| How did Uncle Dave become Uncle Dave? Well, it seems that a certain pogey-bait vendor named him after Uncle Dave Macon of country music fame. This same vendor had conned him into bringing $150 in change on the flight down from Brooklyn. How many remember that nice refueling stop in Leopoldville? (I Do Dave) With none of the heads working on the rest of the flight. How did UD start writing UDC. Someone was putting a bible verse in the African Runner every night and one night there wasn't one so UD suggested putting in Uncle Dave says "Do unto others and....run like hell". More little bits of humor and comments about what was going on aboard ship started appearing regularly. A certain Ops officer decided to "censor" UD. No more comments appeared for a couple of days. All that was run was a RYRY test pattern. Word was passed to the Civilian Officers of what was happening and one night the African Runner ran a few lines of garble and the question was asked: Who pulled UD's plug? Word had it that the Civilian Officers, especially "the Camara Salesman" ?nd Officer started harrassing the Ops Officer about where's the local gossip column. The Big Boss said he thought it was funny and good for morale. So, UD had a visitor asking him to continue that column and the visitor would not stick his nose into it. One of the rules were that no one was to be mentioned by name so an outsider would not know who was being talked about in case some copies were sent home. Didn't want any lawsuits. UD reminded him that no names were being used and that was a big part of the humor. Often UD would mention something about someone in the medical department and the Chief corpsman spent one whole cruise looking for the other corpsman. One of UD's favorite scops was one night when he went to the head he saw one of the guys who typed the African Runner looking in the mirror and rubbing his upper lip. He was coming off watch. Next morning when he looked at the UDC and there was the big question "Who on the editorial staff is attempting to grow a mustache?" He came up to UD that day asking how did you know? He hadn't seen UD walk by him in the head. UD can't remember the name of the artist who did "Uncle Dave's Coloring Book" Anyone know?? By the way, that swabby who left early(and missed all the fun) will soon have several old copies of the African Runner. At the time of this writing UD is celebrating his last day of being a fifty-something. So he must now take his afternoon nap so he can stay up all night looking through old pictures. Dave "Uncle Dave" Maberry 63-64 Crew |
| "Uncle Dave" |
