Friday, January 21, 2022

 

January 21, 2022

“Goodbye”

By Jim Culp

 I first heard the record “Bat Out of Hell” in 1985 when I arrived in the Republic of Korea as a young and extremely green soldier. My roommate had the record on a 33 rpm turntable, and he played it anytime we were in the barracks. I didn’t know Marvin Lee Aday at the time, and wondered why he called himself ‘Meat Loaf. “Bat Out of Hell” was a multi-platinum record…selling millions of copies worldwide. The record spoke volumes to me. When I told my roommate that I had never heard it, he asked me if I had been living in a cave in Africa before I joined the Army. I laughed and said “Pretty close, dude.” In 1984, I bought my first car, and it only had a radio in the dash. Once I obtained a cassette tape player in it, life was way better. I could only listen to Rock and Roll when I was in my car, or at other guy’s houses…Rock and Roll was forbidden in my home, because it was “Of the Devil.”

When I told Army buddies that, they would laugh out loud. Replies like “dude, that is fu%$*&% insane!!” I listened to a ton of rock and roll music in my Olds ’98, but never heard Meatloaf before. It was the same for Pink Floyd and many others. I was turned on to all of them in Korea, where you could buy cassette tapes in a little store for $2.00. They were dubbed from an LP, but who cares. You could build a massive collection in the year that you were there.

Meat Loaf belted out songs like “Two Out of Three Ain't Bad,” and “For Crying’ Out Loud.” I was sold like a farmer’s wife sniffin’ produce.

Meat Loaf entertained us for 50 years. Yesterday, he passed to the beyond the barrier of life. We will miss him.

-Jim

 

Follow Me on Facebook

Follow me at jimculp.blogspot.com

Friday, January 7, 2022

America

 

Misnomer #2:

Many people speak misnomers when they are talking about the land where I and millions of other people live. I live in Missouri, a sovereign state that is 1/50th of the United States of America. This massive body of independent states shares borders with Canada (to the North) and Mexico (to the South). One of the states with membership in the USA is Alaska (on the Northwest “tip” of the Canadas) that was purchased from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 Million. Alaska became a U.S. state on January 3, 1959.

 From California facing west, the U.S. state of Hawaii lies midway in the Pacific Ocean just a short 2,572 miles. Hawaii became a U.S. state on August 21st of 1959. The Hawaiian Islands are home to 1.4 Million residents.

The “Lower 48” and the two states aforementioned are the “United States of America.” It is not proper to call the USA “America” because the USA is only a part of the “Americas.” The Americas stretch from the Northwestern Passages in the Arctic Ocean to the Southern tip of South America near Islas “Islands” Hermite in the Southern Pacific Ocean.

The vast region I just described is “America,” or “the Americas.”

So when you say “I live in “Merica”…” (Like George Bush, Jr. and Barack Obama frequently did) you should be naming the state you live in, and that would suffice. You can easily say “I live in Texas…” almost anywhere in the world to anyone with a 5th grade education, and all would be good. If you are in a third world country, you might need to include “the United States.”

Easy Peasey…

-Jim

Follow Me on Facebook

Follow me at jimculp.blogspot.com

Saturday, January 1, 2022

2022

 

By Jim Culp

January 1, 2022

Well…if it isn’t 2022…how quaint. It’s 17˚F here in Lee’s Summit. We have a 1-2” blanket of snow that gives it all a wintry bliss. We are supposed to receive more snow and lower temperatures this coming week. It’s finally winter and the temperatures are hopefully going to stay cold long enough to kill all the pesky bugs that make Spring and Summer too miserable to do anything outside.

2022 promises my immediately family (Me, Jess, and a stupid cat) a move out of the city, a new life, and a better state of mind. As for the rest of our family across this old US of A, I wish you peace, love, and joy in the coming New Year. For my “extended family,” I wish all my military brothers and sisters the very best that life can give them…they deserve it. To all of my friends, family, and loved ones that have left this plane before me…may your soul find a new home, and may your new life flourish wherever it may be.

Life is a gift. Treasure it like one. It is finite until you make the next journey.

Cheers!

