“The Lesser of Two Weevils” or A Decision to Bake or Not

By: Garland Davis

Two weevils crept from the crumbs. “You see those weevils, Stephen?” said Jack solemnly.

“I do.”

“Which would you choose?”

“There is not a scrap of difference. Arcades ambo. They are the same species of curculio, and there is nothing to choose between them.”

“But suppose you had to choose?”

“Then I should choose the right-hand weevil; it has a perceptible advantage in both length and breadth.”

“There I have you,” cried Jack. “You are bit — you are completely dished. Don’t you know that in the Navy you must always choose the lesser of two weevils? Oh ha, ha, ha, ha!”

For those unfamiliar with “the Canon” as Patrick O’Brian fans are prone to call the Jack Aubrey novels, the above exchange comes from The Fortune of War.

What were these weevils, lesser or greater?

This is a story of more than two weevils.  I won’t name the ship or the year.  There may be someone out there reading this with whom I served.  They may be able to figure it out.  I am pretty sure the mess cooks spread the word.  It didn’t seem to lessen the demand for the items that I baked.

The ship was at sea and I was preparing to start the night’s work in the bake shop.  The Jack of the Dust had left my breakout in the shop.  I put the items away except the flour.  There was a flour bin built under the work counter.  I opened the bags of flour and emptied them into the bin when it was empty.  There was enough flour in the bin for the night’s products.  Then I would clean and refill the bin.  As I was moving the bags of flour I noticed something that looked like a worm on the bags.

I thought, “Oh no, weevils.” I grabbed a pan and opened the bag into it.  I closely inspected the flour and saw many of the worms.  The worms that we call weevils are actually the larval stage of the Flour Beetle.

The female beetle deposits eggs into food or into crevices in food packages. The larvae hatch and make their way into the product to eat. Many people find these larvae in the flour and call them “weevils.” Hence, the name “flour weevils.”

As larvae, all flour beetles are light brown, six-legged, wormlike creatures. Within as little time as one month, beetles are capable of developing into adults. The average life span is one year, although some specimens can survive for up to three years in warm, humid conditions.

I went to the First Class lounge and asked for the CS1 and told him about the problem.  He ran off to the CPO Mess to tell the Chief.  A few minutes later they came bursting into the Bake Shop to verify what I told them.  We ascertained that the flour in the bin wasn’t infested only the new breakout from the storeroom.  They sent me for the Jack of the Dust.

He came up from the movie and told them that today’s breakout was the first from the batch received from the last unrep.  He also said that was all the flour we had on board.  Off they went to the storeroom.  They came back looking depressed.  They were envisaging answering to the command and the crew why there would be no baked products for the next couple of weeks.

I told them that I knew a way to get rid of the weevil worms and beetles. I recommended that we move all the flour into the freezer.  The worms would all move to the center away from the cold and freeze.  The beetles would die.  Cut the bags open, throw away the ball of frozen worms.  Sift out the weevils and remaining worms. Use the flour.

The Chief said, “I’ve got to tell the Supply Officer.”  We ended up with the CS1, the Chief, the two Pork Chops, the XO, the CO and me all in the Bakeshop.  I again explained my solution to the problem.  I was asked how I knew this.  I told them that I had read it in a book during my vocational school studies in baking and bakery science.  I couldn’t name the book.

The Captain thought about it for a moment and then put me on the spot.  “Petty Officer Davis, if I approve your solution and you can sift out the weevils, would you be willing to eat bread baked from the flour.”  The only answer I could give was, “Yes Sir.” Although, the idea made me a little queasy. Just a little, after all, I once ate a cockroach on a dare.

I have since talked with other bakers who told me they just sifted the flour and used it without letting anyone know.  Evidently it happens more often than we realize.

When I was the Leading MS in Midway, we had an entire  storeroom infested.  We put six tons of flour over the side.

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A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.

Big Orange

By: Garland Davis

I was killed in the Nam,

But, my name does not adorn that wall,

I have not yet died, I still live and,

Walk the streets among you,

I was not killed by the Viet Cong,

Nor by friendly fire,

There should be a wall with names of,

Those whose deaths attribute to the fucking agent,

Known among us as Orange.

