Son Mike came from Oxford this weekend to see everyone in Nashville. As part of the moving process several tubs of old stuff got redistributed out to the kids. As he was going through his he found some old pictures of mine and got them put on a DVD. They're all from my Navy days and all of other people except this beauty:
I just knew you were all dying to see such a lovely photo of me. That is actually me on the top bunk in case you couldn't tell. Yes I'm sleeping with a guitar.
Side story--I had my appendix out I think in the summer before my freshman year in high school. I succeeded in talking my mother into buying me a guitar. But I didn't know how to play. The music store had a Lennon/McCartney song book that showed where your fingers went for each chord in a song. So that summer I took the book and taught myself to play guitar by looking at the pictures. Over the years I have used the same learning method to try and teach myself how to coach grade school basketball and rewire my old house in Nebraska. I achieved the same level of mediocrity in all three endeavors.
Back to the picture.
That is a room in the barracks at Submarine Base, Pearl Harbor, late 1973.
My bunkmate was Cal. Cal was a tobacco chewing good ol' boy, a very good guy, a machinist's mate on one of the boats. (In the Navy subs are boats and surface vessels are ships.)
He was my first bunkmate when I arrived there from Hospital Corps School in San Diego.
I loved the duty there. Submariners are their own special breed. You have to be to do what they do.
At the time Sub Base had its own dispensary. Two docs and maybe 5-6 Corpsmen. The only people that treated Corpsmen ("docs") better than submariners were Marines. We had it made.
I turned 19 at that place and omg did they throw me a party.
I dropped out of high school to join the Navy in 1972 and had my 18th birthday in boot camp. It turned my life around. I had a new start. Nobody knew me or my history. I had no rep to live up to anymore. And I met a system I knew I couldn't change, so I had to learn to maneuver and thrive within it. And I did.
One day one of the docs gave me a flyer detailing a program whereby high performing enlisted men could apply for midshipman status at the Naval Academy. He said all the officers thought I should go and I would have the CO's support. I remember being intimidated by the prospect and distinctly recall dropping it in the trash can, to the right of the door, in the first exam room on the right, as you walked down the hall from the check in desk.
It's my only regret of that time. I've tried ever since to not let things like that scare me.
KS
Side story--I had my appendix out I think in the summer before my freshman year in high school. I succeeded in talking my mother into buying me a guitar. But I didn't know how to play. The music store had a Lennon/McCartney song book that showed where your fingers went for each chord in a song. So that summer I took the book and taught myself to play guitar by looking at the pictures. Over the years I have used the same learning method to try and teach myself how to coach grade school basketball and rewire my old house in Nebraska. I achieved the same level of mediocrity in all three endeavors.
Back to the picture.
That is a room in the barracks at Submarine Base, Pearl Harbor, late 1973.
My bunkmate was Cal. Cal was a tobacco chewing good ol' boy, a very good guy, a machinist's mate on one of the boats. (In the Navy subs are boats and surface vessels are ships.)
He was my first bunkmate when I arrived there from Hospital Corps School in San Diego.
I loved the duty there. Submariners are their own special breed. You have to be to do what they do.
At the time Sub Base had its own dispensary. Two docs and maybe 5-6 Corpsmen. The only people that treated Corpsmen ("docs") better than submariners were Marines. We had it made.
I turned 19 at that place and omg did they throw me a party.
I dropped out of high school to join the Navy in 1972 and had my 18th birthday in boot camp. It turned my life around. I had a new start. Nobody knew me or my history. I had no rep to live up to anymore. And I met a system I knew I couldn't change, so I had to learn to maneuver and thrive within it. And I did.
One day one of the docs gave me a flyer detailing a program whereby high performing enlisted men could apply for midshipman status at the Naval Academy. He said all the officers thought I should go and I would have the CO's support. I remember being intimidated by the prospect and distinctly recall dropping it in the trash can, to the right of the door, in the first exam room on the right, as you walked down the hall from the check in desk.
It's my only regret of that time. I've tried ever since to not let things like that scare me.
KS
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