Hangars at Sunset

These are two hangars in the horizon at sunset.  It looks nice and dramatic doesn't ut?

There is a story behind the lens:  I was drunk and so was my friend Don that I just met in the EM Club.  It was my first day in the helicopter squadron and Don was the first person I met social.  We hit it off as friends.  The more we drunk the more we talked ourselves into stealing on of the helicopters, take it for a joy ride and return it.

We walked to the helo "runway".  . "What could go wrong?  we asked ourselves.  

"EVERYTHING!"  I thought to myself.  We could crash, we would be arrested too.  I wanted him to back out.  And he was hoping I would back out.

Somehow, still zonked, and talking and one subject led to another subject, because we just met, we just wandered back to the barracks still yaking.

Throwback Thursday, Still a Transient

Last Throwback Thursday I told of getting my orders and traveling tickets to the USS J.K. TAUSSIG at NAS Lakehurst, NJ..  

The plane  was either Delta or Eastern Airlines. 

At the Philadelphia Airport outside were taxis and limos.  One limo looked reasonable (old and dirty) so I asked the driver how much.  I forgot how much he said, but it was more than I had a couple of dollars.  Which I told him.  He came down on his price to $8 to the Philadelphia Bus Station.  Which I took.

If I only knew what I found out about a year later:  I was on duty one night and a person called at the Philadelphia Airport saying he had orders but no transportation authorization to get into town to take the bus.  I was immediately dispatched with a Naval sedan to pick him up.  I remember it was pouring down rain.  Also, the person I picked up was from Marietta and a distant cousin.  Small world.

Back to my own trip:  I was very entertained looking out at the New Jersey countryside.   I was under the impression that everything north of Washington DC was slums and crowded buildings.  Not so, I was seeing farms, pastures, little model Main Street USA villages, each one picturesque.

The bus pulled in front of a high chain fence, a gate and a two storied house with the sign WELCOME TO NAS LAKEHURST, NEW JERSEY.

I have arrived.

Visible beyond the fence about a quarter of a mile was the largest hangar I have even seen.  It was built to house blimps.  I did not know it at the time but the German’s famous Hinderburg airship exploded at its front door in 1939.  At that time it was only about 24 years before.

I carried my duffel bag inside the double level white house.  Inside the first room was a long counter.  Behind the counter was a chief petty officer, a man in his blues, and an officer.  The smiling chief greeted me.  The guy in the blues studied me with his arms folded.  The young officer did not bother to look up from the newspaper he had on his desk.

I handed the chief my orders.  He did a double take and reread them.  Then he stepped over to the officer and pointed to a specific line on my orders.

One of the men, I forgot which one, said, “USS J.K. TAUSSIG?”  “We are 13 miles from the nearest ocean, we don’t have any ships here – the is a Naval Air Station.”

I wanted to say, “That’s not my problem.”  But instead tried looking surprised.  I’m not good at looking surprised.  My hypertension is always snoozing.

I said, “Now, what?”

This was on a Friday night.  

The chief said they would call and get it straightened out.

After a call or two they found out the offices that would take care of orders and mistakes would be closed over the weekend, to call back Monday.  I’m glad no invasions were planned for that weekend.

They said I could stay in the base’s main barracks for the weekend and they gave me a temporarily chow hall pass.

By this time it was late.  I was getting tired.

The other guy in the room was the duty driver.   He drove me to the Main Barracks.

It was past 10pm, all the lights were out except the Exit sign above the doorway.  In the almost pitch blackness I don’t know how I picked out a vacant bunk or “rack” as they were often called, but I found one.  I undressed down to my skivvies and immediately went to sleep.