-Jim

Follow me on Facebook

Follow me at jimculp.blogspot.com

 

Thursday, November 4, 2021

"Entitled"

 

“Entitled”

By Jim Culp

November 4, 2021

 

We’re coming to the end of another year. Soon there will be snow, impassable streets, and hundreds of accidents. In Nature, the trees are changing colors; the sky is frequently gray, and all the animals that don’t have fur are disappearing for the rest of the year, and well into the next. The holidays will soon be upon us, and once again thousands of people will spend billions of dollars on gifts for their spouses, their children, and those that are fortunate enough…their grandchildren.

The stores will be crowded with hundreds of people combing the shelves for this and that, and breaking out the iPad to buy online.

Yesterday, I was in the Walmart here in Lee’s Summit. It’s a place that is always crowded to the gills, because everything around it has outrageous prices. I was in the frozen section, and this kid wanted some blueberry toaster waffles. Innocent enough... Then his mother told him it wasn’t happening because the last time she bought them for him, he didn’t eat them. He started screaming “child abuse” and “this is so unfair.” Well, about a minute later Mom tossed them back in the basket, and little anti-christ declared “see, I won!”

Mom turned around and took the box out of the cart, and placed the waffles back in the freezer.

That was the tie that broke little Satan’s defenses. He jumped out of the cart, and started things off the shelves, and yelling “I’ll show this bitch what a bad kid is!”

Mom quickly ran and grabbed the young lucifarian and wrapped him up like a burrito in her arms. He proceeded to head-butt her in the chin twice, and she maintained her bearing; and kept telling him to calm down. Two Walmart employees showed up, and were clueless what to do. One of them asked Mom if she wanted the police to come intervene. She shook her head “yes.” 20 minutes later, the prince of darkness junior was in a police car being schooled by the young officer.

I left there thinking about my family, my siblings’ children, and all the times we swapped stories of stuff our kids had done in yesteryear. When I told this story to my therapist, he was taken aback, and stated that he’d never let his kid pull that kind of stuff. He asked me what I thought.

“I don’t know Doc, when you have been the places I have been, and see little girls with no shirt or shoes when it was 36 degrees, it kinda hard for me to have any sympathy for kids in North America. They get smart phones for Christmas when they aren’t old enough to know a dollar from a donut, and have everything under the sun. They get cars for their 16th birthday, and don’t work for anything. I think it is a disease that is going to make our country go down the toilet.”

“Entitlement,” he said.

“Yes Sir, I believe so.”

 

Follow me on Facebook

Follow me at jimculp.blogspot.com

Monday, October 11, 2021

The Times they are a Changin'

 

October 11, 2021

“The Times they are a Changin’”

By Jim Culp

 

A grammatically correct sentence? A warning? Neither…it was a song written, played, and sung by my favorite poet, Bob Dylan. When Mr. Zimmerman wrote these lyrics in 1965, the USA was a very different place than it is today. JFK was gone, and LBJ took his place as POTUS. Malcom X was murdered, and the funeral of Winston Churchill drew a crowd of over 300,000 people. Vietnam was in its latter stages, but still cranking out dead US servicemen by the minute.  Bob Dylan wrote songs that came from his heart, and songs that many parents (including mine) would just as soon never let their children hear. That were songs that questioned the establishment, pissed off the preachers, and talked about poverty and homelessness. Other songs a sang a different tune, and that tune was about having someone to talk to. You know, someone who not only cares, but has at least some mileage on the track of life that you were on at some point. A friend like that is a rare gift indeed, and life only deals you so many of them, like aces in poker.

In these troubled times, we face so many obstacles. COVID, a government with cranial rectitis; half a billion people that could care less about their fellow human beings, the planet that they live on, or the air that we breathe. On my fifth day of COVID, there was a phone call from one of my oldest brothers. It was a welcome ring. The brother I speak about goes back with me all the way to my early days in the Republic of Korea (May of 1985). We talked the better part of two hours. This is a precious commodity that some people know nothing about, and some that probably never will. Someone that has experiences with you (or similar to you) for 36 years is something that can never be replaced. When they tell you that their knees hurt, or their fingers aren’t working, you know right away want they mean, because you pulled the same pin, lifted the same bridge, or fired the same gun. My day went so much better after that. Life goes on.

