November, 2018

The LATEST

“My own twisted look at my visible part of the Universe!”

Late summer in Oklahoma is usually punctuated by temperatures in the low hundreds, thousands of acres of brown grass and state-wide burn bans.  Burn ban’s mean that one cannot have an open flame of any kind where the grass can catch fire and this includes barbeque grills.  Fires in this period move at the speed of the wind, usually 10 mph or better.  The flames can be taller than telephone posts and are truly frightening to behold. This year the temperature was quite moderate and we have had rain, and a lot of it.  So far, we have had over fourteen inches in about three weeks.  Everything is green and the grass needs mowing, but the ground is too wet to allow that.

During WWII the United States had hurriedly sent three individual regiments to defend New Caledonia against a feared Japanese attack.  The Division was formed in New Caledonia, and was given the moniker, ‘The Americal Division,’ in spite of the fact that its official designation is the 23^rd Division, the name being a contraction of "American - New Caledonian Division".  In the Vietnam War, once again the Army took one brigade of troops from Fort Benning, one brigade from Panama and one brigade from Hawaii and gave it the moniker, ‘The Americal Division,’ in spite of the fact that its official designation is still the 23^rd Division.   It is rarely referred to as the 23^rd Division.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23rd_Infantry_Division_(United_States)

On 27 September of this year Fort Sill was the destination of the Americal Division Reunion, meeting in Oklahoma City.  The Museum Director was at a conference and the other staff member was on a well-earned leave.  The Field Artillery Museum was supposed to get one group at 1015 and the Fort Sill Museum the other half.  The plan was that after lunch each group would trade places.  It sounded simple and workable.  Well, friends and neighbors put 204 elderly people in four busses and trek 90 miles to the southwest and guess what they need when they arrive.  You guessed it!  And, they arrived at 0900, an hour and fifteen minutes early.  As I arrived at 0900, considerably early for the impending tour, and the busses pulled in directly behind me.  With a hiss of the air brakes, they disembarked. 

I ran inside to try to prepare the museum staff for the incoming flood.  The young man who would normally be manning the desk had an appointment and was temporarily replaced by a young girl that I had never seen before; who I assume was ‘girling’ the desk.  This turned out to be something of a fortuitous situation because as soon as the old vets and their spouses hit the door the headed directly to the restrooms, and I was able to send the girl into the Ladies Room several times to stock up on the necessary paper products to perform the mission.  They were lined up from the restrooms back to the down-ramp to the south wing, about fifty feet.  By the time we got them all through the restrooms it was somewhere around 1045.  Well, that schedule was shot in the ass! 

We loaded them back in the busses to go to a local establishment for lunch.  When they arrived, the establishment had no knowledge of their impending arrival and had no food prepared.  Arrangements were made to take them elsewhere.  This is not going well. 

In the midst of all this a Lieutenant General (three stars), two Colonels and a Major arrived for their tour.  I approached them attempting to manage that situation and was informed that the Director of Museums was going to handle this.  Looking around, I didn’t see him, but fortunately, he arrived shortly and took that one off of our hands.

Well, thankfully, that’s over with!  I have come to the conclusion that I would rather deal with small children, little germ factories that they are, than old people  .  .  .  and, I are one! 

But, Wait!  There’s more!  The whole group came back in the afternoon  .  .  .  all afternoon!  After giving them the best tour possible to such an impossibly large group I believe that this day is finally over?  OH, NO!  One gentleman came in needing some information on a particular gun.  I got that for him and as soon as I was done with him, another man entered requesting the correct color for painting the artillery piece in his home town and asked me to give him the paint!  The answer was a resounding, ”NO!  I don’t work here.  I am just a volunteer and do not have the authority to give away paint!”  Sometimes I think God just likes to mess with me!

On 1 October, the State of Oklahoma became one of the last to allow beer and wine to be sold at common retail establishments.  No longer will we have to suffer with beer of 3.2% alcohol, but now get full 6%.  Prior to this, one had to go to a liquor store to get ‘real’ beer.  Now, 3.2% beer, which I do not consider ‘beer,’ but post-mowing re-hydration fluid, has been around since the end of Prohibition.  So, I bought myself a twelve-pack of beer and a bottle of wine  .  .  .  Wal-Mart Wine.  A bottle of $2.97 Wal-Mart Wine.  I am now trying to sum up the courage to drink it!

