Marlow's Musings 11/10/24
Insights, adventures and fun stuff from this week.
Audio narration by David Marlow
It's Aloha Friday, no work 'til Monday.
Doo be doo, doo doo be, doo be doo be doo be doo!
Paul Natto1
In Hawaii, Aloha Friday means taking off early to start your weekend. Even the Marines at Kaneohe Bay embraced the practice, shutting down the shops and 'securing' for the weekend around noon. Except…
One-fourth of the shop had duty and if you were assigned to the duty section for the weekend it meant wrapping everything up and then being on call.
The 640 shop had secured down to the duty section. Typically the remaining Marines would lock up all the safes, and inventory tools and do any clean-up necessary.
We had a new boss, our NCOIC2 who insisted on getting all pending work completed even if it wasn’t urgent.
On this Friday we had to destroy some classified components from our avionics gear—crystal oscillators that generated specific frequencies. Even burned-out ones needed proper disposal due to security protocols.
It was a highly technical process. We took them outside placed them on a concrete block and hit them with a mini-sledgehammer.
Breaking the crystals could easily have waited until Monday but this Gunnery Sergeant was nearing retirement and was in a mood.
Everything went perfectly until the last crystal. A new Lance Corporal asked if he could do one and Sergeant Howard said, “Sure, why not. Make sure you strike it square.” Of course, he didn't. He hit the brass casing housing the crystal with a glancing blow instead of striking it square, which shattered the crystal and sent the whole assembly flying.
“Find it, “ barked the Gunny, “ and don’t secure until you do.” He then walked into the shop.
Aloha Friday and a shop party were on hold until we found that tiny piece of brass and crystal.
The workshop was a mobile trailer sitting on a pad of large granite rocks. That tiny piece of smashed brass could have landed anywhere. We scoured the whole area for about twenty minutes searching to no avail.
Just as the Gunny came walking out to check on our progress Sergeant Howard shouted, “I found it!”
He was standing next to me the whole time. He hadn’t picked anything up so puzzled I shot him a glance. He winked and said, “Secure from duty section.”
The Gunny grunted and went back into the shop. The crystal was destroyed which was the actual mission. The technicality of having the brass fitting to throw away would have kept us indefinitely. Sergeant Howard was a good leader.
At the party, I shared the news that I was flying home for my baby brother’s wedding. Money was tight and when my fellow Marines found out I didn’t have a dress blue uniform to wear for the ceremony they sprang into action. “You have to wear your blues,” Staff Sergeant Davy Crockett insisted.
Many of you are wondering, yes he was a direct descendant of that Davy Crockett. I quickly bought a coat and pants. Crockett loaned me the rest, a white belt, cover and gloves.
On the flight home, I had a long layover in Los Angeles. Only one other person was waiting for the flight to Indianapolis. He looked familiar so I struck up a conversation and he turned out to be someone I played with on the same basketball team when we were 11. It had been fifteen years since we had seen each other.
Arriving home one of my older brothers loaned me his truck which I used to drive across the flatlands of Indiana and Illinois up north to meet the groom, our baby brother. It was November and cold. The sun was shining brightly through the window as I drove and it struck me how, so used to the intense sun in Hawaii, I didn’t feel its warmth.
I surprised my brother in one of those movie-like ways dropping in unannounced to the high school where he taught. He thought I was a former student returning to visit school until I got close. It was worth the long flight and drive just to see the expression on his face.
The wedding was on a beautiful sunny November day with the fall leaves still visible. My future sister-in-law’s father had passed away and I was given the honor of walking her down the aisle wearing those brand-new dress blues.
I was home, surrounded by familiar people and places. The only thing missing were my wife and son whom I missed terribly. That evening I called her to check in. She had some incredible news.
The flight back home was uneventful. This was before 9/11 and people could wait at the gate to greet you.
At the gate was Alicia, our son, and forming in her belly our second son.
Alicia was crying as we hugged, “Welcome home.”
It would hit me even in the moment she said it. I thought I had just spent a week at home but realized there on a tiny island in the Pacific thousands of miles from where I grew up, I was home.
Word of the Week
Rigmarole (n.)
/ˈriɡ(ə)məˌrōl/
a lengthy and complicated procedure.
a long, rambling story or statement.
The origins of rigmarole meant a long, rambling discourse; an incoherent rant and it later became associated with the activity of bureaucratic red tape or application of nonsensical rules.
