Me n’ The Snake...In the Pickup...At 55 mph.

On a lighter note, here's a recounting of an adventure I had earlier this summer that I thought might be entertaining.

June 26, 2012
Newnan, Georgia

Late this morning Mr. Cecil called.  Mr. Cecil is the old timer shade tree mechanic, literally. He works mostly on lawn equipment, assisted by his very precocious bloodhound puppy who at 14 weeks still has yet to be named, under a big old Georgia pecan tree growing beside his house, on his old homeplace outside Luthersville, a small rural town about 20 miles south of my town of Newnan, Georgia. He wanted to let me know that he had finished replacing a bunch of parts on my aging riding lawnmower and that my vacation from summer lawn care duty was, alas, over. I had to pick up the mower.

After lunch I heaved a sigh and moseyed next door to Mike’s house to borrow his old pickup and trailer for mower transport duty.

Now, you must understand that we live in a community with a minimum lot size of an acre and a half and Mike lives on our shared lake. His property abuts about 75 acres of undeveloped wild woodland/wetland literally teeming with an abundance of southern woodland/wetland critters. His pickup, probably an eighty-something vintage small model Ford, lives tucked into a tight niche in the edge of the woodland/wetland forest on the edge of his property where multitudes of critters live and go about their lives almost totally unmolested by humankind. Heck, they probably live their entire lives without ever SEEING a human being. To put things in perspective, I guess they figure they OWN the damn place. The truck’s exterior is home to I’d say about 32 species of lichens, molds, mosses, mildews, and maybe even a few mushrooms, given the perfect habitat for molds and fungi that exists in its woodsy niche.

 

The Mossy Snake Truck in its natural habitat

Well, when I arrived to get the truck, I opened the driver’s door and fished around for the keys which Mike keeps in the glove box, since we have no crime in our neighborhood, we are somewhat loose regarding physical security; many of us never lock doors and keep keys to vehicles in more logical than secure places. The keys were, predictably, where they always stay and, after hooking up the trailer, I drove south through Newnan and sleepy little Moreland in the 95 degree summer heat with both windows rolled down for whatever cooling I could wring out of the automotive generated breeze in midday, summertime Georgia. I was wearing shorts, no socks, a pair of Crocs, and a t-shirt, summer uniform hereabouts.

As I accelerated out of Moreland on the two lane asphalt highway leading to Luthersville, I found myself behind a slower (?) Honda with a badly bent right rear wheel which was wobbling wildly and, no doubt shaking the fillings out of the driver’s teeth. I was unable to pass him since the Ford can only be pressed so hard before her engine begins to balk by refusing to make more power as she spits and vibrates in protest with the application of what she deems to be excessive throttle. She will only accelerate after the driver eases up on the throttle, and then only reluctantly. 55 mph is about the maximum velocity one can coax from the old girl when a trailer is attached. I had nudged her up to that limit when I happened to feel something gently rub across my bare right calf. Naturally, I looked down and saw what I, at first, took to be a slender 3' long black strap waving at me just over the edge of the bench seat. After about a nanosecond my age-deteriorated cerebral function finally calculated that cloth straps are NOT, as a general rule, tapered to a point. After calculating frantically for a second nanosecond my brain screamed at the top of its voice: SNAKE!! IN TRUCK!! WITH YOU!!

 

 

Southern Black Racer

(click image to see him - NOT NEARLY as big as I did)

I instantly, and totally, forgot that I was anywhere near, much less driving, a somewhat unstable truck/trailer rig hurtling along the highway at about 55 mph, with the trailer hitched behind and just waiting for me to saw the wheel so it could jack knife the whole ensemble into the woods off the side of the highway. I HAD to stay cool as the proverbial “center seed in a summer Georgia cucumber.” My brain was wildly performing calculations on somewhat the scale of a Cray Supercomputer in order to somehow assure my survival. It DID fairly rapidly determine that the snake was non-poisonous, that’s GOOD; that its head was moving away from me into the passenger floorboard area – GOOD again. My only choice at this point was to get that damn rig stopped with the utmost dispatch and THEN deal with the black snake sharing the truck with me. One of us HAD to go, and I wasn’t of a mind for it to be me.

Now, while I generally LIKE snakes, I prefer a “live and let live” relationship. I NEVER have aspired to get close to, pet, or otherwise touch any snake and I was pretty well convinced he shared these feelings reciprocally. So I attended to first things first….I crammed on the brakes and steered the bucking rig onto the shoulder of the road with tires screaming in protest. Somehow I managed to keep the truck and trailer in line on the longitudinal plane until motion ceased and the snake and I were out of danger from a violent crash at relatively high speed into some rural Georgia swamp.

