Editor’s Note: A blessed Sunday in the country. Even the animals who normally join us for sunrise were subdued. There is some attempt to rile us up. Part of Saturday was devoted to deconstructing a news flash about a man with non-government credentials and hundreds of rounds of ammunition attempting to gain access to the Capitol. He was actually a private security contractor attempting to go to his job, but was useful in keeping our collective anxiety at the appropriate level. Earlier, reports attributed to the FBI warned us of armed demonstrations in all the 50 states- or maybe 51 by next week. It was hard to determine if these were groups of citizens intending to demonstrate in favor of one article in the Bill of Rights, or armed insurrectionists. In view of the intentional and inadvertent confusion, the District has summoned 30,000 National Guardsman to guard the entire downtown. It includes nearly 10,000 police, and authorized them use of deadly force. It is enough to determine our own level of security out in the country. We intend to avoid crowds. It does not seem any reasonable citizen would brave the security in celebration of the peaceful change of power this Wednesday, completing the 70 days of our election frolic. But who knows? It is a quiet Sunday morning, and that is a good thing. Three days to go to a new bag of Executive orders and all sorts of Executive entertainment! Meanwhile, Marlow has been energetic in his attempt to account for this extraordinary historic cycle. The Daily Staff is determined to enjoy brunch today, while he recounts some inadvertent encounters in an exciting life in a great nation. And a deployment in USS Forestall’s mighty flanks, now long gone, is indeed a thing of wonder!

– Vic

Workplace Violence

The Mullet Moron Invasion of the US Capitol got me to thinking about workplace violence.

Just for grins I made a short list of my brushes with it:

Union shop steward threatened me with unspecified pain due to my college-boy, Commie thoughts about negotiating employee stock ownership rights for us retail clerk union members. Damn, we’d all be jillionares by now. It would have been Kroger stock.

Neighborhood dudes threatened me and other employees with zipguns at an A&P store in the 60s.

Can’t count military war zones, since they paid us extra for our presence.

Debriefed-for-cause employee threats and come-backs to have it out.

During 25 years of delivering hot meals and bags of groceries to the hungry in poor areas I had some interesting early chats with certain gun-carrying gang block leaders. I had to convince them I was not a rat, narc, snitch or whatever the word du jour was for police informant.

A casual remark at a second job regarding the thievery at my main gig led to a secret midnight conversation with the mob “security managers” of a midwestern grocery store chain I was working at. Dudes were from central coasting — olive skinned, pinstriped suit wearing, and sporting chest holster bulges and such — so, initially it was unpleasant in the extreme. After some truth telling, they said they owed me, and I could go. Out the door I went.

Stories from my grandpop: He was a very successful trucking company owner in 1920’s Brooklyn. The 1929 crash bank closures cost him all his money. Then, one of the mafia families came knocking on his door not for some assistance or protection money but for his trucking company. He rolled and sold as others who resisted similar requests in the borough were experiencing extremely bad outcomes. He had two small kids and a wife. Then after a year or two of government cheese, the schmucks then made nice with him (mentioning something about respect, keeping quiet, yada yada yada) by finagling him a crap dockworker job on Brooklyn’s waterfront which was totally controlled by friends of these wise guys. Later due to his Navy service in WW I off the coast of France pops caught on with the Brooklyn Navy Shipyard. He went to his grave using derogatory terms for Italians and “f*cking banks.” Meanwhile, the sons and grandsons of the original wise guys would show up at his small Brooklyn apartment and then at his Long Island village house’s back door every now and then, even into pop’s 90s with a trunk-full of something off the back of a truck that might be of interest. Cash only after a cup of fresh coffee, some gossip, and a slice of Entenmann’s. On this last one, I kid you not — in the early 90s I talked with them, saw, selected, cooked and ate their goods. I think back when this all started the word “respect” was richer in meaning and meant a lot more than it does now.

Our house was broken into, vandalized, and ransacked when we were in the islands during my Navy days. Somehow, these morons thought it’d be a good idea to spray paint anti US Navy stuff on the house walls. Pissed me off. Complaint was filed. Island cops were pissed at what they saw. Perps caught and tried. Some threats were communicated during their trial. Cops were told. Shit really broke loose in their hood. All were convicted, jailed and later deported. Join the Navy. See the world. Deport some morons.

While on a 1970s Med deployment onboard USS Forrestal, we were finally hoping to enjoy an Italian port visit after a long at sea period. Unfortunately, Italian Communist Unions were holding their summer confab in this port city and had prepared a welcome of sorts for us with “Baby Killer” posters draping buildings and streets and Unwelcome Wagon reception committees in the bars and restaurants. This last wasn’t well received by our white hats and young hot head JOs. After two nights of applied correctives by their USN visitors, the local carabinieri (likely after some USG pressure) arrived and pushed the Commies outside of the sailors’ preferred areas for liberty.

Lastly, the Mark 1, Mod 0, standard issue, 1970s anti-war telephone or scrap paper delivered bomb threats.
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I couldn’t figure out what they meant by
“Save your money!” Then I went on my first 8 plus long deployment.
It was also on that deployment when I figured out the irony of “See the world,”
when I calculated one day in between cyclic ops briefs that the world was almost 71% water.

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