To follow Tales of an Asia Sailor and get e-mail notifications of new posts, click on the three white lines in the red rectangle above, then click on the follow button.

A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.

Oatmeal

By: Garland Davis

One of my earliest memories is breakfast and my mama bringing that dreaded bowl containing the blue-gray amorphous mass sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.  It became one of the constant repetitious memories of my childhood.  I didn’t know the word during the early years, but it eventually came to be known as “that fuckin’ oatmeal that mama gives us for breakfast.”  Although, to be perfectly fair to her, she did from time to time give us thick lumpy flour gravy that one had to sop up with her hard tough biscuits.  On Sundays, we got bacon or ham and scrambled eggs with the biscuits and gravy.  I will admit that my mama was a great cook, except when it came to breakfast.  The bacon was either limp and undercooked or so crisp that you, more often than not, ended up with bacon chips it was so crumbly.

My brother decided that he could improve the quality of breakfast by just not eating it.  He forgot to take into account our daddy’s temper and the wide leather belt that held his holster.  Daddy told him that if he didn’t eat he would get an ass whippin’.  Being the oldest, I had already learned that it was not a good strategy to call daddy’s bluff.  My brother got the ass whippin’ and ate his oatmeal!

Looking back on those times, I now realize that oatmeal and flour gravy and biscuits were cheap.  Daddy was a chain gang guard for the county penal system (the state took over the county penal facilities in the early fifties) and didn’t make a lot of money.  His salary went to pay rent, keep one or another old car running, buy clothes for three growing boys.  Mama had four hens for eggs, which she saved up for Sunday breakfast.  Once there were five hens, but the Rising girl’s (I might tell a story or two about them someday) dog killed one.  My mama cleaned it for the dumpling pot.

I never minded the pinto beans and potatoes almost every day.  Loved corn bread when mama baked it. Hated when daddy would catch a catfish.  Always ended up with the choice of eat it or ass whippin’. Believe me, if you ever had one of my daddy’s ass whippin’s you would rather eat almost anything.  I loved the summers, there was always stuff from the garden to eat.  So, with more than one dish on the table, you could ignore one item without incurring daddy’s wrath.

That was pretty much the cuisine of my childhood.  The biggest treats I can recall are annual weenie roasts by a farmer who lived up the road and Spam sandwiches. Thought I couldn’t get enough Spam.  But then, I still hadn’t dined on the Navy’s version of the pink meat.

When I was fourteen daddy died.  By then a little sister had been added to the mix. With three boys in school and a baby at home and Social Security Survivors Benefits as the only income, my mama had a hard time making ends meet.  She did it by feeding us more fuckin’ oatmeal.  The threat of ass whippin’ was removed, then the choice became eat the oatmeal or go hungry.  The rest of the menu at home pretty much continued as before except happily, there was no more catfish.  Ass whippin’s and catfish are the only things I didn’t miss about my daddy not being there.

The summer after daddy died, I got a job at a company the catered pit-cooked barbecue and homemade ice cream to restaurants and diners.  My personal menu improved greatly.  I decided then that I would never eat fish, chicken or that fuckin’ oatmeal ever again.  I have extended and added to those three items over the years.  People call me finicky, why hell, some of my shipmates call me pussy because I won’t eat raw fish.  Calamari, for instance, I saw a movie where it took John Wayne and Ray Milland fifteen minutes to kill one of those mother fuckers.  I ain’t eating it!  Often times, my Japanese wife and I eat separate meals because of my food eccentricities.

I went into the Navy and became a baker and cook.  I am a hell of a baker and a competent cook.  I’ll cook it, but I don’t have to eat it.  After a few years of the Navy version, I added Spam to my list of avoided foods.  Another item added to the list of “Rather Starve Than Eat” is a Filipino delicacy known as “Balut”.  Many of my shipmates claim to like Balut.

