J0nny Ling0

And since it was properly credited in the Album of Verse Booklets that were sold in the bookstore over the years, then I wouldn't think it necessary to mention the author's name every time I presented the poem. And, by the way, speaking of how people thought VP wrote so many things only to find out that he did not, here is this: Kinda funny: Since I had rarely been to many churches at all, I thought that almost every song in the Sing Along The Way songbooks were written by someone in The Way International! What a maroon! But, I was only eighteen then. I remember when my Mom first came to twig, when we started singing "I Come To The Garden Alone", I was surprised to hear her say that this had been one of her favorites ever since she was young. Silly me!

I understand this most certainly. But, if I was having a party, say, and played a shuffle of CDs for the evening's entertainment, do I have to make sure to give the proper credit to the musicians who wrote and performed it before each song is played?

What is the big deal if it was not credited? As long as it wasn't attributed to VP as the writer, it doesn't really matter if it was properly credited, to me anyways. Lots of things are spoken of and recited without proper accreditation. I was just telling a friend about how awesome it was to be playing in a band in a bar and how utterly cool it was to be playing my harmonica along with "After Midnight (we're gonna let it all hang down)", and I never mentioned the writer or the one who made it famous.

He married my Corps Sistah Donna Dolce'.

I always loved that poem. And for some reason, I too have known that it was by Myra Brooks Welch. But I didn't know anything about her or of her handicap. Thanks David!

Happy Birthday Like An Eagle!

Why, the George Clooney guy, of course!!

And hey! I Googled "Dickerson Quarry" and came up with a Google Earth photo of it as well as a photo of the "Little Quarry" to the north. And in the poic, which you can zoomin on, you can see "Beetle Rock". And if you look carefully, there I am, sunning myself in the buff!.....Well,......NOT! But, it was cool to find it. I noticed in one of the comments that "Beetle Rock" had a different name. Since the days when we used to go there, we heard that a "consortium" of police officers bought the land and made it completely private, to be used only by they and their families for the purpose of hunting and outdoor things. The fact is, there were numerous fatalities out there due to drownings and such. Also, the fabled giant "Dickerson Turtle" that would allegedly snatch people from the surface of the water and drag them down into the depths. Naturally, I never believed that, but at times when swimming across the surface, I had a few moments of thinking about it and feeling vulnerable. Anyway, here's the link to my beloved old stomping grounds... http://wikimapia.org/114832/

Eva Mendes gardens naked? My my, she is a true Latin beauty! I first noticed her in some movie with Denzel Washington. I also read recently that she will be in some movie where she bares it all. I think I'll watch that one...

Wow. Belle. Thank you ever so much. I know that I am nowhere worthy of a comparison with Mark Twain, but I thank you ever so much for the compliment. And so, I will assure you that the incident is true. The place where I take license to embellish is when instead of saying; "We heard some girls laughing", I said; "We heard the laughter of maidens", and things like that. It paints a better picture, and still remains true to fact. I do remember saying to Andre' after the women had gone that it was like finding a bunch of beautiful maidens in some medievel story or something, and to this he agreed. But the facts of the story are as they had happened. On the way up that cliff though, we did talk about faking being bitten by that old copperhead in the wrong place, but, we still didn't have the guts to say it to them. We thought it might scare 'em away, or somethin'. I mean, we didn't want to push our unbelieveable good luck! I may seem to tell tales that seem wild and out of the ordinary, but as a "ute", I always sought the wilder side of Life, and did in fact have many adventures as a result of that. Why, at one time, I was even a teen aged Cult Leader! I magine that! But really, when it comes to having done lots of "wild things", I pale in comparison to others. As a Merchant Seaman on the Deep Sea, I only sailed for three years, while other shipmates of mine sailed from those days until even now. I did do eight years with the Alaska Marine Highway mostly in Inside Waters, but really, working on a ferry boat is scorned by many a Deep Sea sailor as "chickens h i t". And so, as I have always said, "there is always somone one who has done more, and is bigger and tougher and always more able than yours truly, and you too." I have just chosen to write about things that have happened to me, or write about things that friends have told me about. I mean, a writer has to start somewhere, ya know? I have always thought that a tale told by the one who lived it, will be the best tale told of all. And so mostly, I have written about incidents that I had been a part of. And if there are those who want to take potshots, I guess they can if they want to. But anyway dear lady, thank you so very much! You are a doll!

Whatever dude...

