Sitting in my comfy chair and reading in the morning. The snow sneaked in last night and the small step ladder outside the kitchen window shows six inches on the three steps. A sturdy little thing of aluminum that helps the reach to the kitchen roof with the snow rake. Just clean around the two vents and try to control the ice dams.
Musing on writing something and finding solace in a brief Tennyson quote: “Death closes all, but but something near the end, some work of noble note, my yet be done” 1.
It occurs to most of us, that what have we yet to do now that the curtain is getting close to coming down on the play? As most of us, I have worked hard and made a few good choices to be where I am now. The great dream of a beautiful wife, younger than I! Two great sons of intellect and achievements that love us and our 30 acre homestead.
We have all worked hard and with sweat and satisfaction through most of it. The gardens of provision and beauty, our mechanical shop of provision and repair, still usable now for us and friends. Tools that only need an occasional handle because we use them. Heating with wood and always splitting and stacking and calculating supply. I have gotten so fussy in the winter that I have a tape measure out there to make certain certain lengths are put in the wheelbarrow. Long, short and gnarly for day and night fires in the stove. It’s in the middle of the house.
All of the accomplishments great and small some of which are still visible. Some are tenuous and need conversation to reveal them to one another. Pictures on the stairway wall of births of the kids, a summer kitchen and a field all limned by a photo of Julie, very pregnant with our first son, Bjorn. Myself, just our of basic training taken by a pro in town with my cover just so, leaning to my right in my dress blues. I look happy and am looking to my right and smiling.
Another accomplishment that I just heard today from my son Soren’s good friend Zeke. I asked
him before a Saturday breakfast what he would call our home. He only paused for a few seconds and said; “Casa Del Pas” house of peace. A good handful of men come to join us at times. Good strong young men that are bonded with Soren and us. All of them live in the area but many times Julie and I awaken to extra boots in the entry.
Making sure the coffee maker is filled with water and the fire is properly set and banked is my job as I rise earlier. Breakfast on Saturday mornings with pancakes and eggs/bacon and good coffee after an hour or two. One bathroom and the ballet for it and the preparation for breakfast is done as the snow keeps coming. Pastor Zeke blesses the food and our meal is shared. House of peace indeed. “The author appears on the last act, the best of all”2 1 and 2 Lord Tennyson
Things in the sixth fleet were perking along pretty well. I was informed by my team that I was allowed to have an apartment in Naples as it was our home port. I found one through shipboard scuttlebutt and moved into a classy five story shopping center, the Galleria Umberto. The entire roof was glass and the view from the top floors was magnificent.
My landlady was very experienced with navy borders and gave me all the lowdown on her rules of the place and the lack of heat in this beautiful masterpiece of a building which is made of marble. The use of a gas space heater was available to me. It was winter in Naples and there is no snow but it was chilly. The galleria was built in 1887 and central heating was not part of the construction plan. It was, and is, a shopping center. Way ahead of the Mall of America.
Also as an advantage to having Naples as my home port I also wore ‘civies’ when I was ‘on the beach’ (civilian clothing and on land) We weren’t in Naples a whole lot of the time, but it was pleasant to buy clothing to wear in town and not be conspicuous as a military person.
I met a very pleasant English girl touring and dressed in my Harris tweeds looked respectable.
I invited her to join me on the local train to Pompeii to view the very old ruins from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius 79 AD. The town was buried in 9 feet of volcanic ash so there are a lot of body impressions and quite a few buildings there. I love history and so did she. Unfortunately all of the extremely pornographic frescoes also were preserved and the train ride back to Naples was pretty quiet and she left quickly at the station. She did not understand it was the first time for me to visit the ancient ruins as well. The brief friendship was nice but later on I lost all the nice clothes including the Harris tweed jacket. A total misunderstanding with the Navy.
Once I was out late and walking out of the elevator to get to my room, the iron gate to the extended walkway was locked. No problem. I just hopped up on the railing and twisted around to the other side. I did not look down to the marble floor five stories below. I was surprised that I would do this bold move but I wondered about the real sailors who climbed the rigging to the top gallant sails back before my enlistment. The elevator took a 10 lire coin to go up but the sailors who used them had a trick to avoid the coin slot. Press the call button and just a moment before the elevator stops, push the stop button, open the door and push the floor you want to go to. It hits bottom and then heads back up with out a stop nor complaint. 10 lire which was nicknamed the ‘deech’ worth about a penny or two. Old time game console just for fun.