Early in October I had a visit from Mr. Jim Bender, who is keeping the database of surviving Civil War cannon.  We toured the facilities at Fort Sill and he was amazed at what he was seeing.  It was nice have someone with whom I could ‘talk artillery’ who actually understood what I was talking about.  During our trek through all of the storage buildings I had a brief, but spirited, encounter with something.  It raised thirteen small blisters on the inner side of my left arm.  I thought little about them as they did not hurt or itch.  I even went to the doctor for my regular visit and failed to mention it as it looked like something that would eventually go away.  Since I am susceptible to any kind of poison plant; poison ivy, poison oak, etc., I figured I would itch, and then I would douse it with some decoction that would do nothing but mark the spot until it went away on its own

On 6 October, Kevin said he wanted to take me to dinner at my favorite restaurant, ‘Salas’ Mexican Cantina.’  I thought it was unusual that he wanted to go on a Saturday and in the evening, but, hey!  . . . Salas’ is Salas.’  So, dutiful Dad that I am, I rounded up Darling Companion and headed out.  As I walked into the place, it was crowded, but I could see Kevin waving at me from a dining area behind the bar.  We never sit there.  I took the ramp up to the dining area and discovered I had walked into an ambush.  Sitting there with Kevin, and his wife, Chris, were all of my siblings and their spouses! ! !  Apparently, they had been planning this for months and, I must say, pulled it off flawlessly.  The event was the celebration of my 70^th birthday.

We had a great time, and a great meal!  We retired back to their hotel and garnered a room near the lobby to visit.  Ironically, someone produced sufficient quantities of real beer to make the event even more enjoyable.  The next day, Sunday, we rounded them all up and went to Mass in Marlow so my family could meet our friends and our friends could meet our family.  After Mass we went to breakfast at my favorite greasy spoon, Mimi’s Daybreak Diner, the place with leopard-skin pattern carpet.  After breakfast we retired to our humble abode to play guitar and sing.  Had I known they were coming I would have gotten more, and better, instruments, but then that would have spoiled the surprise. 

 Yours truly at the left with Darling Companion behind; Pauline with her husband, Karl Banquer, behind, Kathryn (Kat) with husband, Paul Moreau, behind, Stephen with wife, Carol, behind.

The following day we went to the Museum of the Great Plains where the school teachers in the group were thoroughly enthralled.  My precious little brother, Stephen and his wife, Carol, had to leave on Monday, so they went to the airport to depart.  Well, due to inclement weather at other places there were mix-ups in flight schedules, so I went to the airport and retrieved them and they were able to enjoy at least part of the day in the museum.  Later that afternoon I took them back to make their flight.   Due to all the delays they were able to get home about 2000 that night.

Brothers-in-law Paul, Karl and I toured Fort Sill.  Karl had been a lieutenant in the Marine Corps and trained at Fort Sill, so he was somewhat familiar with the area.  We visited firing points, toured Medicine Bluffs, the post proper and visited Geronimo in his cemetery.  I used to mow his grass.  Due to the Columbus Day holiday, the museums on Fort Sill were closed and there was no artillery firing on the ranges.  All in All, other than the weather delaying flights, it was a great time.  I still cannot believe I walked into an ambush! ! !

When I woke that Tuesday morning, the skin at the little blisters in the bite area was black!  It has small marks that looked like a point-down equilateral triangle.  The doctor took a brief look at it and said, “brown recluse.”  He didn’t seem to think that my rapidly decaying body was in a great deal of danger.  He prescribed an antibiotic and told me to take an antihistamine.  The blasted thing had bitten me thirteen times up and down my arm.

After going to the doctor for the spider bite, obtaining the appropriate meds, I planned on staying home and resting, and letting this now extremely painful wound heal.  Darling Companion took off to run errands and to have lunch with her niece.  I was left me to my own devices.  Not feeling terribly well with nausea, fever and a very painful arm, I went to the pantry in the garage to get a can of soup.  I selected an appropriate foodstuff for my lunch and when I returned to the house, THE DOOR WAS LOCKED! ! ! 

I was in a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, and had no keys.  My cellphone was also safely ensconced in the house.  Well, what is a spider bite victim to do?  Fortunately, I had a pegboard with some tools hanging in the garage and was able, by the hardest, to get the door hinge pins pulled and the door removed.  This still wasn’t easy, as the lockset was still securely fastened on the other side and my arm hurt.  After getting the door removed, imagine my surprise to find the lockset in the ‘open’ position!  I disassembled the thing, bathed it liberally with WD-40 and re-assembled it.  It seems to be working quite well now, but I am not inclined to trust it at this point.  To add insult to injure, one of the hinges bit the corner off of my left index finger and that bad boy hurt.  I was going to post pictures of my spider-bitten arm, but after seeing them I decided not to.

Our priest has organized a large Christmas Bazaar every year since his arrival.  People make Christmas-themed crafts and they are sold the second to last week in November.  Last year I made a number of leather cases and pouches that were not terribly well received, they were, however not Christmas-themed.  Darling Companion has been framing art and brooches and has had surprisingly good sales.  Some things were sold before they were put out to the public by the priest, who incidentally used to be a salesman and can sell rosaries to Jews. 

