A Cue of Extraordinary Proportions.

A Cue of Extraordinary Proportions.

Some of you know me as JoeyA.  I started calling myself JoeyA decades ago because it seemed like my last name “Aguzin” is seldom pronounced the same way by two different people.  It can be a bit of a distraction when the tournament Calcutta is held up because Augustino, Aaahguzine, or A-Goo-Zin doesn’t answer when his name is called.  I enjoy competing in regional and national pool tournaments and on occasion like to sit behind the mic to do pool commentary when I am not competing or hanging out with friends.  The writing is a kind of therapy for me, so every now and then I enjoy sharing some of my pool adventures with my friends on Internet forums, on my blog or in an occasional magazine like AZ Billiards Buzz magazine.  I hope you enjoy the article and please say hello when I pass through your town or when we meet at the next pool tournament.

Well, this past weekend (April 22-23, 2017) my son, good friend “Doc Hutch” and I went to the White Diamond Super 9 Ball event.  It is a premiere weekend bar table event that draws players from all over the world.  It is held twice a year, once in the Spring and once in the late fall.  Here in Louisiana, it gets hot during the summer months, so they try to have the bi-annual event when it is a little cooler. 

Their tournaments have Calcuttas (player auctions) which regularly climb to the $100,000.00 range, so you can understand how they regularly get 128 players which is where they cap the event.

This event was shaping up with so many great players, that we knew we would be having a great time just like we always do.  The three of us are amateurs but enjoy testing ourselves against the best players in the world and they all come to Lafayette, LA which is in the heart of Cajun Country.

I could talk about how good my draw was, my good fortune of beating one of the top pros in this event, my mediocre finish in the top 30 players of this event, my mixed play, the good times with family and friends, the tasty food or the fact that I haven’t cashed in this event in the last several events but what this story is really all about is about a trend that I have been witnessing for the last decade or so. 

This story is about how cue sticks have been changing for the better.  I’ve been playing with a DymondWood “low-deflection” cue for the last few years.  DymondWood is a laminated wood that is impregnated with a phenolic resin and it creates what I refer to as a synthetic wood.  The only problem with DymondWood is that it is very hard to work with when you’re trying to create a low deflection playing cue.  Quite a few cue makers have successfully made break cues and jump cues out of DymondWood but relatively few have tried to make low deflection cues out of this wood because it is so difficult to work with.  I have paid attention to the many distinct types of cues that have been developed over the years by different companies, and it seems that innovation is everywhere.  It also appears that more companies are creating cues using synthetic materials than ever before.

This past tournament I was having a wonderful time competing and won a couple of matches and lost a couple of close matches.  But in between all the competing, I am sweating a scotch-doubles partners game between some of the young, talented, up-and-coming players that have popped up on the pool scene in recent years.  I know most of the players because I have been fortunate enough to be around them at other events in the past, sometimes doing commentary for their matches or getting steep handicaps in friendly action matches with them. 

One of the guys playing is someone who I have had the good fortune of being around quite a bit since he lived in my hometown of New Orleans for a brief time and is a talented player by the name of Evan Lunda.  I met Evan Lunda in New Orleans a few years ago and at the time he was playing with a low-deflection DymondWood cue so I was very familiar with his game.  His prototype cue was made by Steve Titus, one of the founding creators of Predator Cues.  This time I see him with a Steve Titus cue, but it looks different this time.  From a distance, it looked like it was one of the darker DymondWood shafts but it looked a little different and I couldn’t really tell if it was DymondWood or something else. 

So, I’m in between matches watching four pro players playing a scotch doubles match of one pocket.  The players are Evan Lunda, Skylar Woodward, Billy Thorpe and Alex Olinger, names that most of you are very familiar with since their names are often seen at the top of the food chain in tournaments all over the country.  A month ago, in another big one-pocket event (The Scotty Townsend Memorial Event) at The Arena in West Monroe, Evan Lunda came in third place just behind Billy Thorpe and Shane Van Boening.  It was a $2,000 entry fee one pocket event with some of the best players in the world competing for nice prize money and Calcutta money. 

Evan’s game had changed rather dramatically since I had last seen him and I now started to really wonder if he had a new cue.  Listening on the sidelines, I heard that it was indeed a new cue for Evan.  Later I discovered that he had only been playing with his new cue for a few short months, but I could tell that he was dialed into its properties.  While I don’t have any scientific data to share about how the cue performs, I can tell you from an experienced player’s viewpoint, the cue is TOP SHELF.

