Nature abhors people.
All posts by Jim
A Tale of the Sea and Me (For Sam) – Installment 25
That magical summer of 1968 was about over.
BMC Jones had left. The SPCM had left. My department head, LT Steve Jones, had left. The CO had been relieved. The USS Hawkins (DD 873) was headed for a six-month overhaul in the Boston Naval Shipyard in Charleston, Massachusetts, some 60 miles to the north.
Shortly after we arrived, i would be relieved from my first lieutenant duties and become the ASW Officer. The ASW suite would be undergoing a $4 Million dollar upgrade to the SQS 23G (We called it the 23 Golf”) and the old MK 105 ASW fire control system would be replaced by. The MK 114 ASW fire control system.
Before any of that occurred and because i was still the first lieutenant, i received the assignment of “Tool Control Officer” when we actually did reach the yards. I should have known this was an ominous assignment. Since first division no longer had a chief petty officer or first-class petty officer, BM2 Carrier was the first division LPO, and in charge of the division. Consequently, he became my assistant tool control officer. He was a blessing.
Oh yes, shortly after the Hawk entered the yards, my wedding would occur in Atlanta, Georgia in late September.
Unrecognized by me, my world was about to become greatly different. And i was about to learn some of my most important lessons on how to conduct myself as a Navy Officer on a ship. i was blessed because my new captain was looking over me.
He was an impressive Navy Commander, standing about 6-3, probably around 220, solid, no hair, massive paws that engulfed yours when you shook hands, but elegant, graceful. His smile just sort of took you in, made you feel like you were his friend. It was a while before i saw the anger there. It struck me, when i did see that flash, that his anger was controlled, but more fearsome than most. Only once did i see it flare to explosion. That was about seven months later in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yet even when i met him at the “hail and farewell” party the night before the change of command, it was apparent you did not want to get on his watch list.
CDR Max Lasell was a Naval Academy graduate. His wife Betty was almost as tall as him with a beautiful smile, dark brown hair. He chuckled when the Admiral asked how my teeth were doing as i presented the honor guard in that change of command ceremony. It gave me a good feeling about what was to come.
What was to come was my learning how to be a Naval Officer, Toward the end of the overhaul, the Navy, playing politics, and public relations decided its origin should be ignored and making its officers who forged ahead with leadership on ships at sea be “specialists:” Surface Warfare Officers. Dumb. Cow-towing to the submarine and aviation boys to make them equal. But that is a discussion i will never win and is for a separate post somewhere, sometime. But CDR Max Lasell taught me how to be a Naval Officer on a Navy destroyer.
It began as we went into the Charleston Naval Shipyard in South Boston. Within several days of entering the yard, the Hawkins went into dry dock. Now this was not an ordinary dry dock. It had built to dock the RMS Queen Mary. The dock was huge. As first lieutenant, i was with first division on the forecastle, primarily for line handling duties.
As the ship entered the huge dock, my first division began to heave the 5″ mooring lines to the line handlers on the edge of the dock. It was a foolish attempt. The distance was too great. We should have used a bolo ( a line with a weight on the end of a messenger line. But i was young, naive as a mariner, and macho. So i decided to see if i could get the mooring line across. Wrong!
Finally, we used the bolo and messenger to get the lines across and the ship sitting on the well deck blocks. My actions and my divisions was a terrible display of poor seamanship.
As we secured, our sound-powered phone talker told me the captain wanted to see me in the wardroom.
The CO and i were the only two in the wardroom. Commander Max Lasell dressed me down. He chewed me up and spit me out for being so stupid. He pointed out rather clearly, i had my men for a reason and i was not supposed to do their job. That stuck with me throughout my Navy career. As i was receiving my just due, i was gaining respect for my commanding officer. As he chewed me out, he was also giving me lessons in deck seamanship and leadership. i was not upset he chewed me out. It was deserved. i actually found myself feeling guilty i had left him down.
My next lesson follows.
Ramblings on a Return from Paradise
The return to reality day was tough. What used to a pleasant experience called flying is a brutal, time expansion to a full day of misery.