  

Figure 1:  Christmas Angels

This year, she has been making ‘Christmas Kitchen Angels’ from hand towels and other assorted stuff.  She has been wrapping candy bars in little envelopes that look like Santa and wrapping little bottles of hand sanitizer in Santa envelopes as ‘Hand Santa-tizer.’ She has her own little Bangladesh going in her craft room and spare bedroom.  The little kitchen angels are taking over the house.  If I recall correctly, she has made twenty that will be included in wine baskets and about that many more for individual sale.  The priest plans on decorating a large Christmas tree with them!

  

Figure 2:  A Christmas Angel on the right. 

I don't know what that thing on the left is, but, it is for sale.

Sourdough bread has been made for about 10,000 years or since the inception of agriculture, and I have an inordinate fondness for Sourdough bread.  I have made it for several years, but for some reason lately I am not able to get it to work.  The recipe for the ‘starter’ is simple, using a half cup of flour and a half cup of water, whip up a mixture that is similar to pancake batter.  Expose it to the air so that the wild yeasts can gain a foothold.  In a couple of days when you have enough starter, make bread in the normal fashion, reserving enough starter for the next batch.  Well, for the last year or so I have not been able to get a batch to ’start.’  I use the same recipes, utensils, flour and water, but alas, to no avail.  I bought a batch of commercial starter and it seems to be working, although, I still don’t have enough to start baking yet.  I just have trouble believing that my house is so clean that yeast can’t live!

I thank everyone for the Facebook birthday greetings and all of the cards I received for my 70^th birthday.  As A small child my health was somewhat fragile and I had pneumonia about six times before I was five years old.  My Dad always maintained that had it not been for penicillin I would have expired before my first year.  That being brought up, how long do you keep birthday cards, what is the statute of limitations on those things?  Also, what is the time limit on those pictures you get at funerals and have no idea what to do with after the deceased in interred?

Well, friends and neighbors, that concludes this month’s edition of “The LATEST.”

Until next time, I am the ex-patriot Creole,

Lynden T. Couvillion

Scribe

Monday, 3 September

The LATEST

“My own twisted look at my visible part of the world!”

Most people have graduated high school with a mixture of relief that is it is finally over, and fear and anxiety for their future.  I graduated over fifty years ago, and, although the rumors are common, there is no basis in fact for the legend that it took a SWAT team to get me out of there.  I didn’t like school the first day, I didn’t like the last day, and I didn’t like any of the days in between.  I don’t know why people have so much trouble understanding that. 

The school, from which I graduated, Simmesport High School, closed in the 1987, and the students currently enrolled were transferred to a consolidated high school in Moreauville, ten miles to the north.  Back in February of this year, Mr. Kirk Guidry, the last principal of the school, proposed a reunion of all of the graduates, teachers, workers, etc.  Included was anyone who attended, which brought in those who went for a time and transferred elsewhere, or that went to Moreauville to finish high school.  Along with Mrs. Patra Coco, Mr. Guidry planned and executed what was billed as the Simmesport High School Mega-Reunion.  It was held on 4 August of 2018, more or less thirty years after the closure of the school.  This was one of the most well organized and executed events of this type that I have ever seen.  There were over 600 attendees!  Of my class, that of 1966, there were nine of us.  There were so many people that I didn’t get a chance to greet everyone I wanted to.  This is an interview with the organizers:  http://www.kalb.com/video?vid=489525181

The reunion:  https://www.facebook.com/search/str/simmesport+mega+reunion/keywords_search 

We were a class of 28.  Nine of my class, that of 1966: 

https://scontent-dfw5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/38494755_1970194893062943_2841799707359969280_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=0f053499eedacb18c9e7840a0c344d1d&oe=5C2A0F07

As I write this my truck has 199,996 miles on it.  Darling companion did not think it would make it to Simmesport from Central High, so we rented a car, a Hyundai Santa Fe, and I have to say I was pleased with it.  I drove in on Friday of that the week of the reunion and met my brother Stephen and his wife, Carol, their daughter Aimee, her husband, Sam, and their children Jerrod and Sarah, at a restaurant in Bunkie designated ‘Rocky’s Tails and Shells Dugout Grill.’  I had an exceptional crawfish etouffée.  There was on the menu, although I didn’t attempt it, a crawfish etouffée dish consisting of a layer of fried crawfish topped with a layer of rice topped with a generous serving of etouffée.  The smell of the food in that place is not to be described, but to be experienced.  It was excellent.

