Welcome To My New Journal - OMMSOG

Xlr8 said:
Woohoo! OMMSOG engaged. :)

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to OldMedMan again."​
 (Yeah, yeah)

I tried! I'm so excited about this grow and the OMMSOG. I'm glad to see you keeping things simple, and going with what's worked best for you.

I know what you mean with doing it the way you can. I did really well training my plants this round, but I had to take most of last week or so on hold with the training due to how I was feeling, and I got a bit behind - thankfully stretch was about over, and it'll work out fine. I feel the way you do I think - sometimes I know what I WANT to do, but my body doesn't cooperate. You've got a few years and a few more aches I think, but I can relate a little. Sucks when your body won't get with the damned program!

In the end, if we get enough good bud to keep us going and growing, what the hell -- it is what it is! :rasta:

Your vegging plants look really good and super healthy. :bravo:

Tons of positive vibes your way and best wishes to a worry free, problem free grow. Oh, and I saw the strain "Hawaii Electric". How'd they get that name, was the seed like $1000? (Just a little jab at your states electricity rates!)


:popcorn:
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Hi X:Namaste:

It's the thought that counts anyway, no problem. Yep, back to basics and what has worked before. The tent is set up much better now. Lots of air coming in. Shssss I named it wrong.....I must have been thinking about my HECO bill! No one will ever know.:Namaste: THsea has already pinged me about it. Sounds good though. The seeds/cuttings was a gift to THsea.
Thought I would give it a try.

I was thinking of you when I wrote about what I can do. Brother of all people you understand. I'll say one thing, we are stubborn. :high-five: Sure glad we have good medicine provided by our girls. Love that your researching it so much.:peace:
 
QueenTokelove said:
Hey OMM...You know I am in this piece. I almost missed it but I am here dagnabit. I like how you have the cfls set up. Did you say a 400w is also in there too? Didn't see it in the pics. I hope you consider trying coco in the future, Mr. Gator crossed me over from soil. I have no regrets and am loving it. I noticed you said that you don't bother with ph. How do you do this? Most here seem to swear by a ph meter. Please share your wisdom on that one. I would rather not spend the money on it if it is not needed. I have not used anything to check ph since the beginning of my second grow when I ran out of the chemical tester.
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Hi Queen,,,,,Welcome!:Love:

Well, that's why I grow in soil. It's very forgiving and when using RO water it just balances pH for you. I've got all sorts of ph meters, but after getting the same readings every time I asked my self "Why am I doing this?".:surf:

I may yet try Coco, this time I'm going with what I know works. Low on stash!

The 400w HPS Light was raised for the pictures. I may try to get THsea to make a movie of the CFLs. The lights that are in front of the fan, twirls one way and then back again. :cheesygrinsmiley:
Hope you enjoy the grow! :high-five:
 
JBC420 said:
Hey OMM,
Never subbed one of your grows before, really nice looking grow man. I'm in.:goodjob:
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Well, welcome aboard. :thumb:

We should have some fun along the way. Glad your here, :ganjamon:
 
Geez! :thedoubletake:

I thought I was making it early! Four pages, already? Really?
 
Mr. Krip said:
Geez! :thedoubletake:

I thought I was making it early! Four pages, already? Really?
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Hi Mr. Krip. :welcome:

It's been great. Many folks that have not been in my Journals before. Pretty excited about that. Actually, pretty excited about you being here too. :thumb:
As you can see, no SOG yet, but it will be here soon. Got a good feeling about this grow. Make yourself at home. :grinjoint:
 
Good morning to all...(and hello to a few)
SOG is an interesting choice. I've brushed against it here...like growing circular plants, twisted around a tube light....something I'd no particular use for, but an interesting oddity. Were you to do SSOG, it'd be OMMSSOGSOG.
We'll just call it soggy :)
Laws here are centered on numbers.... when there just isn't sufficient volume to allow them to take you out to shoot you. I have shied away from SOG for that reason. Much easier to argue personal relief issues, when there are only 5 or 6 plants in question. 20 or 40? Not so much. Little bitty ones or not.
This'll be my first that I paid attention.
I don't PH either, never really did, and I use tap water. We never PHed anything growing up on a farm. Granted, they rotated and spread poop and stuff....but no PH. I start watering/feeding mixture with 5or 6 TBS of Lemon juice, then a heavy FF formulae....it's always worked just fine. The stuff at the hunt camp barely gets fed....just the dirt and the rain and the tropical sun out there. Your instincts are solid.
I planted a bunch of Master Kush around the camp this year....sun-up, I'm tossing a saddle on Tamarak....... and he and Juju Bee (woof!) and I are gonna ease on out there and take a look:MoreNutes::MoreNutes:
(I'm bearing food gifts :))
I needed a day down...it's been a bit, and the next few weeks are just slamming.
screw 'em......Gone Fishin'
:)
Good to be here Daddy-O
Let's grow some "Wheelchair Weed"....
"Catatonic Chronic"....
"The Drool"....
OK......
*no more kona coffee for me*
 
I forgot....I've taken to dropping a pinch of pharm/grade glucose in every gallon of H2O in place of the Blackstrap. It's what "Snowstorm" type products are made from. Helps "frost up" your plants....and it's like as cheap as salt. (Tomato farmers trick ;) )
Gettin' light out....time to bounce mate
:peace:
 
Chopper said:
Good morning to all...(and hello to a few)
SOG is an interesting choice. I've brushed against it here...like growing circular plants, twisted around a tube light....something I'd no particular use for, but an interesting oddity. Were you to do SSOG, it'd be OMMSSOGSOG.
We'll just call it soggy :)
Laws here are centered on numbers.... when there just isn't sufficient volume to allow them to take you out to shoot you. I have shied away from SOG for that reason. Much easier to argue personal relief issues, when there are only 5 or 6 plants in question. 20 or 40? Not so much. Little bitty ones or not.
This'll be my first that I paid attention.
I don't PH either, never really did, and I use tap water. We never PHed anything growing up on a farm. Granted, they rotated and spread poop and stuff....but no PH. I start watering/feeding mixture with 5or 6 TBS of Lemon juice, then a heavy FF formulae....it's always worked just fine. The stuff at the hunt camp barely gets fed....just the dirt and the rain and the tropical sun out there. Your instincts are solid.
I planted a bunch of Master Kush around the camp this Right now I'm legal year....sun-up, I'm tossing a saddle on Tamarak....... and he and Juju Bee (woof!) and I are gonna ease on out there and take a look:MoreNutes::MoreNutes:
(I'm bearing food gifts :))
I needed a day down...it's been a bit, and the next few weeks are just slamming.
screw 'em......Gone Fishin'
:)
Good to be here Daddy-O
Let's grow some "Wheelchair Weed"....
"Catatonic Chronic"....
"The Drool"....
OK......
*no more kona coffee for me*
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Good Morning to you too Chopper. :high-five:

I figured you'd find me. Soggy is good enough for me. :Namaste:

Well, about numbers......Hey Officer...they are just spouts. :rasta:

Wish Jo would stop calling the police on the next door neighbors. She is at war with them. 11 people in a 2 bedroom house, 3 big ass dogs. Noise and smell is bad. As far as numbers go, I'm still a provider...even though shes dead. What they don't know wont hurt them. :rasta:
I would hate to go to jail again..be like the old days. Hope they have an old folks home. :cheesygrinsmiley:

Wish I had a Hunting Camp to ride out to. Master Kush grown really natural sounds great. The ride would kill my butt though. Bet you like the solitude, just you ,horse and dog. Nice picture of that in my mind.

Yea..go fishing. I know that your traveling days are here again and you will be going all over the place.
Who needs energy drinks? You have Kona Coffee . :circle-of-love:
 
Chopper said:
I forgot....I've taken to dropping a pinch of pharm/grade glucose in every gallon of H2O in place of the Blackstrap. It's what "Snowstorm" type products are made from. Helps "frost up" your plants....and it's like as cheap as salt. (Tomato farmers trick ;) )
Gettin' light out....time to bounce mate
:peace:
Click to expand...

Gotta find some of that pharm/grade glucose:MoreNutes:
 
Hi All....especially you new folks to one of my Journals

I've been telling a long story over the last few Journals and have put it together in three files. The story is about sex, drugs, rock and roll, Dealing hash and then a Greek prison. Heart break and black marketing. And the way it changed me over the years. The last part is when I started taking the Army Seriously and changed how it changed me for the good. Kind off. :Namaste:

Here they are, if your interested. There will be more stories in this journal too. I like telling stories!.

Part one

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?

We never did anything with Tasos, but he was a friend and when he went up to the villages and found a wife, we went to his wedding. I don't have tell you about Greek weddings....we had a ball.


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.

 
Part 2 of the story.

The story continues..................................................Vicenza

When I got off the train in Vicenza (Vi chin za) I called to be picked up.

The young soldier that picked me up was playing Rock and Roll. I asked who it was and he said AC/DC. I told him I really liked it. I had never heard of them He looked me over and smiled. "Want to smoke some hash? Hell yes! We did. I think I might like Italy.

Then he proceeded to tell me where to find it. Just go down to the park at the entrance to
Vicenza and stand by the statues or just walk through the park, people will have red, blonde, black, or green. I became quite familiar with that park in the days to come.

Vicenza was very old.....12th and 13th Century. It was beautiful.

To be continued.................................

The Story Continues.............................The Command Sargent Major.

The next day early in the morning I put on my best uniform and headed to the Command Sgt. Major's office. When I finally got to see him, I gave him a copy of all my Military Records and told him that I had spent a little over a year in custody and had just been released from a Greek prison.
If I had to face a Court Marshal for the same crime, that would mean I was going to be punished for the same crime all over again.

He said that he would talk to the General and would call me back.


To be continued...................................


The Story Continues................One of Best the best Days of my life and one of the Worst days of my life..


After a week the Command Sergeant Major called me to his office.
Here we go I thought, however I was wrong. He and the General agreed I had paid for my crime and there would be no more punishment..

He said Sgt OMM go over to personnel and get yourself an assignment!

I skipped and danced my way over the personnel office. When I walked in, guess who the personnel Officer was? . It was the Warrant Officer I had helped out in Greece. I saved this guys butt.

He was laughing when we shook hands. I told him the story of what had happened to me.
First thing he did was erase everything about me getting busted. If you have lost year on your records, most likely you would never make another promotion.
Any thing bad he erased. I had a clean bill of health. I was a perfect soldier again.

Then he said "You need a vacation after all you've been through!!". So he didn't assign me any where. I would have year's vacation in Italy. I could bring RS over and rent a villa..
We could be tourist for a year. Happy Happy!

I literally ran to the pay phone to call RS .

When she answered I told her all the good news. Then she said "I am not coming over to Italy". I said what did you say? She said again "I'm not coming to Italy". "What do you mean your not coming to Italy". Your Italian!...This is a once in a life time chance". Once again she said "I'm not coming, I am staying in Greece". Then she hung up.

