Level Eight and falling

Some of us (I am one) are not enthusiastic about heights. As well as the ongoing review of high school plane geometry, one of several things I appreciated about the scaffolding that clung to both sides of Harbour Village during our soon two years of ongoing repairs after HMichael was ease in walking the highest level sidewalks not plastered against the wall.

Airplanes were fine. And Navy helicopters. But not rooftops and not railings looking out into space from on high. My first realization of that was Summer 1943 in the highest level of the Capitol dome in WashingtonDC, back when tourists could climb all the way to the top inside, looking down at the tiny ants in the Rotunda a straight drop down. I backed quickly away from the railing.

My one time overcoming that dis-ease was Summer 1957 at Officer Candidate School, Newport, RI. Recalled this here before. We were marched into a high hangar that may once have housed blimps, dirigibles the Navy had used for ASW in the past, converted to a huge indoor swimming pool, doubtless for training programs. We were told that the drill would simulate jumping into the sea from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, about sixty feet. We were instructed, climb the ladder to the platform, walk out on the diving board, Jump, hold our nose pinched shut with one hand, the other hand clutching our crotch. Just Do It.

Not my usual thing, but several OCs went before me. Watching them jump I knew I would jump. Anything you can do, I can do Too. Better or Worse, but certainly Too. Jump, splash, sink, surface, swim to the ladder, climb out. Would I do it today? Yes indeed. You first.

One member of our company C4 climbed to the platform, stepped to the diving board, backed away, and climbed back down. Not positive in my recollection, but I think that was his last day with us. Officer Candidates disenrolled for such as climbing down instead of jumping, or who were failing a class, were sent to the barracks to pack immediately and shipped off to Navy boot camp. It happened to several of our classmates that summer. Usually they were called out of class and were gone before we returned to the barracks. But one time we returned while a comrade was packing. As I sat talking with him, he told me sadly, "I wanted it for my mom". He was surely more disappointed than his mom, moms are that way. At any event, it was one of Robert Frost's roads, wasn't it: his road not taken was Jump.

Our OCS class started July 1957, four months, finish October 31, graduate November 1 and be commissioned Ensign, USNR and sent out to the fleet. My commissioning was held up. After repeated physical exams, the Navy transferred me to the U S Naval Hospital, Newport, RI for evaluation by the cardiology center, a process of tests and examinations, endlessly getting stuck, injected, and how many seconds before I tasted iodine.

Six weeks, it was a good and happy time. We were newlyweds and at Father David's doing, Linda moved from the old Damon family home down the road from the University of Rhode Island in Kingston, RI where his father had long been a professor, to a rented room in the home of a Damon family friend in Newport. That was where I woke up one Saturday morning in December 1957, to eerie silence until I heard the sound of a car's tires rolling crunching on the street outside. Opening the window, at age 22 I saw my first snow, reached out, scooped a handful, molded my first ever snowball, and turned to face Linda sitting up in the bed. We were so happy.

Those six weeks of reporting to hospital every morning, I worked in the office of the chief cardiologist. Answering his phone, making his appointments, keeping him posted on whatever. Captain MacLaughlin, Medical Corps, USN, he was a really good guy whom I enjoyed being around and working for. Two weeks before Christmas 1957, the medical board he chaired convened with me as their object, classified me asymptomatic heart murmur NCD (not cause for disqualification), swore me in as Ensign, USNR, sent me forth into the first day of the rest of my life.

We jumped in our green 1948 Dodge sedan, headed home to Panama City on Christmas leave until just after New Years 1958, and a lifetime of roads not taken.

This August 2020 morning nearly 63 years later, I'm sitting outside in a chair on our Beck side porch. The clouds gathered, there was lightning and thunder, and now it's raining like all get out.

Laura

Marco

High Priestly Breakfast. On a wedding present sterling silver bread plate, the other half of Friday's noon dinner: rare hamburger on corn tortilla, with lettuce, tomato, raw onion. And one stuffed-egg-half crisscrossed with two anchovy fillets. Black coffee.

BLM&PTL