Without the gruesome details, we got home around 11:00 p.m. i was dedicated to dumping everything in the house and hitting the rack, but i have a compunction to unpack, and i did, finally getting to bed just after 1:00 a.m., 10:00 p.m. Kauai time.
That travel compounded by the three-hour time change left me just a tad over the top on curmudgeonry this morning. i slept a bit late, understandably i thought, and rushed to my dental appointment.
i was not in the mood for the receptionist’s news of they had upgraded their system. She explained i had to fill out new forms. Then she handed me a notepad thingy instead of several pieces of paper…check that, half a ream of paper. This thingy pad required me to touch the answers, not fill in the blanks.
The first questions dealt with my goals for the condition of my teeth or something like that. It stirred my recall of a dentist a number of years earlier, who had just taken over my favorite dentist’s business when the elder one retired. The office had undergone a redo. Pictures of beautiful women with smiling white perfect teeth filled the walls. When this dentist comes in to see me, he stands before me and asks, “What would you like your teeth to be in five years?” assuming i’m guessing that he was expecting a response i would like mine to look like those teeth of those beautiful women.
i replied, “In.”
He was not a happy camper.
* * *
Back to today, this thingy pad questionnaire wanted me to give it a complete medical history, current medications, number of diseases, illnesses, and operations of me, my family for generations and about half the citizenry of the U.S. of A. After each section, it required me to digitally sign with my finger my signature, for me an impossible task. After two of these, i just drew a line.
After about 15 pages of this Q&A, i tired. i begin to just put “No” as my answer. It was clearly a CYA by some organization designed to torture inputters. Then, i got to a question that caught my eye: “Have you ever had an unpleasant experience during a dental appointment?”
i tapped “yes” instead of “no.” This opened up the option for me and my doctor to comment. But my comment section did not work. So i went to the doctor’s place for comment. To the question of “Have you ever had an unpleasant experience during a dental appointment?” and tapping yes, i wrote, “Filling out this form.”
i felt better.
* * *
While sporadically and ploddingly chasing the unpacking and chores while taking two naps and wishing for more, i sat down for dinner. Unwilling to listen to the scaremongering news, i turned the idiot box (i still love that term) to the NFL Monday Night Football. After less than five minutes, i turned it off. The three announcers over and incorrectly analyzed each play with gibberish they, i assume, thought intelligent. It wasn’t.
And i wondered why.
i remembered Al Michaels, Howard Cosell, and Dandy Don Meredith. It was fun to listen back then.
* * *
i hope Tuesday is better. Has to be. No dentist. No NFL. AND no Joe Buck.
Starry, Starry Night and the Next Dawn
Kauai is paradise.
Sometimes i wonder if it is paradise lost.
Yesterday brought this to mind.. The thoughts jelled last night as i stepped outside the condo on Poipu beach. The sunsets are spectacular, but are about equal to one at the top of our hill in the Southwest corner and Laverne Patterson Griffin’s from her home out on Tater Peeler Road back home.
i was struck by the number of stars i could see in spite of the lit palm trees along the path by the beach. i called Maureen out before she dressed for bed. i got my phone out and turned on the “Sky Guide” application (all the geek heads are about to explode because i used the whole word). i pointed out the number of stars and explained it would give her an idea of what clear nights at sea would look like except the number of visible objects in the sky would be exponentially more. i raised the phone almost straight over my head and identified Jupiter to her. We looked. Pete and Nancy joined us. The four of us sat and enjoyed the view.
Yeh, paradise.
The others retired. i poured a glass of cabernet sauvignon. i mused about what it was like several hundred years ago before some adventurer realized he could make money and use the natives to produce huge yields of pineapples and sugar, followed by the zealot who was going to save all the natives by converting them to Christianity, followed by the hotel men who envisioned (correctly) that tourists would flock to the beaches and eat fine and get burnt in several ways; yeh, long before this hotel existed, replacing the one leveled by Iniki in ’92 when there was a pool formed by reefs where the tourists could snorkel with the fishes, beautiful tropical fish feeding on the bread crumbs in your hand, gone now as the hurricane has wiped out the pool.
My musing ran out of gas. It was 8:30. i don’t think we are still on Southwest corner time. i think we are just worn out from golf. Oh, we rode in carts, but i’m not sure i’ve played more than three or four rounds in golf without a rain squall during the round. Even with a good nap, we were all going to bed early after another fine dining experience.
