Lord help me if this one doesn’t bring back memories.
|
|||||
Hot Mic
Bloggers in Arms
BlogrollContinuous WavePaid to BlogReciprocating EnginesSmarter'n MeWingmen
OmakaseAmazon Search |
51 comments to Liberty Bars |
Targets of Opportunityblog advertising is good for you Credo"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones "Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra" "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche "A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier "Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas "Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex Amazon AssociateFor the Effort!Winnar! Subscribe CategoriesPagesTagsacademy
afghanistan
Araby
Blogging
buffoonery
culture
Defense Industry
economy
Flying
Friday Musings
geopol
Gratuitous slap
GWOT
Headlines
health care
History
iran
iraq
issues
libya
Media
Memory Lane
Military
Navy
norks
Oz
pakistan
piracy
politicians
politics
Politics and Culture
prc
pundits
science
sea stories
silliness
Small Stuff
SoCal
Tech Lust
technology
UAVs
UK
usaf
usmc
weapons
|
|||
|
Copyright © 2012 Neptunus Lex - All Rights Reserved |
|||||
Darned if he hasn’t got that description down to a “T”…..
I miss those days. I miss the shipmates, and the blind trust, the absolute faith we all had in each other. We’d share our last dollar to help get someone back from town. We had each other’s backs against the Marines, and the Marine’s backs against the Army and AF.
Best years of my life, young, and immortal, and an education I’d put up against any Ivy League degree.
Troops used to take me to places just like this in the Ocean View area of Norfolk back in the 70s. For some reason, I could never remember the name of the bar after a few hours of trying to keep up with the troops. BTW, the same delectable delights, such a pickled pigs feet and eggs, could be found in any neighborhood bar in New Orleans when i was growing up. Plus, you could usually get Hogshead Cheese which was a perfect compliment to a ice cold Dixie 45.
Oh.My.Gawd. An ice cold Dixie, what I’d give for one now. That, and a half a bushel of oysters
Never knew you were from the Big Sleazy, Boss.
Byron, I lived in the 200 block of N. Scott St. and I think your grandma lived on S. Cortez. We were almost neighbors.
(smacks head) Yeah, we already had this discussion. One day, maybe we can have an oyster loaf at Mandinas
Byron, we’ll have the oyster loaf for starters. Kind of like an appertiser. After which, we shall have dinner. Perhaps a Shapire on the rocks to lubricate things.
Byron;
What was the name of that bar at the intersection of Mayport Road and Atlantic (Right by the overpass) from over 20 years ago? They had 30 cent drafts… across from a package store.
It wasn’t “Voo-Swar”, that was a couple hundred yards away.
All I remember most about Jax was “San Juan Liquors” on Atlantic Boulevard, I believe. Well, that and Jax Liquors with their drive up window service.
Spent much of my pay in San Juan Liquors. Even remember where some of it went.
Indeed the Chief describes, however overdrawn, the ethos of most who have worn the uniform… eat, drink and be merry…for tomorrow we may and some here will most certaintly die … but not me…all young and all immortal…special and unique times in the way back with great friends rememberd…many thanks for the link. Best
I recognize the place… I think.
Best.Damn.Education.Ever. Ooorah!
Hotel Street – Honolulu (Better known as sh!t street)
Polish Napalm Dogs, indeed.
Miss those.
Miss the times.
Miss the trust.
Miss the crews.
Not to mention, after having drunk a half dozen or so, holding a tall glass of Primo beer up to the bar lights and wondering what all that stuff was that was swirling around in the beer. Bartender said it was sugar cane and did I want another. Sure, why not.
Man, I remember Sunday Brunch in those places: Bloody Mary made with PBR & Tomatoe Juice, a couple pickled eggs and a Polish sausage or three. Desert was a shot or two of whiskey.
Then it was down to the beach for to lay out in the sun for a few hours to get some decent sleep and recharge the batteries for the next go-round.
I remember one place in Rota, don’t recall the name, but it served a coffee-cup portion of espresso. We’d go down and get one or two of those about half an hour before brief time for night missions. Be wide awake until we got back.