I called and called .......no answer.....no answer for weeks. I sent her letters daily. Nothing.. So, I started to think of all the possibilities. The one I didn't like was admitting to myself that Mutt and her were living together. I was in total denial. This couldn't be happening.

When the Army Basketball team came over to play in a tournament a few weeks later, I found out the truth.. They looked me up first thing and confirmed what I thought. He had moved in when I was first put in prison.
The bitch had slept with me the night before I was deported and he was sleeping in the extra bedroom. The sons of bitches. They said he was driving my car with her in it. They held hands in the commissary. He had moved into house, he was running my business and he was sleeping with my wife. I just felt helpless. There was nothing I could do about it!.

I was no longer in denial. I was pissed. I mean really pissed. I couldn't do a thing about it. After a month and a half, I realized I would need some money, so I wrote a check on our account. It bounced. It came back no such account. They had taken my money too!.

Before I went in prison I had signed a document giving RS total power of attorney.
I went back to the personnel office and had all my pay sent to my new bank account in Italy, She would still get her housing check, that was it. I was livid. Then I went into a deep depression for weeks. I was helpless. I was broken. I had lost my RS.
I had nothing to do for the next 10 months or so.
You just can't believe how hurt I was........I still hurt from it all these years later. I get depressed just thinking about it. Crap!

To be cornuted..................

The Story Continues.....................................what to do?

Another month past. All I was doing was going down to the park and keeping my hash supply up to date. Really just smoking and being depressed.

Finally I decided to have a look around Vicenza. It was a Sunday. . I really didn't have any idea about the little city it's self..

Boy was I surprised! All the stores were closed on Sunday and the whole town was out walking. Families, couples, friends in groups, individuals like me.

I already told you how old it was...the main streets were cobblestone. Very narrow , not designed for automobiles. On each side of the streets were two and three story houses all connected to each other and in different colors. It was like going back to medieval times. Later I found out this was the home of the guy that designed our White House in DC.. His house was visible from almost any where in town. Beautiful to say the least.. If fact, this was a town of wonderful architectural designs..

As I walked around I started to get a peaceful feeling. The plazas and outdoor restaurants, and coffee houses were beautiful too. Nothing like grimy Athens. .This place was in no hurry....just folks walking around and enjoying life.. I was smitten with the place.

From then on,,,,,,Sundays were for walking. If you looked hard you could see the Alps in the distance. This was a little heaven all to it's self.
Hehe! I did notice the Italian shoes were dirt cheap and the Italian clothes were too. Good place to get some styling clothes, which I did later.

Every Sunday I was out walking....people would said hello.....I started feeling much better.. There was hope for me after all.

To be continued........................

The Story Continues................................................Tony.

I think it was about at the 6 month mark of my stay in Italy. I was still walking on Sundays and feeling better mentally.

As I walked through the biggest of the plazas in town, I saw this thirty something Italian lady sitting with two young Army guys. Out side of a coffee shop. What the hell, I thought and walked over and pulled out a chair and asked if they minded if I sat down.
She looked relieved and said please do. From that point on it was mainly the two of us talking. Her name was Antoinette...or Tony., in the short version. She was 34. I was 37 by then, and it was nice to talk to a female again.

A few more minutes went by and I looked at the two young Army guys and said to them "Don't you guys have something else to do?" They left like the wind!

Tony had come from a good family and was well educated. She spoke very good English.
We talked and walked until dusk. Then we made plans to meet at the same time the next Sunday at the same place.
I left feeling quite good and I think she did too. About time something good had happened.

To be continued......................

The Story Continues.....................................................More Tony.


The next Sunday.
Sure enough Tony was waiting when I got to the Coffee House. With a smile on her face. I think the first time we met I was so excited, that I really hadn't looked at her. She looked like money from her head to her toes. How in hell did I miss that? She was about 5'6 and her body looked like pure rock. She was very slim and had beautiful wavy black hair down past her waist.
As we sipped our coffee, I asked her what she did. She was a Ballroom Dancer, a pro.
I later went to some her competitions with her and her partner and they were good. Real good.

She had been married to a Bulgarian and they had two boys. The older one lived with him and they younger one lived with her. She had been divorced for 3 years..

For the next month and a half we would meet and go to dinner. Some times we would take the 40 minute train ride to Venice and have dinner.....some times we would see a play.

In Vicenza, They had open air movies. They weren't big places. They usually had a 30 person capacity. They also had plays and Operas under the stars. It was great. I sure wasn't in Greece anymore.

All this time...we always met somewhere. I had not met her family or even knew where she lived. She was very cautious. That would change soon and I would have a near cartoon existence for a while. This lady knew what she wanted,,,,,in spades.


To be Continued..........................

The Story Continues..........................................More Tony

Warning there is some very descriptive language used in this part of the story.
Not really, but it sounds good.

Tony and I were reaching the 2 month mark in our relationship. We always met some where and of course we got in a few hugs and kisses in along the way. I was starting to get horny as hell. That by the way, was a big understatement.

This night we when to an out door movie and it was a beautiful evening. We walked to the bus stop and waited on her bus. Not many folks had cars....the place was small and it had two buses. They covered almost all the town. When she left on the bus I would walk
back to the base.

This night was different. As she got on the bus she grabbed my hand and said "Your coming too". Now we are talking, I thought to myself. She started to tell me about her family. Her father, whom she loved, had died a while back. She told me he took her every where with him. She remembered him taking her to his favorite bar at the age of 6, remember this is normal in Italy. He loved to show her off.

He was in charge of a tank Battalion in North Africa during WWII. Let's put it this way, he didn't want to be in a war, so he spent most the time hiding his Battalion in the desert.
Well, he did live through it. The family went back centuries in Italy.

More to the point, he left them a fortune. She and her Mother owned 5 big Villas in southern Italy. In Vicenza he had left them a big plush condo. That was where we were heading. She lived with her mother and her son..

She told me all the time we were dating she was deciding what kind of man I was.
I had passed the test. I had a good heart according to her.. Well cool I thought.
When we reached her condo, the grounds alone blew me away. When she let us in, we headed straight to her room. We slowly undressed each other and teased each other a bit.
For the first time in my life, here was a woman that was not bashful and told me exactly what she liked. Sure wish more women were like that.

In the morning, her mother had breakfast ready for us. She knew I was going to be there!
I loved her mother soon as I saw her. Classy, but warm and open. .She gave me a big hug and told me welcome to her home. This woman could cook. Oh! My goodness she could cook. Over the next few months she taught me how to cook Italian style.

I met her son, He was a little blonde headed charmer, I called him Pic, short for piccolo. Which means small.in Italian. I just loved him. We were buddies.

It was a Thursday and she asked if I would go back to the base an check things out and to see if I could leave for the weekend.. No problem, When I got back to Tony's she was happy that I had the weekend off. As of right then we were going shopping in Milan.

To be continued................................................

The Story Continues..................................................Milan

Things I knew before we arrived in Milan.
It is one of the worlds fashion centers.
Lots of top models and runway shows. Models and designers would do anything to be in all the shows and runway shows. To be in one of them is a great place to show yourself as a model and as designers.

Milan is a beautiful city and has a coliseum like the one in Rome. I couldn't wait to see them all.
I also knew that Tony liked both fashion and history. In Venice she knew every painting in St. Thomas and in fact the whole town. She knew real histories and told me the Italian Version of each. I ate it up, I love history. We had only seen a part of all the historic places in Vicenza.

When we were on the train heading to Milan I learned a few things about Tony too.

We were going to Milan to buy me clothes! I started to protest, but she shut me up quick.
She was paying for everything. We were booked in a hotel for three days right in the heart of Milan. We would be walking to almost everything of interest. This woman went first class.

She also taught me a new saying "My man has to look good". So now I was her new man. This was OK with me! Later in the early eighties I would see a movie with Richard Gear in it called "American Gigolo". I felt like I was in it!

Along with "My man has to look good", She also said things like "My man would never wear that", "My man has to have that", an on and on. Guess she didn't like my t-shirts and 501 Levis. I was thinking what in the hell did get into this time! My mind was telling me just go with it...this should be a trip. It was too

When we arrived in Milan it was dark, but that didn't matter the city was lit up like a Christmas tree. It was only two blocks to our hotel. When we got there, I just stopped and stared. "We were staying in Italy's adult version of Disneyland!"


To be continued................................................................Shopping


The Story Continues....................................................Beautiful Milan


The Hotel looked like arches on arches on arches. It seemed to be marble and gold. Open and airy. We had a nice dinner and went up to our room. Her dressing area was big as most bedrooms. We went from window to window just looking at Milan all lit up.
It was just beautiful. I remember just standing behind Tony with my arms around her. It just seemed timeless.

In the morning I woke up first. Tony was tucked under my arm and her long black hair was spread all over me and the pillow. She was beautiful. I had a long think about things
and realized there was no place I would wanted to be other than right there.
We never talked about love, but it was there. Well, later on we did talk about love.
More on that later.. When she woke up she just smiled and snuggled closer. There was no hurry.

If you ever go to Milan, look a bit out of town and you will find discount houses from all the major designers for both men and women. Here you could pick up once worn clothes
that had been down a runway at ridiculous prices. That is where we headed today.

To be continued................................

The Story Continues ....................................................Shopping

It was such a beautiful day we deiced to walk. Downtown Milan had beautiful medieval flags flying everywhere. It looked festive and happy. What a nice city.
The walk was so nice we took our time.

When we arrived at the discount houses, Tony headed to the Gucci store. Gucci? Me?

I couldn't believe the store....it was big. I never knew that Gucci made clothes for men.

Did they ever! First we looked at suits. She picked them out and I just stood there saying yes or no. In the end we selected 4 suits. I figured we would settle on one of them. I was wrong, we got all 4 of them. I've had suits made before in Hong Kong and in Greece,
But these guys were something else....in half and hour they had my measurements and fit. We would pick them up the next day.
She wasn't finished. 4 pair of shoes. 4 dress shirts, 3 other beautiful shirts. One was like a like swordsman's shirt, with big sleeves. Socks, underwear, the works. She also bought me a killer long black leather coat. Where would I wear this stuff? I would find out later.
She insisted I get a Speed o. Ugh!

Then we went to the Ladies discount stores. Have you ever seen one of those movies where a lady tries on different clothes in front of her man? I ate it up! She looked good in everything. This part of shopping I loved. My favorite lady showing her stuff. That was one of my favorite days ever.. It's burned into my memory . I thought the 3 Thai ladies that danced for me in Thailand was something....not even close to Tony.

We went to two more stores for her and she did it all again. I was getting really horny.

None of the dresses needed any modifications for her, so she had them shipped back to Vicenza. We would ship my stuff the next day. She wouldn't discuss costs at all with me. She just smiled.