Bedtime in paradise
* * *
i don’t claim we are different from the rest of the tourist folks. We are taking in the joys of paradise just like them. No guilt here. We have dined well and played golf every day but one. Undoubtedly, it was a surfeit of golf, food, and drink.
In the process, we have found the perfect place for a mai tai. Merriman’s. It’s a bit fancied up, but it is a good fancy. And the seafood at this place is simply too good to describe. Maureen and i tried the “Ma Kai,” the catch of the day surrounded by mouth watering accompaniment. Pete is on a quest for the perfect Mai Tai. This one is close as we all four attest.
One night in the old sugar mill town of Koloa, we went to La Spezia, a New York Times featured place, seemingly a bit out of place, but one can forget with the ambience and the Italian dishes extraordinaire. i was so into it, i had a martini, instead of a mai tai.
Dawn, gray, 5:45. Still an early riser, earlier than most, certainly earlier than Maureen and my friends. Don’t know why. i quietly open and close the door and walk the beach, heading east pass what had been the snorkel heaven pool.
A woman with a large camera walks past me. The sand here is not like in the US. It is soft everywhere. Work walking. As it curves around, a sea lion, asleep on the sand has not caught the eye of the camera woman. Just me and the sea lion for a few moments. He sleeps well.
i continue on. The walk is tough in bare feet. There is no soft sand. i follow the curve of the beach. There are about two dozen folks stretched out over about a hundred yards on the beach with large dark objects between them and the surf. i pass the first one. It is a huge sea turtle. Just me and a young Japanese couple who, of course, also have a tripod and camera. i avoid the couple’s camera view and get as close as i can to the sleeping turtle, an amazing slice of the sea ashore. Placid, motionless, at rest, he and the others ignoring the gawkers and the picture takers.
Paradise with observers.
i walk back. A man with a tripod has taken the place of the woman who was there earlier. The sea lion has not moved while a whole bunch of photos have been taken.
i return to the condo complex with the wandering swimming pool and bar within feet of the beach and the surf. The number of surfers has grown to about a dozen. More will follow. The waves are consistent, around six feet. The surfers had paddled out, a few on paddle boards. The beach crowd will steadily grow and the variety of activities will also grow: swimmers, divers, floaters, sun worship, lord knows what else.
* * *
i muse again. Our favorite golf course here is Kiahuna, about a mile away. It has a number of fence remnants, black lava runs, purportedly erected in ancient times by the menehune, creatures who are about three feet all and live in the forests. Off one fairway, there is a lava rock structure, a one-room hut, the home of the Portugee, an early, early settler and his native wife. About twenty yards behind the structure is a smaller structure with a sign like the larger one explaining this was the Portugee’s crypt.
* * *
In some ways, Kauai is a strange place. It often sends me back to my sea time, and i often wish i could travel back in time. i shall leave those thoughts with just me. You are likely to have a much different take.
We are home, the musing is done. There are other things to convey, like “Bubba’s,” but later. We had a flight change in Honolulu. As we approached the landing, Pearl Harbor was outside our port window. i felt a tug. Pearl Harbor was my launching pad for adventures at sea. It is a special place, historic, beautiful, Navy, oh, so Navy, my Navy.
But before rest, i must thank the Toennies for including us on a wonderful, crazy week, “an escape” i told the UBER driver going home from the airport. Like i said, paradise:
Tomatoes to Paradise
We are once again a ‘winging, a ‘winging across the Pacific. Oh, okay halfway…well, maybe not quite halfway across the Pacific to our island paradise.
(Side note: From 34,000 feet, the sea and the sky are both azure blue; one might not know up from down except for the strands of stratus clouds, white from the top, gray from below, which wander under us to the north.)
Since 1987, we’ve been to Kauai about half a score times. First by ourselves for a romantic interlude. Then with our friends, Jim and Sharon Hileman, celebrating our tenth and their twentieth anniversaries, another time with just us, then for at least a half-dozen times with our friends, Peter and Nancy Toennies with whom we will be with again this time around.
