Wonderful.
I picked out a room in the barracks. On the base at night there was the Office of the Day, The Comm Center Crew, and the guy that kept our bar/tv room open until midnight, then he went home. There was one guy living out there by himself. I called him "Mutt" to myself . In uniform or not he always looked rumpled and kind of dirty.
RS would come out once every week with friends. I never did ask her what went on in the bathroom. She knew she blew it. Truthfully I wasn't happy with her and I'm sure she knew it..
After I had been there for a bit over a month, my Commanding Officer came over for a talk. He said he knew that it might take over year for a court date and that I had a wife living alone. His next words were like music to me. He told me if I took a chaperon, someone in the Army to go with me, I could go home every night!
Before everything closed for the night, I had Mutt agreeing to do it...I told him he would make a bit of money too. I marched his ass over to the Commander's office and I went home that very night and every night after that for a long while. RS and I just hugged for a long time. We had an extra bedroom for Mutt. RS had flushed the Crete stuff down the drain. Fine with me.
Well having Mutt there all the time was a bit uncomfortable at first. Then we decided to let him in on the fun, we made trips to Johnny's and he doubled his money too.
This went on for almost 10 and a half months. We had a court date!
To be continued........
The Story Continues.................The Trial.
Well I did have a Greek Lawyer.......all he ever said was "Not to worry, you won't have to serve any time". Of course I admitted the Hash was mine and RS didn't know a thing about it.
The Greeks, had a strange law system set up, for big time crimes they used 7 judges. My trial was a 3 Judge trial. Of course none of them spoke English....Oh! Great!
There was an American Lawyer present.....just to make sure it was all legal.
By the way the court room was full...guess they wanted to see the American Criminal...It was in all the papers. Jezz.
The trial took about 10 minutes. My Greek Lawyer presented my case. Then the 3 Judges talked a bit. Then passed down their Judgment. I was given a one year sentence. Thank goodness they counted all my time waiting for the trial.
I hugged RS and away I went to the holding House...as they called it.
To be continued.......
The story continues...............Three days of pure hell!
When I left the Courthouse, I was led to a police van that looked like an armored car.
There was a big crowd trying to get a look at me, what the hell, for a quarter gram of hash???
When we got to the "Holding House". It was only three rooms. It had a Dutch door, so you could open the top of it only. In side there were three rooms. The bath room had no sink only a hole in the concrete floor to go in...no toilet paper. The other two rooms were about 24 feet by 24 feet with no windows. It was the filthiest thing I had ever seen any where. Even Nam was not this bad. There were about forty men in each room. There were maybe 29 single bed mattresses on the floor in each room. The floors, walls, and mattresses were all black with filth. I thought to myself....I'll never lay on one of those things. After standing for about 12 hours I changed my mind. If you opened a pack of smokes, they were gone in seconds. Twice a day they would give us a scoop of uneatable rice...The prisoners were from all over the world....mostly mid-eastern. I was the only English speaking person in there. Well, there was Hans.
I finally found a bit of mattress to sit on. That's when I met Hans. He was a very sick German. He coughed up blood every once in a while. More filth for the mattress and floor. I went over and beat on the Dutch door. After a while the guard opened the door, listened to me, then slammed it in my face. Back over to Hans.. As the night wore on he slowly told me his story. He was a retired business man with nothing to do. A friend found him a job driving new Mercedes to the middle east. Then he would drive back in an old beat up car. This was his forth trip. When he reached the Greek border in the old VW bus he was driving. They tore it apart and it had a ton of hash inside. He honestly didn't know about it. I believed him. He had been in the holding house for over a month.
On the third morning I was there he died. They waited hours before they carried him out.
The second day. They read out everyone's sentences. They had me down for three years! Oh no you don't! They didn't even search us when we were put in, so I had some money. It took all of the money to bribe the guard to call my lawyer and tell him to call the Holding House and straighten things out. He did and they changed it to 34 days. Thank God! Not really knowing the language was hell too.
About 4 pm....a guess. We had an uproar.. In came a very rich Greek Black Marketer.
His wife and servants came in with dinner.. They treated this guy like royalty. Tell me that money doesn't talk. They cleared one of the rooms for.him. Talk about a crowed smelly room!
After he had dined....he came into our room and said "Let's eat!". We all got something to eat. This guy was a trip!. He must have bribed some powerful people and a lot of them.
The next morning the same thing happened. His wife and servants brought in Breakfast. we all ate again. I kept thinking of Hans laying there dead.
An hour later they let him out. He must have paid his sentence off.
Later that day they put me in the armored car thing and I was on my way to prison.
I remember thinking " If this was the Holding House.....what was prison going to be like?"
To be continued......
The story continues.............Korydallos
The Big House, just like an old James Cagney movie. I think it had 7 big wings.