My dear Rocky, I didn't blame it on you, I only meant to say that you inspired me! :)

You think who was teasing?

But, I wanted to. And Dot, thank you!

No blame on you Rocky. You mentioned Black's Beach, a place where folks hung out in the buff, and it reminded me of Dickerson's Quarry...And Groucho, you said: That's okay Groucho, you call me an effin liar any chance you get. I mean, I dunno why you'd have to go and say that. It happened as it happened, and on a very benign thread (not even a politics thread), I told a story relevant to the topic at hand. But, you have to go and call me a liar. Whatever dude... And for those who read that other post, sorry for not taking the time to fix the typographical errors. I'll do it later...

Well, I guess since the question was "when you are at home, do you walk around naked?" I didn't "tell all" about nakedness and me. And now that Rocky has brought up Black's Beach, I guess I have to tell my stow-ree. Back when I was in high school, there was a rock quarry in Dickerson, Maryland, about sixty miles north of DC. The quarry was within a mile of the upper Potomac River, and within a mile of the tiny town of Dickerson. The quarry was pretty famous amongst even my brother's friends, even though he was/is nine years older than me. The quarry had been mined long ago for slate to be used on the old C and O (Chesapeake and Ohio) Canal. One day when mining, they hit a spring, and the quarry filled up, and became a beautiful crystal clear lake with towering cliffs all the way around, the highest being sixty five feet. AND, this place became a favorite swimming hole, and it was almost like a rite of passage to skip school, hitch hike out to the quarry (about a forty mile hitch from where we were), and then go swimming, and of course take the "double dog dares" to jump off of the various cliffs. And so, we smoked pot, jumped and dove off the cliffs and sunned ourselves on the cliff tops, and enjoyed the novelty of swimming in our skivvies. The girls were mostly too chicken to swim in their bras and panties, and many times would swim in their full blue jeans and halter tops. But, some of them did strip down to the near buff, and that was nice. Now this place, was also popular with many many people outside of our highschool bunch. Neighboring highschool kids showed up there, and even poeple as far away as Baltimore would come on over, and it was a fun mix ofm "utes" from places new to us. And once in awhile, there were people in their twenties (guys) who swam naked. Now, when me and my friends first began to see this, we always thought; "Pervert! Must be a fag!" And what have you, for we certainly weren't comfortable with seeing it, even thought the occasional buff guys never made any advances to our girls that were our friends, and certainly not to any of us guys. But. it still just seemed "weird" to us. And so, we did these occasional forays out to The Quarry while skipping school, and almost always went on the weekends. We took beer and pot, and always filled up with grub (junk food) at the Dickerson Market, the only store in that wide spot in the road of a town. Wen summer came, we'd hitch to Dickerson sometimesthree or for times a week. But, we began to see how the popularity of the place also caused it to get terribly trashed. It seemed that the "Baltimorons" always brought styrofoam coolers that would inevitably get broken up and end up in the water, only to have algae grow all over it and end up floating all around and looking really gross. And also during that first summer of my hanging out at Dickerson's Quarry, I began to get pretty environmentally conscious, and I began to stray from my rowdy druggie friends and hang out with a guy named Andre', who had quit getting high and began to get back to real things like fishing and hiking and such. But, Andre', like me, loved that old quarry, and soon, he and I started going out there real early in the morning together with our fishing poles and some healthy-er food, and swim in the early morning when all of the party hogs weren't there yet. And when they did show up later, Andre' and I would slip off to the "Little Quarry" nearby which was surrounded by trees, got way less sunlight, and was home to some bodacious largemouth bass. And, we had some fine times, old Andre' and I. And then one morning when we showed up at the rim of the Big Quarry at around 0630, before we could see into the quarry, we both heard at the same time, the laughter of maidens! And as we arrived at the top of our favorite jump off spot (Beatle Rock-named for the Fab Four), we looked down into the water and were stunned with a vision of pure splendor! There, below us and as beautiful as could be, were no less that eleven naked and very beautiful women! Andre' and I were but seventeen, but these gals looked to be like in their twenties! And they were frolicking and laughing gayly as Andre' and I, now kind of "peeping" watched in amazement. But then we were discovered by one of the girls. And she looked up to where we were thirty feet above the water and yelled with a big smile; "Hi! Come on in! The water's fine!" And so, Andre' and I, who had now become accustomed to wearing just gym shorts and no underwear while swimming, decided to just go in. At first I thought we shouldn't because they were girls, and because you shouldn't walk into a girls shower room, I was thinking that we shouldn't go in the water with them either. but Andre's thinking was more like this, as he said; "Hey, this is our quarry man, we been comin' here longer than they have, and they decided for themselves to take off all of their clothes! And so, I don't know about you, but I'm goin in!" Well, since I'd already stripped my shirt off, I did my usual swan dive and cut the water like a knife and continued straight into the deep and increasingly cold water, like I usually did. That's one of the few things I was good at. And after I came up for air, I looked up to the top of the cliff, and there was Andre', all six feet two of him with his fantastic physique, and he was naked! And he dove and did his usual jack knife dive and also cut the water like a knife. He and I were the "local Tarzans" at the quarry and would dive off of every single cliff, including the dreaded "Number 14", which 65 feet high and one had to dive far enough out to miss some underwater rocks. And so, now, we were all in the water together. But, there was one problem. I was the only one wearing any clothes! I was the "only weirdo in the pool". And it was pretty strage to be thinking that way. All of the sudden, there was a reversal of sorts in my head. Instead of thinking that "skinny dippers were pervs", I was thinking; "Gee, I guess they are probly thinking that I am too self conscious and not "liberated enough" in my mind to swim naked with them". And so, the decision was made. While treading water, I pulled off my gym shorts and voila! I was free! Liberated! And, it was marvelous and exciting! There just does seem to be a feeling of freedom when swimming in the buff, as some of you may well know. And so, Andre and I decided to do what we normally did after diving off of Beetle Rock, and that was to swim directly across to the "Fifty Five" which was a straight cliff fifty five feet high and required cliff climbing all the way to the top. And so, we swam over there which also happened to be where the girls were frolicking. TO BE CONTINUED...

