My Ex Wife

“Sorry sis- I didn’t mean to get you pregnant.”

Before you think this is a tell all, trash my ex story, then you will be sadly disappointed. This story is dirt free. I have been over the hurt of our divorce for many, many years and am very happily married and I hope she too has found happiness.

Some of my happiness during my marriage to my first wife was some of the things I did to her- in a funny (to me) way. This will be a number of short, short stories that talk about many of the things that happened during the fourteen years we were married. I may throw in a few things that were not pranks on her.

Are you related?

“Are you brother and sister or man and wife?” the woman asked at the airplane check in waiting area. She said that she and a few co-workers had a bet on whether we were brother and sister or man and wife. I guess we either looked related or they thought we were from Arkansas. We laughed it off and continued on our trip.

I had remembered this incident a year later and used it to my advantage. Sue was about eight months pregnant with our son Chris. We were shopping at JC Penney’s in Anchorage, Alaska were we lived. We entered a crowded elevator and pushed the button for our selected floor. This is when I said out loud, “Sorry sis- I didn’t mean to get you pregnant.”

For some weird reason, Sue did not find the humor in that. Evil death rays shot out her eyes and I swear I was temporary blinded for a few seconds. Frankly, I don’t remember if she said anything to me about it but I’m sure I had a good talking to.

9-volt batteries

Did you know that to test 9-volt batteries you could lick the two terminals on the end and feel the amount of charge it had in them? I knew that- Sue did not. He, he. I took a fresh, never used, 9-volt battery and showed her how to do it, sticking it to my tongue and of course not showing any emotion as I got a slight zap of dc voltage. Sue then took the battery and did the same thing.

I still can see the look in her eyes and terror in her face when she got the unexpected jolt of electricity in her tongue. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time. I also hadn’t heard that language that was coming from her lips from her very often. I didn’t even know she served in the Navy.

.44 Magnum

“I know what you're thinking. "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?” Dirty Harry

I had a Ruger Super Blackhawk pistol when we lived in Alaska. The Super Blackhawk is a single action, .44 magnum handgun. I carried it when backpacking in the wild Alaska wilderness.

A .44 magnum can give of a hefty kick especially with the stock grips that I had on it. I shot a few rounds at the range with Sue watching intently. Boom! Another 240-grain bullet headed down range at around 1,500 feet per second. Bull’s eye! I asked Sue, “You wanna try it?” “Sure.” She said.

I handed her the pistol and stood behind her in case she had any questions for me. Click, she pulled back the hammer. Aim. Fire! Ka Boom! The bullet flashed out of the barrel. The gun moved in a very quick and upward motion rocking Sue on to her heals throwing her body off balance. The handgun barely missing her face as it flew suddenly upwards.

As I said, I was behind her. Good thing too because she may have ended up on her butt. This was the first time she shot my .44 magnum. This was also the last time she shot my .44 magnum. The next day she had a large bruise on the palm of her right hand where the pistol had jammed violently back into her palm.

Butt sledding

Butt sledding is just as it seems. You slid on your butt instead of a sled. We had hiked to the mountain right before Flat Top mountain outside of Anchorage. Flat Top was about 3,200 feet and a good climb. Sue didn’t want to go all the way up so we stayed on the other smaller one. It was spring and snow was still all around us. We hiked up a little bit when I decided to slide down on my feet. It was great!

I did that a few times on my feet and my butt but Sue didn’t want to try it. She was a little scared about it. Finally, she said she would. I went first. Weeeeeeee! She followed me. Yahhh! Ahhh! I turned to watch her thinking the noise emitting from her mouth was screams of joy. I was wrong-She was terrified.

The look on her face explained it all. She was not having fun and could not stop. She was panicking! I think she was on the verge of crying. When she finally stopped and I walked up to her to consol her she said, “Let’s do that again!” We did. Many times.

Reading Moose

It was a Saturday and I was posted at the WSA again on Elmendorf AFB. I had got into novels by this time because of all the free time I had and Sue was also a heavy reader. On this day Sue came out to see me. Of course, she was not authorized to be out there with me so she snuck in the back way, driving my Fiat 128 (missing 2^nd gear) as if it were a 4-wheel drive.