If you would like to learn more about it. Google for Greek Prisons and you'll see what I mean. They've been in trouble for years for bad living conditions and prisoner treatment.
When they checked me in, they took everything I owned. Gave me some prisoner clothes. Ragged what else? First time I had a real body search....ouch and more.
Then they had me pick out a crappy single bed mattress that I drug through the halls on my way to my wing. My wing had all the foreigners, murderers, child molesters, and other dregs of the earth in it. They opened the door, what I saw was a steel and concert massive big room. It was three stories high and of course all the other prisoners were looking at me. I had the first cell on the left. It was immediately lock down time, signaled buy a bell ringing. Everyone disappeared.
I drug my mattress in the room and put it on the steel frame bolted to the wall. The door slammed and was locked. I looked at my cell mate. He was maybe 19 and his name was Nabil. He was from Iraq.
He told me his story.....he spoke 6 languages. He had bedded a Greek Politician's daughter. That was his crime !! 3 years, which had been increased to 6 years because he threw anger fits of rage in another prison. He hated everyone...but he liked me because I was an American. Go figure! He liked anything American.
Since it was lock down we talked for hours. I liked the kid. Man was he angry. .
I would be too, if bedding a girl was a crime. He was working his way out of prison.
Everyday he worked he got 2 days off his sentence. He absolutely hated the Greeks.
Our cell had enough room for 2 bunks, a place where we could wash our face and a hole in the floor for a toilet, It had a window that was barred and screened. No way out.
There were dirty food dishes in the corner. Welcome home.
They opened the door about 5 pm and we could go out and walk around. In minutes I was surrounded by 2 Americans and a couple of English men. They quickly told me to fight back if any one messed with me. Even if they were twice my size......they would leave me alone. They wanted the guys who didn't fight back. I later learned about 2 French guys that didn't fight back and they were turned in to bitches for two big ass Greeks.
Of all things, one of the Americans was Moses!
Too be continued..............
The Story Continues.........................General Prison Life
The prison was three stories high. Each level had the same number of cells.
There was a walkway around each level. And of course stairs at each end.
On the second floor there was a clear space at one end and people did exercises and actually put on shows. The mid eastern guys could contort their bodies into some shapes that seemed impossible, they could dance too. While I was there they put on two shows for everyone.
Believe me some of them were incredible. They would lock us up 3 times a day, once in the morning for an hour, afternoon two hours. At 10 pm it was lights out and we were locked in.
If you heard "Fogeto!" it was time to grab a plate and go downstairs, where the entrance was. It was time to eat.
Morning meal...an egg over rice.
Lunch boiled macaroni no sauce
Dinner Some really bad bean soup.
We got a loaf of brick hard bread at lunch.
That was that.
We had a cold water showers every Saturday.
Outsiders could bring you food and what ever. RS brought me two bags the first week....I was given one. She increased it to three, I got two then. If someone had put money in the store account for you, twice a week you could buy things.. Thank you RS. She brought me things very week. She was scared sh^tless, but she did it.
My Commander tried to see me.....He wasn't allowed in.
The Ladies of The Red Cross from the embassy visited once every two weeks and would give out care packages. I never received one because I was in on drug charges.
They wouldn't even talk to me. Thanks girls.
We had a court yard that we could sunbath, exercise, or just and hang out in.
There was an old man there named Papu. He had killed his wife 40 years ago.
I think he was 80 years old. He finished his sentence a few years ago, but had refused to leave. So he was still there. He was a trip.....when new guys were in the yard he would walk over bump into them and throw kisses to them and smack his lips.
If you were lucky enough to get a magazine....every picture of a woman was torn out.
I could see my house from the third story. I quit looking after a day or so.
There was a guy from Nigeria that ran all day every day. Some of us would lope along with him for a while. He had smuggled hash.
The rule of the land was "Live in the moment!". Don't worry about the past,. it was over. Can't change a thing. Forget the future, you can't live there It doesn't exist.. The present is where we live and we deal with that. as it comes. This was kind of drilled into me by all the friends I'd made. I still try to live by it. I did get better at it in the future. Not completely or I wouldn't be writing this.
About 15 of us were dopers. We traded secrets and learned where to go in different countries. Fat City Café in Amsterdam was one such place. Probably isn't there any more anyway. We were the French, American, English groups, but there were others Some how we translated it all.
There were 3 murderers in with us. Two pervert child molesters. No one would talk to them. They were spit on allot. They had mail call once a week....of course opened.
If the Greek Soccer team was playing ,we could watch it, no matter what time it was. There was some limits to cruelty. Miss a game...hell no!
Dice and cards were not allowed.. But Scrabble was! Yes sir!
To Be Continued.....................
....The Story Continues .....................................Moses
Of course Mo and I talked from the fist day I got there. He and his girls were having a private party with some Greek Politicians, some one found out about it and they were raided.. He was in to wait on his trial date. His girls were in the women's wing. He worried and worried about his girls.