We took a cab back to downtown. She wasn't finished. Here came one of those my man things. I should have an ear ring. Say what? A few hugs and kisses later, I had a pierced ear and a big ass-ed diamond ear stud. That thing almost got my butt in trouble the first time I was back in a military formation. I was a platoon Sgt. Luckily my men all started to point at my ear...They giggled too damn it!

By then it was time to eat. We really didn't eat too much. Then we went up to our room.
I attacked her.....she loved when I did that....so did I. We slept in the next morning.
I felt like I was in some wonderful dream.

To be continued...............................

The story continues...................Time.

We had a few days when we got back from Milan, before we hit the road again. We both did try on our clothes again and they were perfect. Tony had to go practice with her dance partner, so I tagged along to watch. They practiced and practiced. Damn they were good, I got tired just watching. Then they thought that I should try it. They taught me to Tango.
Make that tried to teach me. A dancer I am not. I got the steps OK, but my arms were not expressive enough for them. I didn't want to look like a girly man., waving my arms all around. They kept at it and I did get better at it.

They had plans for me.

We went to the dance club that was a bit out of town and they had a band playing.
They danced a couple of times and the place shouted for more.. Tony asked for a tango and she grabbed me, and I was on the floor. Oh My God! I was so embarrassed, but the folks were kind and clapped to the music. All I wanted to do was get out of there.
When I did something passable the crowd would say "Ole! And Bravo! Longest damn song I ever heard. It was awful.
When it was over we got a cheer and people patted me on the back. Much laughing.
The American had given it a go and they laughed big time. I swore to myself...never again. I did the same thing in other places we went, in northern Italy. I actually got fairly good....but only that one style.

I went to several of her competitions, They won one and were cheered big time, I loved it for her and I was so proud.
She was just beautiful. That is one of the places I wore my new clothes. We went to Venice and ate in places that I never knew existed. Really, I liked getting on the train with my Gucci clothes on. People would stare at us. Strange,. as a doper I was used to fitting in and not being looked at.

Speaking of dope, I took her to the park and bought some hash one afternoon and we smoked it. She had never smoked before. She was a riot! Everyone is looking at us! I feel sick, I feel happy! How long does this last? Let's go home!.

We also watched the Postman some days. Her mother and many of the older women, in the condo loved the postman......I mean literally......they loved him.
Tony and I knew when he was coming...her Mother told us the exact time he would be coming. Tony and I would go sit where we could see the whole building from the rear.
The postman had it going on. He always started at the top floor and worked his way down. This guy was a stud, He always knocked to deliver the mail. He was always invited in. He would spend maybe 30 minutes and then go to the next door.and do the same thing. Tony and I would laugh our ass off. He did this every day! What a stud!

We started talking about time. It was getting close to the time I would have to leave.
We still had a few months, but it was in our conversations a lot . Neither of us wanted this to end.

To be continued................................................

The Story Continues..............................................................Traveling again

Tony made a decision. She had decided to be ready if she decided to come to the States with me when its time for me to go. There are other places we could have gone to update her passport, but the real embassy in Rome was the best. This tickled me to no end. She may come with me to the US.
We packed our bags and jumped on the train. The ride to Rome was just beautiful. We just went trough so many small villages and some beautiful small cities. This time we had a sleeping booth. .We loved it , A couple of times when we stopped for a few minutes, I jumped off and bought her flowers or a sweet.

Tony actually dislikes southern Italy. Too much crime and over crowding. Besides that, the train station had been bombed a couple times in Rome.

Since we were going to be in the south anyway, we were going to meet and have dinner with her relatives in Foggia..

I had always wanted to see Rome. I've read so much of her history and her power.

To Be Continued..................................................

The Story Continues............................................................Rome

We arrived in Rome late in the afternoon. I have to admit I was just fascinated by everything I saw,. I was in Rome, Just being there was like walking into another reality.
Tony had made all the plans and we headed to Trastevere, It was on the west bank of the Tiber river, Cobble stone streets and beautiful plazas. Then it was the center of Rome's artists. We had two rooms on the second story of what looked like someone's home.

Tony pulled on me to get me to move...I was just trying to take it all in at once. Impossible! It was someone's home. Tony had studied dance there years ago and she called in a favor from the dance school and we had a home to stay in as long as we wanted. Yes, we stayed in Rome longer than we thought we would. Just too much to see and do.

Tony went to the Embassy the next morning. I went to, but ended up just walking around inside the Embassy. Her appointment was over quickly. She had all she needed to get into the states already, so really nothing had to be done. That was it.

So we started our tour of Rome. We started in old Rome. Here we looked at what Rome had been in Medieval times and the to the Renaissance periods. Wonderful food and plenty to look at. Here we saw the Pantheon and cathedrals..

Over next three days we saw the Vatican, the Coliseum, .the Roman Forum, .I kept tripping out that the first Caesar had walked where we were walking now. At the end of three days we were exhausted, . Time to move on to Foggia.

To Be continued.......................................

The Story cotinues.....................................................Foggia

On the train to Foggia, Tony talked about the Villas that she and her Mother owned. The relatives we were going to see lived in one of them. For taking care of the Villa and the grounds, they lived rent free. I thought that was very big of her, until I saw the villa.
She said there it is and pointed to it.......you could see it from any where in town! It was big! I had no idea it was going to be like this. It was beautiful with grounds that went forever. Holy crap!

A car was waiting when we arrived at the train station and took us to the main house. The garage had 6 other cars in it. The whole experience made me feel pretty small. Foggia is mainly a farming town and this house was center piece of the town.

People started pouring out of the house....and I mean pouring out.....at least 20 people hugged and kissed Tony. That was when I wished that I spoke Italian. She introduced me to them and they all hugged me like I was family. I saw no children, that would come later. We must have been out there for thirty minutes. Then we headed in doors and I was just floored. It looked like half home and half museum.

The men took me with them and we walked the grounds a bit. The place had everything, a stable, pool, tennis courts, and a beautiful garden. The men had a good time with me, and we laughed a lot, but I had no idea what we were laughing about. I did realize that they were telling me I was the only man they had seen Tony with, so I must be special.

Sure was glad I was dressed for the occasion..

We headed into the house and I went with the men to a room I guessed was were we could smoke and talk, before dinner.

Then it was dinner time. The table was for 24 people and we filled the place up. Tony sat at the end of the table and I sat at her right. They had friggin servants! We all stood. until Tony sat down. I started to realize what Tony had spent on my clothes was pocket change for her. Holy crap! By the time all the toasts were over, I was getting looped. They were all directed to Tony and me. What a rush..

She pulled me away from the table before we actually started eating and we met the children......They ate in an other room.....they too had servants,. I just know I had a silly grin on my face all night. Dinner took hours. We had an after dinner drink. Tony got up, so did everyone else.

To be continued..........................................................


The Story Continues....................................................................Brindisi


We only stayed two nights at the Villa and Tony was ready to go. I suggested that we could go farther south to Brindisi. I had docked there once when we were sailing from Greece. The answer was a big no. She really didn't like southern Italy and was ready to go north, the sooner the better. The rest of her Villas were south and she had no wish to see them.

Not that we didn't continue to travel. We stopped in Ancona for a night and relaxed. She had relaxed and was over the visit to the Villa. She honestly didn't like the visit at all. She said they were kissing her butt and they worried about if she was going to sell the Villa. She had no intention of selling the place and had told them over and over that she wouldn't.

From Ancona we when to Bologna. Once again we stayed in a Hotel. The next morning we had a message on the roof. It was crazy to me. It was beautiful in all directions, but I spent my time looking at Tony. Later that night we took the train to Florence. We were in Florence for two days and she took me all over that beautiful city. It was a great history lesson for me. Tony sure loved her country.

When we left Florence we headed to Venice and had dinner, then we went home to Vicenza. It was good to be home. The next day I went to the base and checked things out.
My Warrant Officer said my time was running out and that I should come back in two weeks and start looking for my new assignment.. I probably had a month and a half left in Italy.

I went home and told Tony. She looked at me and I could see nothing but sadness. We hugged for a long time. We both had tears in our eyes. She went in and told her Mother.
I picked up Pic and held him. Soon we were in a group hug. Even when you know something is coming, it doesn't make it any easier.


To be continued......................................... ......................


The story continues..............................................................Disco

We just stayed at home for while and took care of things we had been putting off. I went with Tony's Mom to refill our medium sized keg of wine. We drove, Mom had a car, which I had never seen before. We drove up in the hills for bit and turned down a dirt road and there was the winery. It looked hundreds of years old and was over grown with vines and flowers. To me it was beautiful. This winery had only one kind of wine. A deep red Burgundy. It was great stuff...I had been drinking it, morning , noon, and night, since I moved in with Tony. It was just a matter of fact for them, it was served at each meal. Having lived in Napa a few years, I know a good wine when I taste it and this was wonderful.

I have never found a comparable wine in the US. Nor have I ever found roasted peppers
like they had either. Mom made each meal from scratch...nothing canned. Did, I say I gained a bit of weight there? When she cooked I was there helping and learning.....and sampling.

Tony was dragging around and was just blue and down in spirit. I had a big idea.
I said "It's Saturday night lets Go to the NCO Club on base and DISO!".
Tony said "Disco?" and brightened up. I said yes, but don't expect any thing fancy, it is the Army you know.
Tony was smiling as we got dressed.....she was beautiful.....I thought...I'm I making a mistake?

We actually took a cab that night. The music was blasting when we got there, the dance floor was crowded. The were playing "Three Times a Lady" and we danced. I danced one disco song with her. Hey, it was the late seventies and Disco had not died yet.
Like I said before I am no dancer.....I had the sense to tell Tony all the slow dances were mine..

Glad I did. Once the guys saw Tony dance.......they all wanted to dance with her. Which she loved by the way. The guys got in line...I just watched.....well...one lonely wife came over and we danced a few times.....her hubby was in the Tony line. Tony was radiant. When the music stopped.....Tony was surrounded......I walked over and took her hand. and smiled. "When are you coming back?" and many other questions. "Sometime she giggled ".

Tony, was renewed and happy again.......she thanked me that night until I couldn't move. What a woman!

To be continued............................................................................

The Story Continues..............................................................................TV

I haven't said much about home life with Tony. Actually we had been traveling so much
there wasn't too much to say. Now that time was getting short, we spent more time at home.

We really enjoyed playing with Pic until his bedtime. I was totally in love with Pic, he was a great young boy. He and I went walking/running allot. We found a little park to play in too. It was like the boys day out.

When it hit eight at night, he went to bed and the tv turned into a porn show. I kid you not....it was pure porn and the later it got the worse or more explicit it was. Tony and I never watched it. She said why watch it? When you can do it yourself. Of course, I agreed.
Tony's Mother didn't agree and was in front of the TV every night.. Probably thinking of the postman.

Tony and I sat on the bed and talked. It was hard for me to to do, she wore the most lacey outfits and I couldn't keep my mind on what see was saying. See had been all over Europe and was giving me her thoughts on each place.

