All posts by Jim

Another Lesson for an Ensign: The Paint Locker, circa 1968

Sea Stories

Before chiefs taught me a thing or two or two thousand, i was a very, very green ensign.

Destroyer-Submarine Piers in Newport, Rhode Island where i learned about the paint locker, circa 1968. Photo provided by RD2 Norm O’Neal. Thanks, Norm.

As an ensign, i stood duty in three sections. The qualifications for standing the OOD, Officer Of the Deck, watch in port, was not too stringent. You had to be a junior officer, chief, or very good first class petty officer. And breathe. i would add “chew gum” but that was deemed inappropriate on the good ship Hawkins or any other Navy ship at the time. i may have stood an under-instruction watch, but i don’t remember it.

i don’t remember standing many of those earlier watches, not even the first dog one particular duty day in the summer of 1968. But i most definitely remember the next watch.

It was the mid-watch. About half-way through around 0200, a third-class petty officer came back from liberty. He was lit. After saluting, he began to rant and rave and chewing me out in particular. i was not quite sure what to do. My petty officer of the watch (POOW) recognized my dilemma and called the duty Master-at-Arms.

As i was trying to tell the boozy sailor he was on report, the master-at-arms showed up on the quarterdeck. He was a first class gunner’s mate. Unfortunately, as it is in many of my recollections, i don’t remember his name. i do remember he looked like an NFL tight end. He wore his chambray shirt sleeves folded up above his elbows to show up his rather impressive biceps, even with a couple of tattoos disguising the ripples. He had a tight crew cut under his dixie cup (“hat” for land lubbers), which of course, was pushed back from his forehead. A Pell Mell dangled from his lips.

“Don’t worry, sir,” he said to me, “I’ll take care of this guy.”

Then, he grabbed the sailor by the arm, leading him off the quarterdeck and forward, telling him, “Come on son, we’re gonna have a little talk down in the paint locker.”

The paint locker was part of the boatswain’s locker on a Gearing-class destroyer. It was all the way forward on the first platform (a partial deck below the main deck), small and dark. i did not know it at the time, but it was also the location of some non-NJP discipline.

When i asked the POOW why the master-at-arms was taking the drunken sailor to the paint locker, he just said, “To help sober him up,” and then he chuckled.

i learned the next morning at quarters what the POOW really meant. The sailor who had been “sobered up” passed me as we headed for our different division musters. He looked not quite like he had been put through a meat grinder, but it was close. His face was black and blue and one eye was swollen. i don’t think he ever gave an OOD any trouble after that.

The master-at-arms had applied some discipline. Back then, that wasn’t such a bad thing. Today, all hell would have broken loose and all of us would have been plastered all over the major networks for being slightly cross-threaded with political correctness. But this type of justice kept a lot of sailors from going to captain’s mast or worse, and it straightened many of them right up.

i learned a lot.

It probably wouldn’t work today: too many sea lawyers.

A Story of Chiefs

Sea Stories

The Navy was an education for me. In many ways.

The Navy was different back then. i think they continue the traditions, but those traditions, like chiefs initiations and over-the-line rituals are watered down. Political correctness, you understand. The divisions between ranks have been muddled. This may or may not be a bad thing. i am not wise enough or knowledgable enough to determine, but it is different.

And i liked the way it was.

When i was in the Navy, the lower enlisted were the work force, and boy, did they work. In fact, they were incredible workers. There are very few people in this country today who could even fathom putting in the hours at work those sailors did.

The third and second class petty officers were a transition. They too did hard labor, but their expertise and knowledge in their fields (ratings) began to give them more say in the way ships operated.

First class petty officers were escaping most of the hard labor, but they still got involved. “Leading Petty Officer” speaks of their new role in leadership.

Then there were the chiefs. Lifers. Loving the Navy. Thinking they knew as much as the old man. Some did. But as with all things, there were some really good ones and there were some who were…oh, to be nice, they weren’t quite as effective.

