it's a small world........part dos

okay, it's that day of the year that is completely contrived and pushed upon us by the flower stores, peddlars of chocolate and the greeting card industry like a pimp pushes crack on one of his ho's.

that miniature rant out of the way, dahbeed would love to wish a HAPPY VALENTINES DAY to any of beed's female readers. if you have been reading beed for a while then u know there are two things he absolutely loves and they are western kentucky university basketball and WOMANS. if u didn't know that go back and read beed's ode to the finer sex of the species titled "womans......beed loves 'em".

beed hopes that every one of his female readers at least got some kind of acknowlegement that said "yes, there is someone that loves you" . it doesn't have to be a thousand dollar necklace. just some form of acknowlegement. u ladies deserve it for puttin' up with the stupid shit that we guys can do. now, back on point beed!!!! quit rambling dammit!!!

back in the summer of 1980 dahbeed was still in the marine corps. a 20 year old skinny little shite. an E-4 (corporal) avionics technician. beed worked on the electronics that lets an aircraft identify if an incoming aircraft is a friend or foe.

beed was scheduled to go on a med cruise. trust beed on this one, don't confuse that word "cruise" with any definition that u have of it. this was not a love boat. it was the u.s.s. guadalcanal lph-7 (lph stands for landing platform, helicopter) this is how these cruises work......the squids (the sailors) provide the boat and the jarheads (the marines) provide a squadron of helicopters and also a bunch of grunts (infantry men) to be carried around in the helos.

here are a few things you may not know about the marine corps and the navy. we don't like each other. as a marine, u are taught from day one of recruit training (boot camp) to look down upon sailors with contempt. they don't know how to march, they play volleyball in boot camp, their uniforms always look like shit and since when did dungarees count as a uniform anyway. they look down upon us. they think we are knuckle dragging neanderthals.

as a squid told dahbeed one time "don't forget that the marine corps is a department of the navy" to which the beedster replied "you're damn right it is, it's the MENS department". it's cats vs. dogs, we don't like each other and we don't bother to hide it.

but if u guys know baron von beedenstein at all, u know that beed is a pretty open minded individual and also don't mind swimming upstream if he thinks the cause is worthy.

during the med cruise, beed had become friends with a squid named miles mehaffey. he was from california and had that real laid back california cool about him. he also had an uncle that was a professional golfer but beed can't remember his first name now. miles had come on the cruise with us but not all the way from norfolk virginia. he came aboard after we hit our first port which was rota, spain.

rota is a nice little town, or it was back then. beed loved strolling the streets in the evening and sampling all of the different sangrias from the different sangria stands lining the streets. anyhoo, miles was stationed at the naval base in rota and he just went out with different ships. he was also in electronics but he was involved in the ships electronics. while we were still in the med, miles told beed that when we got back to rota that he would invite beed out to his apartment for a good spaghetti dinner.

he was not housed in base housing so he and a buddy shared an apartment near the central park area of rota. so we made it back to rota and beed caught a taxi to miles' apartment. spaghetti is probably a guys favorite dish to make. it's pretty hard to screw it up and who doesn't love pasta.

after dinner we are enjoying some sangria and started talking about everyones background. beed axed miles' roommate (beed can in no freakin' way remember the guy's name) where he was from. he replied "orlando florida", beed says "no shit, i'm from orlando too originally". his roommate added "well not really orlando, it's altamonte springs, a suburb of orlando" beed said "same here, not really orlando, it's winter park but nobody has ever heard of it so i always say orlando". here is where the small world coincidence occured.

beed told him "hey, i have cousins that live in altamonte springs, they went to lake brantley high school" the roommate said "hell, that's where i went to high school, what are your cousins names?" beed replied "well the one our age is named lonnie carter". now homie gets excited and says "hell, i know lonnie well, not only did we graduate together, i worked at winn-dixie with him" bet ya'll were wondering what in the hell beed had a photo of winn-dixie at the top for.

beed travels halfway around the world, meets a guy one time on a chance dinner with a new found friend and the new guy just happened to know beed's favorite first cousin. we were only a few months apart and spent every day together the first five years of our lives. what are the chances of that happening?

ya'll quit bein' lazy and tell beed one of ya'll's small world stories in the comments section. beed changed the settings so u can post anonymously. hell, post as moe howard, nobody has to know who you are. everybody has at least one small world story and beed wants to believe that he ain't the only person that strange shit like this happens to.

sinceremente,

the honorable sir beedly