The places she liked and didn't like were:

Amsterdam......too many floozies and drugs.
London too busy and too much smoke in the air. Nasty people.
Spain was great.
Greece.....bunch of idiots . but, Mykonos was good.
Egypt.....too dirty
Germany....clean and good people, .she would live there...cold
Paris.......great beautiful city....the people sucked.

The other parts of Europe were too cold for her.

One thing was very clear to me...I loved this long black haired beauty.

To be continued..................................................................................

The Story Continues......................................................................... Running out of Time

Time started to fly for us.......days were passing too quickly. Finally, I had to go and get my assignment, My friend asked where I want to go......it had to be stateside....I had been out of the country too long already. My sons were in California, so I asked for Fort Ord in California. I had never been there before, but had passed it on it the way to the Monterey Jazz Festival once.

It took exactly 20 minutes to get the assignment, I was going to an Artillery Division.
Crap I thought to myself, I would be in the field allot. I would leave in exactly one month. I would have a month's leave and 15 days travel time, before checking in.
I had many things to do in that time......Pick up my boys if I could, Buy some kind of car just to get around in and find a place to live. It would be months before I could get base housing. I would have to go cheap on everything. I had no idea what life was like back in the states. I was sure it would be much more expensive.

I went down to the bus stop and started waiting for the Bus. I just dreaded going home and telling Tony. Instead I went to the park and found some hash, made a pipe out of a soda can and got stoned. It really didn't help, so I went home.

To be cornuted.......................................................................................

The story continues..................................................................Tony Quits!

When I walked in the house, Tony saw my face and knew I didn't have good news to tell.
I sat down with her and her mother and told them I would be leaving in a month. Her mother looked at us and left us alone to talk. Tony turned pale and said she had heard that California was a leader among the states. Which was true at the time. I agreed and said, yes I was lucky to get Fort Ord. She said she was happy for me. She when in to help her Mother. I really don't think they had anything to do, but I was wrong.

We had one hell of a good meal. They had out done themselves. We were stuffed and I noticed we all hit the wine a bit hard that night. Pic was sitting by me, so we had a good time playing dive bomber with his food.

Tony put Pic to bed and Mom and I cleaned up the kitchen. Mom gave me a hug and said even though we knew this was coming, it was going to be hard on us all. I nodded and said yes it will be hard. She went over and turned on the TV and I went to our room and lay down.

After a while Tony came in and buried her head on my shoulder and cried. I had never seen her cry before. She cried and cried, I held her tight and we finally went to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning Tony was gone. Usually she was in the kitchen, this time she was gone. Her mother didn't know where she went either. She finally came home about 2 in the afternoon. She looked sad, but was smiling.

She gave me a big hug and said "I'm going with you to California!". Say that again!
She smiled and kissed me and said again "I'm going with you!". That's all I needed to hear! We hopped around and were just plain silly for a long time. She said, I just don't want to be here without you, so I'm going.

We were hyper and couldn't sit still. So she said let's go to Venice and have dinner.
We went to Venice and spent the night, We had a great meal and drank too much and
walked around the city for hours The next morning we went to the island by Vince where they make some of the most beautiful glassware in Europe. We bought Mom a beautiful hand made pitcher. It just sparkled.

As we rode back on the train, she told me she had gone to see her dance partner that morning she left early and explained to him she was leaving to go with me. She said he gave her a hug and told her he wasn't surprised and that he was kind of expecting it. He could see it in our eyes. There was much planning to be done. More on that soon.

To be continued...................................................................................

The Story Continues ......................................................................Planning

It's amazing how fast time goes by when you don't want it to, It seemed like everything
was speeding up. Tony was running around checking that everything that her mother might need was taken care off. Actually, most of it was already done, they always kept things up to date.

Tony wanted me to go to the Italian Riviera with her, but I told her I had already been to the French Riviera with RS. That she did not like.....a big frown and a huff! Oh! Well!

Speaking of RS, I received two letters from her. I didn't even open them. I threw them in the trash. She was probably wondering when I would be leaving and where I was being assigned. Let her find out for her self.....she made her choice long ago. Let her live with it. I still had the rage inside me, about what she had done to me. Just the thought of her pissed me off.

Tony was trying to decide what clothes to take to Monterey. I told her what temps to expect in Monterey and that it was mostly casual clothes and that if we went to San Francisco we would wear we would wear our fashion type clothes. She looked confused by that and I explained we Americans like casual clothes more than anything.
Hastily I added we would wear our good clothes in Monterey too.

Actually, I started to worry about what Tony would actually think of the US. This might be trouble ahead.

We went out allot those final days in Italy. We danced at the NCO club a few more times,
She loved it and I mostly just watched. Hell, watching her was great. We went to Venice a few more times too. We also went to the club in the hills and I got better at the tango and started learning how to waltz . It was very much fun for both of us.

She was happy and so was I.

To be continued..........................................................................................

The Story Continues..................................................................Time to Go

Well, the day finally arrived and I had to leave. I went to the Base, they would get me to the right Airport and I was gone. I had stayed with Tony until the end. We made all the plans that we could, since there were many unknowns to deal with.

First, I did not know where in the US I was headed. We had talked and instead of flying commercially, I would take MAT flights to get to the west coast. MAT flights only cost $10 for each fight. Much cheaper than flying by commercial Airlines. By doing so I would save my travel money.

Once in California I would find and buy a cheap car to get around in. Then I would go to Napa and pick up my sons. After a long hard battle with my ex wife over custody, she now wanted to get rid of them. I was happy to get them....finally.

Then I would drive down to the Monterey area and find a cheapo house. A place to stay while were waiting on base housing. I had been gone for a long while and had no idea what things would cost on the mainland any more.

Tony would fly over soon as I found a place.

To be Continued......................................................................................

The Story Continues..............................................................................L et's Fly


As luck would have it....I landed in Washington DC, much to my pleasure, all I had to do was get to Andrews AFB. It was 8 in the morning. They had a kind of shuttle system, so I found a quick ride over to Andrews AFB.

When I got there I immediately signed up for any flight going west. I sat down and started reading the sports page, Wow! A real Sports Page after 6 years! I was reading every story, catching up. Once again, good luck, I got a flight to Colorado Springs.

Luck was on my side big time, the plane was an Air Force General's Lear Jet. Oh! Yeah!
There were only 3 of us. Me, the General (a 2 star), a rumpled sailor in whites, and two Majors were the crew.

We buttoned up and left. This was my kind of style. The sailor was asleep as soon as he sit down.

The General waved me over to the seat opposite him, so I moved over. He was laughing as he unpacked his box lunch. "They give me enough for 4 people every time, so let's eat." We did. We saved some for the sailor. The General and I talked for a while, He had some reports to go over, so I moved back over. He finished and back I went. Mostly we talked about Nam. He was there when I was. We both knew a young pilot that went down
over Hanoi. A good soul.

Then, here comes one of the Majors to speak to the General. "The front landing gear wont go down, Sir!". "You're the pilot, you fix it Major!" We continued talking. After about 15 minutes, here came both Majors. They opened a door in the floor. No joke, they hand cranked the wheel down. Then we landed. We all said our good byes and I headed to the terminal to sign up for flights again.

A plane was about to leave for Seattle. I made it! I just couldn't believe my luck. I wanted to go to Seattle! I wanted to stop by and see an old friend from my hippie days, up there, he married the girl I went with before RS. About that time I realized I was going west and that time was still pretty much the same for me. What a day.

This flight was uneventful thank goodness.

To be continued...................................................................................................

The Story Continues.....................................................................Seattle


It was still light out when I got to Seattle....this was beginning to be a long day for me.
I called my friend and he came over to pick me up. I noticed as we pulled up to his place, that he was doing well. The house was nice and in a very good neighborhood. We headed to the back yard and my friend said "Stop right there!". I took another step and he said "Stop!". I heard a zing kind of sound and then I had sharp teeth and claws trying to get me! I jumped back. "What was that!?" My friend was laughing....."That's my cat!".

He had this big black cat and it had brain damage. He had it attached to a long dog run wire and it would go zinging around the yard. I wanted no part of it. Scared the Bjesus out of me. I went in and saw Linda his wife. Wobble was her nickname. She wasn't real happy to see me . She was living with me when I met RS, she had left for a month at Xmas time and had came back to a mess. I would have been pissed too. Although she had moved in with my friend and they were married in less than a year. Hell. I was their best man.. Old wounds still hurt....I know from my experience with RS.

We had a good meal and he took me to the garage to see his grow. It was an early Hydro grow and it fascinated me. It was in a rubber swimming pool. He gave me an oz. Yes! Buds! Not hash! Hooray! He said this was his final grow. Heat seeking helicopters were flying around and he said he had to much to lose, so this was his last.
I thought too much to lose? I asked what he did and the answer floored me. He was a "Pay Day Loan" guy. He had three store fronts by all the military bases in the area..

He had been a tanker in the Army (I had talked him into going in) and knew the system.
He required each person to bring in his LES (leave and earning statement) before he loaned anyone anything. That was all he needed to make sure he would be paid back, all he had to do was call that person's Commander. The interest he charged was criminal. Years later he flew over to open a couple of store fronts for me to run in Hawaii. I didn't want any part of it. To me he had turned into a blood sucker. I told him as much a few times. He's retired somewhere in Arizona now and he did make millions before it was over. 16 store fronts. Old hippie gets rich off poor servicemen. Lost a lot of respect for him.

They had made me a place to sleep in a spare room. Just as I was dozing off, I heard a growl . I yelled "Get that cat out of here!"........they were laughing their asses off.

They both were early risers, which was fine by me, I wanted to get over to the MATS terminal and try get to California while it was still daylight. Wobble actually gave me a hug and whispered "Asshole" in my ear.

My Buddy let me out at the MATs terminal and I lucked out again, there was a flight leaving for Travis AFB in an hour. That was perfect! It was only a short drive to Napa from there.and that's where I was headed. The terminal was a large building, so I grabbed a newspaper and sat down close to the gate I would be leaving through.
I heard a commotion and lo and behold there was an MP with a frigging dope dog going through the terminal. I had my oz in my pants...in my under ware to be exact. I sat and watched and they were headed my way, slowly but surely. Checking every seat.

I headed to the Men's Room. 4th stall down, I put my oz in the toilet seat cover holder and went back out and sat down. They passed by me and continued on. About a minute later they called my flight. Crap! I mentally weighed my chances. You know what I did! I booked into the john and retrieved my oz and ran and got in line. I made it!
I really didn't want to be looking for smoke in a new place. I sure was happy that I had made it on that plane.

To be continued......................................................................................