I will admit to eating a cockroach once.  But there were extenuating circumstances.  A group of us were in the Barrio enjoying the local libation.  The girl had just brought a fresh round of San Miguel when a cockroach strolled onto the table.  I remember someone saying, “You ain’t got a hair on you ass if you don’t eat that mother fucker.”  My only excuse is you cannot let a challenge like that go unanswered.  I just beat the others to him.

I pretty much went through a thirty-year Navy Career and a productive twenty years of civilian endeavors without changing my eating habits.  While my wife is enjoying one of KFC’s Chicken Pot Pies, I can be quite happy with a peanut butter and banana sandwich washed down with a diet Dr. Pepper.  I sometimes watch the cooking shows on the Food Network.  I could do the things they do, but I am not really crazy about eating any of it.

I recently had my annual follow up appointment for my Parkinson’s disease.  No real change.  It is a progressive condition, but I am not progressing very rapidly.  Except for one thing.  Constipation is a complication of the disease.  Parkinson’s is a muscular disorder.  Peristalsis is a muscular movement of the digestive tract that moves food through the body.  This movement slows markedly in Parkinson’s patients.  The doctor prescribed some pills and recommended that I get more fiber in my diet.  He recommended eating fuckin’ oatmeal!

I bit the bullet. I bought a box of rolled oats yesterday and cooked some this morning.

You know the shit ain’t that bad!

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A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.

“Special Liberty”

By:  Garland Davis

He was a fireman, I’ll call him Shoetree.  He was sent to the Food Service Division to perform Mess Cooking (Crank) duties for three months.  Although a good worker, he was loquacious, let’s face it, the boy had enough mouth on him for two sets of teeth.

My office was just off the mess decks and I could hear Shoetree continually expounding on one subject or another.  There was no subject that he didn’t have an opinion about. He was always willing to share his opinion, ad nasuem.

Shoetree and another Crank were discussing special liberty.  The other fellow told him that when you are mess cooking, you can forget about special liberty.  At sea cranks work twelve to fourteen hours a day, seven days a week. In port, they get every other afternoon and every other weekend off.  He also told him that Chief Davis never approves special liberty for cranks.  He immediately answered that he bet he could convince me to give him special liberty.

It was his afternoon off.  After completing his work and being released by the Mess Deck MAA, he came to me and asked if he could have special liberty the next afternoon.  I told him that I had heard every reason possible for special liberty and his request was disapproved.  He told me that he bet he could come up with an excuse I had never heard.

I told him, “If you can give me an excuse I have never heard at twelve fifty-five tomorrow, I will give you special liberty, commencing at thirteen hundred. You only have one chance.  I am not going to listen to but one excuse. So you better make it a good one.”

He says, “All you have to do is say that you have already heard it and deny me special liberty.”

I promised that I would be honest and if he came up with an original excuse, I would grant the liberty.  I also told him that I didn’t want to overhear him trying out stories the next morning.

The next morning he was quieter than most days. He conducted a number of semi-whispered conversations with the other mess cooks, testing possible excuses, I presume.

Finally, the appointed time arrived.  FN Shoetree knocks on the bulkhead by my door.

“Yes”, from me.

“Chief can I have special liberty this afternoon?”

“Fireman Shoetree, you know our agreement.  If I have heard your reason before, no special liberty.”

He took a deep breath and said. “Yeah Chief.  Well here goes.  My brother is arriving at Honolulu Airport at three o’clock and I need to meet him.”

“I’ve heard it before no liberty”

“Wait a minute Chief, there’s more. You see, my brother is an amputee. He only has one arm.  He has two suitcases and needs my help to carry one.”

Through my laughter, I told Shoetree to get the fuck off the ship.

Never underestimate the ingenuity of the North American Blue Jacket when it comes to “Special Liberty.”

To follow Tales of an Asia Sailor and get e-mail notifications of new posts, click on the three white lines in the red rectangle above, then click on the follow button.

A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.

New Year’s Log 2016

By:  Garland Davis

It is customary in the Navy for the Midwatch log on December 31/January 1 be written in rhyme.  My, attempt at a retiree’s New Year’s log.

