Speaking of Presidents -

Or, my first 30 Days on Active Duty.


Well, well, today is President's Day.  So, if you came home to get away from the Presidents' Day Sale, you can read a little about the a president, Franklin D. Roosevelt's flag boat embedded someplace in the below ramblings.

When I first went on active duty in the Navy I was sent to Charleston Naval Yards, in Charleston, South Carolina.  I spent about 30 days there.

The Naval Yard was a huge Navy Base on the Cooper River, near a big bridge.    The big bridge always seemed to be looming saliently in the background.

The Naval Yard was a Transient center.  There were may six to ten barracks for transients.  In the mornings we stood on an assigned number on the pavement so they could do a muster check.  Then, after  were assigned jobs for the day.  For a few days I was picked for cleanup details.  A group of us would report to places like the EM Club, Marines Club, CPO Club, and so on and clean up from the night before.   Also, one day I had to help clean up the chow hall. 

Interesting in cleaning up the different clubs I found instead of placing bottles into a container, it was quicker and more efficient, really, to throw the beer bottles into the container, breaking them to pieces  - that way breaking into pieces you could put more bottles into the container to be dumped.  Just don't go skin diving in the dumpster.

Once I was assigned  to paint a historical boat.  It was the flag ship that President Franklin Roosevelt used from time to time.  It was docked at a dock.  We painted the deck gray.  While I was painting a wave knocked the boat a wallop and knocked me onto the fresh paint I just put down.  It mostly got on the front of my hands.  I don't remember what I did with my clothes with paint all on them,  I probably bought new denim chambray shirt and pant replacements. It was only slightly larger than a cabin cruiser you would see on a lake.  FDR might have preferred small things.  His Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia, is a small house.

Finally I was picked for permanent job for as long as I was there to the base theater.  Another transient and  I had the daily job of cleaning out the theater and other rooms, which all in all took about 90 minutes.  Then we would watch  the latest movie with the Chief Petty Officer in-charge of us.   I became friends with the other transient and one weekend we hitchhiked together back home to Georgia.  He lived south of Atlanta and I lived north of Atlanta.  More about that later.

The base was so big there was a bus service.  The bus was Navy gray.  One night I went to a movie and taking a bus back to the barracks, miles away, I rode the bus.  I remember one person getting on did something that did not sit well with the driver.   They had words and the driver ordered him off and he refused.  He was really a high ranking officer and he was on the bus because he heard the bus driver was crude and rude.  The driver proved the rumor true.  After the officer's secret identity  was known there was a deathly quietness.

One evening my new friend and I ventured off the base at the main gate.  Just outside the main gate was a busy street that was lined with bars on both sides.  They were all trying to lure the sailors inside.  We went to a few bars looking for something interesting (and cheap).  One bar seemed overly crowded and we went in to see why so many sailors were drawn there.  It was the barmaid.    If the barmaid served you a drink, she charged something like $5 more than if you bought the drink yourself  from the bartender.  The reason was the stirred the drink a special way.  First she drove her finger "inside" herself and used her finger as a stirrer.   We left.  They even charged just to watch her mix drinks her special way.  Those sailors had probably been at sea a long long time.

Somehow my friend's mother and my mother became friends.  I don't know how Mama did it, but she knew how to relate to people and find out what  there was we had in common... which this was a piece of cake for her.  As I mentioned earlier  one weekend we hitchhiked back to Georgia.   It took several rides to get there.  He got off  south of Atlanta and about that same area I had to stand by myself with my thumb out in the middle of the morning for a couple of hours.

My last ride a guy picked me up someplace in Atlanta.   He asked where was I going and I said Marietta and he said he was too.   About the time we were going over the Chattahoochee River he reached over and touched my thigh.  I started cursing him and demanded to be let out or I would jump  out.  He said he was only joking and would not do it again.  I sat uptight the rest of the way home.  He let me out in front of our house and I ran in without even thanking him.  He rode back and forth on our street for a few times before he probably determinate I really did go into a house.

I spent about a day at home and hitchhiked back to Charleston.  The only thing I remember about the return trip a drunk man driving and his wife and several kids picked me up.  He stayed  sped through Georgia and South Carolina during over 100mph most the time.  And oh yeah, his car was junky inside too... trash all over the seats and floorboards.