We had some scalawag plumbers, a son and father, install two water heaters and a toilet about a dozen years ago. One water heater was not adequate for the side of the house it served. The plumbers did not secure the drain valve on the other, and the leak caused us to fork over about $10,000 in remediation and stucco, wood, and dry wall replacement.

The toilet never has worked quite correctly since and after my last attempt to correct it, we bit the bullet and got a replacement. It will be installed tomorrow, but i have some concerns.

On the outside of the cardboard container are these words:

Now i don’t know about you, but a toilet that is bold with power has me a bit worried.

i never met him.

Wish i had.

It was March 1975. i left all that i had known, my Navy world of destroyers for the amphibious navy.

The divisions between the three surface groupings of ships were significant back then. The vaunted and desired Navy life on the greyhounds of the sea were forever in my past although i wasn’t aware of that at the time.

The service group were the workhorses: oilers, tankers, ammunition ships, sailing to ports for resupply and back to replenish the capital ships: ungodly hours, precious little liberty, and work in the harshest of conditions — fortunately, i never was assigned to a service ship, but who knows? i might have found it rewarding.

Then there were the amphibs. Not very pretty compared to my sleek lady warriors of the sea, they appeared to be…well, pedestrian compared to my thirty-five knot, gun-firing, submarine hunting, missile launching, wake frothing destroyers. i did not know much…no, i didn’t know anything about amphibious ships or amphibious warfare except for World War II movies. At the end of my chief engineer tour aboard USS Hollister (DD 788) , my last aboard destroyers although i did not know it at the time, a fellow officer and i stood on the starboard bridge wing while moored to Long Beach’s mole pier. i watched a big ship standing in and asked to a my friend, “I wonder if that is an LSD?”

It was not even close to  a Landing Ship Dock like the USS Anchorage (LSD 36). i had just received my “split tour” orders to the Anchorage to be First Lieutenant. Previously, up and coming surface officers, lieutenants and lieutenant commanders, were sent to the six-month “destroyer school” where they learned all they needed to know and a bit they didn’t need to know about being a department head on a tin can. Upon completion, they would be assigned to destroyers as department heads. But when i began destroyer school, the Navy began to make it a one-surface Navy. Most of the officers in my class were assigned “split tours” where we would serve eighteen months on a destroyer and the other eighteen on either a service or amphibious group ship.

So in early March, i headed down to San Diego to join the Anchorage as First Lieutenant. It was tough. My second father, Snooks Hall, had died unexpectedly at 61 from a heart attack.  With our move from Navy housing in San Pedro in progress and more importantly, my moving to probably the most critical billet on the Anchorage with no real idea of what i was getting into, and, oh by the way, deploying to the Western Pacific in less than a month, i could not go home to honor my wonderful uncle.

i can remember quite well sitting at the top of stairs in Navy housing shortly after i heard the news. i was moving household goods when it really hit me. i sat down on the top stair and cried for about ten minutes.

But back to business. When i reported to the ship a week later, yet another bit of bad news came. This time it was business. LSD’s had a billet for a bosun warrant officer. A bosun warrant is the creme de la creme of the Navy’s work on seamanship, boats, and any on deck evolution. A “bosun” is a deck seaman of the “boatswainmate” rating who has come up through the ranks because of acumen, talent, wisdom, and experience and become an officer in his specialty. They are the salt of the earth, or sea in the mariner’s vernacular. They are the connection to all things past: wooden ships, iron men, sails, rigging, on and on and on. A bosun is assigned to landing ship docks because he is the glue that holds everything operational together.

As i headed to the Anchorage, i was not just comforted with the knowledge of the First Lieutenant had a bosun assigned to his department, i was absolutely prayerful because, again, i did not know anything about the job into which i was leaping.

One problem. One of the first things i was told when i reported aboard was CWO4 Holsclaw had been transferred almost a month earlier. With no replacement! My source of knowledge, the guy i was counting on to pull me through my ignorance, was gone.

As i went through the relieving process, i assessed my situation. i had one ensign and one lieutenant junior grade as deck division officers. (i also was the department head for the weapons division with another ensign assigned there). The LTJG had one deployment under his belt, but that was his only experience. There were two boatswainmate first class petty officers aboard. One, BM1 Hansborough, led First Division and was the master of working the well deck with landing craft, Marine vehicles and Marine amphibians. One, whose name i shamefully can’t recall at the moment, was in charge of second division and a no-nonsense, hard-working rigger. i decided he could serve as my mentor. But then a week before we got underway, an LST in the squadron lost her boatswainmate chief (i don’t recall why) and the Navy decided my go-to first class should step in on the LST. He was replaced by another first class petty officer who was good, but not as a guru for an uninitiated first lieutenant.

