News

7 June 2017
Greetings T3 Folks -

Late again with my send outs and this time I don’t know if this will go out. I’ve been fighting my computer now for probably two months. Technology has been my enemy lately. A real rough part was a couple weeks ago when some dirt bag decided he liked my iphone more than I did and took it as his own. If you know me you know I don’t like a thief. Lots of pain with this theft but it could have been worse. No blood loss but the shedding of his wouldn’t upset me in the least. I’m still hoping he will get caught. The guy did a couple things with my phone that are totally upsetting. The first thing he did was go into my text messages and send a rather suggestive comment to my wife under my name.   Yes, I was dumb and didn’t have it password protected. The items that were password protected had the “remember me” box checked so he had access to my life.   Then he made a couple purchases from eBay with my PayPal account.   I got those cancelled in time though. I’m presuming after he made the first purchase he realized that he might like to have something delivered to him so he went into my settings and put his name and phone number in. At least I’m hoping it’s his name and not a vindictive thing he did to someone else. I’m hoping the cops are able to put this incriminating information to use.   I also lost all my non backed up photos. The most painful loss there was the day before seeing my almost six year old grandson hit a ball for the first time pitched from a pitching machine. I had it videoed. I also lost my DMS related photos and notes taken that month. So next paragraph - sorry for the personal lamenting if that is the right word.

Had a couple close encounters of the DMS kind at my flea market set up the past month. The first was Cheryl Showell. Cheryl worked in logistics in the later portions of the last century entering into this millennium. She was at DMS as DMS changed its name from DMS. Sort of a sad time in progress for sentimental slobs like me. Cheryl was visiting with her sixteen year old son. I lost my notes because of the above incident so I’m relying on a totally aging memory. Anyway it was great seeing her again. This will be her first DMS related email from me. Poor girl -

Second encounter was SGM(Ret) Joseph E. Shamp and his bride Joan. Joe was Operations Sergeant Major at the schoolhouse I’m guessing in the early to mid 90’s. My memory is shot on that one. I do remember meeting Joe for the first time in June of 1968 in the 30th Topo at Fort Belvoir. He made Staff Sergeant the same time I made Spec Five in September that year. The old stuff I remember.   Joe and Joan spend a lot of time cruising around the country in his big RV. Must be nice! That’s his excuse for not making it to our lunches or dinners. Speaking of which -

Last lunch was very successful. I’d read my list of attendees and perhaps attach a photo or so but instead I’ll reference paragraph number one. As usual a good time was had by all.   If you are in shouting distance of Woodbridge and have never attended one of our lunches or dinners you have been missing out on some great memory enhancers. I hate to be repetitive but we meet on the second Monday of every month. Odd numbered months for lunch, 1130 - 1300 or so and even numbered months for evening dinner from 1830 - 2000 or so. And for ease of remembering where it’s at we have it at the same place every time - The China King Buffet, 14345 Potomac Mills Road, Woodbridge, Va 22192. The food is good and it’s a clean place. With the above information it is noted that the second Monday in this month, June, is this coming Monday June 12th. June is an even month so it’s dinner in the evening around 1830 hours. And of course spouses, family and friends are encouraged to attend. Once again the only requirement to attend is being able to spell the word MAP and we don’t take off for spelling. Dress is whatever you are comfortable in. Usually we are around a dozen in number. I think we broke twenty only once. Time for that to happen again!! Help!!!

On another personal note (sorry) I had an era sort of end several weeks ago. For those of me that have known me from the early days, thirty to forty years ago, you should remember my addiction to the VW.   I just sold my last two air cooled bugs. I had advertised a rust bucket bug on Craigslist and had a gent saw the one I had in my garage and talked me out of that one as well. So now I am bug less so to speak. I still have my Passat, Jetta and Routan but they are different animals. It’s kind of sad for me but I am getting grayer. However if one that doesn’t need much work would appear on the horizon I will be tempted. So far the good from all of this is that I have finally started to clean out my garage. That was one of my goals when I retired in ’09.   I’m slow.

And if you haven’t visited our website www.belvoirdms.org lately you should find some time to do so. Our webmaster Ray Chapman has been doing a great job updating and adding things in. I was personally enthralled to see he put in our upcoming dinner before I got the email out. Thanks Ray! I’m trying to figure out a way to raise some bucks for the cost of maintaining the site. Just like Hess, Ray has been paying out of pocket for the fees. Definitely an above and beyond type of thing. And if your picture is not on the site please send one to Ray and include a story or two if you want. Ray’s contact information is on the site. Or you can reply to me but with the aforementioned technology battle it may not reach the desired location.

When I retired eight years ago this month I told myself that I wanted to golf once a week. Well this past Monday I golfed for only the seventh time since retiring . Somehow I got involved with former Washington Redskin Darrell Green’s charity celebrity golf tournament. I get to play free for making phone calls and getting retired athletes to donate their time and play with paying customers. Playing once a year is not exactly the best way to maintain any type of playing consistency other than being consistently bad.   Over the past several years I’ve been able to ruin the lives of NFL Hall of Famers Art Monk and Charley Taylor as I have played 18 holes of golf with them. For you former Hokies of VT you may recall the name Bryan Randall. He used to quarterback Tech in the late 90’s. I got to play golf with him this week. Class act! I apologized for my game before we started. And I apologized for my game when it was over. Still somehow the group I was in finished third.

Reminder on dinner this coming Monday around 1830 or so at the China King in Woodbridge. I am planning on being there but my mother out law has not been doing well. We are going to southwestern Va to see her this weekend. She is just shy of 101.5 and not doing well. She has expressed desire to opt out of life which is sad but understandable. Constant pain has been her enemy. Family being selfish and wanting her to linger on is actually a downside. For a mother out-law she has been great. Having a Yankee enter in her Rebel life 49 years ago was a shock to her but we’ve converted each other.   I’m sure I will shed tears when her journey is over. All in all life is great.

Batt out -