DON'T TELL ME I CAN'T FLY

I made it through this week and now I have completed the most difficult physical part of the training. The beginning was working aloft and fall prevention. The rest of the week was firefighting training. I still have the bruises, cramps and aches but the rest of the training is not as strenuous.

When I was a child my mother told me I really couldn't fly like Superman. The Fall Pro training involves climbing vertical ladders in a safety harness and demonstrating four different kinds of safety retraints. To develop confidence you then have to step off the ladder and then swing to the next tower and then come down. Don't tell me I can't fly!

The fire fighting training is putting out fire in ship like steel mockups with water, foam, CO2 and other agents. We were wearing about 70 pounds of equipment and suits. "Bunker Suits", hoods, boots, gloves, breathing masks and air bottles. Not a nice thing to do to an old man.

I made it without falling out or giving up and next week is a solid week of explosive handling at Earle Weapons Station. Piece of cake.

SOMETHING DIFFERENT?

One of the reasons that I sold my house was to get away from the routine chores that came with owning a piece of land. I have been telling my friends that I have mowed my last grass, raked my last leaves and painted my last wall (bulkheads are not walls).

My yard is gravel and I am headed to a ship that has no dirt to grow anything.

Today I had no classes so I was assigned to cleanup duties. I spent my entire workday raking and bagging leaves and hauling them out into the woods to dump them. Oh well, at least they are paying me.

AROUND THE WORLD

This morning I woke to the news of a really devastating earthquake in Japan and Tsunami warnings all over the Pacific from Midway and Hawaii to California and Chile. What has this to do with me in New Jersey?

My son James is working in Hawaii and staying in a beach front hotel near Barber's point and my grandson Patrick is going to Japan next week to his new USAF assignment. I am not worried about my son too much. He has matured a lot since I had to hide the car keys to stop him from going to the NC outer banks to surf the hurricane waves. I think that I can trust him not to walk down to the beach to watch the waves come in. Any problem that delays his shipboard work will delay his return home.

I think that Japan will get the airports back in service by next week and in any case the Air Force will take care of Patrick if he gets stuck somewhere.

Meanwhile, back in New Jersey the conversation is about how recent events in Libya, Somalia, Bahrein, Japan and elsewhere will change our ship assignments when we finish the school.

It certainly is more interesting than a Lazy Boy in Chic's Beach.

BACK TO BASICS

The only way to learn how to put out fires is to put out fires. So now I am doing fire training with a whole lot of people about half my age. It is tough and the rest of it is the hard part. Next week is the rest of the fire training, small arms training, including the firing range, and survival swimming. We are getting safety training, which involves all the horror stories complete with pictures and film. I feel like I'm in driving school again.

When I get back to the hotel, I wonder about my decision process that got me to this point. Then I figure that the tougher the training, the easier the job. Onward and upward!

SUNDAY THE THIRTHEENTH

This is the 35th birthday of my youngest child. He is the only one of my six children not born in November. It was a Friday. So I always look for good things to happen for me on the 13th of the month, particularly when the day falls on a Friday. Happy Birthday, James!

I am now going to try to call him in Hawaii where he is working now. Getting through would be good luck if he is not working on the ship today.

FEBRUARY

I don't care what the calendar says, this has to be the longest month of the year. The temperature got down to 22F last night. I realize that my Canadian friends would not consider -5C to be really cold for a Feb night. It's just the odd day's tease like last week's one day of 70F but rainy. At least today will be clear, calm and warm(er). Spring will come.

This is Feb 12 which we once celebrated as Lincoln's Birthday until it morphed into the politically correct Presidents Day, except in the South. When I first came to the SOUTH over 50 years ago, I was told "We don't want no stinking Yankee holidays". Instead we had Lee-Jackson day in January, which has now become Lee-Jackson-King day as the Virginia Legislature could not bring itself to add a holiday for Martin Luther King. Oh well!

SUPER BOWL COMMERCIALS

Everyone is asking me about the commercials and the half time show during the Super Bowl show. I am even getting e-mails from companies I shop with on line asking if I saw their commercials or to rate their effectiveness. I haven't a clue.

I am probably one of only a dozen people in the USA who do not have a working TV in their house. So when I watch TV it is in the bar next door, where the noise level is so high that the sound on the game is turned off. I have no idea what the voice track is or even what the product is. The marketers are so clever and subtle that the product is not displayed or in the case of a service like banking or insurance can't be.

So I have no idea what the giant rodents driving a car or sitting on a park bench are trying to sell me. So I wish the ad peeps would stop wasting my time and delaying the games and save their money to pay dividends to their already filthy rich stockholders, like me.

MORE SNOW

When I first moved to Norfolk in December of 1967, I was told that it never snowed here. We were promptly buried under about 15 inches. It turned out that Norfolk didn't own a single snow plow. Now, after almost 45 years Norfolk and Virginia Beach still don't. There are some trucks that can fit plow blades on them and various road repair equipment that have plows, but they still get caught off guard every time.

