The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can blame it on.
All posts by Jim
A Moment of Scary
Tomorrow is Halloween. i am not a big fan of the marketing frenzy and proliferation of store bought decorations (that abound to the ridiculous in our neighborhood). If that’s your thing, then go for it. But my Halloween decorations consist of a carved pumpkin, and we may forego that this year as our visiting costumed children has diminished to a handful.
But it is Halloween. Although the story below from a 2009 Lebanon Democrat column was one brief but very scary moment for Sonny Smithson. i thought it was appropriate for the big day tomorrow.
SAN DIEGO, Jan. 21, 2009 – A story by J.R. Lind about vandalism in a Cedar Forest cemetery ran last week in The Democrat. The vandal’s motive for digging into a grave was unclear.
I thought of the Mel Brook’s movie, “Young Frankenstein,” as Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman dug in the graveyard for the body to become “Frankenstein.” I e-mailed J.R., “They were looking for a brain.”
The story also brought memories.
In 1958, I started summer work with the City of Lebanon. After several early assignments, I worked at the water works on Hunter’s Point Pike with Truman Garrett and Elmer Elkins.
I hoped to drive a bush hog tractor but was told I was too small. My big friends, Henry Harding, Charles “Fox” Dedman, and others were assigned the bush hogs. With a twist of logic I did not grasp and after shoveling sand in the filter system at the waterworks, I went to the Cedar Grove Cemetery.
In that era, digging graves was accomplished by hand. When not digging graves, mowing and trimming the 35 acres was the bulk of our work. The two permanent workers, “Mister Bill” and “Dub” (I apologize for not knowing their last names. I’m not sure I ever did) took me under wing. They were pleasant, interesting, and fun.
Mr. Mitchell “Bush” Babb, the manager, lived adjacent to the cemetery. He reputedly was the only one who knew the grave locations after a fire destroyed some cemetery records. I was impressed Mr. Babb had played against Ty Cobb in the Tennessee-Alabama League before the Georgia Peach went on to fame in the majors.
Once I got over my queasiness, I found the cemetery interesting. I studied grave markers, especially the older ones.
The Mitchell-Smith monument was impressive. My father had told me about the huge granite slab’s (roughly four by six by eight feet) trip to its final resting spot. He was “seven or eight” when the monument arrived at the train depot where Shenandoah Mills now stands. He snuck away to watch part of the two-week process. After offloading from the flatbed, the monument was set on four wooden logs, roughly a foot square. The logs were slicked with “octagon” soap. The four horses or mules pulled the monument forward while the workers rotated the logs from back to front.
There were many other interesting stories I gathered from the markers.
Sonny Smithson, a seminary student at David Lipscomb joined me the next summer. His father was the preacher at the College Street Church of Christ when it was actually located on the corner of College Street and Gay Street. Ironically, the original city cemetery was located there and until the interred were relocated to Cedar Grove when it opened in 1846.
In 1962, our last summer, Sonny and I became efficient in cemetery work and learned about graves “sinking.” Some sunk immediately after the burial due to the dirt compacting. Others sunk later when the natural decay set in, especially in the older graves, some suddenly when an air pocket collapsed. We tread over the grounds without temerity.
One June day, Mr. Bill sent us to clear out an area in the northwest corner. As normal, we had gathered for the day’s work at the small stone building in the opposite corner..
With “lively lads” on our shoulders, we trekked across the cemetery on the shortest route: pretty much a straight line, walking over graves with no concern. I was in the lead. Just after I walked over a grave (we later determined the grave was created in 1923), I turned to say something to Sonny. As he stepped on the middle of the grave, one of those air pockets took the opportune moment to collapse. Sonny went down into the depression about two feet and turned ashen through a Tennessee summer tan. He cleared what seemed to be about six feet straight up. Before he hit the ground, we realized what had happened. But for a split second, graveyard ghost stories came rushing back to both of us.
Sonny left work early that summer to go back to the seminary. I am sure it had nothing to do with the sinking grave incident. I worked through the rest of the summer.
