Monthly Archives: May 2017

Do You Know

i am now beginning to post poems i posted before the great crash and were lost or i never put them out there. i hope you enjoy them as most are different from what has been on this site…i think. i wrote this one in 1962 after being dumped by someone. i was a romantic then and must confess i haven’t changed all that much.

Do You Know

Do you know
the whole world is dark,
but there is light in the sky?
something inside
indescribable
brings peace but no calm;

Can’t you feel
the world around?
it’s appalling
to know you are alone;

Is there anyone
who feels the same you feel?
all in the world
must feel something similar.

See the red barn;
the barn is red;
the sun sparkles off the tin roof
painted black with
white letters broadcasting
“See Rock City;”

let us go to Rock City and live in the world of wonderment.

 

Some Thoughts as Memorial Day Winds Down

It is late.

This country is pretty much put to bed; its celebration weekend is over. The revelers, aka drunks, like the ones laughing, talking too loud, chugging them down at the nineteenth hole this afternoon, have worn down, gone to bed worthless after celebrating in a sad, sad way for folks who died for them.

The patriotic made their speeches, placed the flowers and inappropriate mini-flags by the gravestones of the fallen warriors, who may or may not have given their lives for our country, but just died after serving, but they died and served nevertheless; so i guess it’s okay.

i sit in the dark thinking about friends i know who died for us.

i think about how it happened and how we get all discombobulated with the hype
surrounding what should be quiet reflection and thanks to those who bought the farm, a term i don’t think many who were not there then now understand what it meant  when the warriors created such a term.

i am not a hero; i served just shy of a quarter of a century pretty much driving ships.
i remember ’69 at the Red Mule in Norfolk with Doc, the hippie’s contribution to Navy officers when he said, “Gonna volunteer to go to ‘Nam.”

And i said stunned, “What the hell are you talking about, Doc?

“You are a hippie, a peacenik, against the war.”

And Doc said, “Well, i’ve been thinking about it, and our parents had World War II. It was their war, and whether we like it or not, this one is our war, and i want to be a part of our war.”

“Makes sense to me,” i replied, which, of course, made no sense whatever, but the next day i called my detailer to tell him i wanted to go to war, to Vietnam, and just to prove what an idiot i was, i told him “i want to be a “GLO.”

“GLO” is the Navy acronym for “Gunline Liaison Officer” who, with no sense at all, goes forward of the forward lines, spots enemy targets, and calls in the gunfire or attack aircraft.

My detailer is excited. You see they didn’t get a hell of a lot of guys volunteering to get their ass shot off. And then he says,” “You’ll have to extend your active duty for two months.”

i say “What the hell?”

And he explains there is two months of training to be a GLO, and that would give me only ten months in country, and they (that magic unknown “they”) require you to be in country for a year, so you would have to extend your active duty obligation for two months to get that year in.”

And i say, “Bullshit. You want me to extend for two months to get my ass shot off? i don’t think so.

“What else is there?”

And i go on to what else there was, which was riding a ship, watching over the Koreans we carried to Vietnam and back.

That was a long time ago. Yesterday, i thought about it. After all, yesterday was Memorial Day, when old sailors think about things like that, and had i gone, there’s a damn good chance we would have been honoring my dead ass had not that two-month thing stuck in my craw.

So you see, those folks we honored yesterday, who gave it their all, were just like us. Some were super patriotic and felt it their duty to put it on the line. Some were born to take life to the bone edge, risking it all, not for glory necessarily, but certainly inclined to get the adrenaline rush. And back then, some went because it was before they rolled numbers, and if you weren’t in college or a reverend or banged up in some way, chances are you were going and you went.

And some died.

That’s war, no matter what we call it. Some die. Sadly with the evil in this world, some have to die. For us.

So we take a moment and honor them for dying for us. Or at least, i hope most of us took that moment away from all the frills of a holiday. i hope most of us put our political bullshit aside, and had a quiet moment of respect for those who gave us their all, regardless of how they got to their end.

