Morgan Stern was lonely; in the middle of his popularity, he found he could not talk to anyone, only listen.
Morgan Stern became tired of listening without being able to talk even though there were many folks who wanted to talk to him, not listen.
Morgan Stern left his big city, walking nowhere in particular, he walked long and far away into the mountains where he found he enjoyed listening.
Morgan Stern found a deserted cabin on the mountain and moved in; each morning, he could listen to the birds and trees and hills, even the mountain to which he listened.
Morgan Stern discovered he could talk to the mountain, the birds, trees, even the wildlife if he listened as well.
Morgan Stern in the evenings, listened to the mountain; he and the mountain talked in quiet tones, listening to each other.
Those who read these posts often should know i am into organizing and compressing photos and history. It is most probable it will never be complete. i like to claim the gigantic undertaking is for my grandson, daughters, nephews, and nieces. i’m not sure any of them will really be interested. i suspect all of this unfinished work will be tossed in a trash bin after i’m gone. That’s okay. i’m enjoying my rides through my family’s history.
But in these pages from albums of my mother and two aunts, loose formal photos, even a few tin types of relatives long past, most with some hand written identification from an ancient relative, i continue to find photographs here and there that have two things in common: the pictures are old and i do not know the folks in them.
The first one i came across about six years ago still haunts me. i thought my detective skills would lead me to names. As far as i know, there was only one family in our kin who had three daughters, and no sons. That would be the family of Uncle Jesse and Aunt Alice Jewell. Myrtle, Joanne, and Shirley were their daughters. Shirley was the youngest and baby sat me when i was around six and she was a teenager. The three were all beautiful in their own way and the two older sisters paid a lot of attention when Shirley took care of me in their home.
The front porch in the photograph looks like a farm house. Uncle Jesse definitely didn’t live on a farm when i knew him. They lived on Wilson Street (i think) in Lebanon, about two blocks east of the old high school football stadium.
Shirley was the fairest skinned of the three girls and her hair was lighter colored than Myrtle’s and Joanne’s. i thought i had the answer. i sent a copy of the picture to Joanne, the only surviving sister via her daughter Jamie in North Carolina. Jamie’s message back told me Joanne said that was definitely not a picture of her and her sisters.
Who are they? i find the photo even more enchantingly eerie. The bare feet on worn porch planks with the white laced dresses causes me to ponder if it was a Sunday, a special day in the family? If so, why are they barefoot? And i wonder. What did they grow up to be like? It appears they could have been beautiful as they grew.
Who are they?
Then, i found several more. i think that is all i will find. i have placed them all together in the front of the chronological albums i am organizing with the label “Unknown.”
There is one that is blurred and scratched from age. i guess it is also on a porch from the blanket backdrop and the floor wood. The boy looks as if he has a disability. The older girl looks pensive, the middle one quizzical. The infant in the foreground is blurred and seems mysterious to me.
Who are they? Once again, they are all in white. They are are in shoes unlike the photo of the three girls. The boots appear to make it an older photo but the older girl has on a wrist watch. The wrist watch was invented in 1810, but not worn by many folks, mostly nobles and rich, until the 1920s. So i wonder not only who are they but when was this taken.
Who are they?
Two infants are the subject of another two photos, old photos. They stare at me, seemingly wanting attention. Who are they? Where are they now? Are they still living? i yearn to know even though it is beyond unlikely i will ever find out who they are?
Finally, there is one that has me flummoxed: a goober. For the uninitiated, “goober” was the endearing derogatory nickname for boys who attended the Castle Heights Military Academy’s Junior School (grades 1-8). It also was a not so endearing derogatory nickname used for all cadets at the military prep school by the boys who attended the cross-town public high school.
The photo is undated, but the back has a stamped indicating it was taken in Jackson, Tennessee by Leeman Studios.
Who is this guy? Did his parents send him to Castle Heights because they thought it was the best education he could get or did he need more discipline than his parents could mete out? How did it end up in the photos of my relatives. Perhaps he was a friend of Maxwell Martin, my older cousin who went to Heights when he was in elementary school.
i do not know. It is only mine to ponder…and i will continue to ponder…until i look up from where i type this post on my laptop on the breakfast room table after devouring Maureen’s blueberry pancakes, bountiful fruit, and Tennessee Country Pride sausage, along with orange juice and coffee of course. While pondering, i see yet another hummingbird taking sips from the purple Mexican sage blooms outside the large breakfast room window. The butterfly reminds me old men shouldn’t ponder too long. i agree.
