Flag Day

This blog post is about two weeks too late, but it’s too good a story to pass up.

I was an excellent student through eighth grade or so. I think it had a lot to do with getting thrashed regularly in Monopoly by my older brother. I knew how much I owed if I landed on Illinois Avenue with three houses, how many houses and/or properties I had to hock, and what I needed to roll to stay off his hotels. That and being raised by a librarian and the son of an English teacher meant I had much of what I needed for those elementary/intermediate years.

But I found high school a bit harder. As a result, my grades were decent, but I didn’t put enough into it. This meant I had few alternatives upon graduation. So in March 1989, I signed up to join Uncle Sam’s Navy, actually enlisting in August of that year.

Following basic training and “A” school (stories for future entries), I got orders for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii to the USS Benjamin Stoddert, reporting onboard in February 1990. Benjamin Stoddert was the first Secretary of the Navy of the United States. My rate (MOS) was Operations Specialist, tracking air, surface and subsurface contacts, meaning we had very little to do inport, with nothing to track.



One day, June 14, 1990, was Flag Day, an inport day, and an off day, or so I thought. The plans of the day of the week leading up to the 14th made no mention of a Federal holiday. I stayed in my rack anyhow, thinking it was a free day. For some reason, I thought if I played the part thinking, somehow, as an 18-year-old and lowest man on the totem pole, that I could make myself and others believe it.

No dice. My shipmates went up to morning quarters and returned, with me still in my pit. I think I got laughed at, and never got in trouble or anything. The thought was that this was so utterly preposterous that all I ever got was a serious dogging. Besides-- that was far from the worst stunt I pulled on the Benny Sweat. I am now Facebook friends with a lot of those guys I served with, and I’m happy to say they've made sure the legend of Flag Day continues.

Randomness

There doesn't seem to be much news of lasting significance around here these days, so we'll shoot from the hip a little bit and maybe tell a story later on.

We're nearly a month into home ownership, and out of cardboard boxes, for the most part. We've unpacked much, thrown out some, and put some into storage. That's right, we finally have more space than we have stuff to put in it. We had our trivia friends over for food and games last night, so that did lend a sense of urgency to the last few days. We still absolutely love this house, and there's more to be done, but we've traveled a good distance.

I've taken to my front yard just a little bit-- watering every other day, as well as checking to make sure the ant hotels are vacant. It'd just be nice to have a little rain here and there, as it's been pretty dry here the last three weeks. Today I went and bought some Roundup and a weed eater to help with the weed action I've been getting.

I've been back to running four days a week, basically in the same neighborhood. The paved trail is 13 minutes away now, not four. Two weeks ago my mileage was 18, 14.5 last week, and a projected 20 this week. I hope to be near 30 miles most weeks. There needs to be a marathon in my future, but there are some things on the horizon toward the end of the year, making those plans a little murky.

Okay, now story time.

I worked at the radio station in Levelland, Texas for two and a half years-- April 1998-December 2000. News, sports and sales. I was half of the full-time staff. I covered school board and junior college regents meetings, did the crime beat, did newscasts morning noon and evening, sold advertising the best I could. Long hours and there were never enough fingers to put in the holes in the dam, especially when the station manager (who hired me) took a job in Temple ten months after I started. That made me the entire full-time staff.

However, all I ever wanted to do was broadcast games. And this gig offered no shortage of opportunities. I'd done some baseball games the previous spring.

But football is where it's at, and my first game was September of 1998 at Dick Bivins Stadium in Amarillo, Texas. A Saturday afternoon tilt-- LHS against Amarillo Caprock. Several teams in town use the stadium, so if two teams (say, Tascosa and AHS) were at home, one would move their game to Thursday or Saturday. Anyhow, my folks were along, and they were drilling me on the Lobo names and jersey numbers on the two-hour drive north on I-27. I'd been to this stadium many times in the past, as engineer for another network that did games, so the turf was familiar. Assistant principal Mel Gierhart was my sidekick for road games. I remember him bringing up the town of Notrees, Texas (near Midland/Odessa, I think), though I forget the context. Likely something to do with game travel. But my mother, who always travels with a full pack, broke out her trusty map of Texas and found it. Yeah-- it's pretty remarkable what sticks in your head 13 years later.

I was still learning my craft, so my game performance is up for debate, but I do remember Levelland winning my first game, 32-13.

Following the game, we got back into the company car-- a Dodge Neon, and headed south for the Texas Tech-UTEP game, scheduled for that night in Lubbock. The first half went OK, but the game overall was not a good one for my guys, as my alma mater beat my favorite team on the planet. Tech 35, UTEP 3.

There were three seasons of Lobo football for me, and this was the first. The win over Caprock got the seaosn off to a good start.