Not more than one hour  later I had a bad dream.    I didn’t know it was a dream, I thought if real life was.  I dreamed I was in the barracks in Charleston and outside bombs were exploding all around the building and low flying fighter jets were rat-a-tat-tat sailors running.  I jumped up horrified.  I ran for the red light Exit sign and ran out in the passageway (Navy talk).  Two young men in civilian clothes looked at me shocked.  They did not know at this very moment we were being attacked by the Russians!  I ran up to hem and warned them.  They looked at me puzzled.  I was standing in my underwear, probably hyperventilating trying to explain it to them.  They saw the problem, the problem was I had a bad dream.  They politely calmed me down and told me I was having a bad dream.

I woke up.  Oops!

Then I had the task of finding my rack in a big room full of racks.  Somehow I did.  I think I systematically counted the number of double bunks from the Exit door or something similar.

In the morning I went to the chow hall for breakfast.  About four tables over was the same two men that interrupted my dream were eating breakfast looking at every move I was making and whispering to themselves.  I was on display.

We became friends and I even rode with them to North Carolina the upcoming October on a leg of my journey back to Georgia to pick up my car.  One was from North Carolina and the other from the Bronx.

If the information about my little bad dream fell into the wrong hands could result in a medical discharge.

On Monday morning, I became under the Personnel office until they could get my assignment straighten out.  To earn my keep my job was to scrub the administration’s hallway floors, opps! I mean the passageway decks.

And they assigned my sleeping to be on the top floor of the house at the gate that I first checked in at.  It was also the office and sleeping quarters of SPs and Security.  I had my own private bedroom for a over two weeks until my orders were straightened out.

Next – Helicopter Utility Squadron Four (HU-4)

Throwback Thursday: Going on Navy Active Duty - Opps!

FDR Presidential Yacht

I went on active duty in the Navy July 10, 1963.  I joined up because of the Cuban Missile scare.  I and 4 or 5 other E-2 reservists flew by private carrier to Charleston, South Carolina.

Charleston Naval Yard (I think what they called it) is a Transient station.  It appeared to me that the Transient system could handle several hundred men at one time.

Definition of a Transient:  One just out of training waiting for his orders  By talking to other transients the average waiting time is about 30 days.
Notice I said "his", meaning the male gender.  I saw no females also in transient status.

In a big parking lot between two barrack buildings on the pavement were numbers evenly spaced from each other.  The organizers issued little tags with numbers that matched the numbers on the pavement.  In the morning at 8:00am, if I remember correctly, you are expected to be standing on your number.  Then the group leaders come in and look over the transients to pick out who will be in their particular detail for the day.  I felt like I was in a slave auction.  I almost expected a NCO pry my mouth opened to see my teeth.

Each day I went with different bunches of men to do various jobs.  The ones I remember:  Washing dishes in the mess hall’ cleaning the NCO Club; cleaning the Marines NCO Club; and the worse was to paint a deck on FDR presidential yacht (it was docked on the Cooper River in the historical part of the docks.  I was wearing my blues, non-dress, and a wave gave the yacht a good rock which knocked me into the freshly painted deck that I just painted.  I had gray paint all over my arms and legs sleeves.  I don’t remember how I got it off.

The picture in this article I found on Google, under FD Presidential Yacht -about four were shown, the one here is the one I remember looking like it.

The group leaders watched you work and if they liked the effort you made they could request for you to work with them every day. Then you did not have to stand on your dumb number in the parking lot every morning.  It was sort of a prestige appointment.

After about ten days I was chosen to work in the movie theater.  Another guy who was from something like Newnan, Georgia, and I was chosen to work in the theater to do grunt work.  I don't know how or why my mother did it, but she became telephone friends with the mother if my work-mate.  That was before the Internet and Facebook.

I was happy. And even happier when I found what my duties were.  I emptied the “shit cans” (that is what the female yeoman called them) in her outer office and the division officer’s inner office “shit cans”  And give both “heads” the once-over.  Then after lunch we met the group leader, the chief in the theater and watched a movie.  We sat in a little cluster so we could make comments on what we were watching.  We got to be friends.