Best friends I ever had. My son’s learning that lesson these days. He called to say he understood now some of the stuff I talked about when he was younger.
3 egg Denver omelets with hash browns & sourdough at 0230, crawl into the rack for a few hours, and then followed by another day at the races…Murine ahoy!
Reminds me of sub bars a long time ago. Darby’s in San Diego, Dorthy was something else. Not to mention Snorkel Patti. (Qualified on 3 diesel boats, how? You don’t want to know!). Shame actually they’re all gone now. It was a great time to be in the Navy. Don’t miss it too much, but would love to swing by and challenge the boys again…
Reminds me of sub bars a long time ago. Darby’s in San Diego…..and the Catalina Lounge…and the ‘Gutter’ in Ocean Beach
Great sea story,but credit should be given to the author Dex Armstrong and it also should be read in the original form.
http://www.olgoat.com/substuff/dex216.htm
If you like sea stories go on over to Ol’goats “After battery”
http://www.olgoat.com/substuff/abr.htm
and enjoy the wordsmithing of Dex and his cronies.These stories are about the goings on of the diesel boat sailors.
Plan ahead for food and drink. Once you start reading it is easy to lose track of an hour or 20.
Enjoy,Alan
pd, Thanks for the link…the primary/original version does have a certain authentic ring to it that, in retrospect, is lacking in the cribbed version. Best
PS, Read an additional tale entitled appropriately ” The Snake Ranch” a real hoot…ole Dex Armstrong sure can write.
+2 on that “hour or two”. Or three. I think I spent most of yesterday evening reading those stories. Since I did Norfolk a decade later some of those places changed, and uncle Zumwalt’s policies did it’s best to change others…. but the tenor of the stories still rang true… What wonder memories I rode to bed last night on the words of those vignettes. Thanks dad for the link!
The Oak Harbor Tavern comes to mind… And the cribbage playing barmaid… Good times.
Fluge, the correct name is the Old Hole Tabernacle among us old farts. I celebrated my first “bulls eye” there in 1967.
Boss,
That’s when I was there, ’67 to ’69. The owner was a HUGE Packers fan. I’ve been bashing my head trying to remember the barmaid’s name. She was from Guam.
Of course, those who only visited the orphanages,churches and museums can not vouch for the verity of any of these absurd tales…
But, friends did tell stories like that.
But when we came ashore on liberty, we could rub shoulders with some of the finest men we would ever know, in bars our mothers would never have approved of, in saloons and cabarets that would live in our memories forever.
And leave us misty eyed 30 years later at the memory of it.
Damned straight, shipmate. Damned straight.
We all got to play on the varsity team. There’s a certain pride that comes with it.
Hmmm, wonder why my liver started aching again after reading this….:)
Damn, has is been 45 years?
The north and south gate machis at Itazuki, Misawa, whatshername in Saigon, Clark, all of them. Better than 4 at Stanford.
It was the Cherry Bar on Plantation Rd in Siagon found some Pony drivers there and does anybody remember Jolos in Olangapo?
20+ comments and counting….and no mention of Olongopo? New Paulines, the East End, Java Straits, the Jolo Club, and all the rest that had front doors on the main street at a time when the rest of the town was off-limits….and then Stumpy and Gimpy’s M… Divers Inn on the road to San Miguel. Must be a pretty young crowd here tonight. But what memories….and how far you could go on 20 pesos.
I never did a Westpac…. two Med cruises, a North Atlantic, one Gitmo, and more “VA Capes” than I have appendages to count them on. BUT, the west coast squadrons rotated east for some of the cruises, and I learned some of the Olangapo sing-song patois of “Hey Joe!” (since my name is Joe, they thought’d been funny if I would go west sometime.) “Buy watch?” “Buy ring?” “Buy feelthy peekture?” “Buy seester?” and so on…. mostly down hill from there.