During my visit I stayed in Plauchéville with Stephen and Carol.   During my visit, and the following week, Carol was also hosting all but two of their grand-kids, eight of them!  They slept on a thick rug in the living room and I would have thought that it was be bedlam and pandemonium, but they were surprisingly well behaved.  I suspect that Grandma runs a pretty tight ship.  One of the older children, Bella, who I think is 11 years old, surprised us with her ability to play the guitar, which she has been studying for only several months.  She was actually showing Stephen and I chords we had never seen after playing for many decades.  Jerrod, the only little bull in the herd, wanted a blue guitar for Christmas, so last year Stephen got him a blue guitar, a really blue guitar.  While we were playing Jerrod was banging away on his guitar to the best of his four-year-old ability.  Stephen tried to show him how to make a chord, and he state unequivocally, “Papa, I know how to do this!”  While maybe it was technically ‘music,’ but there was tremendous  confidence.

When the kids went outside they donned their shoes, and when they reentered the house the abandoned them near the back door.

On Sunday, Stephen, Jerrod and I made an effort to find the Civil War Fort De Russy near Marksville.  We followed the GPS directions while Jerrod did his best Bart Simpson by asking, “Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?”  When we finally found it, it was discovered that it was closed on Sundays!  Ironically there are five Fort De Russys, including the one in Louisiana and one in Hawaii, on the beach in Honolulu, that were named for brothers.  Failing to gain entry to Fort De Russy we began to search for sustenance, unfortunately, all of the Creole restaurants in Marksville were closed, so we took victuals in a Lebanese restaurant in Marksville.  Who knew?  The food was good.  I didn’t have a clue what it was, but it was good.

While there I visited my cousin, Carole and her husband Donnel, who goes by the soubriquet, Dink, on Crockett Bayou.  Dink had knee surgery and within an hour of his surgery had a heart attack!  That is some scary stuff.  He is doing much better now.

We moved into this house in 2007 and things are starting to wear out.  The 4-foot florescent light in the laundry room passed away, so rather than purchase a ballast, I purchased an 4-foot LED (light-emitting diode) light, the most advance product in home lighting fixtures, for almost the same price as a ballast.  I installed it in that little room and its brilliance almost ran me out of the room.  DC grumbled about it, but as long as she wears sunglasses she should be alright.  Well, the 4-foot florescent light in the walk-in closet in our bedroom went out shortly thereafter.  Forewarned this time, DC insisted that I install a shorter LED fixture in that space.  I obtained a 2-foot fixture and installed it.  Before I installed the diffuser, and when I was reasonably sure that I was not going to burn down the house, I called DC and asked her to try it.  Well, friends and neighbors, without the diffuser even that little feller is bright, really bright!  I then, with an angry wife and blue spots dancing around in my eyes, I installed the diffuser and it made a remarkable difference.  They are supposed to last ten years.  I am anxious to see what new technology will have replaced LEDs by the time I have to change the next one.

Several months back I had surgery on my hand for what is known as ‘trigger finger.’  I asked Dr. Funderburk, the surgeon, what caused this and he responded with “A lifetime of abuse.”  Well, I am certainly guilty of that.  It is still stiff and sore, but everything works now.  I am even playing my guitar again.  The good surgeon officially released me from his care.

Last year I read an article on something entitled, ‘Swedish Death Cleaning.’  It is not as morbid as it sounds.  The whole premise of this dark and gloomy title is that, in spite of our best efforts, we are all hurtling towards our own demise.  We should get important family heirlooms, documents, expensive items, and the memorabilia, that was collected for a lifetime, sorted out and placed into the hands of those who can appreciate and enjoy them.  The idea is to not burden grieving family members to dispose of your treasures, as they have no knowledge of the history or the value of the items, and will sell them all at a garage sale, donate them to Goodwill or pitch them in the trash.  Since I am approaching the age of 70, I have been giving this some serious consideration.

Toward that end I have donated my Vietnam uniform, which I certainly could never going to fit in, much less wear again, to the Field Artillery Museum, along with a number of uniform items, Vietnamese money, and my trusty, rusty P-38 C-ration can opener.  I had fabricated a rather large device resembling a safety pin, out of brazing rod to carry my church key to open beer and my P-38 to open C-rations.  I carried this on by belt so that they would be readily available in the unlikely event that they would be needed.  It occurred to me that those things were probably exposed to any and every germ, bacteria and virus available in South-East Asia and I used them to open consumables!  I sometimes marvel at the fact that I got as old as I did.

My cousin, Aline, reminded me that I owe her another story from our family, so here it is.  Back at the beginning of the 20th Century, Central Louisiana roads were nothing to brag about, indeed, other than I-49, they are still not terribly reliable.  Jules Dufour, known universally as ‘Sweet Papa’ in our family, was a partner in a very small double-ended steamboat known as ‘The Minnow,’ no, not that ‘Minnow.’  The Minnow,’ was double-ended so that it could navigate the narrow waterways without having to turn around.  The little boat was, when the roads were not passable due to rain and flooding, a lifeline to the outside world.  Sweet Papa and his partner, whose name was lost to the mists of time, delivered foodstuffs, hardware, dry goods, farm equipment, passengers and so forth, when travel was impossible by terrestrial means. 

