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- Big Day…43 years ago
In March 1982. i was the Weapons Officer of the USS Okinawa (LPH 3) home ported in San Diego. The Weapons Officer billet was titled “First Lieutenant” on other amphibious helicopter carriers. Regardless, it meant i was charge in pretty much everything not aviation, engineering, operations, or supply related.
One of those responsibilities was being in charge of the quarterdeck where all visitors entered the ship. From previous regimes, we had a large red torah that spanned the entrance into the helicopter deck below the flight deck. It was impressive, but Captain Dave Rogers called me to his cabin one afternoon. “Jim, I want our quarterdeck to be the best quarterdeck on the base. I want it to be the most impressive and known to be the best by everyone home ported here.”
I, of course, replied, “Aye, Aye, Sir!”
i discussed how we could make the quarterdeck renowned across the waterfront with my division officers and Boatswain Warrant Officer 4 (CWO4) Ellis. The Bosun had a bit of a beer gut. He was married to a wonderful Filipino woman who created a lovely macramé lanyard for the boatswain pipe the bosun gave me when i was transferred. She was about 4’8″ and almost that wide. Great lady, just a bit wide.
My team came up with the idea of a sitting area next to the quarterdeck. At the time, when guests or visitors came aboard, they had to wait for the watch to contact whomever they were there to see. That sailor or officer would have to come to the quarterdeck to escort the visitor. Often, the time it took to get to the quarterdeck was lengthy. The visitor had to stand around in a very industrial setting until his escort arrived.
So we decided we could create a sitting area with panels, some chairs, maybe a sofa, and hang framed photographs about the Oki on the walls. That way, the visitor wouldn’t have to stand around in the working bay of the helicopter deck. Great idea.
We had to decide where and how to get panels. Since the Bosun and his first class were going to make a supply run Friday, the next day, i asked them to check out panels while they were on their run. Liberty call was early and the Bosun and his first class left around 1300. They were dressed in their standard liberty civies. The Bosun had on Levis with a blue tee shirt with his thick black hair combed back as much as it could to resemble a ducktail. His first class had on his biker’s jeans, white tee shirt with a leather jacket and a silver chain dangling down from the jeans. He had straw blond hair also combed back and the gap of a missing tooth was the final touch. They left for their mission.
Around 1800, i had a bunch of paperwork to work through and continued after liberty call. The bosun came into the office with several boxes of toilet paper (i never understood why he didn’t get it through supply).
“i didn’t think you would be coming back to the ship, Bosun,” i remarked.
“Well, i didn’t want to keep this stuff at home over the weekend,” he replied.
“Did you find any panels?”
“Well sir, we went to Dixieline (a local lumber and home center). They didn’t have them, but they told us to go to Parron-Hall.”
“Parron-Hall?” i puzzled.
“Yes sir. They’re an office furniture place downtown across from the county admin building. We went there, but that place was way too classy for us. They had desks in the showroom worth more than my house.
“So, you are gonna have to go down there and see about them panels.”
Aww, come on, Bosun, i have a lot on my plate.”
“No sir, you are gonna have to go down there. It’s on Ash Street.”
Then he added, ” You know sir, the woman who waited on us was really pretty. i noticed she didn’t have a ring on her finger. i’m pretty sure she’s single.
“And she’s way too skinny for me.”
Epilogue
Midday on the next Monday, i drove down to Parron-Hall Office Materials. i asked the receptionist to see the person who had given her business card to Bosun. i stood at the entrance to the showroom. Maureen came walking across the show room with the sun shining in the window behind her (think Glenn Close in “The Natural,” only prettier). She claims i had my piss cutter on my head. That, of course, is not correct: i am a country boy from Lebanon, Tennessee raised correctly by my parents, Army ROTC at Castle Heights, a Naval career, and, by the way, an officer and a gentleman. My hat was off.
We had numerous discussions about the panels, which required about four or five “business” lunches over the five or six weeks for the panels to arrive. When the deal was done, i asked for that date to see John Lee Hooker at the Belly Up Tavern and added a request to see Doc Watson at the venue on the following Monday. We attended several events over the summer including sailing with JD in the “Fly a Kite” race where we became (or at least JD became) a legend. We went out to dinner too many times to count.