Now when I have to submit a resume or biographical summary, I include “gravedigger” as part of my experience. It has proven to separate me from the pack, and I always know when someone has read my input in its entirety.
Hanging Out with an Arachnid
He hangs there suspended in the air, resting in his web. With the offshore sea breeze, i imagine it would be much like being in a swinging hammock. He is about the size of my upper thumb, the thumb that keeps hitting the incorrect key.
His web hangs from a tree on our neighbor’s side of the stucco fence i helped build about thirty years ago. The span of his web reaches to the eaves of our roof by the kitchen patio. He rests about 15 feet in the air. The remains of one of his past repasts hang above him. He looks satisfied. I shall let him be.
The crow darts frantically to avoid the perceived threat of the border patrol helicopter flying low. I never know if the pilot is checking out a possible illegal border crosser or letting his family who live somewhere near us know his shift is over, and he will be home soon.
The Southwest corner weather has been strange this summer and autumn. Most folks around here are not thrilled, but i, who loves the feel of a seaport town, have been happy, only concerned with what comes next in these changes. Our summer has been cooler and wetter than usual. The marine layer, normally from mid-May until the end of June has persisted through the two seasons. The annual threat of wildfires is greatly diminished. We only had a couple of days where it reached 90. I can handle that.
The sun is settling beyond the Pacific and is already below our hill. If i chose, i could climb that slope and watch a beautiful sunset, perhaps even catching a green flash. But i am just fine sitting here waiting for the grill to warm enough cook.
It occurred to me the spider and i have a lot going for us. There is no real need to wander from our lairs unless we feel the urge to do so. We are, the two of us, content with what we have.
I just wish i could spin a web and hang there like in a hammock.
A Tale of the Sea and Me (for Sam) – Installment 35, i think
My website now has a cleaner look and will be easier to navigate because of Walker Hicks. The man is the man. His skills continue to amaze me from the time we first met in the early part of this century. That does not include he is just a great guy, but he is.
One note. You may access my posts chronologically by clicking on the arrow below the current post. You may also find them under the “Categories” in the menu bar at the top of this page.
Once again, i am interrupting my chronological sea stories. This effort is similar to my attempting to providing sequential numbers for these posts. In other words, there are some errors somewhere. i will eventually straighten this all out. But not now; no, not now. i am having too much fun to fool with such accuracy.
When i began getting responses from the USS Hawkins Facebook group, i realized many of those folks who were a part of their crew and wardroom might have known one of my favorite people during my Navy career. i went back into my archives and found the below post from 2020. The events occurred near the end of our 1968 Refresher Training in Guantanamo Bay. i will resume that journey on the next go-round. This is for my Hawkins’ sailors who may have known the man.
Red Moore
When i began writing this, i thought i previously had written about the Hawkins’ liberty week in Ocho Rios. i could not find it, so i have included it here. i apologize to those who may have read about those infamous three days. This is a tribute to Red Moore. My story is intertwined with Red’s. He was a good man.
i had lost his name, thought it might have been Johnson. Then, another file folder being cleaned out revealed his actual name in three brief lines on a yellowed sheet of notebook paper. i finally had the name of the guy i had thought about on and off for about for a half-century. It is sad i could not recall his name correctly.
Red Moore.
Boiler Tender First Class Petty Officer Red Moore. i never knew his real first name. And he would have frowned on anyone renaming his rate to “boiler technician.” He was a boiler tender and his fireroom was his church.
USS Hawkins (DD-873).
i was the First Lieutenant and then the Anti-Submarine Warfare Officer in the Weapons Department throughout my near two years on board. Red was, obviously, in the Engineering Department. i had sort of a realization who he was and not much more until an early April (i think) liberty port call in 1969.
He remains, after my near twenty-three years of my Navy service, one of my fondest memories. After that fateful weekend, we were friends as well as shipmates. Red Moore was a sailor’s sailor, old style.
And that man knew more about the Hawk than anyone, anytime, not to mention how well he knew how Navy destroyer life was supposed to be lived.
