Pre Obituary for a buddy that''s not dead yet

 

DUANES PRE-OBIT written as of March 2014

As the time of my life has gone on and I've related experiences with those that were there I've learned to preface my memories with "Well, the way I remember it was..."  The following falls into those parameters.

TEEN YEARS

I have known Duane Warner since I was just about 14 and he almost a year older.  When my family bought a Dairy Queen in Ann Arbor Michigan about 1955 or 56, we moved there from the Detroit area and had a house built about a block away from where Duane lived.

COWBOY

12 O'clock High

COWBOY

When I was growing up I wanted to be a cowboy.  The movie cowboys of the 40's had morphed into the cowboys of the 50's.  The 40's had Johnny Mack Brown, Tim McCoy Tim Keene Buck Jones, and Bob Steele, even Buster Crabbe, John Wayne and Robert Taylor who went on into the 50's and beyond.

OLDER THEN DIRT

Older then dirt is a saying that I'm beginning to feel akin to. Today I changed out the faucet and drain in the bathroom.  It's only an exchange of parts, just the faucet and the drain unit. Piece of cake.

Removal of the old faucet was easy.  Laying on my back at the bottom of cabinet pushing into my shoulder, reaching up with tools to undo nuts took about an hour. Lack of the proper tools made getting to the nuts on the faucet impossible.  A sharp chisel took care of the plastic nuts.

Typhoons and Memories

 

1961 The Jungles of SouthEast Asia

Just a walk in the jungle

Ahh, the good ole days in French Indo-China.  Wading through rice paddies, fording rivers thick with leeches the size of banana slugs, feet so wet they begin to peel away the calluses earned in boot camp.  Backpack shoulder straps digging into your shoulders, canteens banging against your butt, weapons getting heavier the more the rain come down.  Boots sink into the mud and make sucking sound as they are wrenched out and into the next spot of mud.  Utilities so wet that sweat stains wash away. What isn't wet is dripping. 

In those days I smoked and kept my cigarettes in a two part plastic case.  They would still get damp so packs of matches were useless.  Only the Zippo lighter would work in the rain under a canopy of palm trees and bamboo.  Would have made a great commercial...huddled under a poncho, trying to keep the cigarette from being put out by the rain dripping off of everything, but the Zippo works.

BLU LIGHT

Not me.

After years of wandering around on our planet in the direct rays of our star called Sol, the accumulated affects of sunlight have finally had their way with me.  This is known as Actinic Keratoses.

If one lives beyond the age of 40 years and have one or more of the risk factors such as fair skin, blond or red hair particularly if combined with blue, hazel or green eyes, then you are eligible for AK.

October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

The train station in Oceanside California is very near the beach so as I alit from the Coast Starlight, I walked over to the beach and sat on a 4 foot tall pipeline that runs parallel along the beach.  I was returning from a few days annual leave having been visiting my parents up the coast in San Jose for a week. 

           

The early fall weather in southern California is almost always warm and balmy so I took advantage of not having to report in until the next day and sat down in front of the pipe, looking out at the setting sun rays... then I slept there through the night.

GUNS AND SWORDS

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My first cap pistols

I have always been fascinated with guns.  As a child I was allowed to have play cap guns and eventually (around age 10) was allowed to have a BB gun long after I thought I was ready for one. With cap guns it was the action of loading a Cap pistol with a roll of cap material that was a ritual that simulated arming a real live gun.  Some of my young rich pals had cap guns that you could put a cap into a cartridge and then insert it into a cylinder that would make that definite bang/snap and surround us with the smell of burnt gunpowder.  I truly envied them.