And one of those things I can never fully explain (to my wife or anyone who hasn’t been there) is that feeling of camaraderie of sitting with one’s shipmates, scarfing down Sangria and jumbo fried squid rings at some bar on the pier in Barcelona, waiting for the liberty launch to cycle back around. It was a great time in my young life……..
20+ comments and counting….and no mention of Olongopo? New Paulines, the East End, Java Straits, the Jolo Club…
Buy ducks at New Paulines for the ‘gator!!!! Lumpia and San Magoo at Peoples Cafe then head down the Club Rio. Rock and Roll downstairs with shit kickin’ upstairs. Came back to the PI from a deployment in VN only to get stuck on Beat 3 Shore Patrol because I had a Navy drivers license. Never found who ratted me out for the license.
20 pesos?
Three packs of Menthols.
Jeepnies, shit in a hole on the hogs below, those were the days.
Does bring a tear to an old Airdale’s Eyes, it does. That was a great find there Lex!
I wanna drop a little memory here;
“Ginny’s Little PI”
“Johnny’s”
“Dragon Palace”
“Croll’s, Since 1883″
“Antonio’s”
“Westerner”
“In Spot South”
See who remembers. I don’t.
“Westerner” Got thrown out of there once. We were making the rounds before another all expense paid SE Asia vacation. One of my friends ran onto the dancefloor, took off his rain coat,pulled ears of corn from his waistband, threw them on the floor then started hog calling. We were ‘asked’to leave. I think Harolds club was next.
“In Spot South” Used to be the ‘Tiger Girl’ before the Inn Spot group bought it My girl friend at the time danced at the Inn Spot clubs, Doll House, and the one near Mission Gorge Road with the forty foot tall plastic dancer on the roof.
Where is that “girl friend” now? Sounds like my kind of gal! I’ve got new moves–been takin’ lessons from Tiger…
“been takin’ lessons from Tiger…”
Don’t know, its been a while, lost vtrack after she moved to Palm Springs. It was an interesting time though.
The Tokyo Bar
The German Bar
The American Bar
George the Crook’s
Lot’s that i remember but only from the inside… the names kinda blur together after so many years.
I suspect I could still find them, however…
The New Florida
Colonel Lee’s (music so loud it made your clothes move)
Cross the Shit River Bridge, turn right at the monkey meat vendors and two blocks down on the left was the VQ bar. Name? It had a name?
Bobby’s Bar in Athens
It’s a damned shame, but that Navy doesn’t exist anymore and those bars are now more than likely off limits.
Wasn’t there a bar in Palma De Majorca called (Pardon the vulgarity) “Shitki*ker Country Bar”? Not sure if that was the nomenclature or my fuzzy liberty memory failing me.
I remember that one dc. There was also Texas Jacks. Good beer, but , I never touched the chili. Byron, what was the name of that place? I played darts there in the late 80′s.
Jim,
That place on Mayport road, I remember clearly that “big’uns” roamed freely.
We Zoomies moved in different circles from present company, but Angeles City had the same sorts of places. I was never permanent party at Clark AB but passed through more than a few times, usually managing to RON. “The Happy Chicks Bar” was one of my faves… but all the other names (“names?” as one commenter said) have faded from memory. It’s been a looong time… 35 years or so, to be exact.
dc
That was where I ran into a 6′-4″ blonde Barbie doll named Jean. She almost killed me. I would have died happy though.
Name? Don’ need no stinkin’ name. Need beer…cold, cold beer…now!
We in the USAF are too “refined” to frequent such vulgar things…wouldn’t even recognize one on sight….we do things like go to the local art museum or the library to the Govt Documents section to read transcripts of DOD budget hearings….
We noticed but didn’t want to say anything in polite company…
Across S*** river, Right on Rizal?? Couple a blocks on the left, Dave’s Place-serious strangness bar, never strange enough for me!
The Fly Trap – Sigonella. The Sigonella Det – always a good deal. You would not find Venus at the Fly trap. But if you were lucky it was possible she might find you.
Yup… “Fire of Etna”. Refined hydraulic fluid, but sure was tasty…….