Next, somehow, despite being strapped firmly in my seat, I managed to dive over to the right side of the cab and wrench open the passenger door to provide as wide an avenue of escape as possible for my three foot long, no-shouldered friend. I even thought I might motivate him to utilize the door opening by sort of trying to herd him with the cardboard box containing the tie-down straps I’d brought to secure the mower for the return trip. No joy, he headed for what HE thought was safety in his slithery little world and made a serpentine break for the back (or front depending on your perspective) side of the instrument panel where he likely figured he could camouflage himself as, say, a bundle of windshield wiper wires, or something.

It was now or never as his head scuttled up behind the glove box in the right front corner of the red interior. I made a desperate dive and, for the first time in my life, wrapped all four of my fingers, thumb, and palm fully and firmly around the poor, terrified snake’s soft, tubular body about a foot from the tail. I simply could not allow him to take refuge in the dashboard wiring and just continue on my journey to Luthersville with a stowaway serpent. IT COULD NOT HAPPEN!!

I pulled with all my might but the squirming little rascal had managed to gain some firm purchase in the rat’s nest of wiring and support structure behind the dash and declined all my offers of freedom, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and sexual pleasures to be found in a new neighborhood. The little sucker just wouldn’t let go! So I pursued the only option I could think of…I managed to get hold of him with my other hand and, with two hands pulling as hard as I could, he finally decided, as had I, that either he let go and consign himself to his fate or be rent quite literally in twain with his halves terminally separated; one to rot on the roadside, and the other to rot behind Mikes dashboard. So, under grave protest he finally and very gradually relinquished his grip on the wiring and structure and was flung with all my might as far into the roadside stubble as I was able to launch him. The last time I saw him he was still flailing wildly in an attempt to defend his body from dismemberment (such as a snake can suffer, lacking members in the traditional sense) as I hastily slammed the door on this small drama of my life.

I opted not to stop at the country diner in Luthersville for a cup of coffee as my nerves were quite adequately stimulated, a condition that lasted the rest of the day.

"One Dark Night In Vietnam I Was On An Ambush Patrol..." - In A Medical Breakthrough Blind Mice Given Sight.

Joe Kirkup shares a harrowing personal incident from his Vietnam experience and a Bloomberg article about an extremely encouraging medical breakthrough

Lowflyer

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 One dark night in Vietnam I was on an ambush patrol approaching the small river that marked the Cambodian border. 

Unfortunately the enemy had set up their ambush first and we walked right into it.  The gunfire and the general chaos was punctuated by explosions from grenades and crude Viet Cong claymore devices which contained rusty nails, broken Coke bottles and human feces. 

One of these blasts tore a hole in my shoulder and covered my face with mud, foliage, tiny cuts and excrement.  For about twenty seconds, where there had been light from illumination rounds and the constant flicker of muzzle flashes, now there was only darkness. 

I thought I was blind. The bottomless pit of terror that opened up in my stomach is almost impossible to describe.

For me it was a fleeting experience, but for many, many others it is a daily reality.  Let's all make damned sure this research gets 100% of the funding it needs and give thanks that we live in a society that can make things like this happen.
  
  JK

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Blind Mice Given Sight After Device Cracks Retinal Code

By Jeanna Smialek - Aug 14, 2012 7:05 PM ET

SOURCE: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-13/blind-mice-given-sight-after-device-cracks-retinal-code.html

(Corrects the experimental process in seventh paragraph of story published yesterday.)

Blind mice had their vision restored with a device that helped diseased retinas send signals to the brain, according to a study that may lead to new prosthetic technology for millions of sight-impaired people.

Current devices are limited in the aid they provide to people with degenerative diseases of the retina, the part of the eye that converts light into electrical impulses to the brain. In research described today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists cracked the code the retina uses to communicate with the brain.

The technology moves prosthetics beyond bright light and high-contrast recognition and may be adopted for human use within a year or two, said Sheila Nirenberg, a neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York and the study’s lead author.

“What this shows is that we have the essential ingredients to make a very effective prosthetic,” Nirenberg said. Researchers haven’t yet tested the approach on humans, though have assembled the code for monkeys, she said.

Once the researchers determined the code the mouse retina used to communicate with the brain, they were able to mimic it with electric-signal sending glasses, Nirenberg said. Previous prosthetics have used less-specific stimulation and proved inherently limited as a result, she said.

About 20 million people worldwide are blind or facing blindness due to retinal degenerative diseases, such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. The disorders cause a progressive loss of the retina’s input cells, or photoreceptors.

Visual Equations

Nirenberg and co-author Chethan Pandarinath first monitored healthy eyes to determine the set of equations that translate light received by the retina into something the brain can understand. Then, they used special glasses to create a similar code and deliver it to the eye, which had been engineered to contain light-sensitive proteins. The cells received the code through the light sensitive proteins and fired electric impulses, which the brain could interpret as images.