After all my brain hurts. It is time to for a good Sunday morning walk.
i had mixed feelings about the next phase of my career.
i was a destroyer man. The Lloyd Thomas, the Hawkins, the Waldron, the Luce, and the Hollister were tin cans, greyhounds of the sea roaring into the white caps at 35 knots, shooting incredible five-inch shells out of those gun mounts, training in any multiple threat environment: visaged gray ladies that ruled the oceans.
Now, i was going to a completely different world. The only appealing aspect to me was boatswain mates, the backbone of the Navy from day one. i really had no idea of what my new job as the First Lieutenant on the USS Anchorage (LSD 36) would entail. i was glad to move my wife and daughter into Pacific Beach Navy housing in San Diego, but i was pretty much clueless about what would follow. i did know Anchorage would deploy with Amphibious Squadron Five in mid-March just after i reported aboard. i also knew the LSDs had a bosun, Chief Warrant Officer Boatswain. Knowing that i would have someone guide me through the learning process as STC Rogers had on the Hawkins, STC Jenkins had on the Luce, BTCM Miller (i think: still have to look up his name, ashamed i can’t remember) had on the Hollister.
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We moved into Pacific Beach Navy housing in late January. Moving has always been a major pain. This move was no less painful even though it was just over 100 miles. But we made it. We settled in and i reported for duty. After destroyers, the Anchorage seemed enormous. After i saluted the ensign and requested to come aboard, i was walked to the executive officer’s cabin. From there, we walked next door to the captain’s cabin. Charlie introduced me to CDR Lou Aldana. He was a tall, angular man with a dour countenance. During our talk, i found that he cared about his ship and his men. That made it just fine with me.
The captain also gave me his instructions on how the first lieutenant on an LSD should perform:
“You are like a farmer,” he began, “When it is not raining, your guys have to prep and paint the weather decks…all of the time. That is one of your most important responsibilities.”
It sounded mundane, but it true. The deck force and the deep hole snipes were the hardest working guys in Navy show business. i was about to discover that the deck force were not only “farmers” on weather spaces, they were always working on every aspect of amphibious shipboard life.
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i then found out the one person i was relying upon to help me through the learning process was no longer there. Bosun Holtzclaw, whom i never met, had been transferred about a month before i reported aboard. There would not be a replacement. i had no chief boatswain mate in the department and only one LTJG who had deployed before. Shortly after i arrived, my most experienced first class boatswain mate was transferred to a LST in our squadron as events had left the ship without one. i was down to one first class, BM1 Hansborough, who was in charge of first division, and a BMC, who had spent his 15 years as a boxer and currently was the “3M” coordinator in charge of the Navy’s preventive maintenance program, not even assigned to the Deck department. Challenges lay ahead.
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My wife Kathie and i were excited about being in San Diego. Our new neighbors had a daughter Blythe’s age of three, and they nice folks. And we were in San Diego, a place i had found intriguing since i read about it back in the early 60s.
When we realized, we were less than two miles from the beach, we resolved to get there as soon as possible. After we had unpacked all of the boxes and had our home in Navy housing in satisfactory shape, we drove down to the beach and parked. We walked to the beach. i was excited. i had never been to a Southern California beach. Kathie held Blythe as i shed my top shirt and shoes and ran to the water. i ran into the surf and dove into the first waves.
It was then i discovered the Japanese current brings cold water down from the Arctic Circle. As Bill Cosby noted in one of his skits (before he was convicted of his crimes) that when he hit the water, his body became “one giant goose bump.” The Pacific Ocean off the Southwestern corner coast is not warm until about two weeks in August.
i quickly emerged, grabbed the towel and wrapped it around me. Thus began my next adventure. In a month, i would be on the USS Anchorage as her first lieutenant, deployed to the western Pacific for ten months. i had no idea of the challenges ahead.
