“Gross” has Several Definitions…

Stop me if you heard this one…but my comments about people should buy their own condoms, and that birth control items are everywhere and need not be supplied by government edict… well there is a story…

(This comment may lead to another about my days at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, where, to some I was a “Gross Plebe.”  About which more in due course.)

Back when there was still a debate about birth control, to be exact in 1957 in the most Catholic of states, Maryland, I set out to buy a GROSS of condoms.

(For more recent graduates of public education, a “gross” is 144 items.)

This purchase was unusual enough, because Midshipmen lived a monastic life in an all-male institution. I’ll cover our dating habits in another piece, because they were bizarre in ANY day – absolutely unique.

Unfortunately, no drugstore had a gross box of condoms, so I had to purchase 144 loose condoms, put them in the pockets of my heavy Bridge Coat and take them back into the US Naval Academy and place them on the desk in my room. It happened to be a Sunday and my two roommates were absent, probably dating out in town.

Then I heard the dreaded noise. The approach down the hall of the Officer of the Day (OOD), whose progress was noted from the sound of his sword swinging against his sword belt.

Here I must note that even though the OOD MIGHT have been going to any room on that floor, I was not being paranoid to guess that he was coming to my room…you see that particular Marine Colonel had a bad feeling for me because he thought it was I who had put a bowling ball through the door of the room he occupied one 2 am while he was on duty. He could not quickly arise and chase the culprit because half the door of every room was crinkled glass, and he could hear the bowling ball coming so he had to duck under his blanket until the glass stopped showering down.

By the time he could grab a bathrobe and slippers and run to my room — as i said we had some history — I was peacefully snoring. (Assuming I had done the deed at all — but we quickly awakened when he turned on the light)

We struggled to get to our feet but he said, “As you were, Gentlemen,” and proceeded to check our bathrobes and slippers for signs of heat and perspiration. No success.

So, it was obvious to me that of the 4,000 Academy Midshipmen into whose room the good Colonel might be coming, the odds were definitely running against me.

So, with a gross of condoms piled high on my desk, I opened my desk drawer and tried to sweep the rolled condoms into my drawer before the Colonel — known in the Corps as “Bosco,” and to we Midshipmen as Bonzo, — could get to my room.

Not only did I fail, but many of the rolled condoms fell and were rolling on the floor as his Academy ring rang against the door glass, and an astonished Colonel Parish glared at me:

“Midshipman Hemphill, First Class, SIR!” I shouted as I jumped to my feet.

Bonzo was incredulous. The Midshipman standing behind him to put people on report and run his errands was doubled over in laughter.

“Explanation, Mr. Hemphill?”

“SIR, (I had sweat running down my face in the middle of a winter day), my best friend in Texas, a Methodist Minister, is getting married, and this is a joke wedding present.”

One thing I would never do is lie – after sweating through four years at Annapolis I was NOT going to get kicked out, which a lie would certainly do and there was no appeal. As incredulously as it might seem, every word was the truth.

Bonzo looked at me, looked at the condoms  — now stationary, but everywhere — slowly closed the door, gathered together his messenger  and walked away.

I collapsed into my chair and relaxed, when the door slowly opened and the good Colonel stuck his head in and said:

“I hope you don’t really think I believe that BS, do you Mr. Hemphill?”

I almost wish he had pressed the issue, because that Methodist Minister –  whom I had known since I was six years old, was and is my oldest friend. We had lunch together just last month, and the story I told was the absolute, dead-on truth,

But the point is that birth control is CHEAP, available, even in Catholic states and always has been.

The president backed down – but he never should have instituted that policy. It is still an intrusion, only now on private insurance companies who have the famous, “Unfunded Mandate.”

Government as Nanny State.