Man can play a mean game of Scrabble.
He was absolutely terrified to go down for his court date. When they were raided, the newspapers had it all over the Front Page. There was crowd of over 20,000 women there to see the "The Big Black American Stud". Some of them broke through the police lines and grabbed him. Scared him to death. Same at the Holding House. Honestly he didn't like the attention, at all. Years later when he came to see me, I found out that all they did to him and his girls was deport them. He was happy as hell and they moved to Denmark.
Mo was my main man, my soul brother, my alter ego. We even agreed on the meaning of life. He kept me in the here and now, He would not let me wonder about what was happening in my house across town.. There was no subject we couldn't talk about.
Sam.
Sam was the other American there. He had been teaching the Greeks how to do maintenance on some planes they had purchased from the US. Sam drank allot.
One night he and his little Korean wife were having an argument. He was drunk,
of course. He slapped her and turned around and went to bed. He found her the next day.
She had fallen and hit her temple on the kitchen cabinet corner and it killer her. He called the cops.
He got life with no parole. Note...do not drink! Worst drug in the world....sorry folks but that is how I feel.
So it was us together as friends. He kept his head up and continued on, filled with regret forever.
To be continued.................
The Story Continues..............................The Holy Man
I have posted this story before on 420, but I couldn't find it.
During my second week in prison, we got a new person in. He was dressed in black and had both a long flowing black hair and a beard. No prison clothes, He looked starved to death. It was not lock down, so after they showed him his cell, he took off...searching every cell for left over food. It didn't matter to him if it was days old. He ate everything he found and thanked each person for what he ate.
We kind of cornered him and asked what he was doing in prison.
He was a man of God. He was from England. He had walked to the Holy Land and was there for a while, and then he started walking back. Someone had told him to go to a certain Greek church in Athens. Athens has hundreds of churches. When he reached the outskirts of Athens he asked someone for directions to the church. It was all the way across town, so he walked. When he got there he asked for more directions.. "Oh no, that church is right where you just came from.". Back he went across town. In all, he walked all over Athens and never found the church. He was starving, and completely exhausted.
He had enough! He found a truck with the keys in it and hopped in. He didn't know how to drive...he went about 10 feet and hit a parked car. He was arrested and ended up in with us.
This man was so sweet. He never preached to us. However, from then on he some how paid each of us for what we gave him. I still have the two pictures he drew for me. One was of our cell block and the other was a picture of me. They were good. THsea has seen them. He was a good story teller too and told us many stories about his journey.
After about two weeks, he was back in shape and his health was good. The Greeks gave him some money and let him out. It's amazing what the Greeks do at times. They just couldn't justify him being in prison to themselves. When he left, we cheered.
To be continued...................
The Story Continues...........Getting out of Prison
The day finally arrived. I had already said all my goodbyes. I gave what ever food I had to Mo. Lots of hugging and good wishes. I promised Nobil I would send him a care box full of American products, toothpaste and so on..He had mellowed out allot. Guess it was our talks while in lock up.
They called my name...I drug my mattress behind me down the hall. My friends shouted good wishes to me. I changed into my filthy cloths and I walked out. A beautiful sunny day.
There was my Commanding officer, RS and Mutt. Mutt? Then I realized I still needed an escort. Little did I know he had been living with RS all this time The SOB.
I had one night with RS....it was as if nothing had changed.
She also told me that Ken had been the one that reported us to the Greek police.
In the morning I was escorted to the plane that would take me to Italy for my Court Marshal. I was gong to be punished for the same crime again. Great! I kissed RS and was deported, not to enter Greece for 5 years.
To be continued in the second part of this grow..........
- Thread starter
- #34
Starting where we left off of the story............................
The Story Continues................Italy
When I was deported from Greece, my Commanding Officer handed me some travel orders, I was so tripped out I didn't read them. As we got closer to Italy, I thought that I should read them.....they were not what I expected at all. I had travel money and 7 days to get to my next duty station. I was free! No guards .and no chaperon . Yes Indeed!
We had landed at Aviano AFB in northern Italy.. There was only one person in the terminal. I asked for a taxi....there wasn't any. I asked about a Bus. There were none.
Then I ask if there was a train station. Yes there was one, if I walked a mile that way.
I started walking.
As I walked, I past vineyards and farms, if there was some one working in the fields they would wave at me. I thought to myself...I'm going to like it here. Little did I know how much I was going to like it there.
Finally I found the train station. It only took me second to know where I was headed Venice. Like all European Trains it was nice. It only took about 35 minutes to get there.
The Train station was big! I walked out and a guy bumped into me as said HASH!
OH! Yeah! I bought what I thought I would smoke before I had to check in.
