The degree to which you overreact to information will be in inverse proportion to its accuracy.
All posts by Jim
A Tale of the Sea and Me: The Days of Whine and Weeds
Becoming CHENG on the USS Hollister (DD 788) gave me enough problems. i was responsible for running a tired engineering plant without any real engineering experience, on a tired ship, struggling to get to its regular overhaul (ROH). Losing one-third of my engineers due to being assigned as a reserve ship added to the difficulty.
Perhaps the biggest problem was not engineering, but all of this happening with the crisis of drugs in the Navy during my time on board, 1973-1975.
Looking back, it seems humorous. But it wasn’t humorous then. Here are some, but not all of the examples:
My chief Hull Technician (HT) was walking down the starboard side, main deck. one of his third class HTs was maintaining a hatch, doing some welding. The chief asked his sailor if he had a light so he could light his cigarette. The sailor raised his welding mask, reached into his pocket, and pulled out his lighter. Unfortunately for the sailor, his plastic bag fell out of his pocket onto the deck. It was filled with marijuana, weed. To Captain’s Mast he would go.
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Two firemen decided they would smoke a little grass while they had the duty. They cogitated about where they could enjoy their smokes. So, they climbed into a fan room, closed the hatch, and lit up. Unfortunately for the firemen, the fan in the fan room was providing ventilation for the main passageway. Soon, the unquestionable aroma of marijuana was permeating the main passageway. The duty master at arms began following the odor and opened the hatch to the fan room. To Captain’s Mast they would go.
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We were getting underway for ops in the SOCAL op areas. On the day we were getting underway, i came aboard at 0300 to be there for the BTs when they lit off the boilers. They informed me that someone had taken all of our sprayer plates (the plates sprayed the fuel oil into the boiler). My BT1s went to the other tin cans moored at the Long Island Naval Station and borrowed enough sprayer plates for us to meet our mission. The sprayer plates were never found. We ordered a new set, which arrived before our next underway period. We were pretty sure a sailor who knew enough about our boilers took them and threw them over the side. We were also pretty sure that sailor was high on drugs. We never found him either.
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Someone we never caught must have been pumped up on drugs. One night while in our home port, a sailor went up to the torpedo deck. On the bulkhead was a high pressure air connection. It was used to charge the torpedo tubes them into the water. The hatch to the HP air must have weighed several hundred pounds. This guy lifts it up and tosses it over the side. i remain amazed he could do that.
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i think the one that stunned me the most was when an Electronic Technician second class petty officer (ET2) went up to the bridge one night. He cut the wires and stole the bridge to bridge UHF radio, critical for communicating with other ships in piloting in close waters. He took it to a a pawn shop, and he pawned it for enough cash — a huge difference to what the gear actually cost — to buy some LSD, which i suspect he was on when he came up with the idea. He was caught and went to a special court martial, convicted and kicked out with a felony record.
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i never had possession or even a drink of alcohol on my ships. i have never used marijuana or other illegal drug. This was not so noble. If i had not been a Naval officer, i’m pretty sure i would have used drugs just as i used alcohol when not on my ships. But i just found it wrong to do something i had to enforce on sailors not to do. i am too old to make judgements about other’s decisions. This occurred a half-century ago. It’s history.
i think my tour as a chief engineer gave me a real understanding of what my primary focus had to be. My respect for those sailors whom i supported to do their jobs became clear. i believe dealing with those problems made me a better officer in the long run.
Time to stop the pontification and get on with sea stories.
110
i worry he might not approve of my homages to him. But he deserves so much more. After all, he was my best friend in addition to being the best father and grandfather there could be.
Hands
When most folks meet him,
they notice steel blue eyes and agility;
his gaze, gait and movements
belie the ninety-five years;
but
those folks should look at his hands:
those hands could make Durer cry
with their history and the tales they tell.
His strength always was supple
beyond what was suggested from his slight build.
His hands are the delivery point of that strength.
His hands are not slight:
His hands are firm and thick and solid –
a handshake of destruction if he so desired, but
he has used them to repair the cars and our hearts;
His hands are marked by years of labor with
tire irons, jacks, wrenches, sledges, micrometers on
carburetors, axles, brake drums, distributors
(long before mechanics hooked up computers,
deciphering the monitor to replace “units”
for more money in an hour than he made in a month
when he started in ’34 before computers and units).
His hands pitched tents,
made the bulldozers run
in war
in the steaming, screaming sweat of
Bouganville, New Guinea, the Philippines.
His hands have nicks and scratches
turned into scars with
the passage of time:
a map of history, the human kind.
Veins and arteries stand out
on the back of his hands,
pumping life itself into his hands
and beyond;
the tales of grease and oil and grime,
cleaned by gasoline and goop and lava soap
are etched in his hands;
they are hands of labor,
hands of kindness, caring, and love:
oh love, love, love, crazy love.