I heard a lot in the barracks  about the wild bars just outside the gate and also the private homes near the area with signs in their yards that said “DOGS AND SAILORS KEEP OFF THE GRASS”. My theater -worker-buddy and I decided to check it out.  The Charleston Navy base is/was a few miles long.  Our barracks was on one end and the gate was on the other end.  They had bus service that ran up and down the main road.

Outside the gate were bars and “clubs” , all well lit, lining both sides of the street all with loud music and "door" men trying to lure you inside the joint they represented.

Remember most of the sailors you see on this street have just got off a ship and haven’t had a drink or even seen a woman for months.

We chose a bar that seemed to have heavy traffic going in and out.
  Something inside must be good.

Inside there was a long line of sailors to the bar where behind the bar mixing drinks was a cute girl with a big smile on her face and a big jar that said “TIPS” filled with green money of $10s and $20s.  We got closer to see why she was so special.  She would asked her current customer would they like the special “stir”?  Of course they did.  She watched to make sure they “fed the kitty”.   She reached down in her short shorts and stir her hand around her crouch then brought  out her hand with one finger erect and stirred the drink.  She was mixing drinks with a masturbating finger.  She was making loads from horny sailors that haven’t been near a woman in months.  I wonder what kind of grade the county health inspector gave them?

We were too cheap.  We walked back through the gate to take a bus back to the barracks.

On the way back the bus driver was hateful to all on the bus and a couple of times told people to quiet down or he was going to pull over and make everybody get off.  One man challenged him and they got into a name calling fight.  Come to find out, the guy that challenged him was a Lt. Commander… guess who instantly became quiet and  humble?

One afternoon while watching a movie with my theater friends the female yeoman came in and told me to report to Window # 9 at the Transient office, which I did.

At Window #9 a young man gave me my new orders to the USS J.K. TAUSSIG at Lakehurst, NJ.  He also gave me an airplane ticket to Philadelphia and a bus ticket from Philadelphia to Lakehurst, New Jersey .  He added that to get from the airport to the bus station would have to come out of my pocket.  The flight was only a couple hours away.  I had to hustle to the barracks, pack, and be on that plane in a short time – and I only had $10 in my pocket.

More to follow on the next Throwback Thursday, hopefully.

Throwback Thursday: Butterball and the Chicken Farmer

Throwback Thursday.  Butterball and the Chicken Farmer.

Most evenings my little circle of friends met at the E.M Club about 5 pm, that is when Happy Hour started  But because of rotating duty and other commitments not everybody came every night.  One evening when everybody had something to do me, instead of drinking alone I decided to go to the nearby town or township or Lakewood and see a movie. 

At that time there were no four-lanes to Lakewood, it was all country roads with many farms, including large chicken farms.

At the city limits sign of the township of Lakewood there was  an interesting sign under the city limits sign.  It said, “All criminals must register”.

If a criminal who believes in going by rules  registered, I wonder if there is a special “Criminal Registration” form they would fill out.  Like what crime do  you  specialize in.  They could put in street-mugging; robbing banks; embezzlement; raping, and any other unlawful  activity.

Back to my Throwback Thursday:  Out on New Jersey country roads between Lakehurst and Lakewood I decided to drop in a little roadside bar and grill and have a drink.  I sat at the bar.

Back in the mid-1960s many bars had video jukeboxes.  The video jukeboxes provided the music, you did not to pay for a band and you got the quarters at the end of the night,.

At the bar sitting next to me was a woman who looked like she had lived a hard life and her rough-looking husband who did not smile – he glared.

I, being neighborly, said “Hi” to the couple.  She warmly said “Hi” back.  I asked them did they live around there, she said they did.  Her husband was a chicken farmer.  He nodded his head.  Enough said, he thought.

After a drink she became more talkative.  She said they were there celebrating being married 30 years.  I congratulated them.  She smiled and cried, saying she has been trying to get her husband to dance with her but he wouldn’t.

