All posts by Jim

A Tale of the Sea and Me – Reserved

Sea Stories

After i was released from active duty February 1971 in Seattle, Washington, i traveled to Paris, Texas with my financé, then on to Tennessee, moved my goods to Watertown, New York with massive help from my good friend Henry Harding, back to Paris to get married, and became a sports writer in upstate New York for the Watertown Daily Times.

i was still obligated for two years of Navy reserve time and joined the Watertown reserve unit. It was a financial blessing. The amount i earned going to reserve meetings once a month was equal to a week’s pay at the newspaper.

i was amazed. Hippies remained in full swing, and the military was resisted by many after the anti-war sentiment of young folks in the late 1960s. The reserves were trying to recruit and retain from that ilk. The Watertown reserve unit (and probably the majority of reserve units) was struggling to retain its reserves. Consequently, things in vogue that did not fit with the Navy regs, were allowed, like hair length. That didn’t fit well with me. Rules are rules. i was also still upset when the reserve lieutenant gave me incomplete information after i joined the Nashville unit and told me i would complete my obligations by going to the “active status pool” (NOPE!).

But it wasn’t hard, only a monthly Tuesday night reserve meeting and i met some several good folks in a similar situation. And i let my hair grow, in spite of my dislike of wavering on regulations.

In the summer of 72, i flew to Mayport for two weeks of ACDUTRA aboard the USS Waldron (DD 699). Having the luxury of not adhering to the Navy’s regulation haircut, my hair was longer than it had ever been. So before i left Watertown, i had a buzz cut.

This gave me a new recognition about our personal judgement process. When i came to Watertown and my new job, i was still pretty close to Navy regulations in hair length. The older reporters, management, liked my short hair and i was considered one of them. But with the tacit approval of the reserves, i let my hair grew, longer than i had in my life. The older staff began to distant them from me, and the younger, long haired guys began to take me in as one of their own. When my ACDUTRA was confirmed, a couple of days before i left, i got a buzz cut from my barber, even closer than Navy regs required. When i returned, the old guys took me under their wing and as my hair grew again, the younger guys also accepted me. Hair. Crazy hair.

Those two weeks of dutywas aboard the USS Waldron (DD 699). i have an admiration for FRAM 1 destroyers. They retained the open bridges. i served on three ships with open bridges, the USS Lloyd Thomas (DD 764), Waldron, and my last ship, the USS Yosemite (AD 19).

Unlike most two-week reserve duty, there was no liberty port. It seems like we were at sea the whole time in a major fleet operation. i stood my bridge watches with a young LTJG who had no fleet steaming experience. There were several times when i advised him what to do in situations he had never faced. Several times he was worried about helicopters dipping sonars close by. i calmed him down and explained how it worked.

When i left, the captain gave me a letter qualifying me as a Fleet OOD. i remain proud of that accomplishment.

Even though the extra income was a life saver, when i became sports editor and the guild obstructed my getting the pay i deserved for what i was doing, coupled with my wife being pregnant with our daughter, i began to consider my options. None looked better for security than getting back in the Navy. So i applied for becoming active. The officer in charge of such applications told me i could get in immediately if i requested to become a “Training and Reserve” (TAR) officer. i rejected that option immediately. He then said my chances for acceptance was not likely. Before i initiated the process

i reached out to my Commanding Officer, CAPT Max Lasell, of the USS Hawkins (DD 873), who made the effort to appear before the screening board and recommend i be accepted. i was one of six line officers accepted for that fiscal year.

i received my notice and orders to report to the USS Stephen B. Luce (DLG 7). i gave the Times notice and recommended my assistant replace me sports editor. He spent his entire career there. My wife Kathie gave birth to our daughter Blythe on July 7, 1972. We went to Paris, Texas where the two of them would stay while i flew to Korfu, Greece to report to the Luce. It was good to be back at sea.

Recollections

A Pocket of Resistance

i’m back on this patio. It seems to generate memories for me.

