817 & 403
817 & 403
Five Gold Rings & Four on the Tree
Five Gold Rings & Four on the Tree
My NFL memory. Autumn 1971/2/3 getting off the gray Navy bus in Cincinnati with RearAdmiral Chet Heffner and others and watching Browns fans, the manhood of Cleveland, exiting their bus loaded up drunk and steaming toward the stadium gate chugging DEfense DEfense DEfense DEfense DEfense strutting macho as a fascist firedrill. That’s my view of pro football and Incognito hasn't helped: grow up. Compared to CFB, why Tebow would want that for his life instead of working with youngsters as a CFB coach or high school head coach beats the hell out of me. Matthew 6:24, Tim, let him who has ears hear, how loud does the Lord have to speak, how hard does God have to shake you? Grow up, be a man, praise the Lord, say another prayer and get a job. Though he does sell TT memorabilia on his FB page.
Watching football games Saturday, I saw a Chevrolet Malibu commercial. For some reason -- no, truth, there's no reason, it's beyond reason -- the mind is mixing up CFB, cars and warships
and what comes to mind is a Saturday morning, late summer early fall 1959, a cool day in Norfolk, Virginia. I loved my first ship, skipper and shipmates, enjoyed the duty, found my niche instead of the stupid lurking seminary idea, and came to feel so good about myself and my worth in life that I changed USNR to USN, to the disgust of my roommate Russian major Harvard graduate Ensign Don Senese, who couldn't believe I would so degrade myself. After the Navy, Don returned to Harvard and St. Cyril. Bostonians, his family were members of an Episcopal parish that instead of coffee hour served bloody Marys. A possible idea for church growth.
That autumn Saturday morning most of the wardroom of USS CORRY (DDR-817) left the destroyer piers with me and drove downtown to the Peugeot dealership. Our wardroom had one snob, Ensign Bill, a Naval Academy graduate who was such an arrogant equusposteriessimus that he was denied the automatic promotion to lieutenant (junior grade), didn’t go with us that morning, nor did the married officers (Linda was home in Panama City with Malinda, so I was a single officer that day). We went into the showroom in uniform, checked out a Peugeot 403 demo with four speed stick on the column, underpowered French I4 engine
piled into it, no room for the salesman to go with us, and sped off for Virginia Beach, me driving.
When we returned the 403 late that afternoon muddy and with quite a few miles on it the salesman, who'd -- assumed -- we were driving it around the block, was in trouble, the general manager was furious, we handed back the keys, said thank you we love it and headed to the NOB O’Club for happy hour.
and what comes to mind is a Saturday morning, late summer early fall 1959, a cool day in Norfolk, Virginia. I loved my first ship, skipper and shipmates, enjoyed the duty, found my niche instead of the stupid lurking seminary idea, and came to feel so good about myself and my worth in life that I changed USNR to USN, to the disgust of my roommate Russian major Harvard graduate Ensign Don Senese, who couldn't believe I would so degrade myself. After the Navy, Don returned to Harvard and St. Cyril. Bostonians, his family were members of an Episcopal parish that instead of coffee hour served bloody Marys. A possible idea for church growth.
That autumn Saturday morning most of the wardroom of USS CORRY (DDR-817) left the destroyer piers with me and drove downtown to the Peugeot dealership. Our wardroom had one snob, Ensign Bill, a Naval Academy graduate who was such an arrogant equusposteriessimus that he was denied the automatic promotion to lieutenant (junior grade), didn’t go with us that morning, nor did the married officers (Linda was home in Panama City with Malinda, so I was a single officer that day). We went into the showroom in uniform, checked out a Peugeot 403 demo with four speed stick on the column, underpowered French I4 engine
piled into it, no room for the salesman to go with us, and sped off for Virginia Beach, me driving.
When we returned the 403 late that afternoon muddy and with quite a few miles on it the salesman, who'd -- assumed -- we were driving it around the block, was in trouble, the general manager was furious, we handed back the keys, said thank you we love it and headed to the NOB O’Club for happy hour.
Number one for young twenties fun: junior officer in a Navy destroyer. Not much is more fun than being 23. You don't have to rank above ensign or j.g. to have plenty of brass. At the DesDiv party at the O'Club that Christmas I helped sing "five goo--ooo-old rings" competitively in a contest for which wardroom sang not best but loud and most obnoxious. Linda drove home that evening. If the tooth fairy offered me one wish and it couldn't be unlimited wishes I might wish to live that first tour of sea duty all over again, including other Saturdays sailing on Guantanano Bay with Don Senese and an iced tub of Heineken.
The tooth fairy or the narrator in Our Town.
Never got the Peugeot, but 1983 we bought a new Renault station wagon from a dealer in Harrisburg. Choice car that I loved and drove between Pennsylvania and Florida couple times. We gave it to Malinda when we moved Harrisburg to Apalachicola and don't remember what happened to it.
The tooth fairy or the narrator in Our Town.
Never got the Peugeot, but 1983 we bought a new Renault station wagon from a dealer in Harrisburg. Choice car that I loved and drove between Pennsylvania and Florida couple times. We gave it to Malinda when we moved Harrisburg to Apalachicola and don't remember what happened to it.
TW