Now, it seems that a customer ordered a wood-burning, cast-iron stove that was supposed to be delivered by ‘The Minnow.’  It was duly loaded and ‘The Minnow’ made its way up the rivers and bayous loading and unloading cargo as was its mission.  Now, these wood-burning, cast-iron stoves were shipped knocked-down and crated, weighed in north of four hundred pounds, and were not easily handled.  They also cost about $100, or about four months income for the average farm family at that time. Upon arrival at the dock of the customer, they attempted to unload the cast-iron stove.  As their burden was eased up to the dock, ‘The Minnow’ moved!  As the stove was being lifted the gap between the dock and ’The Minnow’ widened and eventually gravity overtook the limits of human muscle-power and the wood-burning, cast-iron stove plummeted to the mud in the depths of the bayou!  What is a cargo carrier to do?  The contract said that the wood-burning, cast-iron stove was to be ‘delivered,’ and the customer pointed out the fact that its resting place at the bottom of the bayou was not considered ‘delivered.’  Sweet Papa and his partner had to hire people to retrieve that wood-burning, cast-iron stove from its semi-liquid resting place and place it on the dock completing the ’delivery.’  History does not record the verbiage used, but I have a feeling that it was somewhat vulgar French.

Very few people are aware that I am very sensitive to smells, especially strong ones.  Whenever Darling Companion and I are cruising the antique shops, some of which reek of potpourri, she will turn to me and whisper, ‘Potporri Alert!’  That way I don’t enter and get a nose full of extremely strong odor and the resultant headache. 

As some of you are aware of, I work the elections at Central High for the Stephens County Election Board.  On 28 August we worked a run-off election in preparation for the November election for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General and a host of candidates for local elections.  During this last election a very nice lady came in to vote.  After voting she handed Janice, one of the other workers a small sample plastic bag of some sort of smellum’ crystals she was selling.  It seems that one is supposed to put an as yet undetermined amount of these crystals in the washing machine to freshen the laundry.  The smell was overwhelming!  As soon as the nice lady left, Janice pushed the bag towards me and said, ”I am very sensitive to smells!  Go put this in the back of your truck.  DON’T PUT IT IN THE FRONT!”   Well, I did, and now my hands smell like that stuff!  I finally got it washed down to a manageable level.  When I went to return the voting equipment and ballots to the Election Board the odor had not diminished one wit, the County prisoners that unload the stuff, and the deputy supervising them, asked about the smell and I pointed to the little plastic sack.  I told them, “Whatever you do, don’t touch that or you will smell like that all night!”  They dutifully avoided it!  I brought it home and put it in the garage for several days to prank Darling Companion and she never smelled it!  It is now in my shop making the place smell  .  .  .  like what I can’t tell, but it now smells really good!  I have a mental picture of the rats and mice holding their little black noses and asking each other, “What the Hell is that smell?!?”

On Thursday, 30 August, 2018, I went to the museum at Fort Sill to teach a class.  The Interstate in Lawton runs roughly north & south.  In the south-bound lane, a mile south of Fort Sill there is an exit to the right for traveling west on Cache Road, a major thoroughfare.  A hundred yards south of that is the exit for 2nd Street, it goes straight, and the Interstate diverges slightly to the left.  These exits are very easy to utilize and are not in the least bit confusing. 

There is construction on the Roger’s Lane exit a mile to the north.  In the middle of the Interstate, even with the Cache Road exit, is a gravel cross-over to allow the trucks and machinery from the construction project to cross the Interstate. 

As I am driving north-bound on the Interstate, there suddenly appears a huge cloud of dust in the turn-around.  It appears that Maw Maw was drifting the old Honda in the cross-over and she appeared out the cloud of dust right next to me.  She was going south-bound in the north-bound lane!  I was barely on time for my class, so I didn’t have time to go back and see the results of Maw Maw’s actions.  It scared the crap out of me!  There was nothing on the news, so I assume she rerouted herself and made it.

Kevin’s wife, Chris, enjoys fishing as much as Kevin and I do, and she is quite skilled at it.  They actually go fishing a great deal more than I do.  These are our best catches during recent excursions to Taylor Lake.

    

                 

At the left is Kevin and his best fish, I am in the center with a nice crappie, sac-a-lait to the Francophones, and at the right is Chris’ fish.  It is easy to catch the big ones that bite, but try catching a two-inch fish on a three–inch jig!  Now, that takes skill.

Until next time, I am the ex-patriot Creole,

Lynden T. Couvillion

Scribe

The LATEST

The LATEST

“My own twisted look at my visible part of the world!”