In the past two weeks, while i was writing posts, working on my project, generally messing around, and playing some golf, i ran across three items from the past. My find generated a thorough search for one or two photos that went with one of those items. The search did not yield the photos. i’ll keep looking.

Regardless, the two items i did have gave me reflection on a sport that has lasted literally a lifetime, an eighty-year lifetime…so far. Baseball.

The photo of the “pony” league team in 1954 has generated numerous comments about the boys in the photo. Soon, i will collect all the input and put out a follow-up with a more complete list of those players. Before that league, i had been playing backyard baseball by myself since i had conscious thought, or after about four, with friends until that pony league team assembled on the dirt diamond and coarse grass and dirt of what was primarily the recess playground for McClain students during the school year — There was a maple tree behind the backstop where someone had carved on the front, “D. Boone killed a bar here,” which i believed to be true until at least the sixth grade.

My love for the game at that time is a part of family lore. One afternoon, i was riding my bike down the West Main sidewalk, headed for a game. There was an elm tree limb hanging about a foot or two over the sidewalk from the yard of one of those grand homes that proliferated on West Main during that time all the way out until around the end of the Castle Heights campus. Being ten and a complete idiot with my glove in my bike basket, i reached up with my right hand to grab a low hanging leaf, dreaming of capturing the golden ring on the merry-go-round at the Wilson County Fair out on Coles Ferry Pike in about two months.

The leaf disagreed and stubbornly remained on the limb. My bike slid right and the front wheel caught the small ditch along the sidewalk from the immaculate grooming of the home’s front yard. The bike fell carrying me head first into the sidewalk. It hurt. i felt the blood and my mouth was aching. i began a slightly less than manly cry.

Heading down to the square was Mrs. Thompson, who later would be my seventh grade home room teacher at Lebanon Junior High. Seeing the disaster, she pulled over. She guided me to the passenger seat and placed the crooked bike and my glove in her trunk. i used that glove until my senior year season at Castle Heights when, at third base in the middle innings, it fell off of my hand.

She drove to our home and rang the front door. My mother answered. Mrs. Thompson told her she thought of taking me to McFarland Hospital but decided she should take me home first. She added she thought i must be hurt badly because of the amount of squalling i was emitting.

Estelle Jewell (i imagine she began with “Phsaw”) was unconcerned and explained, “He’s not hurt that bad. He just upset he’s not at the game.”

i suspect she was pretty accurate.

Doc Gallagher put a cap on the broken front tooth. Back then, available caps were not of the caliber they are today. i got a silver front tooth and had to live with it for about six years (another story).

i continued to play baseball and in high school its variant fast pitch softball.

i played Little League and Babe Ruth League. i was a pretty decent ballplayer, a singles and doubles hitter, fielded well except for high fly balls straight at me when i was in the outfield, had a decent arm and was versatile: catcher, third base, shortstop, and outfield, the latter mostly in left field, certainly not major league talent, but decent. Great memories. One of my favorite stories comes from Jim Leftwich, my cousin sort of since we haven’t found the Prichard connection…yet.

On the Babe Ruth League Lea’s Butane Gas and the Castle Heights Military Academy team , i was often Mike Gannaway’s catcher. Jim was at bat when Mike threw a fastball over 90 mph and Jim couldn’t catch up. When Mike had two strikes on him, i called for a curve ball. Jim jumped away to watch the ball break over the plate for strike three. He told me he still remembers looking back to see me laughing.

Then came my really, no kidding baseball softball thaumaturgical years, i was Gannaway’s catcher at Castle Heights again. We had good teams, but my senior year was something special. i played on the “Pigmy infield.” Mack Brown was about six feet at first base. He didn’t count, but the other three infields were not giants. Tommy Vassar played second. Tommy and i at third were 5′ 6.” Jimmy Gamble at short was 5’7″. With Gannaway’s pitching leading the way and a superb outfield, we won the prep school “Mid-South Conference” crown.