1 January 2016, 0000 to 0400 Watch

Both cars are on cold iron and parked in the drive

In the house, we are waiting for the New Year to arrive

Receiving nighttime electrical power from Hawaiian Electric

During the day from PV panels placed by Sunetric

Water from the aquifer well up the street I think

CHT hooked to Waste Water piping and carried away with the stink

Cable, Broadband, and Telephone from Time Warner’s Oceanic

Everything is in order, nothing to do but drink

My wife is Senior Officer Present Abode and my friends are here

There are Anheuser and Busch, and the Captain to bring cheer

Along with Victoria’s Crown and Jack with his number Seven

Pusser is here somewhere and Gilbey and Schweppe make it even

My neighbors have fireworks legal and not

That approaching midnight will, with a clamor, be shot

While Izumi the dog hides under the bed

With all that said the only thing left is commune with my friends

If I wake without a hangover, it will be a new trend

The bottles I probably found hard to close

Because of this freakin’ pain my nose

The 2016 New Year will be here and in May I will wait

To board that flight to Branson at the United Gate

Looking forward to seeing you there at the Westpac’rs reunion Shipmate

To follow Tales of an Asia Sailor and get e-mail notifications of new posts, click on the three white lines in the red rectangle above, then click on the follow button.

A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.

This is the transcript of a speech I gave at the first annual Asia Sailor WestPac’rs Association reunion at the  Clarion Hotel, Branson, MO in April 2013:

Out on the Pacific Rim

By:  Garland Davis

“… And if at times our conduct isn’t all your fancy paints, remember single men in barracks don’t turn into plaster saints.”—-Rudyard Kipling in Tommy

When old sailors get together, it doesn’t take long for the conversation to turn to what valve did what… The “Can you name the gin mill?” game… “Whatever happened to the old asshole Mess Deck MAA? You know who I mean. Whatzisname?” “You remember the bargirl with the big boobs who fell in love with the pretty boy radioman off the Dicky B. Anderson?” Pier numbers… Phone numbers… Hull numbers… Bar names.

Somewhere and at some point, some son of a bitch tells the first lie… Then it begins.  The “Can you top this” bullshit. Amateurs don’t stand a chance. Like the preliminary fights, it all leads up to the main event when certain liars swim out and eat the little fish (If anyone tops Mac’s ‘Disco Chief’, there’s gotta be a Pulitzer prize in it). I told my bride of going on 48 years that in the wonderful world of sea stories, Mac is a major league crown contender. Love his stuff… Brings back great memories… The priceless stuff that lives in the dark corner of your memory locker (According to my friend’s daughter, most of it should stay in a dark place and never see the light of day).

Too true. At the pay rate of nonrated men in the early 60s, no one should be too damn surprised that we didn’t devote a lot of our time to opera, polo, golf, and downhill skiing. We also never developed a proper appreciation of fine French wines, classical art and classical music, unless, of course, you consider screw cap Akadama, a Budweiser naked lady calendar, and Country Music songs to qualify.

There were no better places than those found on the Honcho in Yokosuka, Magsaysay in Olangapo, Wanchai in Hong Kong, Bugis Street in Singapore, or Soi Cowboy in Bangkok. You could get into these places without white tie and tails. Hell, you could get in bare-ass naked if you had the correct currency.  There were no debutante balls held in these joints… unless you counted the cherry-boy signalman who got his first BJ at Marilyn’s… And you didn’t have to push your way through paparazzi to get into the Samari.

Being asked to explain your actions at 18, forty years later to your friend’s daughter after she inadvertently read some of the crap you have written is the damnedest delayed action fuse on the planet.

“You mean my dad did this stuff? The man who told my boyfriends they would be boiled and eaten if they so much as hinted at possible monkey business?”

Same guys… Not that we have matured a hell of a lot. It’s just that the research we did while serving in the Far East brought us face to face with the entire spectrum of monkey business. There is no one more prim and proper than a reformed whore.

