Iron Mike’s Military Exchange

(“Robert J. Hughes” is me, BobbaLew.)

“I see I am the owner of a small-business,” I said to my wife; “‘Iron Mike’s Military Exchange.’”
A credit-card solicitation had arrived in our mail, addressed as pictured.
“What brought that on?” my wife asked.
“Who knows,” I exclaimed.
Am I dealing with Hitler Wehrmacht paraphernalia, glittering daggers and iron crosses?
Many years ago, when I was about 11 or 12, I remember wandering into a war-surplus outfit in an old airport hanger, whose prize was the actual plexiglass bubble machine-gun turret from atop a B-17 bomber — or maybe it was a B-25 or B-26.
It lacked the machine-guns, but was gorgeous, the real thing.
I have no idea what happened to that turret, but I wanted it.
I’d put it atop my house, and imagine blasting enemy planes out of the sky.
“Messerschmitts at 12 o-clock high!” I’d yell. Ratta-tatta-tatt-tatt-tatt-tatt!
Eons ago, back during the ‘70s, when we lived in Rochester, I used to patronize Mack’s Army-Navy on Main St. —I bought my jeans there.
When Mack’s tanked, I switched to Archie’s Gob-Shop out W. Main near Broad St.
A while ago I bought a tee-shirt from a military exchange for working out at the Canandaigua YMCA.
It had a distressed rendering of the old stars-and-stripes insignia used on Air Force planes in the ‘50s.
Was that the connection?
Did some errant computer-program link me with that tee-shirt outlet?
The credit-card company, a bank, demanded an immediate response.
They will get one.
They get to pay postage for an envelope full of junk.
It’s not my postage; it’s theirs.

• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about three-four hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)