Back in the ooooooold Army (you know, when Henry Knox was our Chief of Smoke...) of canned C-rations we were issued these purple-colored trioxane bars wrapped in foil. They were usually called "heat tabs", and were generally considered right up there with sex under the Christmas tree as one of life's little pleasures.
Because of its association with warmth and pleasure the sun was often referred to as the Big Heat Tab in the Sky, and GIs were sometimes heard to invoke this deity when the weather was crummy; "Oh, great Heat Tab, bring us light!". This sometimes involved sacrificing some Ham and Eggs, Chopped; not that great a sacrifice. That particular main meal was usually referred to as "Yellow Death".Anyway, the3 point is that we haven't seen much of the great Heat Tab until, suddenly, this weekend it was absolutely lovely.
We went and played in Overlook Park, we worked outside and just generally spent more time outdoors than I think we have for the past five months altogether.
The kiddos are beginning to pick up daddy's old sport, lacrosse. Here's the littlest LAX player in Portland:
What she lacks in technique she makes up for with ferocity. Her brother still enjoys his soccer, though, and wanted to have a kickabout with his mom and I:
The Girl wanted to take some snapshots, so here's a sampling of her subjects, in no particular order:
If you look very carefully in the last photo you'll see a woman walking on a tightrope; we spend a bot of time watching her, and agreed she was very good:
The whole of Saturday and Sunday were like that (well, take away the awful beating at Jeld-Wen Field Saturday, but let's not bring that up, shall we?) - lots of lovely idle time just fooling around doing nothing of note and enjoying it thoroughly. So, thanks, Great Heat Tab! It was a nice weekend!
I did not know about trioxane bars.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoyed a pleasant, sunny weekend.
Chief,
ReplyDeleteIf i remember correctly you could get high off the fumes of the heat tab, if used in a closed environment, like a poncho over a fighting position.
A fighting position is another word for -HOLE IN THE GROUND.
jim
Lisa: We did, indeed.
ReplyDeleteThe heat tabs are, indeed, an "Army I Knew" thing. They disappeared in the mid-Eighties right after the MREs came in. A few of us who loved us some Dinty Moore Beef Stew and didn't mind the weight cached as many as we could knowing they'd be out of the inventory. Good times.
Jim: I remember reading somwehere (I think it may have been Tony Herbert's Soldier that he read a bomb-damage assessment from his unit's AO that reported so-and-so many "infantry emplacements destroyed" and remarking that the "emplacements" were NVA foxholes, and wondering how you "destroyed" a hole in the ground by blowing a bigger hole.
Chief,
ReplyDeletei was thinking about the sweet little swedish stove that i once carried faithfully.
In the mech i heated my rations on engine blocks.
In SF i used c 4.
jim