When the four pro players started playing with the cue I heard one of them whine teasingly that the cue imparts English so easily that you can get “TOO MUCH” throw on the object ball.  It could have just been a warning to the others or some gamesmanship as I perceived it to be a teasing whine.  But as the minutes wore on, I saw their reluctance to give the cue its just due, change to an almost euphoric type of experience as each of the pros took turns demonstrating their prowess at the table.  It started right away; multiple rail banks, 80-90 degree cuts, kick shots, and shots of all types, they seemed to make more of them than was usual.  Now I know just like the rest of you that these pros can play with just about any cue but what they were doing “CONSISTENTLY’ was pocketing difficult shots and getting shape shot after shot.  Each successful shot seemed to fuel the fire in each of the other players and using the same cue.  I never could decide who was having the most fun because all of them were stoked, sometimes glassy-eyed and each of them were letting out their stroke with 3, 4 and yes, FIVE-railers being made with ever-increasing consistency.  Safeties were not allowed in these games, so the governors had been removed, and all hell broke loose.  The four of them were reveling when each of them would make a difficult shot, teasing each other when they came close but missed and in general were having a wonderful time.

When one of their innings was over, they would pass Evan’s cue to the next person.  This went on for over an hour.  Now everyone enjoys testing out a friend’s cue but most of the time it is returned to the owner rather quickly.  As I watch these young pro players make difficult shot after difficult shot, I realized that this is something unique that was taking place.   I’ve seen my share of high-level play sometimes competing against the best players in the world in tournaments or just sitting in the commentator’s box, talking with the likes of Billy Incardona and legends like Jeremy Jones.  I had happily settled into one of the spectator chairs since seating was limited because of the substantial number of attendees.  The spectators, (me included) were just in awe of their raw firepower and high-level play but what I really liked was the fact that none of them wanted to give up the cue, so they all shared this one cue for over an hour.  That alone is a good enough testimony that my observations weren’t out of line.

The impromptu Scotch Doubles match eventually came to an end, and I got a chance to renew my acquaintance with Evan and talk with him about his cue.  It turns out that it wasn’t a DymondWood shaft like what Evan has been playing with in the past but a Revo shaft made by Predator.  Previously, I had played with a Revo cue that had a 12.9mm shaft and while it was nice, I have always preferred a narrower shaft than that.  Evan’s shaft looked to be a smaller diameter than 12.9 and it was.  The butt of the cue had been made by his friend, Steve Titus.  BTW, if some of you don’t know this, Steve is an accomplished player in his own right and is always inventing something new for the pool world whether you are familiar with his name or not.

Now some of you may not know that I am a serious student of the game and of equipment.  I teach pool at a couple of pool rooms around New Orleans and enjoy learning about all aspects of pool.  In addition to taking pool lessons from professional pool players and professional cueing instructors, I pay attention to what equipment the best players are using, and I ask a lot of questions, mostly about performance because I have always placed performance above style and novelty.   I test cues with a variety of different shots to compare their performance to my equipment.  It is seldom that I ever come across something that is better than what I am currently using but I knew right then and there, that this cue deserved a closer look and hoped that I would get a chance to investigate further.

As luck would have it, a few days later Evan shows up at my home room, Buffalo’s on Bloomfield in New Orleans.  Evan knows the passion I have for the game of pool itself and how I love to test new equipment so he generously shared his cue with me for more than an hour.  He just left the cue with me and said he would be back later.  I could tell immediately that this cue had a certain “power” to it.  I’m not talking about anything from the metaphysical realm.  I’m saying that his cue was easier to play with, easier to draw the cue ball, easier to apply force-follow and yes, easier to pocket the object balls.  It also seemed like it was easier to obtain precise shape as well.  I know it sounds funny but I even found myself keeping my body and head more still than normal.  It could have been that I didn’t have to put as much effort into making the shots.  The table conditions were perfect so that could have a little something to do with it as well.  We all know about the “new cue syndrome” but this wasn’t it either.  When Evan returned, he also took the time to demonstrate some of the more difficult shots that are possible with the REVO cue showcasing his immense talent. 