By then, I felt we were drinking buddies, I jokingly told her husband, “Common Jack, get out and dance with your wife for your anniversary!”

He glared at me and said, “You dance with her Butterball!”

I gave a nervous laugh."Na, I got two left feed."

He said, “I mean it, dance Butterrball!  Dance!  You better!”

I told them to excuse me, nature was calling.  I chuckled as I got off my stool.

I walked towards the restrooms door and then walked past it, out the front door and broke into a run to my car.

And Butterball sped away.

Regal New York

click to enlarge

Throwback Thursday:  Watching THE TODAY SHOW yesterday morning they were talking about the regalia of the Royal Wedding coming up Saturday.  They showed surreys, horse drawn fancy carriages and fountains in New York City.  It reminded of the mid 50s when we hit The Big Apple often.  Although I don’t remember it being called “The Big Apple”.

At the fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel, on 5^th Avenue near Columbia Circle and Central Park, left to right: Dick Hyatt, Don Lash, and Ray Shultz.  When I directed them to stand that way, I was hoping they would look more like statues.

The other pictures is a picture of horse drawn carriages at the Plaza… that’s regal – right?

Although I was in a Naval helicopter squadron I have no war tales to share for Memorial Day.

But I do have true tales:  Once my division officer offered to give me a helicopter ride.   He was always friendly and was sort  of a rebel who resented authority also.  He had to get so many flight hours a month.

We flew a Bell Helicopter (as above).  I thought they were called Belle Helicopters because they looked like little hand-held dinner bells, but actually, they were built by Bell Aircraft Compnay.  When we got way up high in the air and the hangars looked small he looked at me and turned off the engines.  The props stopped.  We started to fall.  The Earth stared rushing up at us.  He looked at me shrugged his shoulders.

As we were almost at the "END" of our fall the propellers started turning then spinning faster and faster.

With the spinning of the props, creating a windmill bowing at the ground, it let us down easy.

The division officer laughed.  He was playing a joke on me.

He said, "You have just experienced auto-rotation."

He said he usually got his flight time in by flying over a nudist colony at Cape May, New Jersey, I should feel special. 

Rockefeller Center

Rockefeller  Center about 1965.  When I was in the Navy stationed in Lakehurst, NJ, we went to New York City, about as often as we dropped our hats.

If someone new came to our squadron we were sure to show them around the Big Apple.  It was more for us than them.  It made us look like we were in the know.

We had them fool for a while, anyway.

Dick Hyatt and Ray Schultz.  This is walkway between Rockefeller Center and Radio Music Hall.  

Radio City Music All is on the back side of Rockefeller Center.  The Rocketts!  Oooh La La!

(It just occurred to me why they are called The Rocketts- after Rockefeller - 50 years later, now I get it!)

Don Lash taking pictures in the center of Times Square, which is just around the corner from Radio City Music Hall

The Exorcists in Bucks County

c1964.  Dick Day and I exorcising evil spirits from a pot in front of an antique store in New Hope, Pennsylvania.  Have you ever read the book "Devil in Bucks County" by Edmund Schiddel?  I think I have but not sure.  New Hope is in Bucks County.  It is just down the road from Valley Forge, where Washington and his troops spent one winter during the Revolutionary War.

When we visited New Hope in the mid 1960s a few times we found it to be like what just about every little rural quaint American  town has destined to be:  An antique mecca.

After the Navy Dick went on to be a news announcer for NBC Radio.  You have probably heard his voice.   He is probably retired now if he is still alive.

Chumley's Is Returning!

If you read this blog enough you probably know when I was in the Navy I was stationed in New Jersey about two years and we went to The Big Apple, aka, NYC, aka New York City, often.

And if you read the details you would know we frequented Chumley's restaurant while in town... why?  Because a lot of famous writers frequented the place and we were star struck and  liked to stargaze.

Also you might have read that Chumley's started off  as a speakeasy in about 1922 and some times in the 1970s they had a fire and the place has been closed since.

