reveille, reveille

It’s 4:28 a.m., actually 0428, isn’t it. Every morning about this time -- earlier really, I’ve been up an hour with the first cup of coffee from my magic brewer, which I think I’ll take to it’s already-designated place in the condo today, that’ll help me feel “adjusting” and at home -- I start thinking “what shall I contemplate or remember to blog about?” Though readers may think I write to be read, truthfully, it’s a mental drill not unlike the crossword puzzles that Linda works. Something I read yesterday said working crossword puzzles helps ward off Alzheimer’s, keeping, writing and posting a weblog is my crossword, makes no matter to me whobody reads it. What’s up, then?

The Kaiser-Frazer dealership building has been pulled down, a pile of rubble and something else will go there. Demolition was high time, long overdue, but it happening painted a black spot over memories that stirred every time I rode past there for the past sixty-seven years. 

The 4th Street Bridge across Massalina Bayou, the wooden one was better for memories,

but neither it nor the new one dated 1945 will be in my life this morning because Robert is still sick and we aren’t walking, the best walk being from Cove School down Hamilton or Linda Avenue, round Massalina Bayou, across the bridge, past the court house through McKenzie Park, maybe sit on a park bench for a couple minutes, down to E. Beach Drive and across Tarpon Dock Bridge, left on 2nd Court and back to the cars on Linda Avenue behind Cove School. We haven’t measured the route, but it takes us right at an hour of time and back seventy-two years in time to when we were in second grade, Mrs. Rigell’s class at Cove School. Not this morning, however, so I’ll do time in the exercise room at HV.  

Lacking an essay inspiration, I did the unusual and clicked on gmail to scan NYT or TWP. But an email from a Navy buddy popped up that sent me back fifty-seven years. Not set me back, sent me back. All good.

A recording of Liberty Call being passed over the 1MC in a Navy destroyer. And a reminder of a word being passed that I had forgotten. In a large warship it would be a bugle, but in my destroyer it was the bosun’s pipe, shrill and invasive. twee-eeeee twee-eeee. Reveille, reveille, all hands heave out and trice up. Reveille. If you haven’t been there, your life has been infinitely less than mine was. twee-eeee tweee-eeee, now mess gear, mess gear, clear all mess decks till pipe down. twee-ee twee-eee, sweepers man your brooms. ding ding ding ding ding now this is a drill, this is a drill, general quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations. Life and duty in a destroyer was the best the Navy got for me, so good that it moved me to augment to Regular Navy, 

to the disgust of my roommate, who hated the mid-watch and couldn’t wait to get back to his Russian studies at Harvard.

Would I do it all again? Maybe, if it could all be destroyer duty. For the most part, shore duty sucked, especially as the years went by. I might not do that part of Navy life over again.

So, this morning at sea in a U.S. Navy destroyer, and don't wake me.

 TW somewhere in +Time