How do you tell someone who stayed home, married his high school sweetheart, became a deacon at the Baptist Church, and was the local chairman of the United Whatever’s Fund, that despite the stories he heard,  we were really good guys? We didn’t spend a lot of time at the preacher’s house. We were volunteers…We served our country out on the far Pacific Rim… Paid our dues and earned the right to enter a voting booth without a disguise.

When the boys and girls of the anti-war hippie days were acting like traitors and idiots, we were out there on the Rim. I missed the early Beatles… Went to sea when the President was assassinated… Missed the first trip to the moon… Somewhere along the way, I became all too familiar with the Indo-China that became Viet-Nam… new NFL teams appeared out of nowhere… They quit making Ipana toothpaste and Old Gold cigarettes… Some genius invented the birth control pill and Johnny Carson replaced Jack Parr. Just part of the price Asia sailors and maximum-security convicts pay… Isolation from the western world allowed us to call ourselves dues payers. All of us who wore a Navy uniform can be damn proud of that.

All this chest pounding over ‘Winning the Cold War’ is probably more of that hocus pocus, ‘Now you see it, now you don’t’ foreign policy horse shit. But, one thing we CAN say, “On our watch, no commie bastards slapped us with a God Damned sneak attack and we kept the free world safe enough that the only things our recently graduated high school pals had to worry about were blouse buttons and three-hook bras while at the Drive-In.

Being a WestPac sailor wasn’t easy. Just being accepted by the men whom you would call ‘Shipmate’ for the rest of time, became an honor in itself.

This asiasailor.com website and the Asia Sailor Westpac’rs Association FaceBook group are blessings.  They permit me to once again find men I can talk to, who understand and give a damn. You spend all your time learning your rate… Learning the Navy language… Gaining pride in yourself and what you do… Making friends… And then, all too soon, it’s over. You retire and wander around in the world of ‘Who gives a fuck?’ people with no one to talk with. Kind of like spending twenty or thirty YEARS learning Japanese and then moving to Oslo, Norway.

Thanks guys for allowing me to help build this tree house, so we can hold ‘NO CIVILIANS ALLOWED’ meetings, tell socially unacceptable tales of old shipmates, old girlfriends, past deeds and chase the fireflies of our better days through stack gas and sea spray.  Trying to tell our story in Sunday school language makes about as much sense as applying moisturizer to an alligator’s ass.

We are getting fewer and fewer, like old Ford Model A’s… They are not making the damn things anymore so every time you lose one, the herd is thinned by one.

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A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.

Little Eddie and the Khaki Gloves

By: Garland Davis

I have another uniform story involving “Little Eddie.”  Eddie was a radioman.  This nickname came about because of his diminutive size.  He was barely five feet tall and weighed slightly over 100 pounds.  Because of his size and his cherubic good looks, he appealed to the girls like a turd does to flies.

The ship was at the Army port of Sattahip in Thailand and a group of us Chiefs were in the NCO club at another nearby Army base.  A bored go-go dancer was on stage doing her routine and Eddie, having drank a few beers too many, was on the dance floor a few feet in front of her dancing.  When she finished the song she took Eddie by the hand and led him behind the curtain.  After a few minutes, overcome with curiosity, I went to the stage and looked behind the curtain.  All I’ll say is that Eddie was upholding the high standards expected of a Chief Petty Officer by the members of the Mess.

We were in Yokosuka for an SRF availability.  I remember it was in the fall, possibly November or even December.  The weather was chilly; a jacket was definitely needed to run the Honch in the evenings.  The Commodore of SERVRON 3 was scheduled to be in Yokosuka and a walkthrough of the ship and a personnel inspection would be held.

In addition to the availability, there was the XO and his incessant demands that field days be conducted to prepare the ship for the Commodore’s visit.  Which, as you all know, field day level cleaning, yard birds and availabilities are not compatible with each other.  We were all sure the Commodore had seen a ship in an availability before.