There was one Boatswainmate chief aboard. BMC Justiani was the 3-M (preventive maintenance system) coordinator. He had fifteen years in the Navy. Nearly all was being a boxer in the MWR programs. If possible, he knew less than i did about amphibious operations.

So i went to sea in a brand new job of which i knew nothing. i was a pretty good officer and had become a good ship driver, but this was a daunting situation. None of us knew just how daunting it would be.

Fortunately, one LSD in amphibious squadron was designated as the “Primary Control Ship (PCS)” for amphibious operations. Anchorage, rather than our sister ship, the USS Mount Vernon, had been designated the PCS for the deployment. This meant we would have the Beach Master’s Unit on board. The unit was responsible for managing the beach during landings, and a bosun was the officer-in-charge. Bosun Messenger and his first class, BM1 Stubbe helped me a great deal through the first two or three months of unexpected chaos.

We had loaded a large opportune lift. Opportune lifts are done when space is available. Navy ships load up with equipment and supplies for other government entities who need transportation across the ocean. Goodwill items, Peace Corps Supplies, State Department needs, and even government officials personal goods are given a free ride. Then five days after a short stop in Pearl Harbor, we received flash messages the evacuation of Vietnam was about to begin. All the other squadron ships raced to Vietnam, while the Anchorage headed for Japan to offload the opportune lift and pick up Marine equipment. That saga requires another tale as does the rest of the deployment. It was nine months of non-stop tap dancing around changing requirements and operations always with a twist.

We made it. In fact, we did damn well.

i was first assigned a stateroom amidships before moving to the First Lieutenant’s stateroom on the starboard side. i don’t remember why. It was, i found out, Bosun Holsclaw’s old stateroom. As i opened one of the lockers, i found a small metal box. On the top the bosun had scribbled his name and rank with a felt-tip pen. It was his sewing kit, left behind.

We stood out of San Diego Bay and i retired to my stateroom after the evening mess in the wardroom. i sat in front of the desk and looked at the metal box. i envisioned Bosun Holsclaw. i thought he must have been a large man with a beer belly, balding, rough (all reasonable bosuns would have had a rough edge) capable of leaping tall buildings with a single bound and outrunning speeding bullets.

The sewing kit had a number of different Navy uniform buttons, two or three spools of thread, some safety pins and a cardboard sheet full of sewing needles.  Pretty much all of mariners who go to sea take such sewing kits with them in various quantities and cases. There in the middle of the Bosun’s box was a tiny, elementary-school size pair of scissors. i wondered why a bosun, probably carrying a five-inch knife on his belt holster would feel a need for such a rather worthless pair of child scissors.

It is forty-two years since i first wondered about those scissors. They are long gone. But i have used Bosun Holsclaw’s sewing kit through six deployments, seven home relocations, and an untold number of pants and shirt button repairs.

This afternoon, i finally got around to replacing the button on a pair of golf shorts.

i went into the closet and retrieved the metal box. i found the needles, the right thread, and a replacement button. The repair job was decent.

But throughout, i thought of Bosun Holsclaw and thought how much he would have enjoyed those nine wild months of a WESTPAC deployment with me.

Good luck, Bosun Holsclaw, wherever you are.

Well, about the only way to explain my goof is to admit i’m a dingbat. i must have had “ding” on my mind yesterday afternoon. John Eagle’s home is on the BEARA peninsula, not the Dingle. The Beara peninsula is John’s home. His town, Eyeries is southwest of Tuosist where we stayed with Joe and Carla a couple of years ago. i should  not have erred. John Eagle, John Moriarty, Joe, and Carla, i apologize.

i have taken to going outside for a pre-dinner appetizer in the Southwest corner brilliance of the late afternoon before the Japanese current brings on the marine layer of mist and coolness.

Tonight, it appears the marine layer has been checked; the “May Gray” will have to wait for another evening.

i came out to write just for me, or to be more precise, for my grandson later in his life. It is one of my most enjoyable pursuits, which i fail to do as often as i should.