The Story Continues....................................................................Napa


We landed on Travis AFB early in the afternoon. I had what I was going to try to do all planed out. First I found a base Taxi and asked to be taken to the unofficial car lot on base. All bases have them. When you get orders, sometimes you have to sell your car fast.
I was lucky again and found an old Nova that was not too bad. Called the owner and he came over and I drove it. I bought it for $350. He signed the title to me. I got insurance on base too. Napa here I come.

On the way to Napa, I passed the junkyard where RS and I lived. Made me a bit sad to think of it. Took me a while to find my first wife's place she had moved to a new place.

The last time I had seen her she was screaming at me that I couldn't see my kids before I left for Greece. She called me many other things too. This should be interesting, I thought. She had fought me tooth and nail for the kids when we got our divorce.
Now, I was about to pick them up.....she no longer wanted them.. Things change in 6 plus years.

Well, here we go...I rang the door bell. She opened the door with a big smile and (gulp) a hug. She was still a cute little thing, even in her late thirties. I was stunned.
Where was the hate and anger? She went in to get me a cup of coffee and I sat there wondering what was going on. Tao my youngest son was 16 now and she said he would be home soon. Byron my oldest at 19 was some where north of Sacramento working as a bar back I would have to find him. OK.....

Then of all things, she asked if I wanted to smoke a J. This woman hated drugs of any kind. Things had changed, big time. Guess a lot can happen in more than 6 years. I asked her about it and she said her sisters had changed her mind a few years ago. She liked the feeling that mj gave her. Damn, if she had just listened to me long ago, I think we would
have still been married. What a rush this was. We sat there talking for a long while and I actually loved it. She was just like when we first married.....happy!. Tao was still not home, so she cooked us a small meal. We talked non stop....this was really weird.

Finally Tao came home. He looked great and he gave me a long hug. I asked him if he was ready to start a new life and he smiled big time and hugged me again. I told him that we should get moving. We had to find a motel for the night.. My ex had a nick name, it was Tad. Tad said absolutely not to the motel and said we could stay there instead.

I asked Tao, when we had a moment alone if she had a boy friend. The answer was no and that she hadn't had a date in all these years. The bell finally rang in my head....she was horny. I sure wasn't on my game. I had not noticed.. Hell, I was not really looking.
Let me just say, it was late when we headed for Monterrey the next day.

Too be continued............................................................................................. .
The Story Continues..................................................................................

Tao and I headed to Monterrey the next day. It was about 4 pm when we arrived . All I had to do was show my ID card to get on base. We went to the Guest House and signed up for a small apartment. For a few days. We bought a news paper and started looking for a house to rent. I was still going by my original plan to go cheap until I knew what I was going to making in total. I could always upgrade if I had to.

There was a little town next to Fort Ord named Marina and I found a little 2 bedroom place that would do for now. On one side was a small old church and on the other side was a Harley builder, who had 6 hell raising geese in his back yard. He also sold pot.

I had the utilities turned on and had a phone hooked up. Took Tao over and got him an ID card so he could get on base and buy things. I also went by the Hospital and actually got in and got Tao a prescription for a pair of glasses. He needed them.

I went over the transportation office and arranged to have my household goods. delivered.. I had no idea what was in them, I guess RS had packed them. They delivered them the next day. I couldn't believe they were so quick....I was still going by my experience in Greece which took 2 months. Looked like she had sent everything to me.
That didn't sound good.

When the phone was working I called Tony and told her what was happening and explained we would be in a small place for while. It didn't seem to bother her.
In fact she was excited. An hour later she called back and said she and Pic would be landing in San Francisco the day after tomorrow. Oh! Yeah!

The first night at the new house, I just parked in the driveway and didn't put it in the garage. Next morning the battery was gone. Welcome to the neighborhood..

I'm not sure what went on in Tony's flight over, but she got off the plane in a really bad mood. Pic grabbed me and wouldn't let go, which I loved. We kind of drove in silence to Monterrey. What was this all about?

When we got to the house, she took one look and said she wanted to go to a hotel. Oh! Boy! This is bad, I thought. I left Tao at the house and took her to the Holiday Inn.....not good enough, so I took her to the best place in Monterrey. I spent the night and it was OK, but strange. Next day we went all over Monterrey and down to the restaurant in Big Sur.

I may as well just say she stayed 3 more days and then went back to Italy. Her parting remark was "That Americans are pigs", Much too informal for her.
There I was thinking "What the hell just happened ?". Tony was gone for good. Well crap! My mind was spinning. Life had thrown me another curve. What next?


To be continued....................................................................................
The Story Continues..............................

I still had time off, so Tao and I decided to go find my other son Byron. We were told by one of Tao's friends in Napa that he was on the other side of Roseville working as a bar back. Off we went. Believe it or not, we found him in the first bar we went to. We walked in and quickly realized it was a Gay Bar.

There he was bringing in cases of beer. I walked over and said "Getting tired of this?"
I thought he was going to faint. Then he smiled and said "You got it Pops!"
He asked for his pay and we left. He was so glad to see us. He talked all the way back to Marina.
Mom had thrown him out of the house two years ago. He had slept in the city park of Napa for two summers. Worked on a chicken farm for a year. Said it was a really sh*tty job. That meant he had been on his own for two years. Of the three of us he was the big guy. He was in great shape.

Tao and I got up after he had been with us a couple of days and he was gone,,,with our best shirts. Luckily, .I had not unpacked the clothes that Tony had bought me. He left a note and said he would be back, That didn't happen until Jo and I were married years later.

Tao was put in a school that was a "Real Life School". In stead of all the regular stuff, this school was based on "real world experiences". In other words.....how to balance a checkbook, how to write business letters and so on.

I caught him one day skipping class. We had a talk. He said the class was boring so he skipped. it.. I asked what class it was and he said reading. So I made him read to me. He could read better than I could. The kid was bored. Oh! My! Then we talked about him going any way. He actually didn't skip any more. Wonders never cease.

He and I hung my Bose speakers from the ceiling, bought some dope from our neighbor and rocked out. This was more like it.

I still had leave time left, but I went ahead and checked in to my new assignment. For gods sake, I was assigned to an Artillery Division! The headquarters battery, of all things.....Every time a Battery went to fire in the field, we would go too. Oh! Noes!

So I was going to work everyday. We settled into a routine.

Until.......there was knock on our door one Saturday. There stood RS looking soooo beautiful and alive.

To be continued................................................................................

The Story Continues Unfortunately..................................................................


It was about 4:30 when RS knocked on the door. She gave me a big hug and said " It's so good to be back! I missed you!". Then she said "I want you to send me to Bar Tenders School. What! When hell freezes over I thought to my self. Then she grabbed Tao and said "Your Big!" "You were just a kid the last time I saw you!" He said "It's been over 6 years since you saw me!".. He then turned to me and said "Dad I going over Stan's for the night." and left. Good son.

She looked at me and said "Why are you so upset?" I just stared at her for while, then I said, "You broke my heart and shacked up with another guy...he just took over my wife, my house, and business. You don't know what I've been through!"

"All you told me was you were staying in Greece. Then you hung up on me and would never answer the phone when I called. You didn't answer not even one of my letters!"

"I was afraid to tell you what I wanted to do because you would have talked me out of it!.....I wanted to prove that I could be of value and do something on my own. I stayed because I wanted to prove I could run the business with Johnny!" She said. I thought to myself...any idiot could do that.

"Besides the guys on the basketball team looked me up and told me all about you two. He was driving my car all over place, sometime with you in the car. They told me about him living with you. They even saw you holding hands in the PX", I said.

She said "He did drive the car and sometimes drove to work in it when he had night duty.
He did stay in the guest bedroom a few nights, when we were going to pick up things for Johnny and then delivery to Johnny. We never held hands that is a lie!".

Then she started to cry and said "I should have told you truth about why I was staying,
I've been really stupid". I didn't say anything. I was seeing RS with new eyes now and I just couldn't believe she was that stupid. Crap!

I made us a snack. She asked what I had to drink. I asked if she meant booze and she said yes. I said " I don't keep booze around at all," Then I remembered I had bought some wine for when Tony came to the house. I still had it. "How about some wine?" Oh! Yes that would be fine.! She damn near drank the whole thing in no time. Oh! Boy! She was a boozer now. What next?

Finally she said "Why don't we sleep on this and talk tomorrow?". I thought to myself, why not? Things can't get any worse. I was wrong about that, they did. Well if she slept with someone else, it sure didn't show. No new tricks, just the same old RS..

To Be Continued...................................................................................

The Story Continues...............................................................................

I woke up about 10 A.M. and RS was gone......her stuff was still there...I wondered where she had gone. She came back in a few minutes......she had bought 3 bottles of scotch.
Great I thought to myself. At least she waited until after breakfast to start drinking. Guess old Mutt and her drank a lot..
She had seen my new clothes in the closet. I had unpacked them after Byron left. She said "Where did you get those clothes?" I said Malian. They have many things that went down the runway just once and they sell them at a great discounts. If you had been with me, you would look like a queen now. "Oh" she said.

Like I said before, I was seeing her with different eyes right then. Here was a 27 year old woman, soon to be 28 and she was just the same as when I married her. She was still like the girl I had married long ago. She had not grown at all mentally. Oh! Boy! That's when I realized she was in trouble. I think we were so busy and happy in those years and I never noticed it. Truthfully, back then I honestly didn't even notice. I was looking at her as a silly young thing and I loved her silliness. That's when I started to think back to how she acted that day I got busted. She had blown throwing the Hash away, because she just panicked like a young girl..

As we sat there I asked her "Why did you steal my half of the money". She looked really surprised and said "I didn't steal your money!" . I said " Oh yes you did! You took my name off of our checking account.. "Oh that! Mutt thought it would be better if we had all the money because Johnny might place a large order and if you had made a withdrawal we wouldn't have enough money. "Are you telling me Johnny was going to place an order for 23,000 dollars? She turned red and said "I never thought about that! "You sure didn't!" I said." Surely you have some of it left?". She turned bright red, then ran into the bedroom and handed me two thousand bucks. Where is the rest of it I asked?

She turned bright red and told me what happened. Mutt would take the car to the Base across town when he had 24 hour duty. He took the car and said see you in 24 hours and off he went. 24 hours passed, then 48 hours. She started to worry and called the base and asked for him. The person that answered the phone said "Didn't you know that he has had his orders for months and left for the states yesterday?" She had been taken big time! I had been taken too. I should never given her power of attorney, however I had no choice by Army regulations.. I give Mutt credit....he knew my woman better than I did. He knew she was dumb as a rock.

Of all things she looked really happy and said "Well I did make the two thousand dollars I just gave you . I made that in the 3 months that I had left with Johnny. Honestly she was really happy about that.. This was just too much, I just stared at her.

We talked a lot more.....she was drinking the whole time. My mind was reeling. What a mess. We slept together again, this time we just slept. I wanted no part of her. Tao came in and left again.

I have to admit, I believed her then.. She was just mentally not capable. Oh! My , how could I have not noticed. This was my fault too!