The personnel inspection would be in working uniform.  E-6 and below would be in dungarees and working jackets and Officers and Chiefs would wear working Khaki with the khaki windbreaker. In those days, we were all still wearing brown shoes.  But the story isn’t about shoes this time.

A group of us were in the Mess the evening before the inspection, Eddie enters, carrying his khakis that he had just bribed the laundrymen to wash and press for him.  He said, “Well, I’ve got my uniform all ready to go.” As he went into the berthing area.  After a couple of minutes, he came back in and asked whether piss cutters or combination covers were the specified cover for the inspection.  Of course, it was combination covers and we told him so.

Eddie brought his combination cover, sat down at a table and began to change from a white to a khaki cover.  The Senior Chief Boatswain’s Mate asked, “Hey Eddie, do you have your khaki gloves ready.”

A sudden look of panic came across Eddie’s face. “Khaki gloves, I don’t have any fucking khaki gloves. I never bought any.  Being home ported in Pearl, I didn’t think I would need them.  Where the fuck can I get khaki gloves this time of night? Do you think any of those shops on the Honch sell khaki gloves?”

Boats says, “I doubt it.  There isn’t much call for them.  I’ve been a Chief for thirteen years and this is only the second time I have ever needed them.  But you should have bought a full seabag, Eddie.  You never know when you will need something. But, I tell you, I’ve never seen any gloves in those shops.”

“What the fuck am I going to do? Maybe I can borrow a pair from a Chief on one of the other ships.” Eddie moaned.

“Look at your fucking hands Eddie.  They look like kids hands.  You get a pair of gloves that are too large you will look like shit when you salute the Commodore to present your division. Remember the shoes.” Boats replied.  “The best thing you can do is make some khaki gloves.”

“How do you do that?” Eddie asked with an expression of hope.

“Soak a pair of white gloves in strong black coffee,’ from Boats.

We could barely keep from laughing as Eddie bolted into the berthing compartment, returning in a minute with his white gloves, he proceeded into the CPO galley and began making a fresh pot of coffee.  Once it was finished, he poured it over his white gloves in a small steam table insert.

“How long should I soak them Senior Chief?” Eddie asked.

“Probably about a half hour should be enough.” Said Boats.

Eddie did as Boats recommended and after soaking the gloves laid them on the counter to dry.  If there was ever a need for khaki gloves, the result would have probably been acceptable.

The next morning as we assembled in the Mess before leaving to fall in on the pier, Eddie came in from berthing properly dressed and wearing his khaki gloves.  We couldn’t hold it any longer, the whole mess burst out laughing.  Finally, between bouts of laughter, Boats said, “Eddie, there ain’t no such thing as khaki gloves.”

After a minute, Eddie joined in the laughter saying, “You mother fuckers owe me a pair of white gloves.”

A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.

General Quarters

By:  Garland Davis

“General Quarters, General Quarters, All Hands Man Your Battle Stations, Now General Quarters!  Up and forward to starboard, down and aft to port. Now general quarters” This accompanied by the bonging of the general alarm.

No other words, besides shouting “Free Pussy in the Barrio” or “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater can ignite pandemonium like “General Quarters.” Grown men go absolutely crazy… Stark, raving ape shit nuts. You are still half-asleep, reaching for your pants with one hand and your shoes with the other while an idiot stampede breaks out. Men yelling “Gangway!” hurdle over you going in both directions. You do not stop to dress, just grab your shit and haul ass trying to remember if you are on the port or starboard side.

My first GQ assignment was Damage Control II phone talker’… Talker is a misnomer.  You didn’t talk, you just repeated messages either to the Locker Leader or, to Damage Control Central.  Any half-intelligent parrot could do the same.  If you look up ‘totally worthless bastard’ in any dictionary, in any language, it states, “Foremost among worthless bastards you will find sound powered phone talkers.”

You are a cross between a cigar store Indian and a ventriloquist’s dummy. Any number of first order apes could be trained for the job. I never understood how anyone in their right mind would think being that hand-puppet was a desirable position.

“Well, if it isn’t Chief Pike’s hand maiden and mouthpiece.” From one of my shipmates.

