ShuLinkou Air Station, Taipei, Taiwan - The Humor

Page last screwed up on 25 October 2000

HUAN-YING

SHULINKOU - "STILL LAUGHING"

"Dawg Daze {as always} Presents"

FUN AT, IN, & UNDER THE BEACH

Jim "Lemmon" LaMont writes: that in our day, the beach of choice was "Tamsui", located just North of Taipei where the Tamsui river flowed into either the Pacific Ocean or the Straits of Formosa. (does anybody know for sure to save me the trouble of looking it up).

Anyway, we always experienced the same problem you guys did in "how to keep the beer cold". Ice, of course, was the basic tool but, more often than not, it took a lot of time to cool down the amount of beer we brought.

I can't remember who came up with the idea but on one trip, one of the guys showed up at the "big blue bus" with 3 or 4 of those red fire extinguishers (carbon dioxide type), told us to let him know when the beer, ice, and trash cans got there and he would show us how they cooled beer down at some place called "Misawa". Wonder where that is??

The beer finally shows up and our in-resident "fireman" lowered the black nozzle from one of the extinguishers down to the bottom of one of the trash cans and said to pack beer & ice around it. He then triggered the extinguisher as he slowly pulled the nozzle up to the top of the can. Beer that was "luke warm" only moments before was now down to "chuggin" temperature. I don't know how cold the "carbon dioxide" coming out of that extinguisher was but the entire process of cooling 3 or 4 cases of beer only took 30 seconds or so.

This character told us that he had his "7 level" in beer extinguisher training and, of course, everybody laughed while thinking "how many smarts does it take to pull the nozzle through a trash can full of beer". Many of us, myself included, learned the hard way that this wasn't an easy trick. In fact, the first time I tried it I exploded somewhere in the vicinity of a six pack. Seems that the "carbon dioxide" is coming out of that extinguisher at a temperature of way below zero and pulling the nozzle up too slow is going to waste a lot of beer.

Cooling down our beer with "fire extinguishers" may seem like a rather unique idea but trust me when I say, "it was also dangerous". I fondly remember one particular trip when one of the "extinguisher 3-level trainees" was cooling down a trash can full of nature's finest when one of the guys (probably a "202") decided he couldn't wait for the cooling to finish and reached in the can for a beer while the nozzle was about 2/3rds of the way up. (when I told "The Phantom" this story, he politely chastised me for the "202" insult for which I humbly apologized).

Obviously, when the remnents of once liquified "carbon dioxide" gets anywheres near flesh - the recipient tends to "scream loudly" either in pain or confusion. And on hearing the "scream", the guy holding the nozzle jerks upward in a sympathetic attempt to get the "smoking gun" out of the way.

PICTURE THIS IN YOUR MIND: (1) a trash can full of warm beer, (2) a man with a pretty red fire extinguisher pulling the nozzle from the bottom of the can (with very cold carbon dioxide fuming out in a fog like haze), (3) a greedy member of the beach party reaching into the can for a beer and jerks his arm back while screaming something that wasn't English or Chinese, (4) the man with extinguisher jerks the nozzle up and out of the can and away from the injured "drunk".

THE ABOVE SCENARIO HAS A STRANGE TWIST IN THAT: the man with the extinguisher, (1) forgets to take his "gun finger" off the trigger and, (2) now aims the nozzle directly into the crotch of an innocent bystander. As I told "The Phantom", the bystander was probably a "203" so he didn't feel any pain (please forward any and all "flack" to The Phantom - he's our "web master" - I'm just "one of the little guys wearing a robe".

IN ENDING: The fact that we were at a "beach party" and all wearing swim shorts, the guy that took the "blast" to his "jockies" did lose some sleep over his adventure and our Flight Commander made it "official" that, in the future, "a beer guard" would be posted anytime the extinguisher was in use. Yeah, right! Can you imagine one "drunk" telling another "drunk" that taking a beer could be "hazardous to his health". Right on!

I am rather surprised that this "fantastic" technique for cooling beer was not passed on to you LinKouites of circa '70. It would have made life easier. But I guess you guys didn't have any juice with the local "fire fighter's union". Or, maybe it was because I was on "B" flight, an entity you "Dawgs" probably didn't recognize.

P.S. if you ever try the above, make sure it's a "carbon dioxide" extinguisher and not one of those that shoots out that funny yellow stuff. Makes the beer taste real funny.

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