Red reported aboard from boot camp either in late 1950 or early 1951. Red was a fireman apprentice. The Hawkins had been commissioned in 1945 as a straight stick Gearing class destroyer. In the spring of 1949, she was reclassified from a “DD” to “DDR,” the designation for a radar picket destroyer, meaning the DDR’s had a single 3″/50 caliber gun mount removed from the 01 level aft for additional radar equipment. That year, she also moved from the Pacific Fleet with a home port of San Diego to the Atlantic Fleet and her new home port of Newport, Rhode Island. That is where Red reported on board.
In 1960, her homeport was moved down the coast to Mayport, Florida (Jacksonville). Four years later, she went into the Boston Naval Shipyard to be converted to a FRAM I destroyer (Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization) in 1964 removing the forward Mount 52 gun mount and added ASROC. After the conversion and being relabeled as a “DD,” not a “DDR.” she remained in Newport, her home port a second time around. i joined her in Malaga, Spain in late April 1968 as she was concluding another Mediterranean deployment.
i include the Hawk’s history here only because Red Moore was aboard that entire time tending his boilers.
When we completed an overhaul in January, 1969, we went to Guantanamo Bay for “refresher training” aimed at getting us ready and certified for Navy operations (many stories here). After about six weeks of the intense, 0400 to 2200 work days for me, with one of two days liberty in Guantanamo (yippee!) each weekend, the entire ship’s company was ready for a liberty weekend somewhere else.
Friday morning, i arose at 0430 to check the material condition of my Third Division spaces, stopping in the wardroom for a cup of coffee, running to the bridge to relieve as the junior officer of the deck for Sea Detail, participating in the “low visibility” exercise simulated by taping old navigational charts on the ports of the bridge, wandering from the bridge to ASW plot to the forward mount and back to the bridge in training exercises, i returned to the bridge to resume JOOD duties as we returned to GITMO to drop off our training team. Reversing course, we headed for liberty. Oh boy!
At the conclusion of sea detail, the CO, Commander Max Lasell, called me over to the captain’s chair on the starboard side of the bridge/pilot house. We had had a turnover that week with a department head and another OOD rotating off the ship. The captain told me he was qualifying me as the fourth OOD because, he said, i had enough sense to call him at any time i was in doubt about the ship’s location, condition, or safe navigation.
It was about 1800 when we secured from Sea Detail. i had a quick bite at the end of the wardroom mess, worked up the plans for our Monday morning exercises when we returned to GTMO, and lay down for about two hours. After all, this new OOD was assigned the midwatch. i stood the four hour watch, hit the rack at 0400, got up 45 minutes later to be the sea detail JOOD for mooring in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. We tied up to the copper mining pier about 0800. Then the fun began.
As ASW officer, i was also the “MWR ” (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation) officer and as such had to immediately report to the quarterdeck and meet the tour coordinators from Ocho Rios and gather the information about entertainment and attractions in the area. This took about an hour to arrange all and get the word out to the crew. i had decided i needed rest and was headed to my stateroom for a “NORP” (Naval Officer’s Rest Period) when someone told me i had pulled Shore Patrol Officer duty. As such, i needed to take a tour of the area with the local police to identify the potential trouble spots and determine how our half-dozen shore patrol crew would be deployed. Before liberty call, i was accompanied by the senior enlisted shore patrol petty officer. It was Red Moore.
The story of that day is below, but to continue with my lovely liberty, i was eager for the duty to end, so i could get some sleep before having about six hours of liberty on Sunday before we sailed. Addressing several problems that arose with my division folks kept me up until about 0230. i hit the rack then. Heaven…i thought.
Ninety minutes later, the messenger woke me up. A copper ship had arrived and our pier space was needed. We set the Sea and Anchor detail and moved to an anchorage. This episode took about three hours. Blessed sleep awaited. Then Ralph Clark, the senior watch officer came to me with an apology. He had not advised Rob DeWitt, the relieving shore patrol officer, he had the Sunday duty, and Rob, being a bright boy, had spent the night in a room at the Playboy Club. Ralph couldn’t get in touch with Rob, so i would have to stand shore patrol duty that day as well. Red Moore had been relieved by another first class and the rest of my “liberty” in Ocho Rios was spent chasing drunks.
i returned to the ship at 1330. We set sea detail at 1500, and got underway, securing Sea Detail at 1730. After being relieved, i went to the wardroom evening mess and retired to my stateroom. But this junior OOD had been assigned the evening watch (2000-2400). i awoke after just over an hour of sleep and headed to the bridge. After the watch, i returned to the wardroom for midrats (midnight rations, and man, you just can’t miss midrats if you are a sea dog), once more finding my rack, this time around 0030. Ahh, such pleasure.