 “Hey, Dave… Is it true? Does the Chief Pike actually pull a string to make your mouth work? Do you sit in his lap when he makes you talk?”

 “Well, here he is.  Chief Pike is training him to be the fourth Stooge.  They’ll be Manny, Moe, Curly, and Davy.”

Being the Repair II Howdy Doody was a bullshit General Quarter’s station. I think they created the job to test new kids for their crap absorption capacity… To see how big a shit load a kid could haul.

The Repair II phone talker had to tie his headset cable to a phone jack in the forward portion of the mess decks near the dumb waiter from the Galley and sit at a corner table out of the way of the locker leader and plotter, but close enough to hear everything said.  No one ever invented a way to clean the inside of the mouth and earpieces of a sound powered headset… Years of accumulated earwax, sweat and loogies made them a major treat to smell.

“Repair II, manned and ready”

“Repair II, DC Central.  You are still taking too long to get manned and ready.”  You pass the word to the Chief and he gives you a look that says, “I am going to rip your fucking head off and shit down your windpipe.” 

He says, “Aye, Aye.”

Finally, the ship is manned and ready. “Now secure from General Quarters, set the normal underway watch,” is passed. 

“What the fuck? I thought we were going to have GQ all morning.”

All the gear is stowed and everyone goes back to their work stations.  I head back to my rack.  I am the night baker.  GQ fucks with my beauty sleep.

The Boatswain’s pipe and “This is the Captain, I am thoroughly disappointed with the amount of time it took to reach a manned and ready state for General Quarters.  We will keep trying until we can get it right.  That is all.”

Immediately, “General Quarters, General Quarters, etc, etc.”

Here we go again.  This time, we manned up quickly and evidently the CO is, if not pleased, satisfied.  We immediately move into the attack phase of the drill and take a missile hit in number two hold. All Repair II drills were held in number two hold.  If something happened someplace else, I figure we are shit out of luck.

A messenger comes from the scene and I pass, “Fire in Number II hold is under control.”

“Very Well,” from DC Central.

That’s all officers say. They say it all the time… I think there is a two-semester course at Annapolis where prospective officers are taught that all you ever have to say in response to anything an enlisted man reports is “Very well.”

“Captain, the cook just shot the sounding and security watch… Fire in the engine room… Mutiny underway on the flight deck… Communist frogmen are climbing the screw guards and the Pope has just been drafted by the Celtics.”

“Very well.”

After serving as Repair II phone talker for about six months, I was moved to DC Central as phone talker and a short time later to the bridge as the Captains phone talker. Here, I had a forty-foot cord and had to follow the CO around the bridge while coiling and uncoiling cord.  I also had a lot more traffic to pass.  The Captain was extremely loquacious when it came to the “Very Wells.”

After nearly a year, I graduated from phone monkey to just another serf in the kingdom and was assigned to the galley for GQ.  I could go into the issue room and nap.  That way I would be bright eyed and bushy tailed for work that night.

They always had, at least, one cook assigned to the galley during GQ.  I never understood why they could not serve the regular menu.  I know that after I had risen to a position as Leading CS/MS, I insisted on the scheduled menu.  However, for some reason on my first ship, after GQ you got soup and lousy donkey dick, hard salami sandwiches with tire patch cheese.  If you were especially lucky, the Chief CS would order up the Navy version of cold Vienna sausage.

I remember watching the movie Ben Hur on the mess decks after a day of GQ… In the flick, they had Charlton Heston, as a snipe, chained to an oar down in the lower engine room of this Roman light cruiser… This guy, he must have been the Chief Engineer,  walked up and down, bullwhipping the snipes to get them to put on more turns. 

Some guy on the quarterdeck… Marcus Aurelius Wayne, I think… Points out the arrival of the massive Egyptian fleet. It’s quiet in the mess decks … You could hear a pin drop. Then, someone yells,

“General Quarters, General Quarters, spears and arrows… Break out the Battle Stations cheese and horse cock.”