I had an alarm clock in my cold apartment so I get back to fleet landing in time. It would have been interesting if it was built at this time so if I recorded a wake up sound of my own. “Reveille, reveille, all hands turn to and trice up. Sweepers, sweepers man your brooms. The smoking lamp is lit in all authorized spaces. Now reveille, reveille”
That greeting at 6 comes every morning on the 1MC speakers. (Except when we were in the war and everyone was standing 24/12 watches.) This wake up call was accompanied by a bosun’s whistle in the beginning which started out high and dropped about two octaves at the end. It was very akin to a locomotive steam whistle at RR crossings on the last of the letter Q. Long-long-short-long. I always liked that sound of the lonesome long end note. Sounds like a lonesome loon call. I Still like it. Not the reveille part though. Old navy stuff. Sweepers? Smoking lamps? Back again to the tall ship sailors who slept in hammocks. (that’s the trice up part) Another tradition that all military embrace. Comforting to be linked to the past. We did not sleep in hammocks but the bunks were tightly placed. Your head, next bunk beside you, his feet.
Rising up in the morning, getting my dress blues on and walking down to fleet landing to catch a ride on the liberty boat. There was a push cart vendor on the dock that sold hot sugar donuts that were big around. On those cold winter mornings in Naples those warm donuts were a saving grace to an espresso picked up on the walk down. Still like that morning sugar and caffeine blast. I use cinnamon and sugar on my toast now. Tradition.
As I reminisce and still see and hear those things of 60 years past, I also thank my Lord Jesus for the memories and the sharp recall of those times. Memories I can give to others and the stories found to be uplifting and reassuring in many ways. He has told me so.
Think upon your past as you also realize this miracle of life and a lot of the lessons learned. I must have a lot to learn as I realize I am still here and getting somewhat older. Or old period. He loves me, he loves you. As my favorite movie of all time, is titled “It’s a wonderful life” Indeed Clarence, it is.
It was a perfect day for a garden party. Carrie had everyone there and she and Julie were out in the garden. Some tips were welcomed about potato bugs from Julie. She showed how they moved and where they came from. “Under the ground?” Yup. But you can control a small amount of them by just squishing them as they. Or there is a benign way by using diatomaceous earth powder! Any bug with an exoskeleton can be controlled. It was a new word and very good advice from an expert on those things. Bugs.
The round patio table was set with delicious looking pastries and snacks sorts of things. Crackers and French Brie. Croissants and small glass dishes filled with pesto. There was fine china cups that seemed to expect coffee and linen at the places where lawn chairs were set.
A high English tea picture set for the honored guests. Gary began digging into the brie and, as another writer, was delighted with all his fellow writers, and good friends, coming over to the table to join him.
There was lively conversation approaching as Dave and Sally were on either side of Nigel excitedly filling him in on Scripture verses that explain how this glorious party resembles another to come. Bob was dancing before them, sometimes walking backwards and giving encouragement to the three of them. How exciting it must be to hear these grand stories. Battles and victories with noble people. Suffering with unbelievable impact. Many things almost hidden from casual reading that book.
Dana showed up with fresh smoked lake trout and whitefish from superior. It got picked clean in a short time and the guests were welcomed into the house with towels and hand soap handy at the kitchen sink.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, just off the porch, Norm and Peter were whipping up a brew of excellent coffee. Fresh ground and just flown in with Carrie and Peter’s earlier visit to St. Helena island. Best coffee beans on the planet for only forty dollars an ounce. What a smell when the grinder did it’s work. Oh my,I never thought I would even smell coffee like this! Ecstatic with my history knowledge kicking in. The very island that Napoleon was exiled to! I wondered if it was worth the exile to have that coffee every day. It is said that Napoleon was a coffee aficionado. There weren’t better places for him to be exiled.
Eddie came in with a really nice linen towel around his arm and he was dressed to ‘the nines’ with an excellent servants black outfit. He delighted everyone when he walked out with a tray loaded with the best espresso ever. Sugar and cream in matching china as well.
It was a gathering of writers that came to enjoy one another’s company and hear stories from experienced raconteurs. The soiree lasted until the evening dew began and the grass was sparkly with the moonlight.