Then, on July 30, 1983, we were married in her father’s backyard.
- An Everlasting “Thank You”
Tomorrow, Maureen and the goofy guy celebrate their forty-third wedding anniversary.
i need to thank her for about…oh, a million things. In a following post, i shall rerun the story of how we met. It had to be the Navy’s form of fate.
Over 43 years of being together (we actually met in March 1982), we both have learned a lot of things about each other, about our relatives and friends, and about life.
A constant in that learning is change.
The constant and never ending defiance of change is our love for each other. That has changed too. Our love has moved through many phases, and we still get upset when we disagree. The funny thing is we now know each other so well, we understand what is happening and accept our differences.
Our celebrating of this year’s event began on Sunday with lunch at one of our all-time favorite dining places (of which there are many: dining out has been a mainstay of our relationship since we met), The Artifact, located in the Mengei Museum — mengei means “art of the people” — is flat amazing in creativeness in its cuisine, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, as well as international wines.
After lunch, we walked over to the “Old Globe” theater where we saw “Cyrano,” a modern adaptation of Edmond Rostands’ 1897 drama, “Cyrano de Bergerac.” Most folks nowadays know it from Steve Martin’s 1987 romantic comedy “Roxanne.” This theater in the round production captured what we both felt was the spirit of Rostand’s original drama.
It was wonderful. Both of us left feeling emotional, good.
Tomorrow, we will go to the Museum of Art to take in their exhibit of some of their most impressive acquisitions of art over the past 15 years. Then, we will lunch at another favorite dining place and come home.
As i noted earlier, we have learned a lot over 43 years. One is at our age to do too much to celebrate, but enough to enjoy and embrace.
To conclude, one of the things i’ve learned is that no other woman could have put up with this old mariner and goofy guy. We plan for it to stay that way.
Happy 43rd Anniversary, Maureen, and thank you.
These are the wedding vows my brother Joe gave at our wedding at her father’s home in Lemon Grove, California, July 30, 1983:
We are here today to celebrate a union.
Maureen and Jim have traveled different paths to meet at the opportune place to become a perfect union. Their experiences of the past have contributed to their love being what it is. Their love began as a friendship and grew far beyond what neither had dreamed possible.
They wish today to be a celebration, a joyous day of laughter and warmth; they wish to share their elation of finding each other with those here today. They hope the emotion of gladness they feel will overflow, and others can feel the wonderment and peace of togetherness that they share.
The light of love lit by Jim and Maureen has allowed them insight into previously unseen corners of their lives and to see down corridors of their future. This light has also revealed a depth of emotion that defies any explanation of extent. It has cast the light of clarity on relations with other people important in their lives, redefining and deepening those relationships. In their relationship with each other, this light of love has allowed them to experience a depth of feeling and love coexisting with an openness and sharing that they have not attained before.
This union does not create walls but invites freedom to Maureen and Jim to be who they are with each other and with others with whom they have shared. This wedding is a symbol, an announcement, a consecration of a relationship that has been blessed as a perfect union by the spirit and power that transcends us all.
Jim and Maureen, do you promise to share your joys, your insights and moments of beauty with each other? Do you promise to continue to love each other with a joy that is limitless in time and space? Will you continue to hold each other close in body and spirit? Do you promise to support each other without inhibitions or reservations in all of your endeavors and moments of reflections, both high and low? And do you promise that your friendship with each other, from which this love has grown, and will continue with the same openness, depth and fervor as it began?
This ring is a permanent symbol of this union. It signifies the love, adoration, and friendship that abounds between these two people. Its never-ending circle is a symbol of the extent of Maureen and Jim’s love.
It should be remembered that it is a symbol and cannot completely capture or represent the total love and commitment these two have for each other.
The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord let his face shine upon you and give you peace.
- Schopenhauer’s Law of Entropy
If you put a spoonful of wine in a barrel full of sewage, you get sewage; if you put a spoonful of sewage into a barrel full of wine, you get…sewage.
Still my favorite.
