Today’s Navy is a world apart from the Navy i served for twenty-two years. The change had begun as i was completing my active duty. Women were becoming part of seagoing world. Computers were becoming more and more critical to getting the job done. Gas turbine plants were replacing the old classic steam engines. i expressed my feelings in a poem included in these posts before and was part of my book, A Pocket of Resistance: Selected Poems. i will not judge which Navy is better or worse. They are just different, that’s all. But i sure liked going to sea in the old Navy. i am posting this in a group called “US Navy Gearing Class Destroyers.” Old sailors. i hope they enjoy it.

I Was a Sailor

I was a sailor
when the boatswainmates
swept down and triced up;
the decks were spotless;
first division stood
at the ready on the forecastle to
cast away all lines;
the sleek greyhound visaged lady
got underway,
no tugs,
no bow thrusters
like they, the pansies are required to use
today;
no sir:
we ruled the seas
standing proud in quarters standing out,
no manning the rails for show,
we did it like it was supposed to be;
the bow cut through the channel like
it owned the sea,
the trough slid up the side
only feet under the gunwale;
the stern wash was white with foam:
we were underway,
rocking and rolling.

I was a sailor
back when being a sailor
was tantamount to being a man;
there weren’t no great number
of automatic controls back then,
not one hell of a lot of video games or graphics to read:
you turned the valves and the steam hissed;
you cleaned the boiler plates on the lower level
with the blowers blasting air in your face
for relief from the hot wet heat;
inserting the plates and firing it up
hoping it wouldn’t smoke white
and
blow your ass
off the naval station
to kingdom come;
the boilers would rumble,
groan and croak,
spew their smoke out the stack,
build up steam
until there weren’t no smoke
and
the boiler tenders
down in the bowels
knew they would be
getting underway
soon.
we lined up the feed pumps;
kicked off the auxiliaries,
went on ship’s power,
dropping our umbilical cords from the pier
like the doctor cuts the cord
on the newborn:
separating us from mother earth,
sending us to the bounding main;
when we turned the nozzles of steam
onto the turbines of the main engine,
watching the tree trunk sized shaft
turning slowly;
the engine room wheezed and coughed:
made us feel like we
were in a jungle of sweltering pumps and motors
while the distilling plants gurgled with
Rube Goldberg smugness,
making you wonder if
they would really make
good water
again.

I was a sailor
back when we manned the big guns,
not standing apart, aloof, with computer controls
in the air conditioned spaces
but inside those big guns,
metal death traps where
we stood alongside the breech
when the firing shook our brains, our guts, our souls
and
we loved the thrill of it all;
the brass kicked out the aft end;
the hot case man with his asbestos gloves
smacked them out onto the rolling deck:
no automatic, manless machine of death
back then.

I was a sailor
back when we didn’t know
what the hell politically correct meant,
back when they meant
|what they said when they said,
“if the navy wanted you to have a wife,
they would have issued you one.”
Navy was a way of life,
living on board, locker in a club
just outside the main gate
with civvies,
so
you could go down to sailor town,
drink beer and cheap whiskey,
enough to make the woman look
pretty enough to pay
for the night so
you could get back in time
for quarters at 0700
unless there was a fight.

I was a sailor back then
when men were men
and
sailors were sailors
and
then was then.

The item below appeared in yesterday’s (July 10, 2018) edition of the San Diego Union Tribune. It was included in the daily sidebar, “Off the Wall,” which contains interesting and humorous tidbits and a sports trivia quiz.

This particular item was so wrong, so bad on so many levels it caused me to laugh so hard i snorted my breakfast cup of coffee.

i hope you are not offended and also find it funny as hell:

Off the wall

…Touching tribute

After a young New Orleans man was killed, his grieving family chose to remember him doing what he loved: sitting in front of a TV with his beloved Boston Celtics on the screen.

The body of 18-year-old Renard Matthews , who died from a gunshot wound to the head on June 25, was dressed in a Celtics jersey at a Sunday wake at the Charbonnet Labat Glapion Funeral Home in the Treme neighborhood. WDSU-TV reported that his body was positioned in a chair and he had a video game controller in his lap. His favorite snacks were positioned on a nearby table and the floor.

The 18-year-old Matthews will be buried today.