When Evan separated the shaft from the butt of the cue, he rolled the shaft across the table and as I lowered my head to observe the light under the shaft’s taper, I marveled at the extreme precision of the taper.  It was the most precise taper I have ever seen in any cue shaft.  Evan’s unique cue shaft had no ferrule and was charcoal black in color which provided a great contrast against the cue ball and the blue cloth.  As always, his tip was perfectly shaped.

The table conditions are very good at Buff’s NEW PLACE located at 5015 Bloomfield-New Orleans, Louisiana, especially since all of their Diamond pool tables are being recovered for their BIG MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT EVENT, which is coming up in just a few short weeks but I was making incredible shots, drawing my cue ball effortlessly and just had the time of my life playing with his REVO cue. 

Predator currently makes a 12.4 mm shaft and a 12.9 mm shaft using uni-loc and radial pin joints.   I have a marked propensity toward slightly thinner shafts like a 12mm but I don’t know if Predator will be making a REVO shaft that thin or not.   I also like a 30” length shaft and a 3/8-10 modified pin, but that isn’t something that they offer right now. Hopefully, as these cues and shafts that are made with synthetic materials become more exposed to the pool world, we will see my prediction that we are entering a golden era in cue building where science allows cue builders to continue to expand the use of these new materials. 

It took golf many decades to make the transition from wooden clubs to high-tech metal clubs, but I suspect pool will move along a lot quicker with young ambassadors like Evan Lunda and Predator Cues leading the way into the future of pool.  I also surmise that some of the other professional players will be giving the nod toward this cue.  Our own local pro, Ronnie Wiseman gave me the “WiseMan Nod” when I asked how he liked Evan’s cue.  That says a lot coming from the WiseMan.  Anyway, it was a pleasure to see professional players enjoying some of the newer cue technology that is becoming more popular with players every day.

Joey (JoeyA) Aguzin

 

Aug

20

JoeyA's FISHING BOAT BLOOPER

The year was 1996 and my wife knew I loved fishing, and she let me buy a new and rather expensive boat.  It was a 172 Sportfish SCOUT boat with 115 HP engine. It was my first fully outfitted boat. Prior to that, I had owned much smaller boats without all of the bells and whistles. Scout boats are built similarly to Boston Whaler boats, in that they are virtually unsinkable (lots of flotation in the hull of the boat). 

Since I was going to be fishing in the marshes and the coast of Louisiana with my son, my wife and I wanted a "good boat" with everything I needed to get back home safely.

The first day I got the boat I was so excited I had to go fishing. I had already loaded my fishing gear into my truck and picked up the boat from the dealership and had previously told them I was headed to Port Sulphur, Louisiana to go fishing. I had already paid the bill, so they wished me well and off I went.

There is some fantastic fishing in coastal Louisiana.  I was pretty much a novice when it came to boats, having only owned the simplest of boats.  Not only that but I was naïve about the responsibility of boat dealers.  After all, I had told the boat dealer that I was going fishing that day.  Now this boat had just about every feature known to man.  It was the boat of my dreams.

I had decided to take the boat out by myself so that I could concentrate on learning all of the features of the boat and make sure I could handle it safely.  I knew enough about boats to know that you must be careful with them and that the 115-horsepower Evinrude Ocean Pro engine was plenty of power for this particular boat as they normally came equipped with much smaller engines.

The boat had more switches and lights than anything I had ever owned and the dealership didn’t spend any time with me discussing how they worked but I have always been confident (and naïve) in trying something new.  My truck was a new Tacoma Pre-Runner 6 cylinder, but it had just the right amount of horsepower to tow the boat and trailer.  The boat was relatively heavy, but I got used to towing the boat in the one-hour trip to the boat launch and was kind of concerned about being able to avoid hitting someone while trailering the boat to the boat launch, but everything went well.  I kept my speed down well below the speed limit and just tried to get the “feel” of it all.

It was almost 10:00 am and most fishermen know that you want to get out early in the morning if you want to catch fish.  This was going to be a learning trip, so I didn’t care about the time but was excited to get the boat in the water as soon as possible.  There weren’t many people at the launch, and I paid my launch fee.  This particular launch had a back-down ramp.  Prior to Hurricane Katrina, some boat launches had boat hoists that would lift your boat into the water.  Many of those types of boat hoist/launches were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina.  The cool thing about those boat hoist launches was that the boat wheel bearings on the trailer never dipped into the saltwater so you didn’t have to be concerned about the bearings rusting over time.  If you used a back-down ramp, you had to be sure to grease the bearings on every trip.