There have been winters when there was no snow. Other winters we got just a dusting or two. This winter we have had several heavy snow falls. Last night it snowed again and today the side streets are all covered with ice as the temperature still has not risen above freezing. Welcome to the sunbelt.

SUPER BOWL SUNDAY

The Super Bowl is over. The Chargers are now Champions of the world of a game that is only played in the 50 United States. Oh well! This week finished up OK. I am healthy, in one piece, well fed, sober and home and well rested and looking forward to my next adventure.

Last Super Bowl Sunday, 2010, I started out in Annapolis buried under 2 feet of snow. It took all morning for the parking valets to dig my car out of the parking lot and then I had a long difficult drive home over snow covered roads. After the game I fell and cut my head open and spent the night in the emergency room and laid up for several days.

In 2009, I came home from the Caribbean with Pneumonia and spent several days laid up. I barely avoided a hospital stay.

This year is better.

NEW BEGINNINGS

The Dark Ages are about half over but the days are getting longer and somewhat warmer.

This week I got a call from the Military Sealift Command that I had been hired and I should report for work on Feb 28, the last official day of the Dark Ages. They told me I should arrive for work that first week with my luggage, packed as if I would be gone for six months.

First I will have to attend a Mariners boot camp in New Jersey for about six weeks and then I will be assigned to a ship. I may travel right from that school or there may be a period of waiting. I don't know where I will be or how long the first assignment will last.

The adventure continues and I got tired of being retired. I realized that I was paying to do what I have been doing, crewing on ships and boats. Now I will try it as full time employment. I will give it my best effort and hope it works out. More in the future.

THE DARK AGES

Five years ago today was the day of my wife's funeral. When I was in school, we called this 8 weeks "The Dark Ages". The eight weeks between Christmas leave and the end of the winter sports season, the last weekend in February, were dark. The sun set before supper and we were sometimes on our way to class before sunrise. Semester break was always the last weekend in January and was only a weekend. There were always term papers and projects to turn in on return from Christmas leave and exams the last week of January. We were supposed to work on those during the leave. Sure!

Football was over, baseball wasn't started, Navy never was a basketball power and the rest of the winter sports were "minor sports" and interrupted by exam schedules. The competition swimming pool was a relic from the 1920's and the water cleaning system was broken for years. We used that pool for survival training too and by this time of year it was so filthy that it took courage just to get into it. The weather was cold, and rainy and we couldn't get the boats in the water for the ice. The spring sports were reduced to indoor conditioning, but Spring always came.

Now the administration has outlawed the term Dark Ages and the old alumni will take revenge at the Dark Ages Happy Hour at a local brew pub next week. Spring will come and now that the sun is out I am going for a walk on the beach.

NEW BEGINNINGS

Yesterday marked the fifth year anniversary of the death of my wife of 40 years. I marked the day by visiting the cemetery and adding fresh flowers to her grave. They won't last long but the flowering pots of hyacinths and tulips I left will be a sign in the coming days of the Spring to come. I haven't been going there as often recently, but there hasn't been a day in the last 5 years that she wasn't on my mind. It isn't as difficult now as it once was but I can never leave those many years completely behind. But I have the family we created and life goes on.

So now I am looking for a job on the water and James is off to Hawaii on his job. I am looking forward to Spring and the Jets are still playing football. I have resolved to get myself back in shape.

In school we called this the "Dark Ages", but they always yielded to the glory of a Chesapeake Bay Spring.

JANUARY/JANUS

I hate January! Cold, Snowy, sleet filled, windy and dark are words to describe the winter in Virginia Beach. The entertainment and lifestyle that make up the summer here are also missing. It is the end of things and the beginnings of others.

Janus was the two faced God of the Romans looking both forward and back. I met my wife at a New Years eve party 1959 and she passed away five years ago tomorrow. Claire's book store in LA is closing and I am looking to start an new career in the merchant marine. Two of my grand children are planning on getting married this year and there is always the next birthday of some family member, graduation, promotion or adventure. There is always a new beginning and when the weather gets this cold you know that Spring can't be too long behind.

Spring training starts in only six months and then comes another summer, another Baseball Season and long, sunny summer evenings. The Dark Ages will end just like they always did and the flowers will bloom again.

GLOBAL WARMING

Anyone who tells me this is the result of Global Warming is stupid. I was two days late getting to Jamaica, and when I got home it was snowing. It probably will not stick this time, but the weather has been unseasonably cool so far.

So I am home, safe andsound and I will post more when I figure out how this works.

GLOBAL WARMING

YOUR TAX MONEY AT WORK

Sometimes the right decision is made for the wrong reason. When the frenzy for rapid transit gripped the nation about 15 years ago, the local politicians jumped on the bandwagon. The plan was to build a comprehensive network of rail trolleys through Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. This would reduce traffic and pollution and be a revenue source for the cities.