Have you ever thought what heaven would be like? What the King’s table that Moses and seventy some people got to dine at with the creator of everything that is and will be? This was a dim preamble of sorts.
Writers can be persnickety and filled with themselves, but not today. Not in the garden of delights. What a gift for these poetic people to try and capture it in words that just didn’t seem adequate to describe it all. It’s pretty good, Jack Gator
The flash and flare in the east and it is time. Move away from the comfort and deep sleep, awaken to dawn. Shut of the alarm clock, rise to the circadian rhythm of my body. Grasp my robe from the hanger on the back of our bedroom door. Close the bathroom door and glance at my tousled hair. A small pleasure in the new toilet seat that lowers itself slowly and doesn’t bang.
There are duties and places to be and now, it’s easier to find things because there is light beginning to arrive from the east. There is a small Brownian movement from the dust and I turn on the coffee maker. Go back in the parlor and open the side draft, rake the coals and put on a few pieces of wood.
I Find the good bread and drop two slices in with the timer set to max. The good bread is heavy. I ponder finding the cash for that upgrade on my cell phone already as I check the wood stove. Can we afford it? After all, everyone in the family has a new phone. Mine is old and I need to be current. It is the state of made things, they are old by the date they are put for sale. New and improved. No ‘good till’ or expired dates on your cell phone, but now I can’t find a screen guard to replace the cracked one. “You have to get a new one, yours is several years old. How much? Only 35 bucks a month forever.
It’s better with the shredded wheat on the shelf, we all know it’s good for a few years on our shelf. Silly thoughts along with dream remnants that linger until they too, pass into the storage area in my mind that is never too full and unavailable now and then.
There is a shuffle and purpose at hand to indeed waken fully and the hot caffeine warms my old ceramic cup. Carefully, set it down besides the fresh toast and open up a book next to the vitamins and various pills. The accouterments of morning rituals. The book now at hand is a collection of short stories that take slow reading to understand. Sarte, Sallinger and the rabbit eared current choice is Tolstoy’s ‘The death of Ivan Illych’
Nothing to it. Toast and coffee and a little orange juice to sluice down a hearty meal of existential writing and with some of the greatest short stories ever written. It’s still early and my son is stirring a bit. I come to the part of the story when Ivan knows he is dying and no one will be honest with him about how they feel about it and him. Only a peasant boy tells him the truth.
A quote from la Rochefoucauld is remembered: “One can neither stare long at the sun nor at death” During the war the thought was, it will come quickly It did to that shipmate on the horizon. It was close but I am OK. Next stop, Palma De Mallorca. Great liberty! My acquaintances ship has been sunk over the horizon. Tough luck. Time to celebrate after freedom from with the liberty boat and have a few drinks in his memory.
We go on, inwardly feeling we will live forever and poor old Ivan, it must have been his diet or that he just wouldn’t go to gymnasium as they advised him so many times. After all, his whist game was more important to him. There was nothing to be done. and here I am hundreds of years later, dressed for a church funeral service. I am Still in my book and almost awake.
A funeral then to go to. The fact that we are soon to be in that silken and narrow box does not cross our conscience. Even when the preacher tells us we are off the hook by death of Jesus’ sacrifice, we do not comprehend the sacrifice, it’s not totally understood. Tithe well and we might walk as Enoch did and not have to suffer as Ivan illych did. That’s it! The second coming and it will all work out! Don’t worry, be happy.
Death is defeated knowledge lingers and we are all good to go. Mourning seems to have passed us by. Ask not who the bell tolls for, it’s you. Old Ivan, it was his time to go. The rest of our family is up and dressed and we drive a dozen miles to the church for a funeral for a neighbors son.
Is there lunch after this funeral? Should be. It’s good here at the church of endless life. Maybe if I get in line before every one else does! I do not want to miss that apple pie I saw as I walked by the kitchen!
No one knows the hour of our death. People of faith in Jesus know what His resurrection means for us. Still, I like it here and I know my loved ones will have Shiva at the house. I do not like to think about the weeping, just as I wept as the coffin wheeled by me and I reached from my seat and gently prayed as the polished wood slid beneath my extended fingers. A young boy taken from us in tragedy.
