When I’m sitting on my favorite stool at the local VFW, getting my betting sheet ready for the 3pm visit to the nearest OTB, I like to use the pen my oldest pal Johnny gave me when we were fighting in Korea. It’s got a picture of a lady, some flapper dame, and when you turn it upside down her clothes float up and off her revealing a bush you could hide a VCR in. I’m not sure what that phrase means, or why you’d want to hide one of those giant VCR’s in a lady, but my grandchild Rick was saying that last night during the Sunday Night Johanson Clan Silent Dinner and Awkward Conversation and I suppose it’s true of my pen lady. But that’s neither here nor there. No, the fact of the matter at hand is that Korea was a bitch.
I drove a jeep around that country for two years. Territory changed hands like a Chicago Cardinals football game, but with wounded GI’s all over the field and no “Million Dollar Backfield.” Then, one day in July of 1953, Truman, that SOB, called a truce and we packed up and left like my son’s family does every Thanksgiving. At least Truman let everyone know before he left, I suppose, unlike Percy Jr., but the disappointment was all the same. And all I had to show for it was a pen with a naked lady with lots of pubes. What a bitch that was.
-Percy “Where’d My Kid Split To?” Johanson