After much study and discussion, Chesapeake decided the costs far exceeded the benefits. Chesapeake is still very rural and the ridership would be small. Virginia Beach decided the social effect of letting all those inner city residents easy access to our, not so pristine, beaches would be unacceptable. The cost of obtaining rights of way made extensions to the Naval Bases impractical. The end result was a single line along the main route to ?Military Circle?!, a shopping center on the VA BCH border which is in decline. There is no plan for any water or river crossings.

The Virginia Beach decision may have been prompted by racism, economics, or just plain dislike of Norfolk, but seems to be the right one. Norfolk decided that it couldn't let all the beautiful federal money be spent by someone else.

The cars were delivered on time and are sitting on a siding being vandalized more than a year after the estimated start of service. The construction is hundreds of millions of dollars over budget, and the construction is plagued with problems. Someone forgot that much of Norfolk was built on fill over the swamps that were originally tidal. The track and overpass foundations are sinking back into the swamp before they have even carried a single passenger.

Now the state Dept of Transportation says that the rapid rail will not relieve any traffic and no one really ever thought that Norfolk could run this at a profit.

Lets hear a big Bronx cheer for the politicians.

NOVEMBER BIRTHDAYS

Today is the 45th birthday of my oldest daughters, Ellen Clair Lamb and Kathleen Ann Lamb

Where has the time gone? When they were born I was a young lieutenant on a cruiser in the South China Sea and there was a war on. Communications were so poor that the telegram announcing their arrival was mailed and I didn't find out that I was the father of twins until a week later. Then I had to spend hours in the Royal Post Office in Hong Kong waiting for a telephone call home to get through.

Now those babies are beautiful mature ladies and mothers of adult children themselves. I tell my children that I am still 24, it is only my knees that are almost 70. But despite my attitude I am still a fat old man.

The world has changed around me. Now everyone has a two way radio in their pocket and when I don't answer my cell phone, my children panic. I'm retired and bored and there is a new war in a place I thought was so remote it would never affect the USA. My parents, my in-laws, many friends, older relations and friends and even my wife have passed away. The British Empire has shrunk to a few enclaves in remote areas and even Hong Kong is no longer British.

But the adventure continues. My family is what I accomplished and each of those daughters has a child who is planning on getting married next year. Soon I may be a great grandfather. Go figure.

So I think I'm going to run away to sea. But more about that later.

NOTES FROM THE 'HOOD

Down here in the little enclave known as Chic's Beach (sic), there is always something a little screwy, if not downright criminal, going on.

Lookout Road, where I live, dates back at least three hundred years when it was the lair of Blackbeard and other pirates, smugglers, slave catchers and fugitives, poachers and others who generally don't want a lot of attention from the government. Until recently (1980?) it was very rural, but with development came traffic, and all the inland foreigners (anyone living south of Shore Drive) who want to hang out on our beach in the summer.

Pedestrian safety has become an issue. There are no sidewalks and encroachments on the street right of way have made it impossible to put any in. A number of accidents here in the 'hood and over on Shore Drive have prompted an increased Police presence. Stop signs and speed bumps and pedestian crossing signs have multiplied. Speed traps and drunk driving road blocks are multiplying. The problem has been that it was often the pedestian who was drunk in several cases.

Yesterday, I noticed that the yellow pedestian crossing signs in front of Hell's Kitchen Bar had been altered. The stick figure had a cocktail glass in his hand, complete with a swizzle stick topped with an olive. I'm waiting to see how long it will take the city to notice and I wonder if the sign department will do anything about it. I don't think the "Drunk Pedestrian Crossing" signs are official.

NEW CAREER

I have accepted an appointment as an Ordinary Seaman to serve on a Military Sealift Command ship. I am qualified to sail as a Merchant Marine Officer, Third Mate or higher, but I lack the current documents.

I am currently going through the screening process. That includes drug testing, a complete physical, and a new security investigation.

I am filling out a form that is about 40 pages. The older I get the harder this becomes. Many of the people who could vouch for me are either dead or retired and moved to the swamps of Florida. When I get it done, I don't know how much effort the agency will put into the investigation, afterall, it is only an entry level job.

But if any of my family or friends get calls asking questions about me I hope you won't tell any stories that shouldn't be repeated.

SAMHAIN

I don't know exactly what the date of The ancient Celtic festival is this year, but it has been adopted by the Catholic Church as Halloween and All Saints Day and has become Chic's Beach major holiday. The costumes at the parties ranged through the usual pirates and vampires but also included more popular current themes like zombies and the Geico cave men.

The winners were a bunch of my neighbors who organized the whole crew of the Minnow. They were all there, Gilligan, the Captain, the millionaire and his wife and so on. They even got on stage and sang the theme song. I wish we could do this more often.

Tomorrow is the election, finally. I am so tired of it. I made up my mind months ago. Everybody in goes out: City, State and Federal. I am just sorry that VA has no Senator up this year.

Maybe the Rangers can work a miracle, but this is probably the last day for baseball this year.