I picked her up and we drove to an open field were we proceeded to bury our face into some good books. Evidently, we got pretty engrossed into the books because at one point I looked up and a moose was staring right at me, its nose about two inches from my wind shield. We looked out the other windows and saw a few more moose just hanging around not seeming to pay us much attention.

So what would any person do in a situation like this? Dive back into our books of course.

The Grease Barrel Bear

" We each had an M-16 with thirty round magazines locked and loaded..."

Alaska-1981-Elmendorf AFB

The in-flight kitchen on Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, Alaska made box lunches, otherwise known as box nasties, for flight crews. It usually had chicken and other toxic eatables.

Outside the door to the in-flight kitchen was a grease barrel that old grease from the fryers was put in. It sat right next to the drive out of the kitchen. It was like a KFC for black bears. They loved to lean into it and grab what ever morsel they could get.

As a young Fire Team Leader I was often bored and tended to do things that I should not do. On this day, we decided to sit next to the grease barrel in our military pickup that doubled as our squad car.

As we sat there a good size black bear sauntered over and started to get his snack. It was cool seeing it that close. My passenger was the closest since he was right next to the barrel.

As the bear feed he decided to explore for more food. He came over to the truck and put his nose into the cab of the truck. Of course we had the windows down. As our sphincter muscles tightened we watched, hoping it would not smell any yumminess in the truck.

We could smell its breath and feel its breathing as it sniffed around. We each had an M-16 with thirty round magazines locked and loaded but they were tucked neatly under our seats and the dang bear was to close anyway if we needed to defend ourselves. We would need a bayonet which we didn’t have.

Eventually the bear decided that there was no goodies to munch in our truck and went on his way. Wow! We should not do that again for sure...though we tried.

UCMJ Article 15

"With boredom comes stupidity, especially when you are a young twenty-two year old Airman 1st Class."

About 1980

An Article 15 in the military can be a harsh punishment for bad deeds done. It may result in loss of wages, rank and maybe jail time. Well luckily, I avoided the Article 15 because I was never caught for the stupidity I did which I’m about to reveal.

I was a United States Air Force Security Policeman stationed at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska. This was the early 1980’s during the cold war with the Soviet Union being our closet neighbor beside Canada. This particular afternoon I was assigned to guard the Weapons Storage Area (WSA). It was actually a good assignment because it was remote and you rarely got bothered by people, ie. supervisor. Of course, moose and bear are a different story- which I will tell at a later time.

You had the beautiful Alaskan country side all around you with the Cook Inlet to the west. Thousands of trees full of wild life with the smell and noise of a forest. It was rather peaceful out there and a good place to gather your thoughts.

But, I was bored- very bored. With boredom comes stupidity, especially when you are a young twenty-two year old Airman 1st Class. The WSA was a large area with miles of roads that went in circles around the area. As I drove I day dreamed. As I day dreamed I schemed. As I schemed, I acted.

This was my idea. I was driving a pick up truck which could easily idol at about ten to fifteen miles per hour. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to drive while laying on top of the truck and then get back in through the passenger window”. Well, it sounded cool at the time.

So at idol speed, I climbed out the drivers window and got on top of the truck. I laid on top for a long time steering the truck with my left hand around curves and up and down hills. It was fun for a while but I thought I should end this. I got on a straight away and straightened the truck out, scrambled to the passenger side and climbed through the window.

Yahoo! That was cool! I think I’ll do it again. Well... never tempt fate. This time it didn’t go so smooth and I ended up running beside my truck trying to keep it out of the ditch as I’m half way in the ditch. Dirt and grass is flying all around me kicked up by the wheels of the truck and my scrambling feet. My heart is tacacardic and my legs are spinning like Jesse Owens. I managed to steer the truck back on to the gravel road and open the door to jump back inside, save the truck from getting stuck or worse, tipping.

Oh, the stupidity of youth. Thing is, evidently I was not the last to try this because another airman tipped a jeep later that year in the same area. What an idiot.