USS Hawkins (DD 873), circa 1969

An Ensign learns this quickly. i did. My first ship was the USS Hawkins (DD-873). i had completed the Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Officer course in Key West when i reported aboard in Malaga, Spain in April 1968. The sitting ASW officer would not leave until October. In the interim, i was the First Lieutenant, deck officer in charge of first division, boats, davits, exterior spaces, and anything else that wasn’t specifically related to any other division or department.

BMC Jones was my introduction to the way things worked. He taught me the ropes. It still amazes me how he ran first division, taught me many things about being a division officer and deck seamanship while never appearing to be in charge, always deferring to his division officer. Green upon green me. Crazy. But it worked.

Chief Jones was from the Arkansas Ozarks. He had another four months to reach twenty years. He planned to retire on the button. Chief Jones was a chain spoking, rail thin, ruddy complexion chief boatswainmate, probably around 5-8 and 130. He was not to mess with.

After we crossed the pond and completed our deployment, arriving at our homeport of Newport, Rhode Island in early May, being on a ship was different. Back then, the crew had liberty cards. They reflected which section the sailor was in. There were usually three sections rotating the duty. The duty section remained on board for 24 hours while the other two sections had liberty. Those liberty cards were handed out by the chief or leading petty officer shortly before liberty call. It had many implications not on top of the table. Liberty cards were incredible leverage for the LPO’s and CPO’s.

We had this seaman apprentice who required leverage. He was a strapping, very fit 6’2,” 180-pound young man, and pretty smart too. Problem was he wanted to use his smarts to get away with stuff until he had completed his obligation. We called sailors like this “sea lawyers.” Chiefs and LPO’s didn’t like sea lawyers. To put them in their place, the chiefs and LPO’s used leverage. Like liberty cards.

We will call this guy Seaman Farkle. Back then, you didn’t have to be so polite. Anyone below chief was called by their last name. Period. Chiefs were called chiefs. Officers were called by their rank, e.g. “Ensign Jewell.”

It was a Friday. We were cutting the hard working folks some slack. Liberty call was at noon, not the usual 1600. i had gone down to the first division berthing to check out the material condition. Farkle was there, upset. It seems he had tried some sea lawyering out on BM2 Carrier, our LPO and a very good one. Farkle was in section 2, section 3 had the duty. But when Carrier passed out liberty cards to the division, he couldn’t find Farkle’s. That meant Farkle had to remain aboard the ship, even though it wasn’t his duty day.

Farkle decided an ensign was ripe for using his sea lawyer tactics. He approached me and began an intense tirade about abuse of his rights, how he was demeaned, how the chief and LPO were acting outside of procedure, were in violation of regulations.

He was making headway on this green ensign. i wasn’t yet wise in the ways of that Navy. He had some good points, from a sea lawyer’s perspective about rights and all that, but i wanted to back Carrier and Chief Jones.

Farkle was in my face, livid with his sea lawyering when Chief Jones slid down the ladder (forward, not climbing down backwards; that’s how true sailors descended ladders). The slender, wiry chief slid in front of me and grabbed Farkle’s shirt at the top two buttons. Then he pushed Farkle against the bulkhead and with one hand lifting the young man about six inches off the ground. Then Chief Jones read Farkle the riot act like only Boatswainmate chiefs can do. It was classic and can not be repeated here because non-that-era tincan sailors are the only people who would understand, and others will read this.

All sea lawyering disappeared from Farkle. He was a quivering mass of fear, nodding affirmatively and declaring his fealty.

Farkle stayed on board that weekend.

i learned a valuable lesson about the old Navy…and i loved it.

A Typical Morning in the Life of an old Jewell

A Pocket of Resistance

They came yesterday afternoon. Two of them. They call them wand tilters.

We have replaced about one quarter of our blinds over twenty-seven years. The wand tilters on the old ones are nearly all broken. The mechanism still works, sort of, but the wand connector thingie (notice my expert technical jargon) has broken and wands, a critical part, can’t be attached.

So we decided to try out two new wand tilters before ordering more.

This morning, right after breakfast, i  took to the replacement task. With my penchant for screwing tasks up initially, i figured it would take somewhere between ten minutes to four hours. As usual, i planned ten minutes. i figured i would tackle the two of the smallest blinds, the four small windows in our living room/dining room for ease of handling. While Maureen was getting ready to go to yoga — i know, i know, what do you do to get ready for yoga? — i took down the smallest blind, replaced the part, rehung the blind and the valence.