And perhaps, just perhaps, it wasn’t their end, because they died for us so they live with us.

i hope.

The Bonita Golf Club’s US Flag (we Navy folks call it an ensign) at half mast in honor of the fallen, Memorial Day, May 28, 2017.

USS Yosemite: SINKEX

Nikki McCullough, a close friend, recently responded to a video of a ship in rough seas i had shared on Facebook, asking if i knew the aircraft carrier “Orosco,” which was sunk off of Florida to be an artificial reef for divers. i’m pretty sure the ship was the USS Oriskany (CV 34). Oriskany had a great reputation and was a major contributor in the Vietnam War. In 2004. she was sunk in 24 fathoms (144 feet).

Oriskany was in service during the early part of my Navy career, but i never sailed with her. She had a good reputation.

i prefer the way my last ship was sunk. The USS Yosemite (AD 19) after 50 years (1944-1994) of active service was sunk as a target in 2003 somewhere off of Cape Hatteras in more than 2300 fathoms, more than 14,000 feet, or over 2 1/2 miles of water. She was noble through until the end.

i began to provide Nikki with the link to my post i wrote about the Yosemite’s sinking when i realized that post had been obliterated by the great provider crash a couple of years ago.

Below is a reprint of that post.

One thought on this Memorial Day to honor those who sacrificed their lives for our country: It is hard for a seafaring man to explain the human qualities of a ship to anyone else. But for a true mariner, a ship has a soul. Every ship on which i served (and i served on eleven of them) had her own personality, her own quirks. They were all lady warriors. Even today over thirty years after i debarked from my last one, they remain in my mind as something special, something human.

Although Yosemite was not a warship, she was a noble lady, a repair ship we called a “destroyer tender.” And she served nobly. And she went down to the deep, all 14,000 tons of her, as she should have, in service to her country. When i walk up to the top of my hill later this morning and look down to the southern end of San Diego bay, i will study the ships of the US Pacific Fleet. I will think of friends who made the ultimate sacrifice to our country. I will also think of my noble lady warriors, for they, too, gave to our country.

God bless our fallen warriors.

 

USS Yosemite (AD 19): Good Ship Gone (2003)

 The news came, as expected, from the Commanding Officer, a man who has Navy blue for blood in his veins. I did not call him “CO” or the aviator term “skipper” – he would have chopped off my head with that insult. I called him “Captain.” Without fail. I now call him Frank and a friend.

The USS Yosemite (AD 19), destroyer tender par excellence is gone.

The Navy radio message, the means of communicating throughout my Navy career, was the bearer of the news, forwarded by the Commanding Officer in the new mode of communication: e-mail.

The message subject was “SINKEX,” as in gone. That means she was sunk as a target in a Naval exercise. Since the message came from a destroyer squadron commander,  I hope it was a surface ship that shot her down.

And I mean down. Two thousand, three hundred, and forty fathoms. That’s about 14,040 feet. Deep.

It is right that she went down that way, and hopefully it was shells from a gun mount, not a missile, but I suspect the latter sang the final hymn, read the final prayer for the good ship Yosemite.

Sailors use the feminine gender to describe ships. There is probably some politically correct group out there trying to neuter the tradition. That it is sad because the Yosemite and the other ships I served on were true ladies of the sea, elegant, practical, and fearsome in their different ways. I loved all of those that carried me as part of their wardrooms.

The Yosemite was special. I confess I had to learn to love her. I went to her to serve as executive officer in 1983 for the sole purpose of attaining the necessary qualifications to screen for command at sea. I did not like tenders: they did not go to sea enough. They did not land amphibious troops and equipment; they did not fire guns and missiles; they did not hunt submarines. They did not scream around at twenty-seven knots with the spume of a rooster-tail off the stern and the wake as wide as a four-lane highway extending to the horizon. They did not belch landing craft out of the stern of a well deck in rolling seas.