Now, they have it all repaired, and are fine tuning the details.  Also, a waiting staff are dressed in white jackets.  I'm not sure I like that or not.

My son Rocky sent me this New York Times' link about Chumley's reopening today.

Click on the link NYC's Chumley's Speakeasy at the bottem.

click on all pictures to make them bigger.

My cube mate Ray Schults, the top picture is Ray at the Chumley's door, the bottom picture is Ray stepping from the street into the courtyard that is for some apartments and Chumley's.

The above pages make up Chumley's Menu that  somehow I walked off with.

CLICK HERE FOR CHUMLEY'S

The Metamorphosis of LBJ

This past weekend we watched the special ALL THE WAY, which was about Lyndon B. Johnson just after he inherited the Presidency from assassinated John F. Kennedy.

Just before Kennedy was assassinated he got the ball rolling on a progressive Civil Rights Bill.  Was the new president, conservative right-winger, Lyndon Baines Johnson expected to pick up the ball and push it through to become law?

Lyndon did.  He ruthlessly took on his cronies in a ruthless fight and won.  And I think the world is a better place because he did.

Of course, many of his old peers became his enemies.  People doubted if the Democrat Party would nominated to run for a term of his own.  But he was.

The special showed him at the Democratic Convention accepting the nomination.

NOW!  This is where I come in:

I can tell you the date he was nominated, August 27, 1964.  I was in the huge crowd outside the Convention Hall in Atlantic City.

I had to Google LBJ to know the specific date.  What I looked for was LBJ's birth day.  It is August 27th.   After he was nominated he and Lady Bird came to a balcony overlooking the hoards of people on the Boardwalk and waved at us.  And they shot ooo and aaahhh fireworks over the waters and the fireworks spelled out HAPPY BIRTHDAY LBJ and we all song "Happy Birthday" to him.

Then they left the balcony and someone shut the doors and several fights broke out in the crowds, there were several groups of protesters with their own axes to grind. 

Donald Bruno Lash's Black Eye

Don Lash.  This picture was taken on the fire escape 2nd floor (or deck) landing  of HU-4 Barracks in 1964.   Don Lash is posing with his black eye.  He was proud of his black eye, sort of like a trophy.  He had never had a black eye before.

The story how he got his black eye:  A lot of snow fell on NAS Lakehurst, NJ.  We were snowed in.  We could not drive off the base.  But we could walk to the E.M. Club. 

The beer flowed through the evening hours and people got drunker and drunker.  A table of drunk Marines started self-body dance with the beat of the loud music from the juke boxes.

And some of us mocked them dancing solo.  Although, I think most of the Marines at the that table did not realized they were being mocked, just self-dancing like they were.

But one Marine did not see the humor in it.  He knew exactly what was going on.  He leaped across the floor from their table to ours and POW!  He socked Don in the face.

We got the hell out of there.

End of story.

Don's Military Trophy

There is a fairly new restaurant in Woodstock named Semper Fi.    As you may have guessed the restaurant  has an accent on the Marines.    Well, really it is a restaurant in appreciation of all armed service personnel and first responders present and previously. 

They have good hamburgers and good grilled cheese sandwiches (that has  candied fried bacon).

Their walls are decorated military stuff (mostly Marines) that patrons have brought in, such as pictures, company flags and banners, and so on.  I talked to one of the co-owners several times.  I told him I was in the Navy.  He thanked me for serving and asked if I had anything I could donate to put on their walls.

I thought and thought, and I just don't.  None of my pictures I took in the Navy has a military point of view.

However, I did think of the  above picture.  It is of my friend Don Lash taken  on the back second level of outside stairs of the HU-4 Barracks.  He is posing, showing off his black-eye received the night before at the EM Club.

We were snowed in.  The roads were closed and there was nothing to do but go to the EM Club and drink.  At the EM Club people were getting cabin fever. 