Live well, love well and spend a lot of time speaking and listening to our creator that knew us when we were yet to be born. “why me?” “why am I here and what am I to do? I ask of Him. He answers gently. “I knew you would know the joy and sorrows of life and I Like how you write and talk about it and Me. That seems pretty good.
It began in high school and the young physics students made friends. I was the teachers pet. I had all the math classes aced Solid, Trig, Quadratics and so on. I would stay after class and tidy up all the Bunsen burners and the testing equipment. One of the students, Don, stayed after with me and we began the friendship process geek to geek. Neither of us were on the any teams in sports or forensics or even knew any cheerleaders. Just a couple of guys interested in electronics.
My teacher, Miss Bertie, had the entire class come over to my house and see my ham radio setup. My rig was in my bedroom and the thrill of having one of the cheerleaders sitting on my bed while I explained and demonstrated the rig was a touchstone that lasted for a while.
Don was there too and he was hooked. I gave him his novice exam because I was licensed to do so and he got on the air too and soon had his general class license. He had a friend at another high school a little south of us and the three of us began to get serious about amateur radio. Especially the part about having cheerleaders sitting enthralled on my bed. One time deal though
The three of us started to be pretty good friends and their parents were pleased with our choices of classmates. I started to hang out with my new friends, Don and Loren and we all hung out at Loren’s place as his dad was a drummer in a Dixieland band that played downtown at Brady’s bar. We were allowed to stand in the back of the room and listen and watch Loren’s dad, Lloyd play with band that had a stage above the bar. Smokey and loud and our first taste of adults at play. We were not anywhere near 21 but we got free cokes and nods of approval.
The band was called the “Lloyd George Quintet” They were good. It was tough on Loren’s dad as he was a hemophiliac and his position as drummer was not a low impact one.
The patrons really liked the Quintet and there were always drinks handed up from the bar from appreciate listeners. A lot of drinks. The music flowed on for hours along with the booze.
We would pick Lloyd up after his gig, load the drums and pour Lloyd in the back seat and take him home. We had a big Plymouth with a bass drum in the back seat and we began ‘fronting’ down west Broadway and acting cool at the Clock drive in. Our ‘band’ was nonexistent but we already had a name ready. “the Fables” that’s what we were, a fabulous fable with ham radio geeks eating fries and burgers with all the looks of admiration we fantasized. My friends formed the band later but I was far away then. Loren was, of course, the drummer.
We had a little club every Friday night on air and would get together at 8 o’clock sharp on the ten meter band on AM (amplitude modulation..voice) and chat. I would lie on my sanctified bed and pull a string hooked up to my send and receive switch and lie down with my mic in my hand. It was about as geeky three guys get. We called our gathering “the fish net” This was what passed for our entertainment in the late fifties of the last century. Pretty swell eh?
The last time we met was when I was on liberty before my next duty station overseas as a radio operator. We watched the infamous Minneapolis tornadoes march across the sky south to north around 1965. My friends were still in college and exempt from the draft. The big Buick convertible of my mothers was rocking as we watched those tornadoes. The heavy Buick began to sway back and forth as we were up on a hill on memorial drive.
It was time to leave the danger zone and I drove home. They avoided serving in the danger zone in the military and stayed in college. And we all moved on. I was saved by God several times afterwards and Would like to share that with them today, but my letters go unanswered.
I am Puzzled. 73’s to you. 88’s to the cheerleader too.
Jack Gator K0JMV
P.S. Praise the Lord for pleasant and humorous memories and the miracles of life we are blessed with!
There it was in a somewhat obscure quote from St. Francis of Asuza. Ora Est Labore. A simple instruction to pray while you work. Or, just pray, a lot..every minute of your waking hours as one of my favorite authors advised me to do. So I try to do it and I and keep interrupting myself with extreme trivialities and irritations. I am now becoming aware of how trivial these distractions can be.
I love being distracted by small children, the ones with wonder in their eyes. They search the
cosmos around them, searching for light reflecting their innermost desires. Love. The love they had for 9 months without interruption. Surrounded by their lover known by voice and presence. There is a mind in the unborn beyond our knowledge. Forming pathways upon the inner synapses that are there for thought. No one has interviewed an unborn child to know what is happening Far more than we can even imagine is ‘going on’ The concept of other and such. Twins? Oh my, that is a duet for eternity as two are one and they have a head start on the rest of us for they know about more that one other. Think of Jesus and John the baptist when they first met. Leaping with joy inside their mothers.