Now backing up a large boat into a narrow boat launch lane isn’t the most difficult thing in the world to do, but at first it can get a little tricky because when you are first learning how to back the boat up, most people turn the steering wheel of the towing vehicle the opposite direction that is needed to steer the boat and trailer into the narrow boat launch lane.  But before you drop the boat into the water, you must disconnect a few different safety features that hold the boat onto the trailer while you are driving down the highway.  Lots of thoughts were flooding my brain, including the fact that the few people at the boat launch had to be chuckling about my back-down skills but I soldiered on.  I disconnected the boat winch connection and the rear clamps that hold the boat tight to the back of the trailer.

Since I was launching the boat by myself, I had to tie another rope between the boat and the trailer to keep it from just sailing off the trailer into the water unsecured.  I connected the boat rope to the trailer and had already determined the rather long rope was ample for the job.  After I struggled to back the trailer down the ramp and not hit anyone in the process, my mind was still racing.  This was my first maiden voyage with this new boat and the excitement was immense.  The boat slid off the trailer without incident.  The boat rope connected to the boat and trailer remained secured and I climbed out of my truck to remove the rope from the trailer and tie the boat to the dock.  About now, I am on top of the world.  Everything was going fine.  I didn’t need any help from anyone to launch my new boat and was feeling pretty good about myself.   As the boat turned to the side with the wind blowing, I noticed a cylinder of water coming out of the side of the boat.  The stream of water looked like that which would come out of a garden hose and in that moment of astonishment I couldn’t understand what was happening.  I had never seen water spew out of the side of any boat before.  I looked at the launch man, an older gentleman with that WTH look on my face and he replied, “Did you put the drain plug in?”  I must have turned 7 shades of red. With all of my thoughts racing through my brain, I had just assumed that the dealership had installed the drain plug since I was going fishing.  (Never assume anything is the best rule for operating a boat.)  Anyway, I now realize that there is no drain plug in the boat and my treasured new boat might sink.  I hoped and prayed that what I had read about the Scout Boats was true as I frantically reconnected the boat to the trailer and pulled it out of the launch bay.  I get the boat up on the concrete pad and water is still pumping furiously out of the side of the boat.  I mean, the water coming out of the side of the boat looked like the water being shot out of a fire hose.  I stood there astonished and embarrassed about this faux pas and started figuring out where all that water was coming from.  You see, on many boats, there is a drain plug that is on the transom of the boat which allows you to remove water that sometimes collect in the bilge.  This boat was equipped with an automatic bilge pump and so when the water level inside of the bilge at the bottom of the boat becomes dangerously deep, the electric bilge pump will pump the water out of the bilge area.  The bilge area is the bottommost interior part of a boat and water that seeps or leaks in, collects there, and becomes stagnant and dirty can be pumped out with the bilge pump.  Because the drain plug had not been installed, water had poured into the bilge area of the boat.  Thank goodness for the excellent floatation quality built into the Scout boat.

It took an incredibly long time for the water to fully drain from the boat and that gave me plenty of time to find the drain plug and install it.  I’ve been told that this has happened to other people and while it might not be uncommon, it is a lesson that I will never forget.  The rest of the boat trip went well, and the rest is history.  21 years later the boat and motor are still working well, thanks to my expert boat mechanic Tommy Wibel, who maintains and repairs my 115-horsepower Evinrude engine when it gives trouble.  Thanks to Tall Paul (Paul Koeppel) who introduced me to Tommy.  He is the best boat mechanic I have ever dealt with.

JoeyA

08-20-17

 

Racism? Hell, I didn't even know the word.

