Ages and Ages ... Thence
Retirement is where Monday and Tuesday are the same as Saturday.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday too if that's what you want. It's even better than good old TGIF.
Like a comic strip character waking with a 'pop!', my dreams usually evaporate with the rising sun, but this morning's dream woke with me. In uniform, I was in the Navy, deciding to stay instead of retiring and going to seminary. Service dress blue bravo, blue uniform (it's actually black, don't know why it's called blue but it is, and it's pretty much the same uniform in all navies of the world) with three gold stripes on each sleeve, ribbons not medals, white dress shirt with plain straight collar, black tie, shiny black shoes, white cap cover. We used to have service dress blue alpha, which was the same except blue (black) cap cover. The uniform one wore was prescribed by the commandant of the naval district, and I started in Newport, Rhode Island, where the commandant of the First Naval District prescribed service dress blue alpha. Memory puts it all back together, and I remember wearing it here in Panama City in December 1957 when we were home on leave and I went to Rotary with Linda's father. He wanted to introduce me in uniform, and I wanted to wear it.
A property of memory is its ability to take you there at will. I parked on 5th Street down by the post office and walked across Jenks Avenue to the Dixie Sherman Hotel, took the elevator up to the floor where the banquet room was. Seems to me it was the mezzanine. Home, I'd been there many times, to Kiwanis Club as Key Club representative during my Bay High years, and to the Christmas Ball and the Spring Prom. There today, Ensign Weller, a newly commissioned one-striper, one of the most junior officers in the U. S. Navy. Would I go back? You betcha, but I'm certain of nothing, so ask me again tomorrow.
What's the next thing memory brings? San Diego: stopping and buying two dungeness crabs and a bottle of wine on my way home Friday evenings when the ship was in port.
'pop!'
As the dream woke with me this morning I was visualizing the uniform with four stripes, what will I decide ... knowing how way leads on to way. Here in the yellow wood with Robert Frost, I may go home by a different road this time round.
TW
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday too if that's what you want. It's even better than good old TGIF.
Like a comic strip character waking with a 'pop!', my dreams usually evaporate with the rising sun, but this morning's dream woke with me. In uniform, I was in the Navy, deciding to stay instead of retiring and going to seminary. Service dress blue bravo, blue uniform (it's actually black, don't know why it's called blue but it is, and it's pretty much the same uniform in all navies of the world) with three gold stripes on each sleeve, ribbons not medals, white dress shirt with plain straight collar, black tie, shiny black shoes, white cap cover. We used to have service dress blue alpha, which was the same except blue (black) cap cover. The uniform one wore was prescribed by the commandant of the naval district, and I started in Newport, Rhode Island, where the commandant of the First Naval District prescribed service dress blue alpha. Memory puts it all back together, and I remember wearing it here in Panama City in December 1957 when we were home on leave and I went to Rotary with Linda's father. He wanted to introduce me in uniform, and I wanted to wear it.
A property of memory is its ability to take you there at will. I parked on 5th Street down by the post office and walked across Jenks Avenue to the Dixie Sherman Hotel, took the elevator up to the floor where the banquet room was. Seems to me it was the mezzanine. Home, I'd been there many times, to Kiwanis Club as Key Club representative during my Bay High years, and to the Christmas Ball and the Spring Prom. There today, Ensign Weller, a newly commissioned one-striper, one of the most junior officers in the U. S. Navy. Would I go back? You betcha, but I'm certain of nothing, so ask me again tomorrow.
What's the next thing memory brings? San Diego: stopping and buying two dungeness crabs and a bottle of wine on my way home Friday evenings when the ship was in port.
'pop!'
As the dream woke with me this morning I was visualizing the uniform with four stripes, what will I decide ... knowing how way leads on to way. Here in the yellow wood with Robert Frost, I may go home by a different road this time round.
TW