Tall Tales

I have ALWAYS loved telling stories!

That is why my friends encouraged me to start blogging... so they would not have to actually listen to my stories anymore!

Switching to written storytelling from oral you lose a lot of the tools of good story telling, tone of voice, body language maybe even some accents thrown in here and there.

Friday night I had a chance to get all oral again and it was GREAT.

A buddy of mine wants to go to this party but I don't know anyone there. As a nerd I HATE going to a party period but to a party where I don't know anyone? Oh the horror! 

(Also bear in mind from my last post that I wrenched my knee pushing a boat and am using a cane for 10 days. )

So we walked into the front room and right off there is a weird situation, there were 3 people comparing scars, and one of them was a pretty hot blond. I have seen guys doing "scar competitions" before but outside of the movie Lethal Weapon 4(?) I have never seen women play the game. But here it was in living color!

So I said Ooooo- can I play?

Sure.

So I lifted my shirt and showed them my stomach surgery scars, I was wearing shorts and I have a nice double scar above my knee where the propeller of a radio control plane got me and then I have several good misc hand scars from farming and mechanizing.

Now I am telling YOU where the scars came but that is not what I told them.... for them I just pointed them all out. The Surgery scars are the best of course but the others made nice "accessories"

So they asked where did you get all those scars...

Well during the first Persian gulf war I had to eject from my crippled F-15 fighter deep over enemy territory!

"Oh man! What happened to you!?"

Well, there I was deep over Saddam's stronghold, flying high cover on a moonless night, moving nearly as fast as a bullet 10 miles above the earth. At that altitude, on a moonless night, the stars looked like diamonds scattered on black velvet. So crisp, so close, you can easily convince yourself you have in fact left the planet and are in space. It was gorgeous! It was so ironic to experience such beauty deep in a war zone!

Suddenly my reverie was shattered by a flashing master caution alarm!

With no warning at all a fan belt had broken! You want to talk about fear! Fear that grabs you deep in your gut and won't let go!

Still, I tried to salvage the situation but when the fan belt on #1 broke apparently it flew off into #2 engine and took out its fan belt too. I was hosed! I had no hydraulics! (Power steering) You simply can not fly an F-15 without hydraulics! I had no choice but to eject!

It was during the ejection sequence when I snagged jagged pieces of the canopy and got the belly and leg scars I showed you.

More people are gathering around now, it's getting quiet at this party.

So I went on about how hard it is while drifting down in your parachute to judge when you going to contact the ground in the dark desert and I misjudged the landing and to this day I have this cane to remind me of it.

I managed to evade capture for a few days but they finally got me. The scars on my hands are from the interrogations...

Finally, one guy, challenged me, "What? Those scars are not from torture!"

With a grin I said, "Dude! You mean you bought the fan belts breaking but you are NOT buying the interrogation scars?"

People are looking a each other and the blond with her own scars asked me if any part of this story is true?

With my grin growing wider I answered "Helllllll no! But its a good story huh?"

Everyone laughed and suddenly I was not at a party of strangers anymore.