The year was 1962 and it was summertime, and I had just reached the ripe old age of 12.  I was born in 1950, May 23rd to be exact.  I came into this world and was given the name of Joey with no middle name.  We lived in Metairie, Louisiana for the first few years of my life.  Just as I turned 6 and was about to start first grade, we moved to Husser, Louisiana where my dad who had no experience as a farmer, decided that he would become a dairy farmer.  This was back in the day, when some farmers still milked their cows by hand.  My dad did the manual milking for a year or two, twice a day until he came to his senses and acquired some automatic equipment to do the milking.  We were dirt poor but lived on a 100-acre dairy farm which barely produced enough income to feed our growing family of 6 children plus my mom and dad.  Sometimes, there wasn't enough food to feed all eight of us, but somehow, we made do.  We didn't have food stamps or welfare and simply did without.  I sometimes went to school bare-footed because I didn't have shoes to wear to school.  We often ate fried-bread for breakfast that my mom would fry on her wood-burning stove along with a cup of coffee.  The milk was sparingly used because we needed to sell the milk to pay for other essentials.  I don't remember ever going to a doctor and when we got sick, most of the time, we were tended to at home by my mom.  I didn't know what central air and heat was until many years later.  We cooled down in the summertime on the front porch at night just before going to bed.  The only hot water we had was heated on the wood burning stove in a kettle and then poured into a small, galvanized metal tub which we called a wash tub for bathing.  Somehow, mom made sure that our clothes and bodies stayed clean.  When it rained, I remember that I enjoyed playing in the rain but don't know if that was our recreation or just another way of getting a shower to clean up.

Neighbors lived far away, and we saw them very infrequently.  Each morning to board the parish (county) school bus, my brothers, sisters and I had to walk down a gravel road that was about a mile long.  I don't remember having cold feet so maybe during the winter I always had some shoes to wear, probably a pair that my older brothers had outgrown.  Don't misinterpret what I'm talking about.  We were poor but I don't remember our poverty being a problem that depressed us.  I believe at that time in my life, I just didn't know that we were poor and had been rarely exposed to the outside world of what could be.  The "country" as we called it was very rural and we had to chop our own wood for heating and cooking.  My older brothers did a lot of the wood cutting since they were older and stronger.  My main job in Husser was picking up piles and piles of cow manure from the barn yard from which I earned a nickel or dime per load.  You can't imagine how much manure cows can drop in a barnyard unless you've been there.  My dad would use the manure to fertilize the rye grass fields which the cows would graze on when it got to a good height.  The cows never saw much grain or oats, so they survived mostly on grass.  This was before grass-fed beef became in vogue.  The fact that the cows didn't get fed much grain or oats meant that they in turn, didn't produce much milk and so the cycle continued to repeat itself.  

Now we lived in Husser, Louisiana for about 5 years and after my mom got tired of "making do" we moved back to the city where she could get a job and help out in supporting our rather large family.  But during the time that we lived in Husser, I don't remember ever seeing a black man or black child at our school.  This was a long time ago and years before integration began.  I mention this because it is important to note that I had no experience with being around people of color.  Oh, I heard the N word from time to time but didn't pay it much thought because I didn't know it to be a bad word or a good word, just a word of distinction.  However back then in my family, for the most part we called black people, colored people but rarely saw any.  Times were tough on the dairy farm.  We had a two-seater outhouse a good way away from the small tar-papered house which we lived in.  My mom washed clothes by hand and hung them on a clothesline in the backyard.  So eventually we moved back to "the city".  Mom would find a job working at Morgan & Lindsey or a Dairy Queen and always was helping Dad support the family since his job as a security guard didn't pay much.  Dad worked long hours and took all of the holiday and overtime work his boss would give him and that was the way it was.  

The first summer after fifth grade we moved back to New Orleans from Husser to begin another life in the big city.  The first house that we rented was on Hollygrove Street.  We didn't know it at first but this was an integrated neighborhood, but it was a house we could afford to live in.  It was summertime and I had heard a rumor that the country club that wasn't far from our house, hired young men to caddy on the golf course.  Keep in mind that I am all of 12 years of age and have never even seen a round of golf played.  We had a black and white television, but it only worked occasionally, and we didn't spend much time watching the television.