- Finagle’s Second Rule:
Always keep a record of data – it indicates you’ve been working.
- A Field of Dreams That Used to Be
Last night, on a whim perhaps, i turned on the movie “Field of Dreams.”
i don’t know why. If a baseball game or some favorite of Maureen’s are not on, i ask her if there is something she wants to which she demurs. i read or write something while she usually watches something on her laptop. It’s not necessarily a chick-flick, but it is some sophisticated something. This works well for us until she puts the cat to bed and retires to the bedroom. i often walk barefoot across the grass to my area in the back corner with my music.
As i often do, i play Antonin Dvořák’s 9th Symphony, the New World. i often just lean back in my chair, look up at the sky, and breath deeply, appreciating the good of our world. Tonight, i decided i wanted to tell of my experience watching “Field of Dreams.”
Since the first time Lord knows how many years ago, i have cried at the ending scenes. What can i say? i am a romantic.
Tonight, tears welled up and ran down my cheeks about a half dozen times. The movie is a totally unrealistic and moving fantasy, beautiful, and it touches me, especially tonight.
i kept traveling back to baseball then, certainly not now. Back then, even with all of its problems, it was, at the bottom line, a game. At least, it was for me, a game i loved.
i played by myself in our backyard. Jimmy Jewell would often play catch with me and taught me how to throw a knuckle ball and curve, neither of which i mastered. Yet, i can still see him in his mechanic’s work clothes with his sleeves rolled up above his elbows against the backdrop of our one-car garage tossing the ball to me — i suspect that memory produces my tears in the final scenes of the movie.
Tonight, as the movie rolled on, i went back: riding my bike down West Main to the recess field at McClain School to play “Pony League” ball. i was nine. Little League began the next year. Each team wore the same color tee shirts, jeans and sneakers. i was designated the team catcher, primarily because i was the only one who didn’t refuse to play the position and wear “the tools of ignorance.” Hey, i didn’t like the Yankees, but i was a huge fan of Yogi Berra.
The field was a recess softball field with a tree behind the backstop where someone carved “D. Crockett killed a bear here,” and i believed Davy carved that for years. The infield was all dirt, resplendent with pebbles and sporadic weeds. The outfield was stubborn grass and Johnson weed mowed sporadically by the school janitors.
i wanted to be the star outfielder or infielder, but it didn’t matter. So much that when i took a header on my bike on the way to a game and knocked out half of my front tooth with blood everywhere, my future seventh grade home room teacher, Mrs. Thompson (Lord, i loved that woman) stopped and took me home. When she told my mother she thought i should go to the hospital because i was crying hysterically, my mother dismissed the idea, saying i was crying because i didn’t get to play the game. My mother was right.
Little League was coronated in Lebanon in the center of Baird Park the next year (1956). Nokes Sports was our sponsor (the irrepressible Jimmy Nokes and his sporting goods store at the top of the East Main hill). Our uniforms were gray wool with green trim. i played center field, third base, and, of course, was a catcher (my reputation would hold for the rest of my baseball playing time).
We were just above a middle-of-the-pack team. Primarily, we could not beat Lebanon Bank with Mike Dixon, and i believe Earl Major. Earl beat me out at third base for the all-star team. i had good hand-eye coordination and won the batting title that year.
In addition to me, ha ha, Nokes Sporting Goods had R. Townley Johnson. Townley was a so-so fielder and struck out a lot, but i think he hit about six home runs over that fence. Other than us playing stick ball out behind the apartment house where he and his mother lived on West Main between Castle Heights and Pennsylvania avenues, i think that was the last baseball he played. He went on to have a band, playing the saxophone and became the drum major of the University of Tennessee band.
The team that beat us and eliminated us from the Little League tournament was Columbia. Their pitcher was phenomenal. When the summer was over, the Gannaways moved to Lebanon and Ed Gannaway opened a shoe store in the new Cedars of Lebanon shopping center. The Gannaways’ son was Mike Gannaway, the pitcher that beat us in that last game. We started our seventh grade year in September at Lebanon Junior High. i was Mike’s catcher on and off for the next six years.
To be continued…