Yesterday, i posted birthday thoughts for Blythe. i had picked out too many photos to accompany those thoughts. So here they are today, with loving memories of our good times together:

As is my routine, i reread my post this morning. i laughed. i had gotten my terms mixed up. At my age, it’s excusable to do that but not excusable to let the mistake continue. In mentioning Shakespeare’s and my friend, Pete Thomas, i described the Guinness and Bass mixture as a “pink and tan.” i was thinking of the old army uniform, which was still the uniform at Texas A&M when i was an NROTC instructor there. i should have written “black and tan.” Oops.

Today, it was hot. Hot for the Southwest corner. Fires too. Something to discuss later.

Part of Maureen’s and my strategy to deal with hot included lunch at a cool place.

We chose Blue Water. It’s official name is Blue Water Seafood Market and Grill. It’s in the hotbed of unique cuisine, made popular for wonderful food of all sorts, not some place to go to be cool or be seen. It’s located at the end of India Street, the old, old road which begins in what was Little Italy, now the place to go to be cool or be seen. Although Maureen is cool and a sight to be seen, i am definitely not either. But at the northern end, India Street tees into Washington Street is not trendy. It’s just crowded because the food is so damn good.

There is an iconic Mexican restaurant with hot border Mexican Food, one of the biggest draws and probably the oldest in this little area of wide spread diet genres. It has a park across the street with concrete picnic tables. My buddy from amphib days, Bruce Brunn, and i used to run around Balboa Park at lunch and then stop for tacos and beer at El Indio and eat in our sweaty running togs sitting on the curb so as not to gross out the picnic bench sitters.

There’s this Brit pub called Shakespeare’s. Today, it was packed and ribald with soccer watchers. One of my best friends of all time, Pete Thomas and i would meet there for an evening meal featuring black and tan’s, i.e. Bass Ale and Guinness. i would order the shepherd’s pie, bangers and mash, or fish and chips.

There is Wine Vault and Bistro, an incredible dining experience with paired wines for each pre-fixe course. It remains one of our finest experiences in dining and we go at every chance. i couldn’t begin to describe how wonderful a place Chris and Mary have created.

On the corner, there is Gelato Vero, a small place with little sitting room Maureen claims has the best gelato in the world. i ‘m not a gelato guy and her claim is a bit expansive. i can’t argue, but it is good.

There are a number of Johnny-come-lately’s attempting to lay claim to culinary excellence by geographic association, but not for us. We’ve got the ones we go to.

i  think i’ve mentioned these favorite of ours here before, so i will refrain from more explantation except for Blue Water.

You have to wait in line. There are no reservations and it is always packed. You can’t claim a table early. The staff assigns you a table based on the number of your group and your preference, if available. We normally sit out on the patio where they have about ten small tables, but it really doesn’t matter. The food matters.

Today, we argued…er discussed what we would order all the way through the fifteen or twenty minute line wait. Maureen likes to share. That’s not my thing, but i will and am getting better at since i am old and somewhat conscious of my waistline. We would have liked to order damn near everything on the menu, most as either a sandwich, a taco, or a salad. Fish. Seafood. High Quality. You can pick out some of those to take home, no, all of those from the seafood market crammed into the side of Blue Water.

As we neared the order/pay young lady, i caved. We ordered the half-dozen oysters on the half shell with separate mild and spicy sauces. And we ordered the sashimi special with Ahi and yellowtail tuna.

It was quite simply, the best yellowtail i’ve ever eaten and the ahi would match up against the gazillion of pounds of sashimi i’ve had everywhere, including Japan.

From my experience at Blue Water and listening to those in line who have also eaten there before, that is a common adjective about the food: “the best,” whatever it is.

It is one of those places we go in the Southwest corner we find so good we keep returning and returning. And every time. i mean every time i wish two people could be with us. My son-in-law Jason loves all kinds of good food. He is extremely knowledgable as well. He and Maureen have discussions about food, and it sounds like Greek to me. i always wish he were with us.

Then there’s this guy up in San Francisco. We’ve been brothers for  half century plus. He loves food. Together, we’ve spent an ungodly number of hours dining at places running the gamut of low end dives to high end dining over those years. He’s the other one i wish were with Maureen and me.

But since they aren’t here, we’ll just have to go back to Blue Water and wish for them again.

It was forty-six years ago today.