Bob was so right. The Times they are a changing’, and I ain’t so sure for the better. Hold on to the things that are precious to you. You know, like Smeagol and the Ring... just kidding. Friends, brothers, and family are eternal. Don’t pass up a day to let them know you care. Tomorrow is never promised.

Cheers-

-Jim

 

Follow me on Twitter

Follow me on Facebook

Follow me at jimculp.blogspot.com

 

 

Thursday, August 26, 2021

"Come on In"

 

August 26, 2021

“Come on In!”

By Jim Culp

 

So yesterday I watched a portion of a documentary that is being recorded and documented in McAllen, Texas. Texas is my home state, but I was born in El Paso, which is 785 miles from McAllen. That should give you the sheer size of that state; it’s the second largest state in the USA right after Alaska. This guy (un-named for his protection) is filming the processing of persons coming from Mexico to the USA. When they started filming it, the film crew stated that they were under the massive bridge that crosses the Rio Grande River. He witnesses groups of Mexican personnel being processed for entry into the USA. The problem though…is two things (in my opinion). If a group has ONE child in it, they all go through, and are given a paper ticket that says “appear in court this day, this city…etc.”

The guy noted something really crazy though…he said he looked at some of the papers, and most of them cite a date that is THREE YEARS in the future. “Are you shitting me?” I said as I heard it. Do you really think that people are going to do that? Let me digress a bit.

I have no problem with people trying to improve their lives, especially people that are impoverished. A human being has every right to try and make things better for himself and his family. Women damn sure have the right to improve themselves even when they are not being used for concubines, being raped, or being outright slaves. Children have the right to happiness, education, and care. I don’t blame a single Mexican from trying to get into the USA, but our government needs to shit or get off the pot. If you’re going to let them in, you better get a plan in place for processing them. It will be the same when United States cities start receiving all the Afghanis. The trouble is... they aren’t even taking care of OUR citizens, much less anyone else.

Call your Congressman or Senator…tell them what you think. If they don’t respond, call them out.

-Jim

Follow me on Facebook

Follow me on TikTok

Follow me at jimculp.blogspot.com

Thursday, August 19, 2021

"A Bad Deal...All Around"

 

August 19, 2021

“A Bad Deal…All Around”

By Jim Culp

 

Let me tell you how far you can get in a combat zone like areas in Afghanistan or Iraq without an interpreter. Sure, you can go all Stormtrooper and just kill everybody, but then you’re gonna play hell making it out. Interpreters act in many roles, but I can tell you…my interpreter in Iraq was invaluable to me. In fact, I had two. The one had at the meeting hall was a very young guy called Buddy (because no one could pronounce his proper name) that spoke nearly fluent English, he was fluent in Modern Arabic and Kurdish. He did interpretations for me daily and only asked for a can of Pringles in payment.

My other guy was a commercial contractor. Mr. Nohman was from a northern province of Baghdad, and had a lovely wife and three children. He wasn’t a terrorist or a thug; he was a good man trying to make money for his family. Nohman would get me everything from blankets to plywood, flash drives, and tools, nails… whatever.

When I watch the current crap going on in Afghanistan, I think about Nohman and how I would feel if he were to be left there after being such an asset to me for seven months. I would feel like a thug myself thinking of his children being rounded up to be slaves, or his inability to feed his family because the supermarkets had been closed to the public unless they complied with the thug’s wishes.

Every time I hear some stupid redneck says things like “screw them towel-heads, they started it!” or some other asinine bullshit. It makes my skin crawl. Educate yourself. Talk to veterans that have been through this kind of crap. It’s the same thing that happened in Saigon in 1975. A country collapses because the invading force had poor leadership and made really bad calls in the latter years. And no, it’s not just Biden.

 

Jim Culp

Veteran of OIF 1

February 2003 to May 2004

Tigris River Valley, Iraq

Follow me on Facebook

Follow me at jimculp.blogspot.com