US Military Vets MC

In Memory of Jim "Bones" Runge. 1960-2008

Stories from the road.  Excerpts from the Dog and Boats Show.  Quotes from the brothers.  These are the type of things that you'll find here, where I capture some of the  more memorable moments from the club's travels through time, brotherhood, and the roads we ride.

"The Gell-Shell is a legal form of head protection in the state of Virginia." -Maddog

Chute makes his Mark  (On the campground forest floor)

Wow…what a weekend!  The annual was a beautiful thing.  The only thing I can bitch about is Chute left early.  Now, some brothers may wonder why Our Brother Chute is going to be off the bike for a while, with his arm strapped to his side like a Hooter’s Chicken wing.  Well, as Paul Harvey says, : Now here’s the rest of the story:”  for those of you that missed it. 

            Seems out brother Chute was a little more than animated when we reached that part of the night when the alcohol was lovingly caressing our brain stems, having finally succeeded in numbing those parts of our brains responsible for judgment, restraint, and common sense.  The “war stories” began to flow, as they often do, with the soft glow of the firelight taking the harsh edge off of some of the harsher memories.  The tide of the conversation turned to parachute operations.  For you waterborne types, this is the intentional and sometimes unexplained exiting of aircraft while in flight, thus placing the jumper in the precarious position of being between gravity and the air resistance offered by a thin membrane of nylon called a t-10 (or affectionately the dash ten) parachute.  Our brother Chute has extensive experience with the airborne life, and chose to share some of these stories with the rest of the besotted and somewhat easily impressed, yet adoring crowd, most of which have never seen fit to do such a foolhardy thing, even drunk.

“You hit the ground kind of hard, don’t you?” asked one starry-eyed non airborne voice from the darkness.  Who exactly it was is unclear, because frankly, the fire was a little low, it was dark, and truthfully, this writer was a bit inebriated.  It wasn’t me…and truth be told, I can tell you it wasn’t Wingman, who was at that moment standing next to me devouring chicken wings like popcorn.

“Yes Leg, you do.” Chute beamed benignly around the fireside.  He doesn’t mean anything by it.  “Leg” is the name for anyone who doesn’t, or hasn’t jumped out of airplanes.  He calls us Leg…and to him it’s a descriptive and accurate term.  I think it is a shortening of the term “Person who has not had a LEG fractured, broken, rearranged, or mangled, or otherwise injured while leaving fully functional aircraft while in flight.”  Some take it as an insult.  I personally take it as a testimony to common sense…but that’s not our point here.  Chute calls us Leg, and he loves us all.  He continues:  “There is a certain way you land, you see, that precludes serious injury.  Every paratrooper, in his transformation from dirty, smelly, nasty, Leg to fully functional airborne soldier learns this thing called a parachute landing fall.”  He stood up, and asked for a volunteer.  Several eager hands went up and he selected one of the starry eyed admirers.  (Okay, it was one of Ski-dog’s kids.) 

He rapped his sturdy knuckles on the table.  “Hop up young man.”  He took a small branch, and in true airborne fashion, stripped the twigs and leaves off it using a quick swipe through his teeth.  Washing the leaves and twigs down with a beer, he continued.  “Initial contact with the ground will be made on the balls of the feet, knees slight bent and thrown in the direction of travel. At the same time, tuck the elbows into the chest and rotate the body to expose the latissismus dorsi muscle.  The parachute landing fall is performed in one smooth, fluid motion. There should not be any excessive shock on any one part of the body.  Keep your feet together, Move the body to form an arc as the PLF continues. Start the PLF when the balls of the feet touch the ground. Do not hesitate on the balls of the feet. Complete the PLF by falling in the direction of drift, and lay the (body) points of contact on the ground. Keep the chin on the chest and keep the neck tense throughout the PLF. Use a twisting-bending motion, beginning in the hips, to push the knees around, exposing the calf and thigh (right or left) as the legs give with the impact.”  He said all this without pause or hesitation, or even inhaling.  He rapped each of the body parts in succession with his pointer, eliciting a startled yelp and a suppressed whimper from poor Matthew.  Dismissing his demonstrator, Chute Climbed onto a chair, and demonstrated the aforesaid described technique.  Hopping off the chair, he executed a PLF right there in the dust outside Nuke and Bubblehead’s rented pop-up camper.  (Said camper doubling as a command post for our annual by day and a love shack at night.)There was a polite smattering of applause as Chute immediately rolled to his feet and popped up, mimicked hopping to his feet, and collapsing the canopy, shrugging out of his imaginary harness, he turned toward the awe-stricken crowd.