His hands speak of him with pride.
His hands belong
to the smartest man I know
who has lived life to the maximum,
but in balance, in control, in understanding,
gaining respect and love
far beyond those who claim smartness
for the money they earned
while he and his hands own smartness
like a well-kept plot of land
because he always has understood
what was really important
in the long run:
smarter than any man I know
with hands that tell the story
so well.
Marty Tales: The First Golf Trip
Marty had retired from the Army. He was working for a military contractor in human interface with weapons computer controls. I was getting close to retiring. So we decided to hit the road for a golf outing in the desert.
i had been on several such trips with my friend Jim Hileman and Mike Kelly, telephone guys. We would go out to the Palm Springs area sometime between June and August. With coupons, costs were essentially cart fees. The drawback is the temperatures were always between 110 and 120 degrees. We would play 6-8 rounds in five days.
So Marty and i decided to try it. We would go the mountain route, which included switchbacks with climbs and descents ranging up to 5,000 feet. Naturally, we chose to go in my Mazda Rx7. It was July.
Now, being an Army retiree and a Navy retiree, we naturally put a case of beer in behind the seats with our clubs and minimum luggage. We didn’t drink the whole case, but we downed a number, yes, illegally, on the two-hour plus drive. Consequently, we were stopping at almost every turnoff for one of us to take relief in the bushes. i was happy it was over when we reached Marty’s condominium.
The next morning, we had the first tee time at PGA West’s Jack Nicklaus Resort Course in La Quinta. It was so new, the pro shop was a trailer, no club house yet. They had just finished watering the course. This resulted in a mist over the course. Marty noted it looked like the British moors. That image quickly faded as the temperature accelerated from a comfortable 80 degrees to 115 before we finished. On the back nine, the mist had been replaced by mosquitoes, the only time i encountered them on desert courses.
Being brilliant, we chose to play from the black, championship tees. That meant we played a 7,204 yard course.
Marty commented he had never hit so many drivers, three woods, and wedges on a round.
We drove from PGA West to the La Quinta Citrus Course, a public course. Back then, it was a 7400 yard course from the championship tees, which, of course, we chose to play. By the time we reached the pro shop, it was past noon and over 120 degrees. The only person on the course was manning the pro shop. He was amazed we were playing.
We teed off on a lovely first hole we thought. But when we had holed out, we couldn’t find the number two tee and realized we had played the tenth hole. So we drove back to the pro shop and began over on the first, correct tee.
To say we were beat when we finished the two rounds would be an injustice. That evening, we sat out in the unheated spa, drinking gin and tonics, a signature libation for Marty and me. We calculated the yards of golf we played that day. Because of the extra hole at the citrus course, we had covered over 15,000 yards of golf for our introductory twosome rounds in the desert.
We often laughed at how ridiculous that was. But in our way, we were proud of it.
Thoughts in Year Eighty
i’ve been in a dark place for a while, not ready to explain: my privilege at my ripe…okay, rotten old age. i wrote this with the intent of not publishing it, adding to my volumes of stuff for those left behind to decide what to do with it after i crossed the bridge.
But dammit, this is how i feel. So i decided i wanted you all to see it and think about…or just blow it off:
i’ve used most of my eightieth year,
thinking about things,
coming to conclusions
like the undeniable conclusion
i’m going to die…
maybe not tomorrow:
i might even be around for twenty more
or
go bye-bye tomorrow
but
for sure, i’m going to die.
having accepted that fact,
i discovered i have no fear,
not of dying, not of anything
when it seems damn near everyone over sixty
is fearful of something:
fear of going broke;
fear of their children going broke;
fear of being overrun by folks they perceive as alien
(having been to sea for a good chunk of my eighty,
i’ve seen folks of all kinds of folks,
realizing all groups of folks have the same mix of folks
only different in their beliefs, good, bad, saintly, evil);
fear of someone not believing what they believe,
believing their beliefs are fact:
as if their beliefs were fact:
then they would be Truth
and
we are still chasing that Truth thing down;
only Time will tell the Truth,
but
most folks can’t handle that,
almost as if they enjoy slopping
around in their fear, their beliefs
like muddy hogs in the sty:
fearing the unknown,
which
grows into hate,
which
becomes disagreement,
which
becomes conflict,
which
becomes war,
which
begets Death on a grand scale.
so, i no longer fear
anything
and
try to focus on living life as a good man
attempting to do the right thing,
not fearing, not hating,
caring for people regardless of their beliefs
because thinking about things in my eightieth year
i believe (there’s that word again)
treating humans, each one, as a human being
is the noblest thing
a man in his eighties can do.