The first mistake. i showed it to Maureen. She was thrilled. As i was going to take down the next small blind, she stopped me.

“Why don’t we do one of the larger ones in the family room? They are the ones i have the most trouble with and they’ve got a pull-down problem too,” she said.

Having been married to her going on thirty-five years, i correctly did not take this comment as a question and explanation. i took it as a direct, nonnegotiable order. Of course, in spite of my whining and making fun, i was right.

She left for yoga. i took on the big blind in the family room. Since i now had some realistic expectations on the time of repair, i figured 15 minutes. Max.

But you see, i forgot about the valence. The valence is among eleven my folks made. From 1985 until 2001 (my father was 87, my mother 84 on their last cross country trip in their RV), Jimmy and Estelle Jewell would drive out to miss the kind of weather the east is having now. They stayed in a nearby RV park and come over every day. They would work on projects, enjoy their granddaughter (as they enjoyed all children, grand, great grand, or simply children), Mother would cook meals, and we would play bridge after supper until they went back to their RV park, sometimes taking Sarah for the night.

And the projects? Well, Daddy constructed the framework for the back yard patio, laid the the tile in the courtyard, erected the trellis outside our bedroom, built a desk out of scrap lumber for Sarah, made and hung the shelves in Sarah’s bedroom. Mother cut and sewed the fabric which he installed on the dining room chairs. And then she cut and sewed the fabric for the eleven valences in the kitchen, the family room, and the hallway windows.

These valences are a piece of art. They are also constructed to remain intact through Armageddon.

That’s not a problem. Taking them down is a problem. Because i have to undo all of the securing mechanisms my father put in place. This is not a small thing.

It did not help that the stapler gun and the ratchet wrench broke during breakdown and re-installation, that a support frame had to be relocated, and somewhere around 489 tools had to be checked to see if they would work best.

The guilty blind and its indestructible valence.

So the quarter hour project was crammed into about four. Working out, writing on my book, going to the driving range, and reading all went away this morning. Blind mechanism replacement, you see.

But this afternoon, we have working blind wand tilters with wands installed in two blinds. The valence for one is back in place.

The bad news i have just ordered 15 more wand tilters. They will arrive tomorrow or Saturday. i now know what i will be doing all weekend.

i took a NORP..

Roads Taken

A Pocket of Resistance

i am an old cantankerous curmudgeon. Sort of been that way my entire life except for that “old” part.

i have traveled down many roads, a lot more if you consider sea routes.

i don’t particularly handle self-importance very well.

So when someone tells me, “It’s my way or the highway,” i’m back on the road again.

Rambling Thoughts on the Last Day of the Year

A Pocket of Resistance

i’m looking forward to 2018.

i say this every year about this time. And as usual, it will be a mixture of good and bad, just like last year and just like the year before that and the year before that and ad infinitum.

i have absolutely bought into it is what we make it — thank you, Dave Carey and your reflections on Charlie Dickens (no kin to Little Jimmy Dickens) and his opening lines in A Tale of Two Cities) — and i choose to make it on the positive side. Happy…well, maybe not happy…successful…hmm, don’t think that quite captures it either…good year (how come “good” covers such great territory?).

♦     ♦     ♦

Biggest loss? Charlie Hon. After Vanderbilt, i never got to spend enough time with him. That boy and i could get into more trouble (innocent, of course) than any two humans on earth, and it was pure, unadulterated fun. Of course, we both did pretty well with that fun trouble stuff on our solo rides. i feel him looking over my shoulder, laughing as almost always. “Come on, Jimmy,” he would say, “This will work out fine.” It did. Rest in peace, Charlie. You’ve earned it.

♦     ♦     ♦

Disappointments: Garrison Keillor. i was never a big fan of Garrison, too stuffily folksy. Always seemed a bit too made up to me. Don’t get me wrong. He was okay as a companion, the prairie kind, and lots of folks, including many good friends loved his schtick. i have nothing against him. Just not my deal.