The next day I suggested that we go to the mental health clinic and seek counseling.
She hit the ceiling: "I will never go to counseling again .I had enough of that when I was young!". RS you need help Baby!" "No f*cking way!" she said.

"Look at what you've done!". "You broke my heart and lost all our money!" "Do you think that was normal?" She just sat there and stared and drank some more.

"I hate to do this to you, but you better go back to where you have been staying since you got back from Greece, I don't want you around me for a while" I said.. "You better drink some coffee an sober up for the drive.".." You don't mean that!" she said..

"Think about it, you have ruined our lives. You trusted a stranger more than you did me and you're a drunk too! We can see each over time and see if we really want to be together any more.".. She said" I was just trying to be capable to do some thing on my own.". All I said was "I think you have your answer." This will give you a chance to work on that some more.". As time went by I started feeling so guilty about it all, I was a mess too!

To be continued...................................................................................

The Story continues.............................


RS had been gone for three weeks and I got call from her . She was hysterical and crying.. Would I come up and see her? I would and left right then. She gave me the address to where she lived and I found it easily. I didn't have to knock, she was waiting with the door open. She grabbed me and held on for dear life.. I was wondering what was wrong. Turned out that she had gotten a job with the Napa Newspaper stuffing inserts
into the paper. They fired her after three days, she couldn't do it.

A friend got her a job in a nursery. She knew absolutely noting about plants. She lasted 4 days. Fired. . She was hired as a waitress.......lasted half a day. She kept getting the orders wrong..

Then she told me she had spent most of the two thousand I gave back to her on the house and food. (Probably for booze too I thought.). We talked for a while and went to bed. She held on to me for dear life. It hurt me to see her like that, very depressing.

In the morning we talked some more...I asked her why she just didn't live with her parents?
"They would try to brain wash me again", she said. I knew for certain they would and there would be no booze for her. Her parents loved her, but were very strict..
She said she wanted to come back home with me, I looked at her and said, "Remember you didn't want me in Greece and threw me under the bus. You didn't care, it was all about you. No you can't come back with me...How do I knew you won't do it again!
She said "But I love you!". Yep, I've heard that before too!

Then she started cussing me and I left. That was so hard to do. .I never wanted to see her cry. By the time I got home I was mess. I kept telling myself to take her back. For the next few months, I would go see her or she would drive down to my place. She did go back to her parents place and they told her what a bad person I was. They bought her a new car and told her don't worry about working. How stupid..

She would keep telling me things and how that she had changed. I started driving up to see her a lot .We would get a motel room and make out....that was about it. Most of the time she was drinking. We were going no where! I went up to see her one time and it was so bad, when I got home, I actually thought about killing myself . That scared the crap out of me, so the next morning I went to Mental Health Services on base..

I told the lady there I felt like killing myself. After about 2 hours of taking tests. She graded? them and came out and said "Your suicidal". Well no sh*t I thought to myself.
Then she said I will get you a counselor, .She came back with a young Second LT.
I thought to myself "I could probably counsel him.." I saw him for three times. Every time I saw him he would give me his card and say to me " If you get in bad place and need a friend, just call me anytime day or night".

. Another few weeks went by and after a very bad day with RS. When I got home I called my counselor. He came right over and walked in and said "At a time like this everyone needs a hug". Then he put his arms around me. And started hugging me. and then he started feeling my ass up! Right there in that moment of my greatest need, he feels me up! It hit me right then that I had forgotten that life is nothing but a practical Joke!
I started to laugh. I mean laughing....belly laughing....laughing so hard I stared to cry, knee slapping laughing... He started running around saying "Please don't tell the Army!"
That made me laugh that much harder. I took him to the door and told him that he had helped me more than he would ever know.. I felt well. A big relief had come.. I was OK!

I went to see RS one more time in a hotel room and we started to make love. Then she said "you only come to see me for sex!". I thought that over and got out of bed. Looked at her and said " You know your right and and left. She filed for our divorce, and I let her have anything she wanted. She took almost everything we had bought in Greece. That is another story coming soon..

To Be Continued................................................. ........................

The story Continues...............

I think we should close the book on RS for good.

I had for gotten she did come down to my house one more time. I still don't know why she came down. She was only there for few minutes. She looked terrible....her butt was really, really big. In fact she said " I bet you love my ass now!" ???? I just said I loved your cute little butt the way it was. She left?

When window 3 came out and was so graphical in the early 90s, her pictures were all over the Internet. Tao called me and "Dad you should see this." I went over and looked at the pictures....there she was in different hotel rooms butt naked and doing every imaginably thing you could think of with different men. The camera man changed positions all the time, so there were at least three men each time. I really felt sorry for her.

She married a guy...actually a nice guy. She called me up and said she wanted to get all the things she wanted from Greece. Fine, I gave her directions to my new house on Bel-Monte beach. She said don't have any of your whores there. Which I totally forgot.
I had a friend with benefits named Ula and she had slept over with me. We had just finished breakfast when RS arrived. She was really pissed at seeing Ula there. So be it. She also looked at the house and said still living high Huh?
She was livid and started barking at wimp. That's what I called him, because he was a wimp. I liked him a lot, she had lucked out. He kinda looked like a smaller version of me. He stood around looking apologetic. I did get to talk to him a bit and he was a nice guy. I told him to take care of her and he smiled and said "If I can." We both laughed at that. He knew what he was in for.

After they left, Ula said "You were married to her?" "You can do so much better!" I just smiled.

Years passed and I received orders for my next assignment, which was on the east coast. I drove up to Napa to say a final goodbye and to see how they were doing.

I knocked on the door and Wimp opened the door smiled and shrugged his shoulders. There was RS drunk as could be and staggering from one end of the room to the other. She looked at me and said "How do you like me now?". I didn't say anything and left. Crap!

A few years ago I tried to find them on line. All I found out was they had disappeared. RS had inherited her folks house and wimp owned the other. Tao was living in Napa at the time and I asked him to go over see if he could find them. Both houses were empty and run down from being empty. Who knows what happened to them.

To be continued......................................... ............................






.


 
And Part 3

The story part3 ....I take the army seriously

The Story Continues............................................................................................. ..

There is an old saying in the military "Mess up and move up"
Actually that's the nice version.

Well, I was guilty of a few mess ups.

The first is when I told "The Old Man". The Division Commander that that Battery Commander had called a men only meeting about the sexual harassment in which he told his men to not even talk to the girl. The Old Man relieved him of his command of the HQs Battery a week later, So much for his career.

Because of that firing he had to appoint a new Commander for the HQ Battery. Of all things he replaced him with an Administration Female Captain. OH! Noes!
You all know that I am not against women being in the military, however an admin person of any sex is not a good idea. They have never been in a combat unit and know nothing of how to run a field unit.

My Poor Ratt Rigs! Every commander that takes over a command has to pull an in-depth inspection on every part of the Battery. In other words every piece of equipment has to be field stripped, taken completely apart.

Here is where I had my first run in with her. I just told her flat out, if we do that to our Ratt Rigs none of them would work afterwards. She said in so many words that I was nuts. Very respectively I told her I would be the first at her desk to say "I told you so!"
Man did that piss her off. Strike one!
By the way I was right...not one worked......she was in disbelieve. No I didn't say it.
Sure wanted to though.

Next up Christmas time, The CO said that every one in the battery would work half a day, everyday through the Holidays. I went to see her again. Captain that's not being fair to our troops. Why not rotate them off one day and on the next.? My order stands Sgt!

OK, you know what I did, she went on leave and I let my folks off a day at a time.

When she came back she fired me! Mess up and move up! Let her worry about the Ratt Rigs.

Believe it or not they made me the NCO In Charge of the Division Education Center! Yay Wahoo!

As I was moving in the Ed Center, the Division Commander came in and shook my hand. Then he started laughing "I heard what you did!" That's when I moved you up here by me. "I needed a good NCO up here!". He wasn't kidding either. The LT that was the Education Officer was a mess. OK! I kinda ended up the Commanders NCO advisor. I helped him get rid of the worthless LT.
The worse thing the LT did was not counseling solders when they had trouble, which was part of his job. Case in point, on a late Friday afternoon a soldier came in for counseling, he looked awful, he needed help. The LT told him to come back Monday. I stopped the kid and asked if I could help and he said no only the LT could help. 2 hours later the kid killed himself. Good Bye LT.

The C.O and I worked together allot......he did me favors...and I did some for him.....like being the MC for the Army Ball. Actually that was fun.

To Be Continued.........................................................................................

The Story Continues............................

Being in the Ed Center was great. One of our main duties was getting troops to go to schools to help them make rank faster and to have better jobs. Yes, you know I looked for me too. I found one and it was right there at Ft. Ord. "Organizational Effectiveness".
The write up was kind vague..."You will be doing things that will change the Army and make it modern." Other than that a clip that said that I would clarify what each part the Army does. So much for that. That was tease enough for me. The only problem I saw was the requirement that I had to be an E-7 up to a Full Bird. I was an E-6.

I thought about that for awhile and came to the conclusion that it was worth a try.
There are always exceptions. The next day I went over and picked up my Military Records and headed to see the Commandant of the school. I got right in. He said no salute. So I stated my case and left my records for him to look over. He thanked me for my for my interest and said he would think about it.

Soon as I got back to the Ed Center, here came the Old Man. "You trying to jump ship? I just talked to John (The Commandant)". Well, yes. I said. "We will see!" he said and left.

Couple days later I was called over to the Commandant's. This time he walked around the desk and said "You are in." with a smile and a hand shake.
"By the way your C.O. Recommended you highly". I really didn't know my life was going to change so drastically.

To Be Continued.....................................................................................

The Story Continues .........................................................................

I haven't mentioned a man that I had become very good friends with. He was a Chaplin's Assistant. He did counseling and visited the all the Batteries in the Division. He was basically a very good person. He had an IQ of around 160 and it was evident by the things he did. Jo and I had just started dating on and off and we went to see him a few times at his home. He had raised his two kids by himself. You could not tell them apart! It was so bad you couldn't tell which was male or female. They looked like clones! They even had the same tone of voice. They were great kids, but strange. A boy and a girl.

He had been an E-6 for 15 years. Not much upward advancement for Chaplains Assistances. The school that I was going to had not started yet, so I was just hanging around in the Ed. Center. He stopped by and asked if I thought that the "Old Man" would let us see the new promotion list before it was released. I said let's go see.

The Commander let us see it. I really wasn't too interested.....I hadn't thought much about getting promoted. His name was not on the list, but mine was! In two days I would be an E-7!! We thanked the Commander and left. My friend was white as a sheet. He went home and went to bed. I felt terrible for him.

This was a changing point for me. First it dawned on me, I may have gotten in to my school anyway. However I think I had made a good impression doing what I did to get in.

Then I realized I was high enough in rank that when I retired I would have a pretty good retirement. That was the day I quit smoking weed. No use taking chances now.

