Aging Disgracefully

On getting older and not being particularly happy about it. A pitiful attempt to pass on to the next generation pearls of wisdom on getting older, the humor of aging, fitness, recreation, friends, family and pets. How to survive changing technology, mental and phyiscal deterioration and hair loss.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

SWOOP'S ON!

For those of you who have had the pleasure of wasting, er, I mean, serving several years of your youth in the marine corps, the following may mean little to you. For those of us that have, and you know who you are, the phrase "swoop's on" has instantaneous recognition especially those that were in during the late 60's and early 70's. As I understand from a comment I posted at "military.com" the practice still exists, which speaks volumes, if you ask me, or even if you don't, for the enlisted man's mania to absent himself or herself from the vicinity of their duty station at any available opportunity.

For the unknowledgeable, swooping was a Friday afternoon ritual starting around 4:00 and sometimes earlier. Picture if you will, hundreds of 19 - 24 year old marines milling around the grounds of the main chapel at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, most in civilian clothes and likewise for most, this would be as close as they would come to actually being at chapel for the majority of their stints at the base. Although, as I understand it, attendance rose markedly whenever there was an imminent deployment of troops to Vietnam. As these Marines stood around, smoking, chatting and believe it or not, some were actually reading something. True, for the most part the reading material consisted of what passed for pornography in those days and thereby consisted of very little actual reading per se. At various times throughout the afternoon a car would pull into the chapel parking lot, the driver also a marine, would hang out the window of the car and shout out the name of a major city somewhere, anywhere east of the Mississippi. At that point several young men, the number depended on the popularity of the city and/or points between, would detach themselves from the masses and sprint toward the car and, every man for himself, try to sit, wedge and sometimes pile themselves into the vehicle.

Whether or not one made it into a particular vehicle depended on a variety of factors, first and foremost being the price the driver was charging each passenger for the privilege of being crammed into a car with several other in marines in various stages of gaminess, for what could be a lengthy drive to the city in question, usually at breakneck speed and with very few pit stops. With swooping, time was of the essence and everyone wanted to spend as much time with ma an pa, or Mary or perhaps a women of questionable morals, as possible. This meant that drivers generally obeyed traffic laws as much congressmen obey rules on graft.

For those, such as myself heading toward Cleveland the swoop was not so much a leisurely drive in the country, as it was riding "The Beast" or any one of today's behemoth roller costers. Assuming of course, that roller coaster was on industrial strength steroids. The reason for this characterization is that when driving to Cleveland from Lejeune, the driver had to make a choice between two travel routes. The first was to drive through the Norfolk, Virginia area and along the Pennsylvania turnpike to your destination. For those that haven't had the pleasure, driving along the PA pike in the small hours, consisted of navigating such obstacles as hills, "s" turns and various drivers traveling at the actual speed limit, all of which will put a damper on the high speed travel so necessary to getting to your destination as quickly as possible. In other words, a real pleasure.

The other choice was to travel through West Virginia north on their version, at that time, of a turnpike, Interstate 77, or as we liked to call it the "River Styx". In those days I 77 was not the streamlined, snaking and winding 4 lane highspeed super highway of today. No, it was a snaking and winding 2 lane highspeed back alley that ran the length of "West By God". A normal swoop via this route consisted of over one hundred miles of twists, turns and dives along a roadway littered with the corpses of the previous vehicles that had the misfortune of traversing this particular disaster. Cars, trucks, motorcycles and wagon trains dotted the roadside every couple of miles or so, and the West Virginia road department had, in a rare moment of governmental foresight, constructed ramps of dirt and sand near the bottoms of the many Alpine "hills" to catch and stop vehicles, usually 8 million ton coal trucks, whose brakes had been fried to a crisp trying to keep their vehicles from exceeding the sound barrier.

So it was always with some trepidation that I got into a car that had anyone going to Charlestown or any other town along the West Virginia pike. But I, like so many others had to get home to spend several minutes seeing my family, talking to my girlfriend (if I had one) and spending the remaining 12 hours or so before I had to catch the swoop back to base, enjoying liquid refreshments or experimenting with any of the other "ice breakers" rapidly becoming available in the midwest at this time. If you get my drift. Thank God I didn't inhale.

While most of the swoops were memorable in terms of sheer terror levels, one particular trip was a little more unusual than the others. On this particular trip, of course it was through West Virginia, and I and roughly 36 marines had crammed into the seats of a beat up early 1960's Pontiac designed to hold 4 people. The trip was uneventful enough, but, as usual several people had been dozing off and I somehow had managed to get the passenger door front front seat. Between myself and the driver was a huge marine about 8 feet tall' with about a size 42 neck and an IQ to match. While he was awake, which lasted about 90 seconds, we had engaged in some small talk and he had told me he was going home to Pikeville to see has fiancee. "Lucky girl" I thought but of course kept to myself. I was between girlfriends (way between) myself, so I told him I was just going to relax and party a bit. Anyway, somewhere between Raleigh and Blue Ash, as I was drowsing off myself, I had this unusual sensation coming from the direction of snoring Mensa candidate next to me which was starting to make me very uncomfortable. At first I thought Godzilla was having a seizure of some kind but quickly realized he was having what I think is called, in polite society, nocturnal emissions. Evidently the talk of his fiancee had gotten to him. Anyway, as it dawns on me what is going on, I realize that calling anyone else's attention to the spasmodic marine could cause serious repercussions, not to mention serious bodily harm to myself. So I devised a plan, which was not without considerable risk, but fortunately I thought I could get away with it. All the other marines had dozed off. Including the driver. So, I went into action. I made myself go into fake a coughing spell, while at the same time whomping the dreaming marine upside the head. As he and the others stirred awake, I mumbled something about being sorry, and proceeded to desperately plead with one of the guys in the back to change seats. I think that was my last swoop for some time.

Anyway, I'm sure my tale doesn't hold a candle to some others that are out there, and I know some ex-marines that might be reading this have swoop stories of their own. I encourage you to pass this on to any service members you know and to put any experiences they have had in the comments section. Come on Duggan and Doughty, don't let me down.

Love
Dad

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