Then he started “The Writer’s Almanac,” the website with daily entry of items pertaining to the date, mostly about writers (not me). i read it every morning. Liked starting the day off with a poem, although i would wonder, every day, why people liked these poems but editors were not thrilled with the few i had submitted to them. The daily entries became a part of my morning startup.

Then Garrison went down in flames, another of those men in positions of perceived power who thought, apparently, they were superior to women and made those women feel that way. Bad voodoo. And i don’t care what these guys claim. To one degree or another, they took advantage of another human. Wrong. Flat wrong.

Then, PBS got all pissed and dismissed him and his deals forever. And “The Writer’s Almanac” went away. Not fun. Guess i will have to actually study a bit to learn a little each day and go back ton reading on my own Robert Penn Warren, William Wordsworth, e.e. cummings, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and others on my own. That’s okay. i need to do that anyway.

♦     ♦     ♦

The greatest disappointment was the passing of another tradition of mine. i have written about it here: Murphy’s Law Desk Calendar. Gone. After thirty-two years. Gone. i guess they ran out of laws. Seems we’ve got so much screwed up there should be a lot more of the spinoffs, not less.

In case you missed it, my Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Pipey Orr sent me my first “Murphy’s Law” desk calendar for Christmas when i was on deployment to WESTPAC in 1979. Rather than have to make some comment about some status at the commodore’s morning message meetings. i would sit next to the chief of staff, the last staff member clock-wise from the commodore and therefore the last to  be queried. Some staffie had already covered anything that needed to update the commodore and a whole lot more of gibberish to make the staffie feel important and believe he had impressed the commodore.

But i didn’t have anything at all to say. It was expected. So i began reading the daily entry from the calendar my aunt and uncle had sent me. Pete Toennies, Mike Peck,  Al Pavich and i marveled at how spot on the daily entries were about organizations and life (OW Wright would have too, but i didn’t start reading them until OW had been relieved by Al).

Examples?

December 27, 2017: “Murphy’s First Law of Technology — Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.”

December 28, 2017: “La Rochefoucauld’s Rule — We all have the strength to endure the misfortune of others.”

December 29, 2018: “Osburn’s Axiom — Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.”

December 30,31: “Lichtenberg’s Law — To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation.”

Gone. Oh, they’ve got a wall calendar, but i have looked at that daily law every day for 13,878 days, even taking them on my trips.

The good (or bad) news is i plan to keep them running. You see, i would cut out the law from the daily entry and scotch tape it to the front and back of my 9×11 calendar i used throughout my Navy career (before computers obviously). i saved them all because i planned on writing about my career sooner or later — they have proven extremely useful while writing the book about my XO tour on USS Yosemite.

So i am going to post each one, probably as a Facebook entry, until i run out. i figure that will be around 2050.

♦     ♦     ♦

i was mulling over this while i performed our traditional cleaning of all of our pots and pans with some magic stuff one of Maureen’s friends recommended…Oh, okay, it was two pots and it became a tradition today, but i was working at it. Regardless, i was mulling as all good mullers do about such things as above but more concerned about the other tradition: Black-eyed peas and cornbread on New Year’s Day.

i’m not sure when it became a tradition at 127 Castle Heights Avenue. i don’t remember it growing up, but then there are a whole bunch of things i don’t remember about growing up. i do remember my mother’s black-eyed peas.

Estelle Prichard Jewell didn’t fancy hers up. Black-eyed peas. Hog jowl. “Salt and pepper to taste” (and i still don’t have a clue as to what that really means). Cook until done. That’s it.

i (for me) got fancy when my mother wasn’t around. My recipe is a bit more complicated: Black-eyed peas; onion, chopped; garlic, minced (unless Maren will join us); Worcestershire sauce; sorghum molasses, whatever the hell is in that cabinet where Maureen stores her spices and anything else not toxic that sounds good at the time. Cook slowly for a long time. Taste repeatedly, preferably with a beer.

We’ll have that with cornbread tomorrow with the Toennies at our house after golf with beer or wine.

’bout perfect except there are so many people i would like to share this with who will be celebrating elsewhere.

May your 2018 be all it can be for you.

Happy New Year.