Nirenberg’s research “is basically giving vision back to a system that doesn’t work,” said Aude Oliva, a principal investigator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who wasn’t involved in the research.“I’ve never seen, and other people have never seen, this quality.”

No foreseeable barriers should stop the movement into humans now that the technology has been created, Oliva said. Nirenberg said that if researchers can come up with adequate cash to fund clinical trials, she hopes to soon adapt the technology.

Macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in people older than 55 in the western world and may triple in incidence by 2025 according to a 2009 report by the American Optometric Society. Retinal diseases could find a “reasonable solution” in the technology, said Jonathan Victor, a professor in the department of neurology and neuroscience at Weill who was familiar with, but not involved in the research.

“It’s a major step, it’s elegant, and it works,” he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeanna Smialek in New York at jsmialek@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net

Cobrapilot82 posts another superb piece of military flight lore that touches the heart of everyone who ever has struggled through that steep learning curve called "Flight School:"

Swaggering to the Flight Line

by Walter McDonald

Out of cram sessions in the bar,
we practiced crashing after midnight,
emergency steps we drilled
until we could fly blindfolded
stumbling up stairs of the barracks.
We turned unnatural acts around
in our minds, spins and loops

we would have to do perfect,
alone. Out of bachelor bunks,
out of accident reports and training films,
we swaggered to the flight line,
living on flames in the belly of jets,
five thousand pounds of thrust.
Wings and three good friends

sustained us, men we would die for,
table mates straining to take
the IP's brain and luck
and make them ours, aping his stride,
the cock of his flight cap. No coach
ever drove us like that brash
instructor pilot, almost a god,

a man with wings and battle ribbons
and touch on controls we coveted.
One by one he launched us solo
in December skies he owned, cold wind
whipping the ramp when I strapped in
and taxied out without his breath
in my headset—exciting silence,

nothing but these two fists to save me,
the runway thudding faster and faster
and falling away, the moon floating up
from Savannah, the force in my hand massive,
banking with blazing power out of traffic,
climbing through baffling darkness
into the splendor of stars.

"Swaggering to the Flight Line" by Walt McDonald, from All Occasions. © University of Notre Dame Press, 2000. Reprinted with permission

John Steinbeck on Helicopter Pilots

Cobrapilot82 contributed this bit of lore from the Vietnam War:

Only a handful of people have won both the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes in literature. One of them was iconic American novelist John Steinbeck. His incredible body of work stretched from Tortilla Flat to Of Mice and Men, from Grapes of Wrath to Cannery Row to East Of Eden.  He had a gift for the language that few before or since have possessed.

 Not widely known is the fact that in 1966-67, a year before his death, he went to Vietnam at the request of his friend Harry F. Guggenheim, publisher of Newsday to do a series of reports on the war. The reports took the form of letters to his dear friend Alicia Patterson, Newsday's first editor and publisher.  Those letters have been published in a book by Thomas E. Barden, Vietnam veteran and professor of English at the University of Toledo. The book is entitled, “Steinbeck on Vietnam: Dispatches From The War.”

 I found the following passages relevant to our experience in Vietnam and his ability to weave a vision is just magical. On January 7, 1967, Steinbeck was in Pleiku, flying with Shamrock Flight, D Troop, 10th Cavalry:

“...We are to move to the Huey of Major James Patrick Thomas of whom it is said that he has changed the classic sophist's question to how many choppers could Thomas sit on the point of a pin.

 Alicia, I wish I could tell you about these pilots. They make me sick with envy. They ride their vehicles the way a man controls a fine, well-trained quarter horse. They weave along stream beds, rise like swallows to clear trees, they turn and twist and dip like swifts in the evening. I watch their hands and feet on the controls, the delicacy of the coordination reminds me of the sure and seeming slow hands of (Pablo) Casals on the cello. They are truly musicians hands and they play their controls like music and they dance them like ballerinas and they make me jealous because I want so much to do it. Remember your child night dream of perfect flight free and wonderful? It's like that, and sadly I know I never can.

My hands are too old and forgetful to take orders from the command center, which speaks of updrafts and side winds, of drift and shift, or ground fire indicated by a tiny puff or flash, or a hit and all these commands must be obeyed by the musicians hands instantly and automatically. I must take my longing out in admiration and the joy of seeing it.

Sorry about that leak of ecstasy, Alicia, but I had to get it out or burst.”

The man just had a way with words, no?

An Independence Day Post For My Fellow Vietnam Helicopter Pilots and Crewmembers - My Heroes, One And All

There was never one second during my tour in Vietnam that I doubted that any of you would have my back. Thank You and God Bless you all.