But Yosemite had been there when I first met the Navy in 1963. She was the flagship of Cruiser Destroyer Force, Atlantic Fleet, tied up at Pier One in Newport, Rhode Island. I was a midshipman on my way out of NROTC because I didn’t have good study habits nor good sense at nineteen. She seemed massive and imperturbable as I walked passed on my way to my destroyer and an eight-week cruise.

She was in Newport when I came back from deployment on my first ship after being commissioned from OCS in 1968. Her deserved reputation was such that we would figure out ways to get our repair work to her, rather than to take it to our “parent” tender.

And she was my last ship, the penultimate tour for me and the penultimate step toward my never achieved goal of command.

She could wheeze out fourteen knots with her four hundred pound boilers, but we steamed at ten knots most of the time. The fact sheet lists her top speed as nineteen knots but that was several tons and numerous years before I became her “XO.”

She steamed like a champion for my tour. We deployed for seven and a half months just a month after I reported aboard. She was the first ship with women as part of the crew who spent extended periods out of port (Most before had transited from port to port and provided repair and maintenance services pier side or moored). She provided repair availabilities for destroyers and cruisers while anchored off Masirah, Oman, and she accomplished in four days what normally took two weeks back in the states. She did that for fifty-five days, took a break and then did it again for forty-five days. She had a crew of 900, including 106 women, and a wardroom of 44, six of whom were female, and gave me a completely different perspective of women at sea: the Captain said it best when he announced, “We don’t have women on this ship. We don’t have men on this ship. We have sailors on this ship, and we are going to operate that way.”

She was given a letter of commendation for being a member of the Indian Ocean Battle Group, an unheard of honor for a repair ship.

She steamed as a member of the orange force in a Caribbean exercise, something tenders do not normally do.

She was in the middle of the eye of a developing hurricane, eventually escaping to the northeast before the winds and seas reached full hurricane strength.

She was proclaimed the best repair organization in the Atlantic Fleet.

Officers and crew on port bridge wing of Yosemite off of Masirah, Oman, 1983. Captain Frank Boyle, seated, consults with the goofy executive officer.

Her crew was an amalgamation of old sailors, repair personnel who had seldom spent any time at sea, and young wide-eyed men and women, learning how to be sailors. The first lieutenant was the best boatswainmate I knew in twenty years, even though he had outgrown the title. The doc was so new he didn’t know how to salute or how to dress in Navy uniforms. He has become the godfather of my daughter and one of my closest friends. And there was this special woman, the operations officer, a lieutenant, who was one of the best officers with whom I served. And there were many others who had an impact on my life.

Yosemite was commissioned in 1944, the year I was born. She was decommissioned in 1994. Fifty years, a half century of service.

It is fitting that she went down the way she did. She spent her life supporting the fleet. She was sunk supporting the fleet, providing one last service.

And she and Davy Jones will sleep well together.

A Little Too Much Hyperbole?

i am a Mazda fan.

i saw one of the first RX-7’s when a NROTC cadet graduated from Texas A&M in 1978. It was yellow. i thought it was a great looking sports car, although i didn’t like the color.

In 1982, i bought a used 1979 Rx7 after Blythe agreed it was a good choice. It was rust orange with a faux leather interior and plaid insets in the seat (Maureen guffawed the first time she saw them). It was a four-speed standard, and probably the quickest car i have ever owned. Several times, i found myself doing 95 in the third before realizing it. I drove it across the country several times and sold it to Roger Newman for his son in 1983.

It remains my favorite car of all time.

But it didn’t have air-conditioning. Just before Maureen and i married, we traded it in for a brand new 1983 Rx7, a brown one. This one had five forward gears. i loved it as well, but it soon became Maureen’s primary car. Her Honda Civic hatchback did not have air conditioning. So the old boy got the car with no AC in Jacksonville and back in San Diego when we moved back to Dictionary Hill.

In 1989, with Sarah on the way, we gave up my Rx7 for a mini-van. i wanted the Mazda MPV but settled for a Nissan Axxess. The MPV was extremely popular and the price difference was significant. Blythe aptly named it “the family truckster.”