Not lifeless embryos or zygotes but created lives, formed for such a purpose yet to be seen by us
I was taken for a delightful breakfast on my birthday (kidnapped on my birthday) and I spent the whole day with my family at a nearby seaport I am particularly fond of. A lot of people are also fond of the place and we wandered about, visiting vendors known and new. Clothing, violins, blown glass and blended scotch whiskey.
I was lead to just sit near a fountain, It was a bench by a tree where I sat and suddenly, I began to pray for the people I saw. Children,parents, grandparents on a grand day out. I do not remember those short prayers but it was fun and fulfilling. I saw a child on all fours, perhaps a year old and we looked at one another with a romance of life in our eyes. She reached out her hand when she got close and I slowly touched a finger to hers. More smiles and giggles from us both. Soon I had to go elsewhere and she began to cry when I waved a small wave and I felt we had both been satisfied right then in that timeless connection of love given and returned. The loss on her face at seeing me withdraw is more than I can bear even now.
It was better than the paintings I saw at the Vatican, paintings on our hearts endure forever and that means eternity. I have a few of them and I wish I could share them with you but these words are all I have for a canvas. Pray while you work and sit and walk about. Love letters will pour out to you too.
Things were going well for me, teaching code and basic radio operation in San Diego. Still at Camp Nimitz and then things changed. A lot. I got orders to report to Comservron 6 in Naples Italy. I thought this must be an embassy position! Just like my first job as a radio operator for the Boy scouts! I went back to Minneapolis and caught a commercial flight to Italy via Heathrow, Berlin airports. How exciting for me, the great unknown Naval job overseas. I connected with the base in Naples and was put in a landing craft and deposited on the quarter deck of an old WWII fleet oiler. The Missisinewa AO 144
I declared, “there must be some mistake. I am to report to comservron 6!” The OOD told me I was standing on the quarterdeck of comservron 6. I saluted him and turned and saluted the flag off the stern and stepped forward with my seabag. A sailor was there waiting for me and he seemed to know what it all was about. He too, had a radioman symbol on his right shoulder along with a rocker that stated the command.
He showed me my quarters below deck and I stowed my gear and claimed my bunk. He then said he would show me my duty station. We headed aft. Is this were the radio room is? No, this is where the mess deck is. He explained: Every division on board has to send it’s most junior man to work the mess deck and that is your duty station right now. Oh. “Where do you work?” He also stated he worked the mess deck until I showed up. He was Smiling. Relieved of duty.
The mess deck lieutenant showed me where to go. The potato peeling compartment. I was to put a load of potatoes in a big stainless tub and turn it on. Water would spray in and the tub began to turn. It had notches much akin to a hand peeler all around the inside. It worked. The peels went over the side and the potatoes were quite smaller then. Dump them into a stainless bowl and repeat. I heard the bosuns pipe announce “Now arriving comservron 6” which meant our captain was aboard and we were getting underway.
I watched Naples slowly fade away and was pleased I had my very own porthole. Join the Navy and see the world though a porthole.
I peeled potatoes, went down to the freezer locker and brought up frozen chickens by the flock full. There was 324 men aboard plus staff which was my division. A lot of chickens and potatoes. There was always a lot of sliced bread for every meal. More on that later
I started to meet my fellow radiomen and began the process of friendship or not game. I felt very unfulfilled and gloomy. After a few months of scullery, frozen entrees and swabbing decks, I was informed that a new guy from our division was coming aboard! I was as happy as my 1st escort was and went to the quarterdeck when we anchored out in Malta. You know the drill.
The radio shack was on the 02 level above the main deck and I found it familiar. Same thing as I had at home a while ago. Dials and wires, guys with headphones on one ear and typewriters at every radio. Morse code keys too. I was relieved and assured by the undeniable smell of electronic power surging about the compartment. Just like my old bedroom without my bed next to my ‘rig’ I had faster code abilities then expected by the men and quickly move into the comm position of communicating with the big stations and ships we were tied to. I typed pretty well and when I got promoted when we were in Beirut, I began with my top secret clearance and a petty officers ‘crow’ on my uniforms. I was then trained in teletype in my own compartment and had to synchronize our deck to overhead transceiver with a signal from England every day. Eventually I ‘cut a tape’ at 80 words per minute. The tape was six holes across and every combination of the holes was a letter or a number. If I made a mistake, all I had to do was punch a special key and it would punch all the holes and no information would be put on the tape.