As usual, i set up my perch with the bluetooth thingie on “shuffle” playing a cornucopia of my music. Currently, Nellie McKay is singing something i really like. i would have never heard of her except Blythe sent me a copy of Nellie’s CD several years ago, and i have found some new music. It seemed to fit with my intentions.

But, also as usual, i checked my email, Facebook, news, and sports. And there was a post from John Eagle. What a great name. i ended up connected to John when my brother Joe or sister-in-law Carla shared a photograph of John’s several years ago. i’ve never met him. You see, John lives in Eyeries, Ireland, roughly about ten miles from the southwest land’s end of  the Beara Peninsula. That’s roughly five thousand miles plus from the Southwest corner.

John is an artist. He has a website: http://www.johneaglephoto.com/.  His photography is enthralling, capturing southwestern Ireland in my lasting vision of such a beautiful land (thanks, Joe and Carla for allowing us to see it in person a couple of years ago. His paintings…well, you should check it out: http://www.johneaglephoto.com/artgallery.htm.

This is what i saw when i clicked on his post:

i was simply blown away. If you check it out, read his blog about it: a half-hour. Incredible.

John, like many of us at this age, is experiencing some health problems. He is facing them nobly with humor and grace.

i just think many of my family and friends would like to learn of John and his work.

Thanks, John.

And Sam, i’ll get back to it before the night’s over.

So it was a good day to put all of the disturbing stuff going on and…well, live.

i woke feeling better than in quite a while. Good start.

Maureen pulled off another one of her usual incredible breakfasts. Fruit, her fried eggs always with a delicious surprising twist, toast, and topped off with Tennessee Pride sausage, the hot kind.

When we finished the food, had our first cup of coffee with the newspaper reading, i promised Maureen i would clean up and do the dishes. First, i took my second cup of coffee, the bluetooth music thingie and my iPod outside with Brendel as the playlist,  and my laptop, and sat down to figure out what my day would entail. It was good. Being there was better.

And the day just sort of went with the flow.

We decided to not go to a university lecture we had reserved. We both are still recovering from various versions of crud and decided the evening would be too late. So we had an early dinner of tapas at one of our all time favorite restaurants, Romesco’s, even better because it’s just down the hill.

Returning home, we settled in with a ball game replay, the PBS News Hour, two books, and this computer. We will to to bed early and i will arise early as usual for my Friday Morning Golf, the first in almost four weeks.

Then i looked down toward the ottoman and realized a universal truth:

Prichard feet.

If you read this earlier, i somehow managed to delete several mothers of mine in my last edit. i am older now and it was later then. It was a good idea last night, but i should have waited for a final edit this morning. Here was what was intended:

i am up way too late. But i have a mission.

It’s a mission i’m not too thrilled about but feel it needs to be done. You see, i don’t particularly like honoring folks because it’s some mandated special day. i’m fine with Christmas, Easter, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving, but the rest of them seem a little contrived, like you’re sending stuff or writing stuff or sharing photos of whomever is to be honored. And those silly things like Valentine’s and even Halloween seem more like marketing opportunities that we all buy into because we like to celebrate something and take time off from other things.

Just not into it.

But tomorrow’s another thing.

It’s Mother’s Day. i might send something to some of the mothers i know, but it will be as much because i don’t want them to think i don’t honor, respect, and love them as it will be because i want to do it on the second Sunday in May. It’s nice and all, but i’m over it. i would much rather take a day on my own and call or write or send something special from me…or maybe a dinner. But from me, not dictated from on high.

Still, they are something special, these mothers. Not anything like them. Certainly not dads. That’s another category of special.

i would like to write something elegant and respectful, but i think it will just get lost in the wash of loving sentiments about moms that will fill up most media and communications tomorrow.

So i just wanted you to know that i’ve been very lucky with this mom thing. i’ve had a number more than the immediate ones shown here. Their ability to be good moms is a special, wonderful, and very difficult thing. i know about the latter because i tried to do it for about a half-dozen years or more with Sarah…and came up way short of real moms.

So here they are with a few comments:

And there you have it. Not very majestic and because it’s late, probably not such a wonderful tribute. But i love them all for being mothers for me, if not to me. i have been extremely lucky in that category, but i suspect most offspring have such feelings today and tomorrow about their mothers.

Happy Mother’s Day.

and good night.

i think i got it right this morning.