Shortly afterwards, one of our friends, Nikki McCullough had a significant life change and went back to school. She and Maureen swapped cars. Nikki took Maureen’s Mazda 626 and Maureen took Nikki’s 1986 Rx7. This one was more of a luxury sports car. But it was a good car.

i’ll  never understand why Mazda gave up on that rotary engine.

i now have a 2012 Mazda 3 Hatchback. i sold my Dodge Dakota when i began working for Pacific Tugboat Service. Weekly trips to Long Beach made no sense if they were going to be in a pickup in Los Angeles traffic and 15-17 mpg compared to the Mazda 3’s 38 mpg only made sense.

We love it. It can park anywhere. It can turn on a dime. It is quick, not as quick as that first Rx7, but quick. Maureen takes it when she knows she will have to  park in tight spaces.

i have always thought Mazdas were solid cars with great prices. The only disadvantage was resales were not that good. i am a Mazda fan.

But Mazda, what are you thinking?:

Last week, i received a marketing booklet in the mail for Mazda’s CX-5, glossy high end sales marketing stuff. i looked through it: nice looking car, way too nice for me.

Then i turned the page. There on a black background across from a glossy photo of a Japanese table setting was the following words:

“THE TRANQUIL PRECISION OF A  JAPANESE TEA ROOM AND THE EXACTING NATURE OF THE TEA CEREMONY TRADITION INSPIRED US TO CRAFT AN INTERIOR THAT EXUDES A SENSE OF PURITY AND ELEGANCE.” — Shinichi Isayama, Chief Designer

Good Lord! It’s a frigging car.

Talk about being a little pissed off

This is another one of those actual events that is so wrong in so many ways.

Yesterday and most of today was good.

i went from golf to a cortisone shot the orthopedic guy thinks will fix the shoulder that has ailed me with old man stuff like arthritis. Then there was another appointment.

We concluded the day with dinner at one of our favorite places, The Rose in South Park, with friends in Minnesota who will soon move back to San Diego. Brenda Fake and Tom (Brenda i am having an old man brain fart and can’t come up with Tom’s last name for sure and don’t want to include a wrong one; help me out, girl), are absolutely two of the best dinner mates we’ve ever known: Thanks for a great evening).

Busiest day i’ve had in a long while, all good (except for my golf which sucked again). Today i topped it. i helped my buddy Pete Toennies put together a storage shed and his shelves we put inside. It was an all day workday except for about two hours in the morning when Pete worked on a solo project.  i went to the driving range and was fortunate to find Matt Brumbaugh open for a golf lesson. He helped. Then i was back at the storage building construction: hard labor.

i got home around 7:30, good tired.

When i saw Matt before the lesson, he was waiting for a phone call from his boss. i inquired about what. Matt replied a golfer had been arrested on the golf course. i went to hit warmup balls on the range while Matt concluded his business.

When he began our lesson,  i asked Matt, “What was he arrested for? Bad golf?”

Matt chuckled  and then told me the golfer had been cited by base security for indecent exposure.

i unbelievingly guffawed for about  a minute. “You’ve got be kidding,” i said.

Matt said he wasn’t kidding and added a regular golfer had been arrested about ten years ago for the same thing: taking a leak on the golf course. That time when the case reached the duty security officer, he said, “You’ve got to be kidding?” and dismissed the charges.

But this time, the security patrol car was driving by the course, when the female MA (the Navy rating for the security specialists rating, which i greatly disdain for its inefficiency and bureaucracy, raised holy hell about how the guy did something she found personally offensive.

The guy was in the bushes by a fence. i am sure the female MA saw nothing except him standing there in a position used for only one purpose, but she was offended. i guess she would have thrown Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett in jail plus the vast majority of all humans in the world before the 1800’s.

Apparently, the golfer is going to appear before the base Commanding Officer soon.

i’m sorry folks, but damn near every male golfer i know pisses on the golf course, One, a very good friend, is legendary.

i think some people need to grow up.

And until they do, i think they should be removed from any active role as a security officer.

For god sakes, people, use some sense…if you have any.