Bureaucracy and waste keep us from living our Ikigai. That’s why I’m zealous to remove as much rigmarole as I can from my life.
In case you missed it…
This week’s Ikigai Thought for Today…Color Inside the Lines
We often see creativity as thinking outside the box or outside the lines. There is a certain value instead in working within constraints and then moving them.
Ikiquest+
This week’s Coffee Contemplation: Falling Awake
I revisit a live audio reflection and the idea of being fully present in life. Instead of falling asleep, falling awake.
Ikiquest+ subscribers can listen to it in audio narration or read the transcription.
If you aren’t yet an Ikiquest+ Subscriber, give it a try for free by clicking the box here.
Interesting Thing
My friend (and avid Ikiquest reader) Steve shared the story of Harold Wrong, a soldier in World War I whose life and death created a mystery that has taken a century to solve.
In all his writing Steve explores gratitude. Here, he introduces us to a poignant example of gratitude amid the horror of war and leads us to the mystery.
“Harold was a young soldier, thousands of miles away from home. His “home away from home” was a deep trench which he shared with thousands of other young men. Their lives were filled with fear, uncertainty and death…There was nothing noble or glamorous or exciting about living in a trench and being shot at.
And there was Harold, with many good years supposedly in front of him, finding gratitude for what WAS in his life: the love and support of his family thousands of miles away.
Despite all of the deplorable conditions of his current existence, Harold found beauty, a flower. And he decided to share that small miracle of life with the people who loved him…
The next day, Harold was dead.”
The mystery of what kind of flower Harold noticed and sent home to his family has remained a mystery all these years…until now.
You can read more on Harold in the rest of the story.
Comment of the Week:
I’ve been having fun in the Notes portion of Ikiquest sharing puns and other fun things.
This one I shared garnered the comment of the week….
My 9-year-old grandson E shared his new favorite joke the other day: 'What do you call it when one banana eats another? Cannibananabalism.'
After the groans subsided, I asked if he realized humans eat more bananas than monkeys.
"Really?"
"Of course,' I replied. 'When was the last time you saw someone eat a monkey?"
Michael enjoyed my pun and shared a real-life pun story….
Just sharing this with someone else and thought you’d enjoy it…
Here’s one I pulled out in an exchange with a cashier my age. …We were bantering back and forth and he turns to the college kid working next to him and points at me and says, ‘The guy is really smart” … with a straight face I say, “Well, I speak Braille proficiently” and the cashier doesn’t drop a beat and says, “See what I mean…” The college kid as serious as a heart attack says, “Wow…So you’ve been to Brazil a lot?
I enjoyed this because it represents some of the connection and conversation we have here on Ikiquest. Ikiquest is intended to be a respite—a place to come outside of the craziness of the world and connect with our true selves and others.
This indicates to me that is exactly what it has become.
If you’d like to read more of the comments, many of which are fun extensions of the pun you can read it Note here.
Quote I’m Pondering
This thought is from Sylvia Plath
“What horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age.”
Sylvia Plath-The Unabridged Journals
Another excellent reminder of the urgency of Ikigai.
Final Thoughts
Today marks the 249th Marine Corps birthday, and tomorrow is Veterans Day - which brought to mind this story of returning home.
Reflecting on that moment when I realized home was thousands of miles from where I'd grown up, I'm reminded of a scripture.
In the book of Mark Jesus says, “I assure you that everyone who has given up house or brothers or sisters, or mother or father or children or property for my sake, will receive now in return a hundred times as many houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and property.”
He adds, “along with persecution,” though we like to skip that part.
“And then in the world to come,” he finishes, “that person will have eternal life.”
I certainly have seen all the evidence. Since leaving home I’ve added many brothers, sisters, children, and property. Through my in-laws, I even added a second mother and father.
The eternal life thing remains a matter of faith. As Steven Wright mused, “I plan to live forever….so far so good.”
I gave up a lot following what I felt and still feel was a call. It separated me permanently in many ways from everything and everyone I’d known.
Initially, I saw only loss. Getting off that plane was the beginning of a realization of all I had gained.
Quest Well.
Aloha Friday Song Lyrics ©1982 Paul Natto
Non-commissioned officer in charge. Typically a Staff Sergeant or above.
So much here to love 💞
Wonderful as always, David!
And, thank you for your service.