Crocodile 1 (1967)

119th Assault Helicopter Company

Pleiku RVN

Ever Dream of Flying "Freer" Than A Bird?

This video will certainly give you a sense of flying that is just not there in most videos I've seen. My impression was one of being "freer than a bird." I think you will agree.

Let's go flying like we never did before!

New Home Defense Dawg

Due to a rise of crime in the neighborhood,  I just adopted a retired military dog to protect my house.

With the recent military cuts overseas, the US government has developed a new program where citizens can apply to adopt retired military canines.  The nice part is he is a year old and already fully trained by the US Navy SEALs.

I’ve attached some photos of him below...

For your safety, UPON ARRIVING AT MY HOME please call me from the driveway and

REMAIN IN YOUR CAR!!!

Being Eaten...

How do you eat a fish that must be swallowed headfirst if you have impaled it from the side with your beak?? Watch.

CLICK HERE: Florida Anhinga eating a fish

My friend, Joe Kirkup is an accomplished photographer and he sent this animated photo sequence that he took on one of his frequent photographic safaris into the darkest Everglades of Florida.

U.S. G.I. Baby Killer dies saving Afghan girl

Joe Kirkup reports this item:

Just in case you missed this on the front page of the New York Times and the Washington Post.
    JK

U.S. soldier dies saving Afghan girl

By Larry Shaughnessy
After the news of a U.S. soldier charged with murdering Afghan civilians, mostly women and children, the story of Spc. Dennis Weichel of the Rhode Island National Guard bears telling.

The official Pentagon news release says he died "from injuries suffered in a noncombat related incident." But there is much more to the story. Weichel, 29, of Providence, died saving the life of a little girl.

According to the Rhode Island National Guard and the U.S. Army, Weichel was in a convoy a week ago with his unit in Laghman Province, in northeast Afghanistan. Some children were in the road in front of the convoy, and Weichel and other troops got out to move them out of the way.

Most of the children moved, but one little girl went back to pick up some brass shell casings in the road. Afghan civilians often recycle the casings, and the girl appeared to aim to do that. But a Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle was moving toward her, according to Lt. Col. Denis Riel of the Rhode Island National Guard.

MRAPs, as they are known, usually weigh more than 16 tons.

Weichel saw the massive truck bearing down on the girl and grabbed her out of the way. But in the process, the armored truck ran him over, Riel said.

The little girl is fine. Weichel died a short time later of his injuries.

"He was a big kid at heart. He always had a smile on his face, and he made everyone laugh," 1st Sgt. Nicky Peppe, who served with Weichel in Iraq, is quoted as saying in an Army story.

"But as much as Weichel was funny, he was also a professional. When it was time to go outside the wire for a combat patrol, he was all business."

Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee has ordered flags in the state lowered to half-staff until Weichel, who was posthumously promoted to sergeant, is laid to rest Monday.

Weichel is survived by his parents, his fiancee and three children. His family will be awarded a Bronze Star and other awards for his sacrifice.

The helicopter corps of the future?

Did you read Michael Crichton's Prey?

(Prey is a novel by Michael Crichton based on a nano-robotic threat to human-kind)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(novel)

This might be a step along the way....I guess. At least it is of interest to an old helicopter pilot. Maybe you'll find it interesting too...if not a touch eerie.

Click Here: Flying Robotic Swarms

Thanks to Mark T. for pointing us to this.

Just For Fun 

If you've ever cooked LIVE crabs, you'll appreciate this lady as she tries to do it with no prior instruction and no idea what she's in for.

Click here: Cooking Crabs For The First Time

How I GOT to Army Flight School

One of the questions from the career placement test given applicants for a Military Commission was important. It went:

"Rearrange the letters P N E S I to spell out an important part of human body that is more useful when erect."

All those who spelled SPINE became Doctors...the rest of us went to FlightSchool.

"One pair inbound!" - Crocs prep a mountaintop landing zone with 2.75" rockets near Bong Son RVN - 1967

How I acheived fame....

Here's the film the D.O.D. made to show the world how they trained the best helicopter pilot in the cosmos....well, maybe only the galaxy.

"Chopper Pilot" the movie. 

That's me and my family (at 27:00 minutes) just after graduation from flight school. (Sorry, my immodesty got the better of me). :-))

Well, I SAID we were bad asses didn't I? It MUST be true....all of it.

Give me a Huey....any day.....because we were bad asses....
...and young.

CLICK HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLdS_pbOXu8&feature=share

Ever notice that the same people who display the most appalling hatred of and abusive language towards Republicans, conservatives and especially conservative blacks and women are the ones with 'Hatred is Not a Family Value' bumper stickers on their cars?