Since it was summer and I had lots of free time on my hands, I decided that I wanted some spending money.  Early on, I learned the valuable lesson that if you worked you would get paid money.  If you didn't work, you didn't get any money.  Allowances didn't exist in my family although I do remember my dad occasionally giving me a nickel for a candy bar at school in the country which I shared with my brothers and sisters.  It was a Friday morning, and I walked the few blocks to New Orleans Country Club which was reputed to have members who had "old money", whatever that meant.  Money was the key word that caught my attention so I show up at the country club bright and early and I wandered around, not know who to talk to or where to go.  Finally, a tall, kind black man asked me, "What can I do for you young man?"  I told him I was looking for a job as a caddy even though I didn't know all that a caddy did.  He looked at my scrawny size and youth and said, "Do you know how to play golf?"  I replied, "No sir, but I can carry that golf bag."  He must have suppressed a chuckle, and I didn't see him smile but he said, "You have to know how to play golf to be a caddy."  I remarked back to him, "Well, you must have another job around here that I can do?"  He paused for a moment and said, "Well all right, you be here tomorrow morning at 7:00 am and we'll see what we can do."  It was a Saturday morning, and I was there at 6:45 am and quickly spotted "Mr. Smith" the tall black gentleman directed me to wait for him and told and pointed me to go around the side of one of the buildings.  I did as he had directed, and when I turned passed the side of the building I saw a bunch of young black boys about my age, sitting on old-time wooden benches.  There must have been about 10-15 children there from age 10-13, and none of them were white.  I thought that was kind of unusual but quickly realized that most of the children who lived nearby were black.  That point didn't faze me at all, but I noticed that there were a couple of spare seats available on the benches but no one moved to signal that I could sit, so I just stood there.  Finally, after a while Mr. Smith came around and informed me of my new job which was picking up golf balls on the driving range.  Back then, there were no machines to drive around picking up the golf balls and the driving ranges often hired young boys with quick eyes and good coordination to pick up the golf balls.  Another thing to keep in mind was the fact that the young boys were required to pick up the golf balls while the golfers were still hitting the balls into the field.  The golfers would do their best to avoid hitting us, at least I think most of them did.   We had to keep an eye on the flying golf balls while we were picking up the balls that had already been driven into the range.  The golfers for the most part did their best to avoid hitting us and we would clean up the left half of the field and they would drive the balls to the right portion of the field and vice versa.  Now I got paid a pittance, but it was more than I had ever had before, and it bought nice cold snowballs which are shaved ice presented in a cone with sweet colored syrups and that kept me going back every Saturday morning.  But there was ONE PROBLEM and his name was Michael.

Michael was just one of the local boys who regularly frequented the New Orleans Country Club for the golf ball gig, and for whatever reason, he really didn't like me.  Thinking back, I guess you could say he hated me.  Now you might say that my thinking is skewed by what I am about to say but hear me out anyway.  Every Saturday I would show up like clockwork and every Saturday I had to fight off Michael's incessant surly stares.  Those stares eventually turned into a fight.  He was about my size and weight, and we gave each other our best without doing too much damage to either of us.  Finally, one Saturday morning, there was Michael looking meaner than ever, and taunted me into yet another fight.  We threw punches and finally, we wrestled each other to the ground. Michael spotted one of those dark-colored, long-neck broken beer bottles lying on the ground.  I had him in a headlock and was holding on pretty tight but he reached for the broken beer bottle and shouted at me and said, "If you don't let me go, I'm going to cut your belly open!"  With my left arm still around his neck, I saw a rather large rock nearby that fit my hand quite well and grabbed it with my free hand.  I shouted at him, "You go ahead and then I'm going to crack your head open like a coconut?"  I didn't have a lot of experience at fighting back then and didn't know that if a man threatened to cut you or kill you, you had better not give him the chance but being naïve, I did what I thought was the right thing to do, at least at that time.  Just about that time, here comes Mr. Smith, and his demeanor had changed quite dramatically when he saw the commotion Michael and I had started.  He bellowed at us, separated us quickly and sent both of us home.  I must have told my older brothers about the fight because it wasn't but a week or so after that and we were already being moved to another rental house. I forgot to mention that the white people occupied about 3 city blocks of Hollygrove and if the white boys were caught riding their bicycles on the streets where the black boys lived, they would chase us and hope to give us a thrashing or worse.  Local residents murdered poor old Mr. Cruppie, the owner of the hardware store on Hollygrove Street when they robbed him one day, not long after we moved from the neighborhood.  So as usual my mom made sure to keep us safe.

I reflect back on those days and wonder if a part of racism is simply buried in the haves and the have-nots?  Regardless, that first brush with what I believe was a case of racism probably had a lot to do with economics but at the time, that perspective whooshed right over my head.  When I joined the Marine Corps, I eventually made it over to Southeast Asia to Vietnam and my best friend in Nam was black.  The only name I ever knew him by was ironically, "Red".  If you see an old jarhead who is dark green out there and goes by the name "Red" tell him to look up ole JoeyA as I've been looking for him for almost 50 years.

Posted 3rd May 2018