A drunk Marine punched Don in the face.

I think it had something  to do with he and Don had a disagreement about the music being played on the jukebox.

Thank You For Serving!

click on to see picture details and me

It has happened a lot lately.   Somebody asks me  if I served in the Armed Forces and I replied, "Yes, the Navy."

And like a automatic expected response they will say, 

"Thank you for serving."

I feel like blushing and saying something like, "Aw shucks,  it was nothing."

I am telling the truth.  There wasn't much to it, as for as being heroic.   The base I was stationed at, NAS Lakehurst, N.J. 08733*, which was almost equal distance between New York City, Philadelphia, and Atlantic City.  We kept the roads hot going to the big cities to have fun.

As I remember,  the above picture** shows me holding the only weapon I used while serving.  And it was a rubber tomahawk  while playing cowboys and Indians at my uncle Roy Petty's place, about 60 miles north of NYC.

*But I am proud that I still remember the zip code, after 50 years.

** first cousin Rodney Petty;  Me (With Indian  feathered head-dress on); Navy buddy Joe Rexroad;  and other first cousin Billy Petty.

I Didn't Ask and Marlow Didn't Tell

From my late mother-in-law Marie's Postcard collection I pulled and  posted this to facebook saying I have been to the U.S.O. in NYC and L.A. and they had free punch, coffee, and donuts, and that is about all I said.

However, there is a story around the New York City U.S.O. visit.  Pull up a seat and I'll tell you.

When I first became part of the Helicopter Squadron HU-4 at Lakehurst, New Jersey,  I was awkward and shy.  I was the new kid on the block.  I was assigned a cubical with three other men.  Two of them were on leave and the third one was Marlow.  We hit it off, and Marlow took it on himself to introduce me to New York City, the next day, Saturday. 

NYC was 60 miles north.   Saturday we took a bus.  I was impressed looking out the bus windows and seeing the huge city unfolding before me.  We went down a hill, then through the Lincoln Tunnel. under the Hudson River and came up a hill on 42nd Street to Port Authority.   I soon found out that 42nd Street had all the tourist traps kind of joints.

We first took a subway to either the Bronx or Brooklyn and looked up an old friend of Marlow's.  The friend wasn't there but his wife was there and they talked about family and friends.  I think they knew each other in Marlow's home state, which is on the Mason-Dixon Line.  I was amazed at all the clothes lines with clothes hanging on them between apartment building, just like in the movies.   WHOOPEE!

We hit a few bars and when it started getting dark we took the subway back to Manhattan.  I think that is the time we saw Chubby Checker in a lounge singing his "Twist" top 40 song.

we also went to the U.S.O.  There we had our dinner of  Donuts and coffee.   There were music and a dance going on.  People were all smiling, but in a phony kind of way.  They were doing their part to make the service man feel at home.

We left.  Just outside the U.S.O. a man came up to and started a conversation.  He was a smooth talker.  He asked if we had a place to stay and we said no.  He said he had room for just one of us... Marlow was more worldly than I, and also a smooth talker, somehow they worked out a deal. Marlow would spend the night at his apartment and the strange man would pay for me a room and give me a few bucks for breakfast  the next morning.

We walked just a block or two away to the William Sloan W.M.C.A.   The strange man, Marlow, and I walked into the lobby and he registered me at the desk and gave me the key to the room and $50 for breakfast.

I hope Marlow was worth it.

The room was small and had no bathroom.  The head was down the hall.  I didn't know we were staying overnight so I had no toothbrush, shaving gear, or anything. 

So, I slept and the next morning just used the bathroom in a room crowded with men and left and found a place to eat breakfast. 

I don't remember how Marlow and I met back up.  We probably agreed to meet at the Port Authority Bus Terminal at a certain time.

When we were back together,  he never mentioned what happened that night then or never.  I didn't ask and Marlow didn't tell.


 However, another new friend quickly figured it out.  Stay tuned.