Well, after a couple of cups of Community coffee this morning, the creative juices have started flowing for some incomprehensible reason.   At least I hope it is creative juices and not something else, so here goes.

I was awakened at 0600 this morning to the sound of thunder.  I got out of bed like a kid on Christmas morning and ran to see if it was raining, and sure enough, it was.  It rained for about fifteen minutes and then QUIT!  So, now my grass will still be tan, instead of green, and the humidity will be on the level of a small, be-jungled Central American country.  Why can’t the grass just suck the moisture out of the air and solve two problems?

The word ‘politics’ has been described as being derived from the Greek word ’poli,’ which means ‘many,’ and ‘ticks,’ which are described as ‘blood-sucking vermin.’  I recently sat down in my chair after an exhausting day running a weed-eater, and I discovered a tick crawling across my leg.  While they were somewhat common in Alabama, they are somewhat uncommon here.  This is the first one I have seen in ten years.  They are very thick in Alabama due to the contiguity of all of the pine forests that are native to that region.  About twenty miles east of where we lived in Golden Springs there was purportedly a nudist camp.  I am told most images of nudist, or ‘naturalists,’ as they are sometimes called, are beautiful people in sandals, sunglasses, hats and little else playing volleyball.  I cannot for the life of me, however, remove the image from my head of a bunch of nudists squatting around picking the ticks off of each other like monkeys pick off the lice!  

I recently completed a phone holster for a friend and was very pleased with the outcome.  I would like to make more, but there exist so many different sizes and shapes of the blasted phones that I cannot possibly afford the clicker dies, that it would take to make them.  Clicker dies are something like heavy-duty cookie cutters for making repetitive cuts in leather, paper, cardstock, gasket material, etc.  A proper clicker die, which cuts out the shape and punches the holes in the leather, costs about $450 each, and I would need a dozen of them.  I would have to make a lot of phone holsters to pay for that.  Still in all, I think it turned out well.

I have been fishing several times this year and have caught nothing!  It seems that it is either too hot, too cold, raining, windy, or whatever excuse the fish are using to not bite.  The closest I came to catching anything was a three-inch shad attacking a three-inch shad plastic lure.  I got him out of the water, but he escaped!  I need a boat, but Darling Companion takes a dim view of the idea.  We’ll see!

I have discovered that with the Internet I have become somewhat popular overseas.  I am currently corresponding with an individual from Germany who is fabricating WWI U.S. Artillery harness for his own use!  He plans on making and pulling a fake ‘French 75.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_de_75_mod%C3%A8le_1897 .  Fortunately, over the years I have collected a lot of this data from generous individuals at little or no costs, so I am passing it on at that same rate.  I have been also assisting an individual from Eastern France in translating his work on artillery into English.  Between his knowledge of English, my knowledge of French, and Google Translate, we are getting the job done.  The latest one we have done is the ‘15cm s.FH 13/1 (Sf) auf Geschützwagen Lorraine Schlepper (f),’ which translates into English as the ‘150mm Heavy Field Howitzer Model 13/1 (Self-Propelled Carriage) on Gun Vehicle the Lorraine Carrier (French).’  Leave it to the Germans to not make it easy.  Unfortunately, my German is not as good as my French.  This is a 15cm Howitzer, Model of 1913, mounted on a captured French Lorraine cargo carrier and used by the Germans in WWII.  These will be released on some format, possibly CDs, in the foreseeable future.

Do you know what a ‘bezel’ is?  For the purposes of this discussion it is the plastic thing that holds the bulb and the lens of the right side-marker light on a 2004 Toyota Tacoma PreRunner.  Last Thursday I had to sit and wait on contractors fixing the threshold on our front door, so I had Darling Companion pick up a couple of the very small lightbulbs for the side-markers on my truck.  I got on YouTube and found a video on how to change the pencil-sized bulbs.  Open the hood, take out one screw, pull the bezel forward, remove the burned out bulb and replace it with a new one, rinse and repeat.  What could be simpler?  I decided to change both bulbs since they were both fourteen years old.  Well, the bezels on the YouTube video apparently had been taken out regularly and weren’t on a truck that had not had the bulbs changed in fourteen years and 198,000 miles.  The left bezel was changed with little or no trouble or effort, but typically with my record of success in all things, the right one decided to be difficult.  First of all, there is a little tab for that the screw secures to the truck.  This little tab fits over a small ridge and has to be lifted up a sixteenth of an inch to remove it.  On the right one I did that and broke the little tab with practically no effort.  Okay, this is bad, but not a catastrophic failure as there are two more spring-loaded locking tabs that hold the bezel in, but in the immortal words of Inspector Clouseau, “Not anymore!”  As I pulled forward as instructed in the video I broke one of the other tabs!  Well, after changing the miniscule light source, I replaced the bezel, hoping against hope that it would hold until I found one for sale or in a junk yard.  Friday, I went to Fort Sill to give a 3-1/2 hour class to Basic Trainees.  On the way home in heavy traffic I feel something hit the right rear wheel on my truck followed by the sound of crushing plastic.  Well, there goes the bezel, sometimes that is how the cookie, or in this case the bezel, crumbles.  Imagine my surprise when I got home and the bezel was still attached swinging wildly by its wires!  I re-attached it with that red-neck fix-all  .  .  .   duct tape!  Now the question remains, “What did I hit?”

