When you dial a wrong number, you never get a busy signal.
All posts by Jim
Why Navy
This column, published in The Lebanon Democrat in January fifteen years ago, will be included in my next project, a serialized story here about my Navy days: A Tale of the Sea and Me.
SAN DIEGO – As the new year ramps up, I am back in the Southwest corner considering why I made the Navy my career.
My father also has wondered why a boy from Middle Tennessee would choose the sea for his livelihood. Others have wondered the same thing.
The sea called me during my midshipman cruise on the U.S.S. Lloyd Thomas (DD 694) in 1963. We steamed from Newport, RI, to Sydney, Nova Scotia; to Bermuda; and back to Newport as part of the U.S.S. Intrepid (CVA 11) battle group.
My last four weeks were in engineering with two watches and normal work requiring 16-hour workdays. Having no more sense than I do now, I went from my last watch to the crew’s movie in the Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter (DASH) hangar – “DASH” was a weapon which did not last long. Sailors called it “CRASH” instead of “DASH.” But its hanger on the 02 level just aft of amidships was perfect for showing movies.
This night, I watched “The Quiet Man” for the first time. As I left the theater and traversed the torpedo deck, I walked to the port side and gazed at the full moon.
The ship was making 15 knots. The moon’s reflection cut a wide, rippling, reflective path straight to me. The boilers roared through the forward stack. The bow wave was white, curling from the side and swishing its whisper as the ship cut through the water. “Darken ship” allowed no lights except those for navigation. At least a billion stars blanketed the black sky.
The sea grabbed me. She came down that path from the full moon, wafted across the bow wave, and reached deep inside. I felt her grab my heart and take it away.
I have loved her in her fury of the winter Atlantic, when she tossed a 500-foot ship around like a cork, ripping off protruding metal like dandelion bristles, and tossing sailors around the ship like matchsticks. Her intense fury blanketed the sea surface with froth.
I have loved her in the doldrums of the South China Sea where not a breath of wind existed, and the sea surface was glass for a week. I saw my first “green flash” then.
In the summer of 1973, steaming in the operating areas off of Newport, Rhode Island, my father saw why I went to sea. My ship, the U.S.S. Luce (DLG 7), was undergoing a major inspection. My Commanding Officer learned of my father visiting and invited him to ride during our underway day.
As a lieutenant, I was the sea detail officer of the deck. My father was by my side as I had the “conn” while the ship stood out of Narragansett Bay. As soon as we reached the operating area, we went to 25 knots for rudder tests, rapidly shifting the rudder to max angles both ways. The commanding officer and I went into a frantic dance, running in opposite directions across the bridge to hang over each wing checking for small craft in the dramatic turns.
After the rudder tests, I took my father into the bowels of the ship to our anti-submarine warfare spaces. My father stood behind me as I directed prosecution of a submarine contact. In the darkened spaces with sonar pings resounding, he watched as we tracked the sub on our fire control screen and simulated firing a torpedo.
After lunch, we set general quarters and ran through engineering drills. Finally, we transited back to Newport.
With mooring complete, the captain gave my father a ship’s plaque. My wife and mother were waiting on the pier when we debarked from the ship’s quarterdeck. As we walked the brow to the pier, my father said to me, “Son, I understand why you would want to make this a career.”
I did. Somewhere in the latter stages of that career, I met a woman, a native of San Diego, and we got married. After a brief taste of being a Navy officer’s wife, she and I returned to San Diego for my “twilight” tour, the last four years on shore duty.
So now when I walk up our hill to raise and lower the flag, I look out to sea and check to see how many ships are pierside at the Naval Station.
And that, my friends, is why I made the Navy career and live in the Southwest corner, far from my home in Tennessee.
Zymurgy’s Law of Volunteer Labor
People Are Always available for work in the past tense.
The Law of Employment
The last person who quit or was fired will be held responsible for everything that goes wrong – until the next person quits or is fired.
Vega in the Morning
The other morning, i retrieved the paper in the dark, about a half-hour before first light as it is in winter in the Southwest corner. In winter here, Venus is below the horizon. She, the morning star is magical to me, and in other seasons when she is visible, i say good morning to her as i stand on our driveway near the end of the cul-de-sac.
But when she is gone, i turn my attention to Vega, the second brightest star in the northern hemisphere. Vega shines upon me above the airlines flight path to what Lindbergh Field used to be called. She sits in the highest end of the arm of Lyra, as her constellation is called, or lyre. This one was Orpheus’ lyre, which was placed there when he was stoned to death by jealous women, whose clamoring and noise blotted out the music Orpheus made that charmed women and about everything else due to the beautiful music Orpheus played with the original lyre made by Hermes, the “herald” Greek god…or so it goes.
Now, i can’t, nor have ever been able to charm women, especially with my limited musical talent, but i do love music. Vega and Lyra are a good way for me to start the winter morning.
i don’t think Orpheus ever played “Honky Tonk,” although he could have been playing it along with Bill Doggett at the Hazelwood swimming pool in 1956 Lebanon, Tennessee. i was sitting on a blanket in the poolside grass after a dip when it played. It was blaring over the speakers of the rambling recreation structure at the shallow end of the pool.
i moved then to the the guitar and the saxophone just like this morning. Inspired by Lyra, i put it on when i came back into my home office. The door was closed. Maureen was still asleep. i moved again, swaying to the music.
Enchanting? It certainly is to me.
i’ll let you judge for yourself.
If you would like to listen to another splendid version and move some more, i reckon you should look up Jimmy Smith’s version on YouTube. Jimmy, who also ran a Cajun restaurant in San Diego, could make magic out of anything he played.
i’m sure Hermes and Orpheus would be pleased even if there isn’t a lyre in either orchestra.