Which brings me to the second photo, the one that produced my search for team photos of Lebanon’s American Legion teams. It was the best baseball team on which i played. In a follow-up to this post, i will try to locate and include the photos and provide the complete lineup and will narrate several of the memorable moments of that season. In my first year, i was a sub. We won the Tennessee mid-region tournament in an epic battle with Columbia. Then we went to the state tournament with four teams, and the Memphis team drubbed us and won the state for about the sixth straight time. The Memphis team had won the national title a number of times.

That’s me over there to the right, the singles hitter with my 33″ Nellie Fox Louisville Slugger bat.

During the two summers of American Legion ball, i was in heaven. i also played fast pitch softball in the county league and in county Sunday baseball league. So while i dug graves (and mowed along with other cemetery maintenance) as my summer job (Thanks, Jessie Coe), i played softball on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, Legion Ball on Wednesday and Saturday, and in the Sunday baseball league. i had Friday nights off. What a fabulous summer.

Texas Boot Company had an incredible bunch of players assembled by Danny Evins, the creator of Cracker Barrel. i caught Cheatham Russell. Cheatham was amazing. He threw a 95-mile fast ball with movement, a wicked curve, and a floater that was impossible to hit. As his catcher, i wore a first baseman’s mitt rather than the catcher’s mitt because Cheatham’s pitches moved so much. i put a round kitchen sponge in the palm of my catching hand (left), i would then put a cotton garden glove over that. Then i would put another sponge, this one rectangular cut out roughly in the shape of an hour glass. Then i would put on the large first baseman’s mitt.

When the game was over, i would take off all of those glove hand trappings. My left hand looked about the twice the size of my right due to catching Russell’s fastball.

i kept playing, as i have noted until i was 46. But dreams of being the next Bill Mazeroski, Don Hoak, Rod Carew faded long ago. Still baseball (and softball) is in my blood. i will write more of this worship later.

I would write more now, but i have to stop and watch a Padre game on television with Maureen. She is now a fan…and she is a saint to put up with me.

Peaceful Moment

A Pocket of Resistance

It is a Tuesday afternoon in May in the Southwest corner. i am sitting in my habitual spot on our patio. The sky is perfectly cloudless, a pure sky blue. It is a perfect 68 degrees with a very slight on shore breeze. i just watched two hummingbirds (eat your heart out, Jim Hicks) light on the larger coral tree. It appeared one was standing on the head of the other, but i’m guessing it was an illusion. They were surrounded by the bright red blooms that will soon fade when the leaves begin to fill out the tree for about eight months.

There is a Navy helicopter passing overhead, noisy things. i remember flying (clumsily) one when Bob Parker, the USS Okinawa’s operations officer asked me to be his “qualified observer” for a flight to give him needed flight hours to retain his qualifications. It was well over 40 years ago, and the development explosion here was high desert scrub brush then. He gave me the controls several times, the last of which was somewhere over where i’m sitting. We were near an aviation beacon in the high desert when he directed me to “hover.” Hah! i did it for about a minute, wondering all the time when i was going to screw it up and kill us and the crewman.

The helicopter is gone. It is quiet. i return to my music: Nancy Wilson, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, and Nina Simone. It is a jazz kind of afternoon.

i will go in soon for another scrumptious dinner from Maureen. We will watch a ballgame. i’m thinking i may climb up the slope to the chairs by our flag and look out on the ships moored at the Naval Base, the city skyline, and the dark of the Pacific.

i will not include photos. i couldn’t capture this peace in a photo. i wish one or two of many, many friends were sharing this with me.

The world is the screwy world. People are out to reek havoc on others in fear or hate created by fear. It is the way it is. It is the way it has always been. It is likely to be the way it will be in the future. i’m not optimistic.

But i am beyond that. i am me with years and years of memories, good music, in a peaceful place. i would like to share that with you, wherever you are.