Civil War Ghosts – An Ode to Military Humor

If you have read my recent posts, you know that I have been discussing my family’s departure from Hawaii on our way to Tacoma enroute to North Dakota and the East Coast.  I was ultimately headed to the East Coast to Fort Lee, Virginia to attend the Logistics Executive Development Course.  The stops in Tacoma and North Dakota were to visit relatives.  That reminds me, I should probably tell you my theory of relatives sometime.  Not now, but some other time.  See, Einstein had his theory of relativity.  Well, my theory is kinda like that.  Only, my theory is about relatives.  Kinda neat, huh?  Oh yeah, the stop in North Dakota was also to retrieve my red Chevy van.  Well, I have talked about our journey across the United States to get to Fort Lee, Virginia.  We had some interesting exploits along the way and you can read about those exploits in some of my recent posts.  After arriving at Fort Lee, Virginia, I spent some time in my most recent posts talking about finding a place to live.  I mentioned in one post that we found a place in a trailer park in Petersburg.  And I mentioned in that post my sentiments about the manager of that trailer park.  But my family and I decided not to let that pickup driving, backwoods dwelling, varmint hunting, shotgun hauling trailer park manager interfere with our ability to get along and adapt to our new environment.  Even though we were treated as if we were “other-colored” people, we learn to improvise, overcome and adapt.  My son was getting along just fine and playing with his friends and time moved on.  Well, as I said, time moved on.  My family all got integrated into life at Petersburg and Fort Lee.  Even I got accustomed to life in Petersburg and Fort Lee.  Every evening after school, I would run through the woods surrounding the school where it was purported that Civil War battles had been fought.  A lot of the old-timers at Fort Lee alleged that those woods were haunted by the ghosts of dead Civil War soldiers, and they warned us not to get caught in those woods after dark.  They said that it was too easy to get lost and to get turned around and to get spooked by those Civil War ghosts that were wandering in the woods.  I wondered how much of that speculation came from the fact that a couple of those old-timers had gotten lost in those very woods themselves.  A deer had probably snuck up behind those poor old lost old-timers in the dark and scared the Bee-Jesus out of them.  It was either that or Ricky raccoon playing around in the leaves and the underbrush behind them.  But either way, the ghost was most assuredly a critter very much alive and very soft of foot.  And did you know that those sneaky little bastards can flit through the woods just about as fast as hell without you hearing so much as a damn thing?  Oh, hell yeah.  And in the dark, when those sons of a bitches run past you at about 100 miles an hour through the brush without making a sound when you’re already lost, and all you can see is the blurring movement through the underbrush.  It will definitely scare the shit right out of you.  Especially if your nickname ain’t “Boone”, and you ain’t used to being at home in the backwoods.  But I didn’t have those common afflictions associated with most folks, especially those who were faint of heart.  It was rare that I could find a running partner to run with me through those woods in the evening, especially when I chose to run one of the longer routes.  I could usually find a running partner for a three-to-four-mile run.  But I could never find a running partner to run with me on a run that exceeded six miles.  And the problem was that most of my runs through those woods exceeded six-to-eight-miles.  I usually always came out of those woods in the dark.  And I swear that no Civil War ghosts ever took a shot at me while I was running through those woods.  Honest!  Never ever.  It just didn’t happen.  In fact, I wasn’t even chased by any Civil War ghosts.  I may have scared a deer or two here and there.  My bad.  I wasn’t trying to scare them.  But you know how deer are.  They will run at the site of the first damn thing.  What is worse, they are so damn skittish that they will run at the first sound they hear.  Now I gotta be honest.  I ain’t exactly the quietest runner on the planet especially in the dark.  When I’m hunting, it’s a totally different story.  But when I’m running, especially at night, I make a little noise.  Why?  Cuz Jake might be out there.  Who is Jake you ask?  Jake the snake (and we ain’t talking about the old ‘90s “pro” wrestler).  And contrary to popular belief, Jake does not always make noise before he strikes.  Oh hell no.  And if you don’t see that bastard and step on him.  Jake will definitely be one pissed off sonofabitch.  That bastard is liable to haul off and bite your ass.  Now I ain’t saying that Jake can reach all the way up to your ass.  Because Jake would have to be one pretty big ass snake to reach all the way up to bite you in the ass.  But you know what I mean.  Jake is more likely to just bite you in the leg or something.  So, like I said, I make noise.  Lots of noise.  Jake and all his friends can hear me coming and get the hell out of my way.  That’s right.  So, if one or two deer here and there get scared as a result, that’s just the cost of doing business.  Or in this case, running through the woods at night.  Yeah, I know.  You’re going to tell me that I should carry a flashlight at night.  But you know what?  Those goddamn flashlights can get to be pretty damn heavy after six or eight miles.  I just don’t need to bother with all that extra weight.  I can see just fine without a flashlight.  And I never got lost in those woods.  And what about downed tree limbs that fall over the trail?  I ain’t lying, those can be a problem too.  But here is the thing, a good runner will run his trail a little slower the first time or two in order to map out the trail in his mind.  You know.  Kind of like a GPS.  When mapping that trail, this good runner will make note of the locations of terrain changes, changes in direction, landmarks, and obstacles.  A tree limb that blocks a trail is an obvious obstacle.  Now one other little detail I should mention about all of these trails that ran through the woods, is that they were all variations of the same trail.  Once you entered the woods on the trail, the distance you ran through the woods depended upon the various forks in the path you took.  That downed tree limb that I spoke of was near the very end of the trail and all of the forks funneled into the final fork that led to that obstacle.  The good readers can smell another story coming here, however, I ran through those woods every evening after school without fail and without any exercises in futility.

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