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Here's to the Cardinal Puff (poem)

By W. D. Ehrhart

My wife and I put out seeds to feed
the little critters in our courtyard:
wrens and juncos, mourning doves,
squirrels, chipmunks, now and then
a rabbit. This morning a cardinal.

That reminded me of Cardinal Puff,
a drinking game we used to play
on Okinawa back in 1968; I've no idea
why that came to mind. I haven't
thought of it in years, decades even,
but there the memory was.

This was after Vietnam, but I still
had time on my enlistment, so I
got sent to Okinawa. Back then,
Okinawa for a young enlisted man
was something like the armpit
of the universe: MPs everywhere,
little to do off base but pay too much
for drinks and hire prostitutes.

So we just stayed on base, where
at the NCO Club, you could drink
Heineken beer for 35 cents a pop.
We went there every night, night
after night after evening chow
for three straight months: Fat Pat,
Smitty, the Big Swede, and me,
stayed each night 'til closing time,
and drank to the Cardinal Puff,
staggered back to the barracks,
and the next night did it again.

It's what you do, or at least
what we did after our little piece
of that war was over, and we'd
no idea what we'd done or what
we were supposed to do
with the rest of our lives.

Fifty-eight years later, I'm feeding
seeds and nuts to little critters
on a cold and snowy winter day,
and here's a cardinal. And I
can't resist the urge to ask
out loud: "Is your name Puff?"

—W. D. Ehrhart