I have been teaching classes for Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Fort Sill for several years.  They consist of the 13B Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) the ones that actually load and fire the guns.  These are the strong ones. The 13J MOS, the guys, and now girls, who do all the calculations to fire the howitzers.  They must calculate deflection (direction), quadrant (angle), range, determine which round to use, which fuze and fuze setting to use, and which powder charge, of which there are usually seven.  In this they must also calculate the powder temperature, air temperature, humidity, any winds in the upper atmosphere and even the Coriolis Effect, which is the distance the earth rotates while the projectiles are in the air.  Needless to say, these are the smart ones.  The 13F MOS are the brave ones who go out with the Infantry or Armor units and actually see the target and call in fire and adjust it.  I like all of these and the kids really seem to respond to the classes.  I am not so enthusiastic about the 13M MOS, the rocket jockeys and the 13R MOS who handle the radars.  I don’t know a lot about their topic and they tend to look down their noses at the rest.

I am inordinately fond of and have read extensively on Neanderthals.  They are our closest human relatives and they disappeared after populating North Africa, the Middle East, Europe and East Asia about 250,000 years.  They made their departure shortly after our ancestors arrived 25,000 years ago, so one has to wonder if there was any connection.  Most people of European, Middle Eastern, North African and Asian decent have from 1% to 4% Neanderthal ancestry.  Neanderthals were short, powerfully built, had no chins and their foreheads sloped back radically.  Their faces sloped backwards with the nose in front and the forehead and chin sloping backwards.  They lived in the coldest, most brutal climate nature has ever inflicted on humankind and they thrived there for 250,000 years.  They have been called knuckle-draggers, caveman, slope-heads, ape-man and any number of other derisive and scornful soubriquets. 

One day we had a class of about sixty 13B’s and divided them up between three instructors.  I gathered my group and moved them to the starting point, I noticed one guy in the front with no chin, sloping forehead, short and powerfully built physique and large brow ridges, all the physical characteristics of a classic Neanderthal.  I thought to myself, “Self, that’s not right!  I shouldn’t think that about someone I have never even met.”  Well, the class starts and Mr. Neanderthal is bright and intelligent, very interested, asked lots of questions, made some interesting observations and even laughed at my futile attempts of humor!  So, my opinion of him, even if he did look a lot like a caveman, bolstered my positive opinion of Neanderthals.  When the class was over and the troops had departed, the instructors were gathered in preparation for their own departure.  One of them asked, “Who had the Neanderthal?”  Okay!  I wasn’t the only one that noticed that.  Still, Mr. Neanderthal made a very good impression on me and appeared to have the makings of a good soldier.  Looks can be deceiving.

We have also started to do programs for Basic Trainees.  Since these can become almost any MOS, there seems to be a lot of medics, MPs and dog handlers, spooks (Military Intelligence), in addition to a few artillerymen.  Since they can be any MOS they get a general history of the U.S. Army and not the Artillery-specific one the Artillery trainees get.  We have several stations starting at the Revolutionary War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II.  There are also two scavenger hunts where teams of trainees roam around specific galleries of the museum looking for facts and documenting them on the sheets provided.  There are seven groups in all and they rotate on about twenty-five minute intervals. These classes are given using some real artifacts from the various wars, and reproductions of the more delicate and difficult to obtain items.  Instructors are attired in reproduction period uniforms.  The Rev War and Civil War guys even take them outside and fire blanks from reproduction flintlock and percussion muskets.

My station is WWI and I portray what is apparently the oldest private in the U.S. Army in that conflict!  

I wear a wool uniform that feels like two wool blankets that are lined with 60-grit sandpaper.  The standing collar is a real pleasure, as it abrades the neck, but the wrap leggings, or puttees are even more fun.  The puttees are about fifteen feet long and four inches wide and are made of wool.  It takes several minutes to don them by laboriously wrapping them around each leg, and if that is not done correctly, they come loose and become a trip hazard.  If done correctly they are miserably hot.  Fortunately, my station has an air conditioner register in the floor or I couldn’t make it through the entire three and a half hours.  The WWI Brody helmet looks cool, but is equally uncomfortable as it wobbles around almost uncontrollably on one’s head.  I like handing the students a .30 Cal Rifle, Model of 1903 Springfield with its attached M1905 bayonet.  It is about twice as heavy as what they are accustomed to.  Like the Artillery trainees, the kids seem to like the program, if nothing else for the fact that they are inside under chilled air, not crawling through the dirt and no one is yelling at them  .  .  .  well, I yell at them when they don’t move fast enough or go to sleep.  I find, however, that the modern drill sergeant does not yell nearly as much as the 1960’s version did.  Ours could all pass for Gunnery Sergeant R. Lee Ermey.