It was very good alone time because the only person allowed in besides me was our division officer, Lt Laird. A mustanger that achieved an officers rank the hard way. Work your way up from E2 to E8, master chief and move up the ladder a few more times. He was tough to say the least. Do not cross one of these guys, they can do anything they want and have all the respect due them. “Attention on deck!” “As you were men.” I had dreams of making it to chief, the brown shoe navy.
After six months at sea (one tour) the oiler was headed back to the states. Staff had to transfer all our gear, records and files to another fleet oiler next to us and begin another tour. The Neosho was my next ship. Almost all of the 300 plus ships company dreaded our arrival as it meant crowding, more work and new guys that were the command structure of the missions.
I was doing well with this life. We stopped at Izmir, Rhodes, Malta, Via France, Palma De Majorca, Gibraltar, Barcelona and a few other places I cannot remember. We always had to ‘anchor out’ because no government wanted us in port with 8 million gallons of various petroleum. I loved the bunker oil because it was stored below our deck quarters. It had to be heated to make it flow. As the ship slowly rocked, I heard the flow of oil slowly back and forth and it sounded like waves at the beach. I would be asleep easily. In the winter below the decks were warm. There were some perks to being on a big fleet oiler. To be continued chapter 5
My second commercial airplane ride took me to San Diego for the second time in my life.
The first time was as a 17 year old representative of Fashion Curtain Company in Traverse City Michigan. This time I was bused to recruit depot at Camp Nimitz and met with a big Marine Gunny that became my new focus in life. The usual hair buzz cut and a lot of shouting and insults. Pukes, trainees, moms boys, etc. A lot of it was true and we shaped up fast. Fire watches, endless screaming and shouting and a little manhandling. Men that know basic training
can recall those things. Mostly with laughter and even fondness for finally some direction in our lives that actually changed us. With a laugh the gunny told me I got my draft notice in the mail
We trained on board the USS Recruit with many things a ship has to offer. Ladders, hatches, fire drills. Rope, line and small stuff for knot tying and spring lines and lanyards. Lots of knots. This was important stuff for us later on in life as well. How to tie your laundry on lines with small stuff, how to slide down a ‘ladder’ (stairs) on the rails. It was neat except for all the physical training and endless marching. Left, right, left right..pick it up! Those drill sergeants ran up walls and do more push ups than there were possible. And leap and clap their hands after coming up. We were wimps.
Suddenly, there was a call for musicians and singers! The Navy Choir need some guys that could sing and march and take orders well. I stepped forward (NEVER step forward to volunteer!) the choir director was from the Mormon Tabernacle and knew his stuff. “Sing these notes” In or out and sometimes got praise. There were 10 of us in the Blue Jackets Choir. I remember their faces I remember them and where some of them went afterwards. ‘Father Flanagan in the back row went on to Pensacola to be a Navel Aviator, things like that. I am in the front row 2nd from right. We sang ‘For those in Peril on the Sea’ the Navy anthem and the National anthem along with several classical church songs on Sunday at the officers services. Marching in parades and more boot camp stuff to go with it. We had our dress blues already and there were quite a few puzzled men in our class that could not understand why an E6 was in training with them (1st class petty officer with three red stripes and a ‘crow’ on my sleeve) would just answer that I was recruit education officer which was true in a way.
I skated through boot and was assigned to A school on base for training to be a radioman. Not to New London for Submarine training! I wanted to be a nuclear technician as a career choice but my color vision was inadequate and I wore glasses. Recruiter lied to me. A common procedure, after all, the draft was full bore and I did not want to go to Viet Nam under the national draft. As I mentioned, I was drafted in boot camp and just missed the chance to be discharged early and come home with a flag over me.
The Lord of my life was unfolding His plan and I had no idea that was happening. The hymns we sang in the choir were beautiful and that planted small seeds of wonder. Much later in my life I heard His voice save me from death and to say it was extraordinary is not enough. It was a miracle.
So after basic training I went to A school right there at the camp and I was turned into a teacher at radio school. My ham radio license paid off and I was given liberty every weekend and I realized soon that this was the best duty station I would have from then on. I was free to visit my ‘sister’ during the weekends and you can read about it in “A sister from Laguna Beach” here at Gatorsgracenotes.com.
