Walkie Talkie
His name was Sergent Pullman, and he would talk in run on sentences.
It was the mid 80s, and I was stationed at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa Japan. One of my co-workers was a guy we called Walkie Talkie. I didn’t know why he was called that, so I just repeated what I heard and often referred to him as Walkie Talkie, or Radio for short.
While working in the field with him I noticed that he never carried a note pad, something we all used back in the 80s to take meter readings and pressure readings, he on the other hand used, well, the palm of his hand. He wrote on it with a pencil, and would lick a finger and erase what he wrote if it was wrong.
I eventually asked one of my other co-workers why they called him Walkie Talkie. I was told that, as I assumed, he was called that because he would talk in run on sentences, but then my co-worker explained the hand writing to me. He said,
“My father used to check my hands when he would get home. I always thought it was to see if I washed before dinner, but one day he say crib notes on my hand, and I finally found out what his obsession was all about.
My father explained that in the south, where he grew up, he was always chastised by other kids in school for writing on his hands. He couldn’t afford paper, so he used to take notes on his hands. He grew tired of the ridicule, and vowed that he would never write on his hands again, and would never let his children do that either.”
I give you Sarah “Mr Obama put down the teleprompter” Palin:
Beyond the hand written crib notes, Sarah Palin’s “speech” was one long run on sentence. So, which was worse, the run one sentence laden speech, or the crib notes on her hand? And who’s the real dummy? Sarah for needing crib notes written on her hand to answer a few pre-screened questions? Or is it the people who paid her over $100k to read from those crib notes?
Peace,
J