“Yeah, but jumping off a chair is no big deal!” Exclaimed one of the campground regulars who had drifted into the circle of firelight from the recently closed bar.  Chute fixed him with a stony glare that sent the man scurrying off into the darkness.  Hurling his pointer into the darkness after him, (you could barely hear the stuck-pig squeal of the impaled camper) Chute mounted the picnic table, and again demonstrated a perfect PLF.  THUMP, rustle, thump. Was all one heard, along with the collective gasp of the dumbfounded onlookers.  Again, Chute sprung up like a spring loaded jack-rabbit, collapsed his canopy, and added an additional flourish- limbering his trusty carbine and scanning for targets, before taking a well-deserved bow. Wingman took a momentary pause from the pork chop he was gnawing on and watched him leave.  “wow.” Was all he said, wiping the grease off in face with a sleeve.

The applause was a little louder, but again, someone in the darkness observed: “That was only two and a half feet.  Big deal!”  A few people giggled, and a few people actually laughed.  Someone sneezed, which covered the sound of the bones cracking as Chute twisted his nose 180 degrees.  (with the rest of his head.  It looked for a moment like the guy had put his shirt and pants on backward.) 

“Okay, you want a REAL PLF demonstration?” He demanded, wiping his hands and thanking those who had helped him drag the body off into the darkness to be dealt with by the Rockahock campground cleanup crew.   With that, he grabbed a rucksack, (I have no Idea where a full, combat loaded rucksack materialized from, but there it was, honest.)  bounded off the chair, onto the picnic table, and swung himself to the roof of Nuke and Bubbleheads rented pop-up camper/command post/love shack. 

He did something called the airborne shuffle from one side of the camper/command post/love shack to the other, as a paratrooper laden with gear would do, and hollered out into the night the litany of preparatory commands one would hear if they were a paratrooper in the last few seconds of assisted flight:  Inboard personnel, Stand UP!...Outboard Personnel Stand UP!....Check equipment….Sound off for equipment check!>>>  OK…OK…All OK Jumpmaster!...Stand in the door!....GO! GO! GO!  With that, he hurled himself off the top of the camper and again executed a perfect, textbook PLF at the feet of the befuddled Bubblehead, who shirtless and shoeless had emerged to see what the hell was happening on the roof of his Camper/command post/loveshack.  Nuke was right behind him, with a bottle of Massage Oil in one hand, and the book “How to end the drought” in the other.  He quickly disappeared back into the Camper/Command Post/Love Shack as Lace grabbed a handful of hair and reeled him back in.

“What the hell is happening on the roof of my Camper/command post/Love Shack?” He demanded, bleary eyed and confused.  He gaped open mouthed as the man of the hour Jumped up like a hyperactive Kangaroo and collapsed his imaginary canopy, shrugged out of his imaginary harness, limbered his imaginary weapon, shouldered his rucksack and dashed off into the night to secure his imaginary perimeter.

Chute returned to the glow of the campfire, which by now was a bit brighter, perhaps made so by the fire in his eyes.  The crowd was on its collective feet, and a round of hearty applause rippled through it.  Ski-dog’s youngest started a wave, which ended with the entire gathering bowing down before the mighty Airborne Chute.  A pot bellied camper with a Semper-fi hat on and a Schlitz in his hand snorted.  “Sheeeyit.  Took harder drops than that jumping off my garage roof as a kid.”   We’re not sure what actually transpired after that, but some say he was vaporized on the spot by a mere glance from the steely eyed Chute, who for the moment had seemed to shed years from his war-horse frame and returned to his pre-retirement glory days.  Others say he took off lickety-split as soon as Chute turned to look at him, realizing the error of his ways.  (At any rate…They’re still looking for him, and Chute swears he doesn’t remember.)  Wingman found the turkey leg the guy dropped, and happily began gnawing at it.