Grade School at Loring Elementary in North Minneapolis. Four blocks away from the Russell Avenue home and an easy walk. Twice. There was no lunchroom at the school and the walk home was a welcome relief for most of the students unless one of the class bullies was lurking about.
There isn’t much recall about Kindergarten ( German word derivative of ‘children’s garden’ )
I do remember 3rd grade when I boldly asked Miss Peterzaine when we would study soil cosmology or depth structure. She laughed and said that would come later.
Indicative of a precocious Asperger child. That term or diagnosis was not known at that time. It would seem I fit the profile. I was intellectually in another world and still am according to friends and family. Obsessive stimulation by silken edges on blankets, sniffing of hands and counting everything. Still do it. I got by. Glasses by 3rd grade too as there was difficulty in reading the blackboard.
I do remember the transformation of my mind when I first saw leaves instead of green blobs! It helped with the squeaky chalk writing. Dry erase still squeaks now and then but there aren’t any erasers to clap together outside. Chalk is still used in sidewalk games and art.
Thinking of softer stone and a stylus, it seems to be progress to keyboards and printers. Unless an older typewriter with the key jamming as you typed a little fast.
All of the odd things about grade school still lurk in my mind. Remember the ‘duck and cover’ when the spinning air horns would rattle the windows? Cold war or tornadoes. I embraced the image of becoming one with my desk with a nuclear attack. I liked my desk and it was comfy down there.
Home for lunch and a meeting with a war damaged Croatian boy and that was about it. Pleasant, predictable and perfect for me. I love routine. Still do. More on that later.
High school in 1956 and my sister was a junior and is this place, there was a cafeteria for lunch. I did OK and took every math and science class available. I was very interested in electricity and went after amateur radio in eighth grade. Being a recluse, it was easy and my dad helped me with equipment and setting up a ‘long wire’ from the house to a boulevard tree. It was up as high as a city fireman ladder can climb and it worked well. I was using Morse code to talk to other ‘Hams’ Not long after I wanted to move from Novice to General class licensing and studied electronic circuitry and perfected my code. A trip downtown to city hall came and I passed the technical exam and the 13 words a minute Morse code test. “youngest person ever to pass the test” they said. K0JMV is my call sign. Still have it.
I made friends with some other fans of radio in another high school and since I was now a general class operator, I can give them the test to become novices. We formed a little club and I have lost touch with them. They still have their call signs and I found them in a ham publication. I wrote a few of them and they never responded. I have many fond memories of them and am sad that I can’t reconnect. Isn’t that the way we are? We remember our home location and phone numbers after many decades.
I was very proud of Dad and even got to slide down the fire pole when he gave me a tour. He was a pretty stern guy at times and there were some scary moments between him and Mom.
Their bedroom was on the second floor and mine was right where the stairway began.
There was a bad argument when dad found out about mom cheating on him with a fellow fireman that lived nearby. Mom cried for help and I came out of my room and peaked into the kitchen. She was on the floor and Dad was standing over her with an angry demeanor.
One day, I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and saw Dad coming down stairs with a suitcase. He turned to the right and went through my room to the small porch and out to his car in the garage and that was the last I saw him until twenty years later. I hunched over the sink when he left and sobbed because I knew this was the end of our family. My mother and my sister stood outside the bathroom door and giggled and laughed. Odd to be separated between people you love that way. Things changed in me and those changes took decades to be brought into the light. I never forgot those moments but now they do not define who I am. It’s only light in the darkness of those things that changes them to stories rather than character.
I began to into a bit of a decline at this point. (that’s a quote from Marvin the paranoid android) It was a true condition. When my mother remarried after a short time from Dad’s departure it did not bode well for my sister and I. My stepfather moved right in after the wedding. Upstairs of course. He wound up sitting on my bed one night, completely nude, and started to touch me. I bolted up and ran out the door to the porch yelling. Not too much later, my sister told me he had braced her up against the wall asking for sex. Things were not going well. Escape seemed like a good idea for both of us. Sis got pregnant with a dentist and I left after high school for adventure in San Diego. By the way, the dentists name was Doctor Wunder and he was from Painsville, Minnesota. Seemed appropriate. They quickly married and escaped. Decades later I had him fix some bad dry sockets from wisdom teeth surgery. He was really gentle and good. He indeed, was a wonder.