One of Darling Companion’s friends once asked me if I wouldn’t want a kitten in the house, to which I responded “I don’t like kids in the house!”  I like dogs, because the love and respect you.  I dislike cats mostly because they only think of you as ‘staff!’  Neither, however, contributes to the cleanliness of the domicile, in fact, both tend to contribute to the disorder.  Since my Darling Companion suffers from severe back problems and Kevin, that little heathen, got married and moved out, I am left to perform all of the housekeeping functions myself.  I have a year-long “First of the Month” list so that I don’t forget anything, like winding the wall clock, changing the furnace filters, and such!  I faithfully follow it so I don’t forget anything. 

Well, for Father’s Day Kevin and DC purchased for me a ‘Roomba,” sort of a self-propelled, self-parking vacuum cleaner.  It does a remarkably good job, especially under the beds, which I have not cleaned under for a couple of years, and are the domicile of dust bunnies the size of tom cats!  It requires some preparation before it can be set free to do its duty, but that is minimal.  Sometimes I have to set up barriers of chairs laid on their sides to prevent it from attempting to clean too big an area.  I do this on Sunday morning because it makes an ungodly racket around the dining room table by smacking into the chairs and clacking across the ceramic tiles.  Since it isn’t Catholic, I am not concerned with it working on Sunday.  DC submits that it is like leaving a toddler alone for several unsupervised hours.  Since it is such a hard-working addition to the family, I have decided that it is officially my “dog.”  I named it “Fideaux.”

This month’s song is entitled, “The Balls of O’Leary,” and if you have a problem with blue humor, you may not want to listen.  However, knowing my readers mentality, I cannot help but think all of you will open it.  I enclose two versions for the more discriminating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV8A9Mwrqco

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5rPMx1sTnk

Well, that about wraps it up.  I leave you with this thought, “The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some interesting ideas!”

Until next time, I am the ex-patriot Creole, 

Lynden T. Couvillion

Scribe

Pack School

Pack School

Fort Sill, Oklahoma, circa 1935

The following are electrostatic copies of unknown origin of photographs of the Pack School at Fort Sill, OK, in the 1930’s.

The road to the right in the photograph is Geronimo Road, which runs generally north-south.  It intersects with McComb Road at the bottom right.  The buildings in the lower right, one with a dark roof and one with a light roof and six windows are the Pack School buildings.  The building with the dark roof has since been demolished. 

The long narrow buildings in the center, they are actually of blue-gray stone with white composition shingle roofs, are also part of the Pack School. The building in the upper left with the evenly spaced chimneys and sets of three windows is the Farrier’s School.  The next series of six buildings below the Farrier School are the stables for the Pack School. 

The small building at left, with the truck parked next to it, is the Pack Artillery School.  The ‘Artillery’ part of Pack Artillery differs little from regular Field Artillery.  Its transportation differs radically.

In the extreme upper right corner of this image are the original Cavalry Barracks and behind them the Laundresses Quarters and the Sinks (toilets.)  The circular feature in the upper left, beneath the hand-written word ‘Moore,’ is the remains of one of the original fortifications, a five-sided trench system that had a 12-PDR Mountain Howitzer in the center.

One 75mm Pack Howitzer, M1, packed on six mules with the howitzer crew following.  This is just the animals that carried the howitzer.  There were sixteen mules to a section; the Chief of Section rode the spare mule.  Each section, Headquarters, Commo, Ammo, Anti-Aircraft, Mess Section, etc., had its own set of horses and mules, about 200 to a firing battery.  Service Battery, which had the Ammunition Section, had about 400 horses and mules.  This image was taken between the southernmost stable and the Pack Artillery School.

I am not sure which building this is, but there is a forge and anvil to the left, and a dismantled escort wagon in the background.  Note the stove, a ‘Cannon Heater,’ in the background.

Saddler’s School.  I am not sure which building this is, but it may be the one in the lower right foreground.  I really want that sewing machine.

This last image is of the Farrier’s School.  It is the long white building in the upper left in the first photograph with the evenly spaced chimneys and sets of three windows.

Most of these buildings are still in use as offices and the paddocks are now a parking lot. 

Note the stove, the ubiquitous ‘Cannon Heater,’ in the foreground.  These were still in use in range shacks when I was in service in the 1970’s.  They may still be.