11/22/06
It’s been a tough month for us since Cindy and I returned from the
NAFTS reunion in San Mateo. We had a great time with dear friends
and did a lot of neat stuff but we soon found out that the real
world is still here.
Oh, there has been nothing life threatening or really catastrophic
just a bunch of everyday things that seemed to happen all at once.
Coming in rapid succession as they have, I’m beginning to feel like
we are never going to get out of the hole and back to normal life.
When I got back I had been put in a new job at work. It is sort of a
compliment but required about 70 hrs of intensive computer training
along with about 16 hrs. of classroom stuff. Then my work car
decided to be cantankerous to the tune of about $1500 and left us
with out a back up vehicle for about four days.
With all the computer stuff at work I can hardly bring myself to
look at the e-mail piling up in my inbox much less actually do
something constructive on the PC. I’m so far behind on my NAFTS
duties that I’m expecting at very least a Captain’s Mast from the
boss.
Then there are all the projects that must be done by Thanksgiving.
Many of these were put off when I had to have therapy on my right
should late last spring.
Yep, things have been tough since we got back from San Mateo so, Why
Am I Thankful?
Well, I have plenty of reasons to be thankful.
Take Joe and Chris Torrance for instance. Until we met again in San
Mateo, Joe and I hadn’t seen each other in 40 years. Seeing Joe
again and meeting his sweetheart Chris was a real blessing. Joe &
Chris and Cindy & I hit it off famously and for Joe and me it was
like we were kids again.
That old reality bug bit Joe and Chris when they got home too. Their
oldest son a Navy Corpsman attached to a Marine Reserve unit is
being deployed to the Middle East 2 days after Thanksgiving. Joe, an
ironworker, came down with a case of sciatica and was unable to
work. Then he slipped on his back porch and has three herniated
discs, which will probably need surgery.
What have we got to be thankful for?
I’m thankful I have friends like Tom & Charley, Joe & Chris and
Rodger & Dorothy. I’m thankful I have a warm home and a loving
family gathering around me. I’m thankful that I have enough money to
buy a big turkey and loving wife willing to work all morning getting
a big family dinner together. Best of all I’m thankful that on
Thanksgiving Day I’ll be able to hold my two baby granddaughters on
my lap.
Why am I thankful? I have dozens of reasons to be thankful and I
hope you do too.
Happy Thanksgiving and keep Joe and Chris Torrance in yours prayers.
GRANDDAD
I simmer in the sun a lot,
And talk about the tillage.
With yarns of battles I have fought,
I’m the graybeard of the village.
Heaven’s mighty fine, I know….
Still, it ain’t so bad right here.
See them maples all aglow
And starlings seem so glad here:
I’ll be mighty peeved to go
The scrumptious times I’ve had here.
Lord, I know You understand,
I know Your light will lead me.
And though I’m not th4e pious brand,
I’m ready when You need me.
Gosh, I know that heaven’s grand,
But dang it God, don’t speed me.
Robert Service
Forty Years Gone --- by Mike Hemming
Thirty, forty or fifty, the number doesn't matter. It’s just a
measure of the time that has passed. It's the faces and names of the
shipmates that matter. Faces and names, names and faces, are not
always matched up.
Shipmates remembered even if it's only bits and pieces. We remember
in snippets of things long gone, until we sometimes ask in our own
minds did that happen or was it a dream or a story passed on? We
would never say that out loud, for around our old buddies we always
claim to remember all the good times and sometimes the bad.
They were good men that came from all over for many reasons and
sailed together for a time. A time of testing and training, for men
would pass on things to you that they themselves had learned. For
you were expected to pass that knowledge on to those who came after
you. It was a struggle to learn it all, sometimes. But you were
learning lessons taught by the school of hard knocks.
There were faces of men now gone who once fought a hot war, who told
you of traditions to honor those who did not return. Men that had
seen too much to even tell it all. They were fighting a hard enemy
that rarely gave quarter and so none was given back.
Faces of men that sailed through the years of a long cold war to
hold our enemies at bay. Sacrificing years, marriages, limbs and
even their lives at times to do what they thought was right. Years
of stories untold even today watching the Bear and preparing for a
war. Serving on boats built to fight a hot war and then holding the
line through a cold war. Until the new boats that were built for the
next hot war, a war that fortunately never came.
And faces and names of those that sailed with you and now are gone
these many years. We all say, "I wish I could see him one more time,
but I don't know where he is."
He was an old salt that guarded your back while ashore. Or a young
kid that became a man when he stood beside you and fought fire or
flooding without backing down. You didn't say ''thanks' that day,
but now you wish you had. They are all there in the time that has
flown away from us.
We have all moved on now for better or worse. Some of them did more
and some we never called upon to do more again. They returned home
and went on with their lives. Names of men tested and found to be
shipmates, an honor which can never be taken away. Faces with names
that we shouldn't have lost as we traveled down the road. A road
that led us away from what we did then as it always has to. But we
shouldn't have lost all the faces and the names for all time. The
faces and names of these special men that wanted to do something few
can do. They did it for reasons unknown to themselves, sometimes
much less to others that can never understand the pride in the
accomplishment of what they did.
For when the paths we travel meet again, we will all reconnect faces
and names again. But wouldn't it be nice to sit with that lost
shipmate forty years gone and remember that life just one more time,
right now?