A bit more about my friend. He started applying for different schools. He got one and learned to speak German. Then he applied for attaché duty. He went to embassy school in Washington. After that they sent him to Belgium. He made E-7 and they gave him a beautiful house in Belgium all expenses paid. He and his kids loved it.

To Be continued...................................................................................
The Story Continues................................................................................

Finally it was time to start my new school. From day one it was evident that this was no typical Army School, We had 501 students.

The Commandant welcomed us all and then he surprised us. "Gentlemen and Ladies,
there will be no rank differences!" "Everyone will go by their first names!"

That brought a rush of talking and grousing. We had from O-6's to E-7s in the course. Obviously some of the older high ranking officers were not buying into that rule.
I thought to myself "This is going to be fun". Little did I know!

The Commandant was quite for a while, letting his opening remarks be digested.

Then he looked at me and said to me "Mr. XXXXXX" please come up here with me".
I guess he remembered me because I had asked for a wavier. I thought to myself "Oh! Boy! First out of the box!"

When I was up on the stage he handed me a microphone and said "Please give me a 5 minute summary of Ducks". Say what?

Luckily I had 3 ducks when I was a kid in Arkansas, so I did five minutes on Huey, Dewy, and Louie. I was yammering on and he stopped me. He thanked me with a "Well Done!" and called the next person. This went on for the full first day and everyone had a go at it. Some were good and some were awful. That was the end of the first day.

The second day. There was 380 of us left. He had immediately cut that many students and some of the older Officers choose to go home, they were having no part of this.

This whole day was strange. We played the old "What you be?" game.

He called a few students at a time to the stage, Then he gave them a story that they had to describe what kind of animal that they would be after hearing the story.

The first story went like this:

You woke up in the morning and the sun was shinning across your bed. You dressed and went down stairs, your spouse had a wonderful smelling breakfast ready and the kids were there ready for school. Your spouse gave you big kiss and off you went. As luck would have it, you hit nothing but green lights and arrived early at work. What kind of animal would you feel like?

The answers were these animals. A frog. A bushy lazy cat. A zebra. An Owl. A happy puppy. A race horse. That was jus a few of the answers.

Then he told the next story to them.
You woke up in the morning and it was raining outside. You couldn't find you slippers, in fact, where were your shoes? You heard a commotion downstairs, so you went down to see what was happening. Breakfast was not ready and the kids were late for school. It was getting late so you got in your car and backed over one the kids bicycles. Your car had a new dent too. On the way to work some SOB pulled right in front of you and you had a screaming bout with the other driver. You didn't make one green light the whole way to work. When you did get to work, some ass had taken your parking space.

What kind of animal would you be then?

The answers were. A Python. A Skunk. A Bear. A lion. A wildcat. A porcupine. You get the idea.

The whole point was we could be different kinds of animals depending on what had happen to us that day. If this sounds meaningless, don't believe that at all. Later in the real world we used it as a tool. In change of commands, it was very important to know what the CO was. If he was an Owl in most situations and his next in command was a Lion, look out! The second in command would actually be the mover and shaker of the unit...

That folks was day two.

Day three we had 180 people left. Some just didn't get it. I remember thinking "How many are going to be left tomorrow?".

To be continued..................................................................................


Warning! The following post has some sexual content. It may offend some people!
Now, everyone will read it! Knowing you folks!


The Story Continues................................................................................

The third day of School.

They divided the 180 folks that were left into smaller groups of 20.

All throughout the course we had special speakers come in and tell us about their theories and experiences about all kinds of things. Remember this was quite a while ago and some of the subjects were just turning into actual sciences. For the time it was mostly cutting edge technologies. Unfortunately some of the things we were exposed to never went anywhere.

The first group that I was in was a class on Body Language.

I was astounded by the whole thing. At the time I had no idea of how you could read from people's bodies. We all read body language with out knowing it, it's kind of second nature to us. Obviously we all know when someone is ready to fight. Truthfully, if you know what to look for, you can tell whether a person is introverted, open, available, friendly, not friendly, having a bad day or a good one. The list is long.

Once the Speaker introduced himself and his subject, he asked if any of us had seen any men and women getting together in what would be considered a "Romantic Way" during the first two days of school.

5 hands went up, including mine. He picked a woman to answer his question.

She said that she had noticed in the very first hour that a woman and a man couldn't keep their eyes off each other. By the third hour they were sitting together. At the end of the day they left together. The second day he had his arm loosely around her. When they left for the day, she was holding his arm.

That was the couple I had seen. It turned out there was another couple in a different part of the large group that did almost the same thing.

I thought to myself "Wow! I can read body language!" Only very basically, I found out.

Actually we were using another kind of process called "Group Dynamics" with out knowing it. We had been watching the content of the meeting with some of our brain and with another part we were watching process. In other words some of our brain was listening to folks talk about ducks, owls, coffee machines and what ever their subjects were the first day. The second day the content was "good day....bad day" and the process was watching the things that were happening between people.

This process/content thing drove some folks right out of the school. For some they just couldn't get the hang of it for a long time. Try it yourself. Next time you go to Mickey D's or the Big Depot were we get allot of our supplies from.

Watch the content, a store doing business. Then look at the process of how it is getting done. I know some of you have thought to yourselves "I could run this place better than they are!". Unconsciously you were doing process and content. This was invaluable when doing Organization Effectiveness. More on that later.

Body language is very informative in all sorts of ways. Being me, I really locked in on how to tell if you were getting some where with opposite sex. He gave us an example of men trying to pick up ladies. That had us cracking up. It didn't matter if it was a church meeting or a bar, we men do some strange things. Watch the process in action. By the way women are just as bad or good, depending on your outlook.

A man usually looks for something to lean on. If he's wearing a suit, he will unbutton the jacket. Then he will put his thumbs under his belt and spread his hands out and down, making a circle around his crouch. Yep, he's pointing out the good stuff, he thinks. He might slightly flex every once in a while to show off too. If all that doesn't work, he pulls up his socks? If that fails he will try to talk to any woman he thinks was watching him. No joke.

Women on the other had will primp. They sit with crossed legs showing a bit of leg. The uncrossing and crossing of legs can be quite spectacular. Then there's the hair, they touch it allot. Sometimes giving it a great shake and puffing it up. I'm beautiful. They lean back allot too, got to get the old chest out there. You get the idea.

My favorite was the straight on approach. Just walk up and start talking to a Lady.
If she turns full face to you...keep talking and it doesn't seem to matter what you're taking about. She is not interested. If she turns half towards you, forget it, she's not interested. You could talk all day and never get anywhere.

Me personally, I like the lady's in Biloxi Mississippi. Both times I've been down there they just walk up and say "I like you" and away you go!.

My bad, I getting a bit off track here. Actually, I haven't really; we do this stuff all the time. Being able to see it, is the point. I've kind of did it this way so you can see the behaviors of people in everyday life and how important it is to read people. Jo is a natural at it. She reads people like a book at times.

If you are in a meeting and you look at people's body language, you can tell if you're getting things across or not. If the person you are talking to looks out the window occasionally, you better change your approach. There you go, content and process.

One other thing about body language. It's called being incongruent. Sure wish I had known this back when I was with RS. Sometimes she would say things and I didn't realize why I felt so funny. She was saying one thing and her body was saying something else. Now I realize why I felt funny around her sometimes. What she was saying was not what she felt. Live and learn.

To Be Continued ..................................................................................


The Story Continues..........................................................................

One of the most interesting special classes they gave us was Neurolingustics.

Neurolingustics is the study of the neural mechanisms in the human brain that control the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language. As an interdisciplinary field, Neurolingustics draws methodology and theory from fields such as neuroscience, linguistics, cognitive science, neurobiology, communication disorders, neurophysiology, and computer science. Researchers are drawn to the field from a variety of backgrounds, bringing along a variety of experimental techniques as well as widely varying theoretical perspectives. Much work in Neurolingustics is informed by models in psycholinguistics and theoretical linguistics, and is focused on investigating how the brain can implement the processes that theoretical and psycholinguistics propose are necessary in producing and comprehending language. Neurolinguists study the physiological mechanisms by which the brain processes information related to language, and evaluate linguistic and psycholinguistic theories, using aphasiology, brain imaging, electrophysiology, and computer modeling.

OK, that is the definition from Wikipedia. As you can see, it covers many different aspects of communications between individuals. The discipline has gone far beyond what we used it for. If I were young this would be something I would consider looking at in a serious way. There are even folks working on Neurolingustics as a program language for better communications between individuals. Programming minds to take in all visual, emotional, and the other activities that make communications possible.

This is much more than we used it for. It was in its infancy when we studied it.

Our main interest was reading people's facial expressions. If they are lying, making something up on the spur of the moment, remembering something they had visualized before, or just didn't know an answer.

If you asked a question that people had thought of before, they will look up. Sorry, I've forgotten most of it. It's been years since I have put it into practice. If they looked down to the right and tell you something, most likely they were lying. You get the idea. If you're interested you will have to dig through a Neurolingustics site for the answers. I believe they gone much further in this part of the science today. I'm just telling you that it works.

There are many things that you can do to your body language to get folks to talk more openly to you. If you have had training in conducting personal interviews, you are using part of this science.
Body language is very important. Sit with arms and legs not crossed......you are open and non-threatening. Sometimes mimicking a person helps too. Sit like they do, cross your legs the way they do, it makes folks trust you.

If you're in sales like Closet Farmer, knowing this information is a must. He's been successful in sales for a long time, so he has practiced this for years.

One can also pick up hints on how the person you're taking to receives information. They will actually tell you how the best way to present information to them. Listen to what they say.

If they are like me and visual, they will say things like "I can see that". "Paint me a picture of that" and so on. Obviously, show them information in a visual way. They will really understand you.

If they are tactile. "I feel what you mean" or "I can't feel it". Then give them something they can touch and hold on to.

If they are audible. Then talking is how they process information. Don't show them pictures, or give them something to hold, just talk.

By the way, listen to your boss or your spouse, they will unconsciously tell you how to really exchange information with you. Speak their language to them. You may find you will get along much better.


To be continued......................................................................
.

The Story Continues.............................................................................

Group Dynamics or Group Processing

Group dynamics is the study of groups, and also a general term for group processes. Relevant to the fields of psychology, sociology, and communication studies, a group is two or more individuals who are connected to each other by social relationships. [Forsyth, D.R. (2006) "Group Dynamics"] Because they interact and influence each other, groups develop a number of dynamic processes that separate them from a random collection of individuals. These processes include norms, roles, relations, development, need to belong, social influence, and effects on behavior. The field of group dynamics is primarily concerned with small group behavior. Groups may be classified as aggregate, primary, secondary and category groups.

