Saturday, September 19, 2009

Did this on a chair in Santa Barbara once

by Smitty (h/t Jillosophy)

Not this parody:

Rather, the original "That's Amore".

USS Valley Forge (CG 50), made a port call in Santa Barbara. This was about 10 years ago. She's a submarine now.


The Palace Grill is an excellent place, wallowing in ambiance. In the old naval tradition, the Damage Control Assistant and I were in service dress blues. The DCA was rather an introvert, and part of my task was to show the guy how to have a decent time on the town. The waiter came around and passed out a sheet with the lyrics to some other song, whose title is lost to fuzzy memory, and the whole place sang it.

By the time I was on my second cajun martini (straight gin with a red pepper) I decided we needed to reprise the fun of the first song. No no no, said the waiter, we don't do that more than once per evening. I insist, I replied, and offered to stand on my chair and lead the singing. Uncertain as to how drunk I was, yet persuaded by the uniform, he acquiesced. So I wound up standing on a chair in Santa Barabara in SDBs belting out "That's Amore".

Getting down off the chair and seating myself, I told the DCA: "And that's how you do it". Go, Navy.

3 comments:

  1. don't forget to add: "Beat Army"

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  2. My station during General Quarters on the USS Bainbridge DLGN-25 was Damage Control Central which was on the Mess Deck.

    My most exciting experience aboard ship was a reactor scram with a hot restart. (the other reactor was down for maintenance) I was involved in calculating the restart parameters (I was an RO) and checking the forward DG to make sure it had automatically started properly.

    Thanks for bringing back the memories.

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  3. For that story, I say: Go Smitty!

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