“Okay, folks, you really REALLY want to see a genuine, for-real, Parachute Landing Fall and witness the protection a correctly executed landing can afford a brave paratrooper?”  Without waiting for an answer, Chute grabbed a nearby dome tent, and in a blur removed the contents and the supporting rods.  Stuffing the fabric into one of the pockets of the rucksack, he used some of the fabric items he found inside to fashion risers (Boat’s bootlaces), a reserve chute (Bones’ T-shirt) and a harness and ripcord. (Maddog, he swears he’ll return the thong).  With a loud and thunderous “AIRBORNE!” he scampered up the nearest tree like a raccoon being chased by a pack of rabid rotweilers.  Standing on the highest branch that would support his weight, he howled into the night, and hurled himself out of the tree, momentarily silhouetted against the moon like a combat-laden batman.  Pulling his thong-ripcord, he looked up to check his dome tent-“canopy”.  The dome tent opened with a snap-and being made out of regular nylon rather than gen-u-ine Army dash ten ripstop, it immediately tore in half.  He immediately went to his Bones-T-shirt-reserve chute, and it billowed out into the air long enough to slow his descent to a mere 60 MPH.  He checked his landing zone, and looked down into the upturned face and bleary eyes of Bubblehead, who was up until then wondering what the noise was inside the camper/command post/love shack. 

“OBSTRUCTED LZ!! Chute screamed, and then tugged the boats’-bootlace-risers to attempt to veer away from the shirtless, shoeless, befuddled Bubblehead.  The Bones’-T-shirt-reserve-chute’s left sleeve slipped out of the risers, and the captured air rushed out of it.  Slipping to the right, Chute caught one leg in the branches of the tree, and failed, for the first time that night, to execute a perfect PLF.  It was good, but not perfect.  The resulting THUD shook the trees and startled the gathered throng of stupefied onlookers.  Wingman almost dropped his Klondike bar.  Still, the impetuous paratrooper rolled to his feet, sprung up like a grasshopper on meth, collapsed his canopy, slipped out of his Maddog’s-thong-harness, and limbered his imaginary weapon, then took off for the perimeter at a double time. 

 All was quiet when he returned to the circle of newly-minted and kneeling worshippers.  Bidding them to rise, he nonchalantly shrugged his left shoulder back into the socket with a pop loud enough to wake even Kat, who had heretofore been snoring in his tent, oblivious to the goings on.  “And That…”  He looked around defiantly, a look of triumph in his eyes, “Is a PLF.  Any Questions, Legs?”

There was not one word.  The leaves rustled in the crisp spring air, the breeze ruffled the open tent flaps, it was so quiet you could hear the grease dripping from Wingman’s half-rack of ribs.  Chute downed his final beer of the night, and ambled haughtily toward his tent.

And that, brothers, is why Chute will not be riding for the next six weeks.  Broken Collar bone, you know.

 This is a page fulla stuff I would have done if Woody hadn't taught me better.

Good wind chill index for bikers, thanks to Woody for the link

This is a good link for Virginia Bikers.  Couple good photo albums...

This club is a member of the Virginia Coalition of Motorcyclists.  VCOM

This club is a member of the Virginia Confederation of Clubs

This club is a member of TAMA (Tidewater-Albermale Motorcycle Association

Some of the other Motorcycle Clubs on the Hampton/Newport News peninsula are (alphabetically):

Hey, It's not focused, but one can waste some serious time here

Or here.  This is why I feel chatrooms are a waste of time

And for those who hate Penguins

Some damn biker Jokes