Ya know, I have a nice "skinny dipping story" that I wrote earlier, but the GSCafe Cafe would not accept it becaue of it's length (I'm guessin'). And so, I will try to post it in "two parts" tomorrow in the wee hours when I get up (8 and 9 for most of you, 0430 for me), and maybe I will get some airtime here on it. I thought it a neat incident, and I am thankful for this thread that jogged my memory to write it... JL Ooh. A "hairless cat"! That sounds pretty gross too. But, no doubt both animals came about because of the "meddling hand of man" and not because of God or Science, to whomever you pay homage...

Hey Rocky, don't forget about that dog known as the "Mexican Hairless" (google it, they are worse than poodles), they are not hairy at all. And if you can find a photo of one and post it here, why, feel free! JL

Happy BDay Bluzman!

Oh. We thought that maybe he got "whacked" while driving around naked and um, you know...

So, you were excited huh Rocky? Did others notice how excited you were? Haha! Hey, does anyone know how to post a microsft Word document like an attachment? I typed up a story that I tried to post here, but when I click "post", it just comes up blank. Anybody know how to do that? I didn't think there was any such thing as a post that is too long...

No, my wife and I don't walk around naked, except when coming from the shower into the MBR to get dressed. We don't wear clothes when we sleep though. Never did like that. I have never been one of the "Pojama People". PJs always seemed kind of sissified for me. But that's just me of course. I don't own one of those bathrobe deals either. I remember in the Corps, we were supposed to have in our wardrobe some PJs and a bathrobe. Well, I never did buy the PJs but I did buy a cheap terry cloth bathrobe. And then to my horror, one night VP wanted us all to watch a movie in our PJs and bathrobes and such. And so, with nothing on underneath my cheap terry cloth bathrobe but my whitie tighties, I took my date with our sleeping bags and pillows to the upstairs of the barn in Gunnison to watch the movies with everybody else to watch the movies and hang with VP. Everybody teased me because my robe was short, and my legs were naked and the guys and gals were asking; "What do you have on under there? Then I got reproved by Charlie Preston (our Corps coordinator) for not owning PJs which had been on our "what to bring" list. And my date, was pretty embarrassed to be with me, and when laying on my sleeping bag, I had to make sure my robe didn't slip up. Naa, never did like PJs and bathrobes and such. When I get up, I just thrown on a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt, get my coffee, check the net, then shower and dress later before heading off to work....

I think that those people may have been real and their dum bass answers real, but I am willing to bet that they interviewed about twenty times more people who gave intelligent answers, and then only edited in the dumb ones making "all Americans look stupid". I played it for my 20 year old son who was never a great student, and he got most questions right as I did.

As they say Down Under, "Good on ya Mate!"

Hey there Cool Chef! Happy Birthday man!!