Paradise, or least one of my preferred versions of paradise. I enjoy the other Hawaiian Islands, but Kauai is my favorite. I have other paradises: Ireland; Barcelona and Majorca, Spain; Newport, Rhode Island; Lebanon, Nashville, and Signal Mountain, Tennessee.
One would think if someone traveled to Kauai ten times or so, they would have pretty well nailed down the packing and preparations, especially since two women have taken over the planning, and reservations for golf and dining. One would think…at least this one did think.
Until yesterday, Saturday, did i think that.
But on Thursday or Friday, some bozo told my wife that we had another twenty or so Roma tomatoes in our garden ripe to pick in our smaller garden box. These would bring our total of Roma tomatoes up around one hundred or more. But leaving them on the vine would render them unworthy if we waited until our return.
So this bozo then recalls canning some stuff out the garden he and his previous wife had in their backyard in Bryan, Texas, even making preserves out of the berries on the back fence – the Texas A&M agronomist in the house behind us had crossed black berries with a larger berry from Africa. He called these sweeter, larger berries Brazos berries. They were incredible off the vine or as preserves.
Then, the bozo remembered Nanny Kat’s kitchen in the farmhouse in Razor, Texas. There were narrow shelves, two of them, high above the stove, sink, etc., high enough to require a ladder to retrieve the Mason Jars that filled those shelves. Those Mason jars were full of Nanny Kat’s tomato juice, the best tomato juice in the whole world ever. Razor, by the way, was down the road a bit from Arthur, Texas, both just south of the Red River, the demarcation between Texas and Oklahoma, from which has evolved several legends surrounding Joe Haynes, Nanny Kat’s wife, the proclaimed mayor of Razor with a gigantic population of four, Joe, Nanny Kat, and another couple.
The bozo remembered these things and suggested he and his current wife, one of the two planners extraordinaire, that the two of them, he and his wife, not the other planner, can these Roma tomatoes. Wife agreed.
Wife developed a sore neck. Bozo, not wishing to jeopardize the trip to paradise with mostly golf and dining, volunteered to do all the packing, normally mostly his territory, and the canning before they departed for paradise.
Wife decided they could make tomato sauce, which she uses a lot. Bozo agreed.
Little did bozo realize this canning tomato thing requires peeling the tomatoes, something he had obliquely agreed to do.
So as his favorite college football teams and, of course, his Padres, began their “streaming” into the television, he began his tomato peeling.
For those of you who have never peeled tomatoes, this makes peeling potatoes a walk in the park. For those of you who have never peeled a potato, forget it. Don’t try it. Peeling tomatoes is a pain, and i will clean that up by not completing the phrase even though that is what i thought while this peeling thing was in progress.
This bozo had tomato juice everywhere, along with seeds, tomato peels, and tomato chunks that somehow came off with the peel. It was arduous, tough, neck flexibility demanding stuff, and with each of the one hundred or so tomatoes, he cussed but also was glad he was doing it instead of his wife.
He began after they cleaned the breakfast dishes, some time before nine. When he began to stiffen up or notice his focus was waning, he stopped and continued with his packing the large duffel bag for two and the two golf bag travel cases. Back and forth he went, slinging parts of tomato everywhere and fitting each other’s travel items into the bags.
He finished around 5:30 p.m., only to discover, the duffel bag weighed more than allowed for one check-in bag. Bozo went into the garage attic and retrieved the two medium size suitcases. He rested and went and got a burger and fries for the two of them to split. After all, they would be dining fine come Sunday evening. He watched some of his teams briefly…when there was still hope.
Wife finished the tomato sauce thing with her pressure cooker. The results were stunning, fresh tomato sauce for about two dozen dishes of various menus bozo thought. Bozo resumed the unpacking, packing drill.
It was concluded prematurely when the two suitcases and golf travel bags had been closed and moved to the front door. That was when bozo discovered he had lost his backpack. He gathered the stuff to pack in the backpack out in the family room. He drank a glass of Tempranillo. It was just past ten. He went to bed.
It had not been a terrific Saturday. On top of tomatoes and packing, all three of his favorite teams took it in the shorts. He did find an old backpack and salvaged that part of the packing.
But who the hell cares?
Bozo is a’ winging to paradise.