Curmudgetante Podcast

There are a couple of ways to look at everything I did to cut down on the amount of time I spent on upkeep and cleaning of my room. Either I was lazy, or highly efficient. I’d like to think I was the latter, but there were so many things I did in the Army that in the course of simply doing my job, I expended great amounts of energy doing. Being lazy when you could was an earned privilege. Get full...

Today, I’m navigating the uncharted territory of middle school girls. Now, back catalog episode 20, “Hey, Girls!” And episode 21, “And so it begins.” Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

Let’s catch up. It’s 1985. I’m in the Army stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky. One Saturday, me and my buddies go out. Questionable decisions are made, leading to criminal behavior. Which lands us in the Jefferson County jail, where we spend most of a Sunday before being handed a laundry list of offenses and being released back out into the wild. We’re now back at my car. While we have full bellies...

USA’s Bicentennial in 1976 was all anyone was talking about since early 1975. It was going to be one spectacular birthday party that would take months to celebrate properly. The marketing and branding for that July 4th was inescapable. Everything was red, white, and blue. Even things that probably shouldn’t have been. Like a lot of clothing, and wigs not worn by clowns. Get full access to Curmudge...

We’ve just traded our civilian clothes for a jail onesie and are working our way through the system. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

Nothing teaches you to be a good loser better than losing frequently. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

The print only version of this episode was originally posted on 17 September 2022. What follows is a new edited version. I’m a convicted criminal. And I’m not talking about the usual scofflaw behaviors involving a unpaid parking ticket or not crossing the street at the corner. I’m talking about being charged with more crimes than you can say in a single breath—needing to hire a lawyer level of cri...

Another two-fer from the back catalog. It’s the mid-1970’s and and I’m testing my limits in baseball, and rebelling in reaction to my changing world at school. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

We had more than one person in the battery that knew how to skin and field dress a snake. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

Today, it’s a two-for from the early 1970’s, where I’m playing baseball on grassless hardpan, and slaying fourth grade. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

Today, we’re in late summer 1985, and I’m demonstrably proving that love is not only blind, but profoundly deaf. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

Today, it’s early 1973 and our time on Baker Street has come to an end. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

I started to make a series of bad decisions that would pile up until they eventually crushed me fifteen years later. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

Not even getting beat down on the playground by some kid I called a son-of-a-bitch dampened my mood. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

Located in the high desert halfway between Reno and Las Vegas, it was the middle of nowhere adjacent. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

The closest primary school to our house was named after intrepid explorer John C. Fremont, whose claim to fame in the area was renaming a lake the indigenous people already had a name for and wandering through the area with Kit Carson. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

My perfect streak of getting yelled at during in-processing was intact. I was off to a great start! Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

Like so many displaced peoples before me, I was put in the back of a blue Pontiac station wagon, and forcibly moved from Sacramento to Carson City, Nevada. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

Before I leave Schofield Barracks and Oahu behind me, I’ve got some unrelated stories from my time on, and off the island. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

Most everything that came out of my mouth happened well before any internal editor and the standards department would kick in. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

I had been so concerned with getting myself out of something, I had no idea what I’d gotten myself into. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

You’d be very surprised how much math you can do with the rudimentary brute force of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

We got locked in a bar for our own safety. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

My Prussian-French genes blessed me with excellent hand eye coordination. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe

It’s hot in the Philippines all the time, but for good measure, my artillery battalion is going to spend the first few of weeks of July there. Get full access to Curmudgetante at curmudgetante.substack.com/subscribe