Almost immediately after my high school graduation, I went with a classmate to San Diego on a whim and we got an apartment and begin to sell Encyclopedias with a reference book called a Syntopicon. We wore our graduation suits and forerunners of men in suits that also went door to door talking about their faith. We never sold one and I am always friendly to men in suits that come to my door with briefcases.
We had no money for food and so I used my briefcase to prowl the neighborhood for fruit trees and we ate a lot of oranges and grapefruit. I still love grapefruit juice. It’s hard to find in the marketplace these days and I get by with orange juice. Food memories of rescues by fruit. A classmate that was a great boxing champ years later, came out and rescued us. We tucked our suits back in the suitcases and drove home to Minneapolis in an old white Packard that burned oil. The trunk and rear bumper where not white anymore after that trip.
By that time, Mom and her fireman husband had moved north further towards the city limits and I moved into a spare bedroom with them. Quickly obtaining a job in a wood processing plant I worked hard and bought the car of my dreams. A 1961 MGA convertible. (that job is in a column on this web page titled ‘Freedoms bouquet with Tea’)
At this time, there was a war overseas in Viet Nam and the national draft was working strong. I was very 1A which means top of the list. I signed up with a Navy Recruiter to be assigned to the Nuclear Submarine force as a Nuclear Technician. They still call them Boats. I had the intellect and Electronics experience with straight A’s in math so it was a shoe in. The recruiter did not reveal two things to me: I had glasses and my color vision had some issues. This story continues in several columns: ‘Santa Fe Super Chief’ and ‘A sister in Laguna Beach’ Enjoy the stories, they are all true
It was just a memento, really. A friend had given me the coin, in honor of my service in the six day war, back in the middle sixties. (The story is in my column, Soaring.) It is a recollection of the times at sea when my ship was threatened by a Russian guided missile Frigate at night.
That young woman could buy a coffee in Jerusalem at a Cofix store or some noodles with the coin, but it meant more than that. It was a confirmation from a total stranger that Jesus holds her tight, and will always love her. Right here right now. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator.
The rescue came from ‘above’ with a tomcat fighter on our side of the war. Battle group stuff.No body died at that time but it was very terrifying nonetheless. For both ships and crews.
So, many decades later, that five shekel coin wound up on my dresser. Covered with dust many times and mostly forgotten with the usual dresser top debris. Pens, pencils, notes on small post it pads and a jewelry box with alligator pins, bow ties and very ancient and worthless cuff links. There even was an old hand-held ham radio transceiver up there with a nice whip antenna. Battery was dead. I found the charger and the battery works. Two meter rig, handier than a cell phone with 5 watts instead of 1/2 or less.
One day, a Sunday, I was getting ready to go to my volunteer position on a prayer team. Early in the morning as the church was about an hour and a quarter drive away. I grabbed a handful of quarters to buy an espresso and at the last moment put them aside on my desk and grabbed the 5 shekel coin and pocketed it. No reason really, just felt right in my left jean pocket. It belonged there that day.
On the somewhat dark morning drive there was a whisper in my spirit that I was to give the coin to the first person I met when I walked in the door. This is an interesting time of day to get into the church as it doesn’t open the doors until 8. I had left a message with a pastor that oversees the facility that I would be in early. I was being dropped off by my son who works at another campus of the Eagle Brook church nearby (Blaine) He is a director of the media department and has to come in early to set up the equipment and test the simulcast stuff. I was early at 7 and walked up to the big doors from the parking lot and it was pretty quiet. Lots of parking at that time!
When I reached the locked doors, a woman inside the second set of ‘airlock’ doors smiled, and came right up and opened the outside door and greeted me by name. Very pleasant considering there are over 800 staff people in the organization. Ten times that many volunteers. I dug into my left hand pocket and handed her the Israeli coin. I told her briefly why I did so. She widened her eyes and told me I did not know how much this meant to her. She is a missionary to Israel, is involved with these things and later, at an early gathering on the second floor, she gave it to a young woman that was going to Israel soon. Her plane had been canceled due to the new war.
This post was written several years ago. Since that time I have moved to the Blaine Campus and am an assistant director in production. I still slip down and join the prayer team if they have need. Dual chitizenship!
Jack gators grace notes 