In organizational development (OD), or group dynamics, the phrase "group process" refers to the understanding of the behavior of people in groups, such as task groups, that are trying to solve a problem or make a decision. An individual with expertise in 'group process, such as a trained facilitator, can assist a group in accomplishing its objective by diagnosing how well the group is functioning as a problem-solving or decision-making entity and intervening to alter the group's operating behavior.

Because people gather in groups for reasons other than task accomplishment, group process occurs in other types of groups such as personal growth groups (e.g. encounter groups, study groups, prayer groups). In such cases, an individual with expertise in group process can be helpful in the role of facilitator.

Well researched but rarely mentioned by professional group workers, is the social status of people within the group ( (i.e., senior or junior). The group leader (or facilitator) will usually have a strong influence on the group due to his or her role of shaping the group's outcomes. This influence will also be affected by the leader's sex, race, relative age, income, appearance, and personality, as well as organizational structures and many other factors.

OK. That's the official take on group Dynamics. If you are company or any body of folks that are trying to accomplish a goal or a task by doing so in a group it is a slice of group dynamics. Our groups in school were sometimes led by a Facilitator. In the next part of the story, I'll talk about them in detail. Facilitators can handle many kinds of tasks.

The way we introduced group processing was to gather a group of people to solve a problem. The very first thing we did was give a group a task to solve. Mainly the first session was an ice breaker to get the group to interact with each other.
There can be many groups working on the same problem and then talk about how each group solved the problem after it was over.

OK. We would gather a group together and had them printed paper explaining what must be done.
Actually in their first group session we handed them both a written instruction sheet and a box containing a task to accomplish.

It went something like this:

Your first task is to elect a leader. Once this is accomplished open your box and start working on the task as per the instructions inside.

The Instructions inside the box also listed what was in the box.


A pair of scissors
18 rubber bands of different sizes.
A roll of string
6 Balloons.
Scotch tape.
4 8 x10 pieces of card stock.
16 paper clips of assorted sizes
2 rubber insoles for a pair of size 9 men's shoes.
8 chopsticks
1 Fresh egg

Your task is to create something that will allow you to drop the egg from a height of 4 feet and not break the egg. You can also make secondary items out of what is left, which will give your project more value. You have one hour from now to finish this task.

The day we did this first group task, all groups that were left did the same task.

Usually two members of our staff walked in and out of the groups to observe "What and how things were getting done."

I'll stop here and let you think of what went on in the groups and how they did their tasks



To be continued...................................................................................

The Story Continues.......................................................................


The results of the first task they gave the groups.

There are some things that happen in all groups, especially with their first task.

"The Egg" was ideal for watching what happened and to see how people assumed roles.

Almost every new group has some people in them that show typical roles people assume naturally. Modern Group Dynamic pundits have really confused something that's pretty darn basic. Roles that people assume naturally are these:

Invariably there is some one who wants to be the leader.
Someone will pull out some paper and will start taking notes = The Recorder
There will be one who watches the time = the Time Keeper
Others will kind drift along and really aren't part of the group. We say they are in "Inclusion". They want to be part of the group, but feel left out. They fade away.
A good leader/team will pull them back into the group and make sure that they feel needed.

I want to talk about one particular group for a minute. It was so unique it had to be dealt with. I have worked with many groups of all kinds; this was a one and only kind of group. They could not elect a leader. After a verbal fight between two strong willed people. It was between a woman and a man.
The school gave the group 15 more minutes to elect a leader. They failed.

The school expelled them both on the spot. Neither was willing to take one for the group and defer to the other. No win-win here. You can rest assured a letter was sent to their Commanders.

They gave that group another hour to complete the task. They elected a leader immediately. They did well on the task too.

Sending that pair home was the last cut. We were on our way to graduating.
That left 160 of us and we would all graduate. We would be sent all over the world
in teams of 4. That meant there would be 40 locations that had an OE team.


Back to Group Dynamics.

Which is to say, back to process/content.

The Egg exercise was a way to break the ice in each group. Each group elected/decided on a leader. Once that was done, they could come up with ideas to save the egg.
The recorder would write it all down. Once that was done they picked the strategy that they would use and what extra items they could make. The observers watched us
work on the content = getting the egg protected. The process was how we came together as a group to succeed. If they saved the egg didn't matter at all. They just watched us as a new team. It mattered to us....big time.

After the hour was up they had all the groups meet in a large room and show them what we had come up with. Most of it was hilarious. Most broke the egg. Two groups did save the egg and were roundly applauded. Both had used the same strategy. Using the balloons as a cushion. The tie breaker came down to what extra items we had made.
One of the groups had made a paper airplane out of the card stock and rubber bands and it flew across the room.
Everyone was having a good time and they had succeeded in making each group cohesive and a team. That afternoon and for a few more days, they gave us many more tasks to complete. Each group got better and faster with each task. The last day, I remember the feeling in my group. Bring it on, we are ready and we were. Our group felt that no matter what they gave us, we could do it.

Later after working with groups in the field for a while, I was still amazed at what a group could accomplish.. .

Next up........how to facilitate groups in action.

To be Continued....................................................................................

The Story Continues..................................................................................



Facilitation

Prior to a meeting, facilitators:

Research the meeting before it happens
Find out the purpose and goal (if any) of the meeting
Establish who needs to attend
Draw up a draft agenda and design the group processes to attain the necessary results
Share the agenda with potential attendees, changing it as necessary
Ensure everyone gets fully briefed for the meeting and that everyone knows the purpose and potential consequences of the meeting
During the meeting, facilitators:
Monitor the agenda
Keep time
Manage the group process
Encourage participation from all attendees
Help participants understand different points of view
Foster solutions that incorporate diverse points of view
Manage participant behavior
Create a safe environment
Teach new thinking skills and facilitate structured thinking activities
The facilitator may write up and publish the results of the meeting to everyone concerned including those who could not attend.

The above are some of the things that Facilitators do. That's the rough outline of what we would follow, however we actually simplified it in the Army. We knew ahead of time what results we were looking for.

Let's take a real world example.

When a new Base Commander takes over a new Command, historically the Command losses almost a year of efficiency. The worse part happens at the six month period.

So we would hold a meeting to try to help the command from losing this valuable time.

When the local Marine Base here in Hawaii changed Commanders, he lasted 6 months and then was fired. We could have helped him I'm sure, it's too bad. At that level his career is essentially over. He probably was asked to retire.

Any move, no matter who you are, is a big stress time for any family. New job, new home, new schools for the children and the wife has many obligations to join and chair The Officer's Wives group. You get the idea.

As soon as we possible could, we would get the new Commander and his staff of Officers and the Command Sgt. Major into a large group. The process usually only took one day.

I loved doing these kinds of groups, we would see immediate results.

OK, the meeting!

Usually 2 facilitators worked as a team and no one was the boss.

We always had a stand holding newsprint paper........we carried them everywhere we went. Those were the staple of our business. One person would ask open ended questions of the group and the other would write all the answers on the newsprint paper.

A closed end question would be like this.......How do you like your job?
Asking something like this was a waste of time. The answers would be short and would have no real meaning.

Instead, How about this one as an open ended question?

If you could change one thing about your job, what would it be?
Believe me everyone knows an answer to that question! We would fill up pages on our newsprint paper.

The new Commander would have the option of watching the process or not.
Some only wanted to see the results. That was the option most wanted to see.

The First Session

The entire staff that was mentioned above would be there.
We would introduce ourselves and would ask the first question.

What does the new Commander need to know about this organization?

We wrote down every answer. We were not there to judge. Every answer was equal.
When we had everyone's answers, we would then ask the group to put the answers in a prioritized list. Which answers were more important?

Depending on how long this took we would either break for lunch or have the Commander come in and ask questions about the list and get more specific answers.
Sometimes we would go back in a group to get the answers to some of the more important questions. This would continue until everything was clear.

Doing this usually shorted the time the organization would be back up to speed to 4 months.

I'll be back soon to go into other things we facilitators would do as part of our jobs.

To Be Continued............................................................................

The Story Continues............................................................................... .

I think I will continue the Facilitator explanations in my next grow. That will be an explanation of all the things we did on the job, which will be lengthy.

Here is one of the nutty things we were exposed to in class.

The Development of Man

Sorry, I am doing this from memory....I did not take notes on this class. Things maybe in the wrong places. Sorry, but you will get the basic ideas.

Stage 1.......man developed and was mainly just trying to survive.

Stage 2.......man lived in scattered groups and developed basic language skills.

Stage 3.......man started to develop tools for farming. Wheels were put into use. Boats appeared.

Stage 4.......man developed weapons to fend off other groups who tried to take their food and women.

Stage 5.......Man developed basic religions. Sometime the sun or animals that were dangerous and fearful.

Stage 6......Man started living in large groups for safety. The also agreed on leaders and had formed basic ways to defend their communities. The basis of a written language was starting to form. Using basic metals they found were put into use. The first metal workers appeared

Stage 7......Man learned to plant seeds and grow their own food. They also had learned to create much better houses and places to live in. Cities started to form. Religions based on humans started to come into being. They started to develop countries and named them.
Boarders were defined. The first military units were formed.

Stage 8.......Philosophies were started and learning was deemed something that all citizens should be educated. We are still working on that one. Historians were born. Exploration of the world began. Some wanted to conquer the known world. I.E. Alexander the Great.
Europe was being populated. Traders took to the sea. Explorers roamed the known world.

Stage 9......Religious wars began. My way is right, not yours. Body counts were enormous. The Romans conquered the known world. Then England deiced to purge all other religions. More killing.

Stage 10.......The New World was found. The earth was not flat. More wars to conquer the new worlds.
Enough of this memory stuff!

Remember this was the early eighties. We had not invaded the Middle East yet.

Stage 20 Was the Hippie days and the first plea for world peace.

Stage 21 Was about what we should do for the starving and sick in Africa.

His solutions was.......Screw em! Let them die!

And that was the end of that idiot! Class over.

Note: Do you think we Humans like war?

The Story Continues .................................................. .........

The Story Continues..............................................................................

Super Learning

This was actually a very good class.

The Instructor told us he would teach us how to speak enough Italian for us to at least survive until we could learn more. I had a bit of a head start, but not much.

The first thing he did was give each of us an Italian name. I was Giuseppe the town barber. He gave us all a role to play in the little village we lived in. Others were customers, other business owners, and some were members of the village population.

He then explained that we were no longer ourselves and that all the junk in our minds about not being able to learn a language was gone. I was no longer OMM, but Giuseppe the barber.

Then he gave us a list of common words in Italian and they're meaning to study for 5 minutes. After that we spoke only Italian.

I kid you not, by lunch time we were speaking Italian only and were having a ball.
I gave quite a few haircuts and actually talked about the local soccer team to my customers.

This was Super learning. Get rid of our blocks to learning and we could learn.

I wanted this class to continue. I wanted to learn more about removing blocks that were holding us back from learning new things. Alas it was only a morning class.

This will probably be my last story in this Journal, unless I remember another special class.





 

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