I spent the next 6 days there. I went to St John's Square and just stood there...it was magnificent. I would spend a great deal of time there. I met quite a few vacationing Americans, some time we would have dinner together, One family insisted that I go with them on a gondola ride through the city. By the way it is really easy to the see Americans in Europe. We stand out, believe me. .
It was great just watching everything go by in Venice. The whole city just looked like one post card after another.
Well it was time to make the 40 minute train ride to Vicenza. It's pronounced "Ven chin za".
On to face a Court Marshal I went.
To be continued...................................
The Story Continues................Italy
When I was deported from Greece, my Commanding Officer handed me some travel orders, I was so tripped out I didn't read them. As we got closer to Italy, I thought that I should read them.....they were not what I expected at all. I had travel money and 7 days to get to my next duty station. I was free! No guards .and no chaperon . Yes Indeed!
We had landed at Aviano AFB in northern Italy.. There was only one person in the terminal. I asked for a taxi....there wasn't any. I asked about a Bus. There were none.
Then I ask if there was a train station. Yes there was one, if I walked a mile that way.
I started walking.
As I walked, I past vineyards and farms, if there was some one working in the fields they would wave at me. I thought to myself...I'm going to like it here. Little did I know how much I was going to like it there.
Finally I found the train station. It only took me second to know where I was headed Venice. Like all European Trains it was nice. It only took about 35 minutes to get there.
The Train station was big! I walked out and a guy bumped into me as said HASH!
OH! Yeah! I bought what I thought I would smoke before I had to check in.
I spent the next 6 days there. I went to St John's Square and just stood there...it was magnificent. I would spend a great deal of time there. I met quite a few vacationing Americans, some time we would have dinner together, One family insisted that I go with them on a gondola ride through the city. By the way it is really easy to the see Americans in Europe. We stand out, believe me. .
It was great just watching everything go by in Venice. The whole city just looked like one post card after another.
Well it was time to make the 40 minute train ride to Vicenza. It's pronounced "Ven chin za".
On to face a Court Marshal I went.
To be continued...................................
Propa Gator
New Member
OMM and many others: I've little time to read or write for the next two or three months.
I'm working a time-sink job, for all the obvious reasons.
There need be no gravity: the world sucks, and that's the good part.
I will continue to read what I can, but this is page three of a 20 hour-old journal
Your completed grow rocks, OMM. Congratulations
I'm working a time-sink job, for all the obvious reasons.
There need be no gravity: the world sucks, and that's the good part.
I will continue to read what I can, but this is page three of a 20 hour-old journal
Your completed grow rocks, OMM. Congratulations
Woohoo! Awesome start to the journal, OMM! 
I'm really happy for you that you're going to get to dabble outside again.
Lot's of double-crossing and disappointment stacking up in Greece from the sounds of it. Very fun to be getting more of the story!
I'm really happy for you that you're going to get to dabble outside again. Lot's of double-crossing and disappointment stacking up in Greece from the sounds of it. Very fun to be getting more of the story!
- Thread starter
- #37
OMM and many others: I've little time to read or write for the next two or three months.
I'm working a time-sink job, for all the obvious reasons.
There need be no gravity: the world sucks, and that's the good part.
I will continue to read what I can, but this is page three of a 20 hour-old journal
Your completed grow rocks, OMM. Congratulations
Hi Mr, Gator.
I thought something was going on with you. You just kind of vanished. Well, drop in when you can. Got to make it while you can.
Thanks for the nice comment about part 1. Needless to say, I was very happy.
Maybe you'll be back to watch this one finish.
Take care my Friend.
- Thread starter
- #38
Woohoo! Awesome start to the journal, OMM!
Lot's of double-crossing and disappointment stacking up in Greece from the sounds of it. Very fun to be getting more of the story!
Hi xlr8
Me too about playing outside again. I just couldn't resist.
You got it Buddy...lies and double crossing.....tough times.
teiji2
New Member
OMM what a thrilling tale of your life, and to be tossed in amongst your lovely lady show, it truly is a treat. I must say once I started your tale it was hard to put down till it ended abruptly and with out a to be continued....... Ah well guess I'll have to sub to this grow and wait patiently for the updates of your outdoor attempt again. And a don't have to read through hundreds of established pages to get caught up
- Thread starter
- #40
OMM what a thrilling tale of your life, and to be tossed in amongst your lovely lady show, it truly is a treat. I must say once I started your tale it was hard to put down till it ended abruptly and with out a to be continued....... Ah well guess I'll have to sub to this grow and wait patiently for the updates of your outdoor attempt again. And a don't have to read through hundreds of established pages to get caught up
Thanks teiji2
Your right about hundreds of pages.....took me a while to track down all the parts of the story from part one.....I didn't want folks to have to go in the closed journals to read the first part. Maybe you missed it, but there is a to be continued above. The story has a way to go yet.
Glad you like it and the grow.