this 'n that
My back to the Bay, light coming in from the wrong side, needs to be from the left for right-handers, which has to do with the shadow that's cast, I'm sitting here in Linda's chair, actually it's the electric riser chair we bought for my mother for her 97th or 98th birthday, I'm sipping my second cup of black from my PAPA mug.
Thin-sliced a biscuit from Publix and toasted the three slices, nod to an early breakfast following two morsels of chocolate with my first PAPA mug of black while the sky was as black as the cuppa.
Daylight now, 38°F and the wind gusting to 30 mph. Can't be told from the picture as I hoped it might, but the wind is moving the Bay water in what looks like sea-swells. I remember sea-swells from destroyer days.
From the second ship not so much, what I recall from those days is my unhappiness with my chosen life that first evening underway, 1 Nov 1969 enroute from SanDiego to WestPac, nights in Danang harbor watching our planes lob bombs into targets high in the adjacent mountains, and talking to family my allotted five minutes on single sideband that 1969 Christmas Day at sea off Vietnam. By then, the year at Naval War College had peaked, pinnacled my joy with Navy life, and that second sea duty was the beginning of down the other side. Well - - I'm reminiscing aren't I - - there was an up side to it: when the ship went into Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco, whoever from ship's company wanted to was allowed to bring a car up from San Diego, my VW Beetle up on the hangar deck, and I loved exploring San Francisco those weeks, buying sushi from a Japanese sushi place and large bottle of Kirin, driving up to Lincoln Park and enjoying my sushi and beer while looking out on the Golden Gate Bridge and across at Sausalito. I guess you had to be there.
For many reasons I did also enjoy my second tour in WashingtonDC, a commander in a captain's billet with a corner office on the fifth floor, where I enjoyed an outstanding view. Among other things to look at, Admiral Rickover popping out of the apartment building across the street every morning, turning to look both ways, then setting out for wherever his office was. There was the story in those days, I've recalled this here before, that one morning he turned and went the wrong way, wandered and got lost in the Crystal City Underground: he found a payphone, called his secretary and shouted "I'm lost g-dammit, come find me" and slammed the phone down. Officers I knew who had worked for Rickover had hundreds of what were known as "Rickover Stories". Called "father of the atomic submarine", he was a character.
But I'm a priest now, aren't I, supposed to be thinking of holy things, not about those years.
Bible story for Sunday: an angel comes to console Joseph, who has just found out that his fiancé is pregnant and he's not the father. Bummer.
T+
Thin-sliced a biscuit from Publix and toasted the three slices, nod to an early breakfast following two morsels of chocolate with my first PAPA mug of black while the sky was as black as the cuppa.
Daylight now, 38°F and the wind gusting to 30 mph. Can't be told from the picture as I hoped it might, but the wind is moving the Bay water in what looks like sea-swells. I remember sea-swells from destroyer days.
From the second ship not so much, what I recall from those days is my unhappiness with my chosen life that first evening underway, 1 Nov 1969 enroute from SanDiego to WestPac, nights in Danang harbor watching our planes lob bombs into targets high in the adjacent mountains, and talking to family my allotted five minutes on single sideband that 1969 Christmas Day at sea off Vietnam. By then, the year at Naval War College had peaked, pinnacled my joy with Navy life, and that second sea duty was the beginning of down the other side. Well - - I'm reminiscing aren't I - - there was an up side to it: when the ship went into Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco, whoever from ship's company wanted to was allowed to bring a car up from San Diego, my VW Beetle up on the hangar deck, and I loved exploring San Francisco those weeks, buying sushi from a Japanese sushi place and large bottle of Kirin, driving up to Lincoln Park and enjoying my sushi and beer while looking out on the Golden Gate Bridge and across at Sausalito. I guess you had to be there.
For many reasons I did also enjoy my second tour in WashingtonDC, a commander in a captain's billet with a corner office on the fifth floor, where I enjoyed an outstanding view. Among other things to look at, Admiral Rickover popping out of the apartment building across the street every morning, turning to look both ways, then setting out for wherever his office was. There was the story in those days, I've recalled this here before, that one morning he turned and went the wrong way, wandered and got lost in the Crystal City Underground: he found a payphone, called his secretary and shouted "I'm lost g-dammit, come find me" and slammed the phone down. Officers I knew who had worked for Rickover had hundreds of what were known as "Rickover Stories". Called "father of the atomic submarine", he was a character.
But I'm a priest now, aren't I, supposed to be thinking of holy things, not about those years.
Bible story for Sunday: an angel comes to console Joseph, who has just found out that his fiancé is pregnant and he's not the father. Bummer.
T+