Not My Bag

I had a good friend in Memphis who has a 2nd degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a Marine. When he has sunglasses on, he looks exactly like that Marine from the commercial, and I mean exactly. When he takes them off, he looks like a big, dumb, heavy-lidded hick. In reality, he's really book-smart but utterly lacking in common sense. He's an ultra nice guy though.

When he first arrived on station at Camp LeJeune[sp], the other members of his team told him it was his job to go out and retrieve the Huey motors from the yard so the team could work on them. Of course the motors were out of the helicopters and were on casters so they'd roll, but these things are something like 1,200 pounds or more. Of course, it was really nothing more than a way for the vets to laugh at the newbies as they struggled mightily to even budge those motors. Well, my pal, they tell him to get them a motor, and he got them a motor. I can just imagine him rolling that big thing in and then turning to see all those shocked face and his big dumb hick self saying "What?" a la Keanu Reeves.

Anyway, now that you know the guy enough, I can get to the point. I got to see the taping of his trials for the 2nd degree. At one point, they get four of those inch-thick boards and hold them together. Four people, one at each corner, hold the bundle of boards straight out. My buddy is standing there, with that big dumb look on his face, and he just sort of, I dunno, reaches out and touches the boards. All four boards break, all four people fall on their butts. And my boy, he's just standing there with that dumb look on his face like, "What?" Classic. I wish I could get that on YouTube.