More Dixieland on the Beagle, with my good friend Doug and "Satch", with whom I also served in Guam. Doug had been my roomate previously at the Navy School of Music some years before -- perhaps we took trendy chemical amusement aids together more than a few times. Heh.
This dude Satch played the tuba well enough, but as for the bass guitar, that's another story, and when he came out to the band in Guam, well, that put an end to our late night jam sessions. Not completely, but mostly. There's a weirdly funny story about old Satch from the Guam days that I will tell here, since not many people actually read this stuff anyway. We were all on the bus, waiting to drive to the gig, everybody but Satch, who was late. So here he comes, running out of the band room; we all watched him run right up to the door of the bus ... but then, nothing. WTF? It's as if he completely disappeared. We looked out the window, and he wasn't there. So where did he go? What happened is this: on Guam, the asphalt has a good amount of crushed coral in the mix, and coral, as some may know, contains algae. When it gets wet, it's very slippery, so you have to be careful when driving, or running. Satch wasn't careful, so he wound up with a huge raised purple welt right in the middle of his forehead when he slipped, literally, under the bus, and slammed his head into the stair. Although we were sympathetic, we were quick to pick up on the humor. Somehow, from this incident, our drummer Dave changed the "Satch" nickname to "Scratch".