Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Belly Up to the Bar Boys
Today was my big social day of the year. The annual Code 260 Retiree’s Christmas Party commenced this morn at 11:00. I’ve been retired now near on sixteen years so’s I’ve taken in a great number of these events … missed one when the ‘telephone tree’ failed to contact me … missed another bought and paid for when my mind went weak and I forgot about it till a week later. Mostly I’ve been there though. Mostly. Kay reminded me three times yesterday that the party was today. I might have made it without help, but who knows?
Code 260 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard was the Piping and Machinery Design Group and was probably comprised of 120 men and women at its most. At the door they hand out these name badges done in nice big print. A good thing. I do recognize most of these people, but some faces I can’t place without a sneaky look at the label …. never did know some of them, but I pretend otherwise. And some of the ladies are widows of guys I maybe once new slightly and they are still there ever year clutching their door prize tickets.
Always at the Elks out on Pine Road up back of the Catholic Church there. Big room full of long tables and a nice bar around the el corner where I buy the whiskey that greases my way through these things. Me and my friend Jack sort of stake out a table near the bar’s big picture windows and hold forth there and greet all our once upon a time co-workers. These are drinking buddies that have hopped bars with us in Honolulu, San Diego, Alongopo (P.I.), Tokyo, Dunoon (Scotland). We tell each other mostly the same stories year after year … mostly, I think, just to make sure we still remember how to tell it. You start out with a “Hey, remember when we…” and the other person gets this wary look behind his eyeballs. Maybe he remembers, maybe he doesn’t, maybe he turns the tables on you with a “Ah think you got the wrong guy.” Not too likely, I got me a pretty good memory so far.
There’s always Billie Jean and Mike who I married on the foredeck of their boat about a million years ago. And ever’ year Billie gives me a big hug and asks if I’ve been arrested for being a fake preacher yet and have maybe all my marriages been declared null and void by some higher power. And Wayne, one of my former supervisors, who blew into our house one evening with a woman and another co-worker, presented papers, and demanded a hitching ceremony. Kay and the co-worker stood as witnesses and then slam bam they were gone again. I think that marriage lasted a couple months. He was there today with a different wife than anyone I ever hitched him up too, but he’s had a pretty bad stoke a couple years back and is getting smaller and smaller and doesn’t recall me correctly.
After an hour and a half of drinking and jawing there’s the ‘meal’ …. raw veggies for dipping, olives and pickles, a pasta salad and a potato salad with roughly the same taste, a lot of bread and sandwich makings (thin sliced turkey, ham and beef), deep-fried and battered pieces of skinny chickens, and meatballs in a tangy sauce. Am I the only one who thinks it’s odd to have a sandwich on a plate with two salads, chicken bits and meatballs …. It just seems so alien.
At the end of the meal, they begin the entertainment and that’s the point where I slip off back to the bar so as not to be
inundated with ‘Ave Maria’ sung by the organizer’s Filipina wife for the leventy millionth time and other homegrown performances. Recongregated in the bar, my cronies and I listen only for the calling out of the door prize numbers …. usually a dozen bottle of cheap champagne and a dozen of those red Christmas plant things that my wife hates.
At 3:15, I toss down the remnants of the last whiskey that someone else bought me and say, “Gotta go! Gotta be home to grab my five-year old grandson off the schoolbus in ten minutes.” Next year….
Code 260 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard was the Piping and Machinery Design Group and was probably comprised of 120 men and women at its most. At the door they hand out these name badges done in nice big print. A good thing. I do recognize most of these people, but some faces I can’t place without a sneaky look at the label …. never did know some of them, but I pretend otherwise. And some of the ladies are widows of guys I maybe once new slightly and they are still there ever year clutching their door prize tickets.
Always at the Elks out on Pine Road up back of the Catholic Church there. Big room full of long tables and a nice bar around the el corner where I buy the whiskey that greases my way through these things. Me and my friend Jack sort of stake out a table near the bar’s big picture windows and hold forth there and greet all our once upon a time co-workers. These are drinking buddies that have hopped bars with us in Honolulu, San Diego, Alongopo (P.I.), Tokyo, Dunoon (Scotland). We tell each other mostly the same stories year after year … mostly, I think, just to make sure we still remember how to tell it. You start out with a “Hey, remember when we…” and the other person gets this wary look behind his eyeballs. Maybe he remembers, maybe he doesn’t, maybe he turns the tables on you with a “Ah think you got the wrong guy.” Not too likely, I got me a pretty good memory so far.
There’s always Billie Jean and Mike who I married on the foredeck of their boat about a million years ago. And ever’ year Billie gives me a big hug and asks if I’ve been arrested for being a fake preacher yet and have maybe all my marriages been declared null and void by some higher power. And Wayne, one of my former supervisors, who blew into our house one evening with a woman and another co-worker, presented papers, and demanded a hitching ceremony. Kay and the co-worker stood as witnesses and then slam bam they were gone again. I think that marriage lasted a couple months. He was there today with a different wife than anyone I ever hitched him up too, but he’s had a pretty bad stoke a couple years back and is getting smaller and smaller and doesn’t recall me correctly.
After an hour and a half of drinking and jawing there’s the ‘meal’ …. raw veggies for dipping, olives and pickles, a pasta salad and a potato salad with roughly the same taste, a lot of bread and sandwich makings (thin sliced turkey, ham and beef), deep-fried and battered pieces of skinny chickens, and meatballs in a tangy sauce. Am I the only one who thinks it’s odd to have a sandwich on a plate with two salads, chicken bits and meatballs …. It just seems so alien.
At the end of the meal, they begin the entertainment and that’s the point where I slip off back to the bar so as not to be
inundated with ‘Ave Maria’ sung by the organizer’s Filipina wife for the leventy millionth time and other homegrown performances. Recongregated in the bar, my cronies and I listen only for the calling out of the door prize numbers …. usually a dozen bottle of cheap champagne and a dozen of those red Christmas plant things that my wife hates.At 3:15, I toss down the remnants of the last whiskey that someone else bought me and say, “Gotta go! Gotta be home to grab my five-year old grandson off the schoolbus in ten minutes.” Next year….
# posted by Clear Creek Girl : 10:25 PM
