you had to be there

No way. Way. No way. Way. No way. Way. Linda says I slept ten and a half hours, waking up at 7:38, with one rest stop. Now, coffee and one square of dark chocolate for wakeup. Still, I’ve been getting up at four o’clock for forty years, so this doesn’t feel right or quite natural, as though I’ve wasted the best part of the day.

Eight o’clock, out on my porch, sound of sawing and hammering, city workmen on a project repairing the nearest boardwalk in Oaks by the Bay park at my feet next door. USAF jets fading in the distance; in the bay seven floors down just below me, a mullet jumped. Yep, this is it, this life is the heaven we get, don’t waste one day of it.

There’s the Navy going out for another hard day at sea. Not the Navy I was in, they’ll return in time for Happy Hour.

Just remembering, reminiscing. If I’m some time and place else instead this morning, I’m in uniform, with CharlieFour company, marching across the parade grind. Today’s my turn as squad leader. Hup. Hup. Yo left yo right yo left. Hup. Hup. OCS, Newport, Rhode Island. I'm 22 years old, early autumn 1957, my first strange uneasy feeling of guilt that summer’s over now, I should be in school. I’m not in real school this time of year for the first time since I was five years old. Right now I should be in Gainesville, walking across the Plaza of the Americas to class hoping the Gators beat Miami, instead of here in this sailor suit in some strange new world. I guess you had to be there. Hoping but don’t know it yet, instead of OCSA in a sailor suit, this time next year I’ll be an ensign walking out a pier to board a Navy destroyer: my all time best duty ever. Destroyer duty was so good that I augmented to Regular Navy and stayed twenty years.  

I guess you had to be there.

More mullet jumping. And there's a cormorant.

Thos+ from Navy blues to +Time+