Around 2:00 in the afternoon, i had returned from putting out the sports section of The Watertown Daily Times in upstate New York, and i mean UPSTATE New York, still one of my favorite places in the world over three-quarters of a century.

i had a sandwich for lunch and laid down for my usual afternoon nap. After all, i had gotten up around 4:00 and walked to work, getting to my desk before 5:30. It was my routine, i thought the nap was well deserved since on most previous evenings i had been at a sports event, mostly the Watertown Royals semi-pro baseball game.

My wife nudged me gently to wake me up.

“Jim, I broke water,” she announced in an offhand manner, “It’s time to go to the hospital.”

After her water broke, Kathie called the hospital to let them know she was on her way, arranged the apartment for me in her absence and for her return with our new infant. She packed what she would need at the hospital. She was orderly and calm.

The sports editor was catatonic. He threw on some clothes, grabbed her small suitcase, and ushered her down the stairs of the second floor apartment. He didn’t exactly break the land speed record getting to the hospital, but let’s just say he didn’t tarry in traffic.

He drove the blue 1966 Oldsmobile Cutlass to the emergency dock. She said something to the effect about his being silly and directed him to park in a regular space about a block away. They walked to the check-in counter. She was checked in and put into a room. He got to stay there for roughly three hours. They kicked him out. It wasn’t like it is today. Perhaps it was predictive of what would happen later.

He had supper out with his good friend and high school teacher Earl Weidemann and returned to the hospital. It was around 6:00. They parked him in the expectant father’s waiting room, a rather dark hole, and he waited there, worried about his wife and excited about what was imminent.

Just after 9:30, his wife gave birth to his daughter. She was beautiful, sporting a goodly amount of black hair. He was in heaven but not allowed to stay long. Her mother looked absolutely gorgeous and oh, oh so happy…perhaps because the worse part was over.

In just under two months, he would leave. The Navy looked like a good move for him to support his wife and new child, and he had chosen to give up sports writing and return to the sea. Unfortunately, it would require him to be away for long periods of time, while this new overwhelmingly force in his life would remain with her mother. His choice for them.

But oh boy, was she loved. She and her mother stayed with her mother’s parents, Colonel Lynch and Nannie Bettie in Paris, Texas but spent significant time in Tennessee. Both families adored her. Still do. One of his favorite photos of her was while he was in the Mediterranean. Her uncle, Uncle Snooks, who loved all children, seemed to have a special place for Blythe. Even though they all loved her, it was real close to the most lonely four months of his life.

When he returned, they began the Navy life in Newport, Rhode Island. Then, they moved across country to Long Beach. Then south to San Diego. Then to Texas A&M. It was a glorious time for him because he was with her even though the marriage was floundering, and he was lost at the thought of not being with her.

The family moving stopped there, and he moved on. He left with wonderful memories. He knew her mother loved her more than anything on earth and that was enough. It had to be enough.

So she grew up well. He spent as much time as he could with her, nearly all of his thirty days a year of allotted leave time. Her mother was good about letting her travel to places to be with him and with his parents. She spent a lot of summer time in Lebanon, Tennessee, having fun.

It was as good as it could be except for Christmas. After he went to extra effort to be with her and her mother for two Christmases, he realized her mother would be lost without her for Christmas, that he was a third (or fourth or fifth) wheel on Christmas. So he gave it up. Christmas was never as good for him as it had been with her.

But she grew up well, and he did spend time with her. She was happy. And she could make him smile with just a photo of her.

There are many photos of them together. He may post more later just so he can revisit good memories again.

Life moved on. He met a woman who was a wonderful match for him, and she thought so too. A miracle he thought. She loved his daughter.

And then she became Maureen’s daughter.

It was a wonderful thing. Then she had a sister. They are wonderful together. It makes him happier than anything in the world when they show their happiness together. He has been known to have tears well up when he sees them together.

While she was in San Diego, she met this sailor and fell in love. It took a while, but they married and have one of the better marriages around.

Finally, finally, they produced a son: Samuel James Jewell Gander with his two middle names honoring his great grandfather. The old man, by now, Sam’s grandfather is so proud of Sam, his buttons damn near burst when he talks about him. If there is one thing in his life the old man would change, it would be to spend as much time as he could with Sam.

But the world and factors one can’t control often keep us from having what we want. And so it is.

She has a wonderful job now. She has a good husband. She takes care of her mother and her mother takes care of the three of them, especially Sam. It is as it should be, or as close as it can get. For his daughter, he accepts that as enough.

And oh boy, at forty-six (today), she is an incredible woman with an incredible son.

And he loves her still.

Happy Birthday, Blythe.