However, we had to set Sea Detail at 0400, and i had to check condition Yoke in my spaces before that. So i was up at 0315, checked my spaces, and reported to the bridge. We arrived at Gitmo at 0630, picked up the trainers, and headed back to sea.
On our liberty weekend, i had about ten hours sleep over the three days and no liberty for our “liberty” weekend.
But you know what? It was worth it to be able to tell this tale and spend a day of duty with BT1 Red Moore. Red made my job as shore patrol officer a piece of cake. He knew sailors and knew where they would go to get in trouble, what kind of trouble they could find, and how to take care of it. He kept me aware but pretty much took charge. He was fun to watch in action.
In the late afternoon, one of our patrols came back to our SP station at a downtown police precinct and reported one hotspot was out in the jungle. Apparently, a clearing had been made and a big tent structure had been converted to a dance hall, complete with a bar. There were a number of huts nearby. The number of prostitutes normally around Ocho Rios was very small. But a bunch of these ladies of the night had been picked up in the capital of Kingston and bussed across the island, a bit over 50 miles, and deposited at this party town in the jungle. Sailors, being sailors, had flocked there.
Around 2200, Red and i decided we should check out the place as liberty was expiring. It wasn’t expiring at fantasyland. It was hopping there. The band was playing loud with a driving beat, the bar was doing a brisk business, and women and men filled the place dancing.
When several of the sailors spotted the lieutenant junior grade in uniform, they came over to talk. One was my second class torpedoman. They were trying to buy me a drink, but i kept declining. One of the women asked me to dance. i declined her as well. Then as the group and i were chatting, i felt something between my legs. The spurned dancing lady had her hand on my crotch from behind me. As gently as i could, i removed her hand and with Red walked to the other side of the dance area. There some drunk decided he didn’t like officers and decided to take me on. He confronted me and was about a foot from my face shouting profanity. i tried to think how i could reason with a drunk and if we had enough shore patrol to wrestle him down and get him back to the ship.
Red stepped between us, told the belligerent drunk to calm down. Even though drunk, the sailor knew not to mess with Red Moore. Red ushered me to our truck, and we left. As Red was driving away, i said, “Moore, i appreciate what you did back there, but i could have handled him if he tried to hit me.”
“Oh, Mr. Jewell,” Red replied, “I wasn’t worried about him hitting you. I was worried you might hit him.” He continued, “That would have caused more trouble in so many ways we don’t even want to think about.”
He was right.
After that liberty weekend, BT1 Moore and i spent more time together. We would meet on the weather decks when he had come out of the forward fire room and i had come down from a bridge watch or perhaps during the workday, and just chat, learning about each other.
About nine or ten months later, BT1 Red Moore left the USS Hawkins after 18 years of service on one destroyer. He was planning on retiring in Arizona, his home, after completing his 20 years of active duty. For what we Navy folk refer to as our “Twilight Tour,” Red had been granted his request to spend his last two years as a recruiter in Phoenix, i believe.
Before i left the Hawkins just before Christmas of that year, i learned Red had been killed in an automobile wreck in West Texas on his way to his new duty station.
i had a bunch of enlisted folks who greatly helped me along the way. In my formative tour, BMC Jones, an SPCM whose last name i cannot recall, BM2 Carrier, and the entire sonar gang, ASROC gunner’s mates, and torpedo men were invaluable in teaching me how to be a good officer.
Red Moore was a master of boilers, the Navy Way, and life. i wish i could have a beer with him right now.
Soper’s Law
Any bureaucracy reorganized to enhance efficiency is immediately indistinguishable from its predecessor.