A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.

“Standby for Heavy Rolls”

By: Garland Davis

“Now Stand By For Heavy Rolls.” In sailor talk, this translates into… The shit is about to hit the fan, all hell is about to break loose… In seconds, the entire crew is reeling around like a bunch of drunken lumberjacks at a log-rolling contest… Stuff you have not seen for six months appears from under bunks, falls out of vent lines, or slides out of cracks and secret rat holes. The heads take on the distinct aroma of feces and gastric juices mixed with partially digested chow… And grown men start making intermittent contact with stationary objects.

It was one of the Frigates that I served in…don’t remember which one. The Supply Officer had finally tired of the XO chewing his butt about the old battered, leaky coffee maker and coughed up enough money to buy a new one.  It was a beautiful compact unit with a three-gallon coffee urn on each side and a five-gallon hot water dispenser in the center, each with a clear sight glass.  The hot water tank had a sensor that automatically refilled it after brewing each pot of coffee.

The Ship Repair Facility, Yokosuka installed it shortly before we deployed for Subic Bay and then on to the Indian Ocean.  It was all stainless steel and mounted on four stainless legs to the drink line.  Copper tubing supplied water from an under the counter manifold that also supplied water to the ice dispenser and the carbonated beverage machine.  Conduits supplied electricity from a junction in the overhead.

It was shortly before the evening movie.  The mess cooks had just finished cleaning the mess decks and securing the scullery.  An IC Fireman was setting up the projector and threading the first reel of the movie. The duty cook had just finished making a fresh urn of coffee and was putting away the utensils.  The night baker was in the Galley measuring flour for a run of bread dough and the engineers coming off watch were beginning to assemble, shooting the bull with the Gunner’s Mates while waiting for the movie.

The weather was rough but nothing exceptional.  The ship was pitching a bit since we were meeting the oncoming seas.  The Division Officers and Chiefs waited in the passageway aft of the Wardroom for the Department Heads to give them the information from Eight O’clock Reports and then fanned out to their divisions to carry out their instructions.  They were descending the ladder and entering the mess decks as the word “Now Standby for Heavy Rolls” was passed.

Almost immediately, the ship heeled to starboard and rolled over at a very steep angle.  The new coffee maker broke loose from the counter and swinging from the electrical conduit slammed into the Plexiglas fronting the mess line.  As the ship rolled steeply to port, the pot swung on the conduit that way and breaking loose went flying across the mess deck, spraying hot coffee and scalding water in all directions.  The latch on the milk dispensing machine gave way and two six-gallon containers of milk joined the melee.  The projector hit the port bulkhead where the urn crashed into it and inundated it with hot liquid.  Sailors piled up along the port bulkhead, yelling. The broken water line for the coffee maker was squirting water into the overhead and shorting out the power to all the drink line equipment.

As the ship steadied on the new course, the severe rolling stopped and the motion returned to normal.  The mess decks were awash in coffee, water and milk.  Two sailors and an Ensign had broken bones and a number of other crewmembers some had burns from the scalding liquids.  The galley was white with the flour that had spilled when the scale pan went flying.

It took half the night to clean up the mess and restore the mess decks to normal.  The legs for the coffee urn were actually aluminum sheathed in stainless and could not take the strain of the sudden weight shift.  We made our way into Subic Bay with the coffee urn, minus sight glasses, bent and battered, lashed to the counter but still serviceable.  The shipyard in Subic Bay machined some proper stainless legs, replaced the sight glasses and remounted the coffee maker, although dented, as good as new.  The movie projector was beyond resuscitation and went to wherever surveyed movie projectors and other useless items go.

The CO had it in his night orders to the OOD to “immediately prosecute any submarine contacts reported by P-3 aircraft in the area and inform me.”  When the contact report came in, the OOD ordered a 180 turn.  The ship was in the trough by the time the BMOW passed the word for heavy rolls. I understand the CO had many words with the young officer who had the con that evening.  He had been in the shower and was flung through the door into his cabin, ending up on the deck under his desk.

A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.