story time

He chuckles wildly from somewhere deep within himself. I pause my chatter to verify that I've heard this rare laughter, and I have.

"Man, I hated the military! In fact, I could have slugged the guy who called me into his office when my time was up...they call that...something other than re-enlisting, but that's what it was," he rants behind the belly rumble.

One of many really fantastic things about dating The Staff Sergeant is that it has awakened another grand avenue of my father's story telling.

He continues, "I had the meanest DI, man he was mean, but he could tell a great one liner. I think that if he had ever given up The Navy, he should have been a comedian...he had some great one liners..."

He's as bad as I am at staying on track.

"When you stand at attention, you can't laugh. You can't do anything, but you can't laugh, and that DI, some great jokes. So anyway, there was this one day that he dropped one into his talk [I can't remember what it was], and this 'ole boy couldn't help but laugh," he says with another diluted rumble, himself.

"'DO YOU THINK SOMETHING'S FUNNY?!' hollered the DI, 'I'LL SHOW YOU SOMETHING FUNNY! GET UP HERE AND LAUGH - FOR 20 MINUTES!' And that poor guy did. He stood in front of us and laughed for 20 whole minutes." my father finishes.

"They would do anything to embarrass you...I'll tell you what, I don't know if it made me a better man for being in the service, but I never once thought, 'I don't want to leave The Navy.'"

And that was just one of about 10 that found their way into last night's hour long "test of his new phone." My dad's a trip.

...I still miss my current man of the military.