1. I was written up in the Navy for being an international Coke Smuggler when I carried a six-pack of coke from the Air Force Exchange (military installation) across a field (Icelandic Territory) to the Naval Security Compound (second military installation). Obviously some sailors didn’t have enough to do. They showed me long range photos they had taken of me during the trip in which I had stopped every once in a while to put a big rock on top of a fence post (I didn’t have enough to do either).
2. In my family there were seven boys and four girls. Although girls were outnumbered we managed to hold our own. We played army, baseball and sometimes pretended we were a gang and went out on raids though we lived in the country and there wasn’t much to raid except an old abandoned barn. We had great fun planning though!
3. When I was just out of boot camp I got two sets of orders to report to two different air bases for my flight to Iceland. I couldn’t quite figure it out so I picked one to show up first and was promptly told I was supposed to be at the other one. By the time I got to the other one (via Navy aircraft) I was told my flight to Iceland had already left. I spent the next two weeks swabbing decks and running a buffer down barrack hallways. When I finally got to Iceland I was written up for being AWOL for two weeks and I got my first XO (Executive Officer) Mast. I don’t think I said it but I definitely thought that if I had wanted to go AWOL I could have found better things to do than scrub latrines. I never did quite get the Navy thing.
4. Another time in the Navy the dog came in with paint down the side of him. I was promptly accused of painting the dog. I had not painted the dog. He had leaned against a newly painted wall and painted himself. I don’t know why I was always getting in trouble for things that were always someone else’s fault.
5. Finally, at one time in the monastery I conjured up a nun with an old habit, veil and sweater which looked pretty authentic from the back. I called her Sister Esmeralda. Her first appearance was in the music room where I had her hunched over the piano in serious music contemplation. The Abbess (mother superior) came along, looked through the door and started talking to Sister Esmeralda but Sister Esmeralda didn’t say anything. The Abbess got annoyed at this and after two or three further attempts with no response she stated very firmly and loudly “I’m talking to you, Sister!” She was not pleased.
Of course they knew it was me who had done it, who else?