Remember pulling the lines
in and taking her out, when you got the last line across…
“Underway… Shift Colors!”
Here I go again plunging
butt nekkid into the ol’ fountain of youth... just’a shuffl’n through them old
memories that were steam pressed and government-issued when we journeyed the
high seas! I also remember, if you were fifteen minutes early you were on time…
and usually forty-five minutes ahead of anything of any consequence!! Made me
ponder through some ol’ cobwebs about a fella I once knew on the ol’ Baglady!!!
Missing ship’s movement was
a serious crime in the Ol’ Canoe Club! One they would hog-tie and haul you up
into the rafters just to soak you in gasoline and light you off using your
doo-dah as a wick!! Yours truly always made it back in time for the early
morning drunk parade known as line handlers ‘cause I valued my doo-dah too
much… but there was one Sea & Anchor Detail we were missing a team
member!!!
Yep…I can still remember it
like yesterday! Pat Rachal rollicking all happy-go-lucky up the pier when
suddenly he sees the brow lifted at the end of the pier!! He says he was down
by the quay wall say’n his last family goodbyes before gett’n underway! For all
I knew he woke up at some house of horizontal refreshment drunk as a waltz’n
piss ant in the dirt… oh wait a minute, that probably would’a been me or one of
my other runningmates!!!
I asked Pat exactly what
happened on that fateful morn… and this is what he had to say…
“Nothing in my life could prepare me for that feeling I got that
day! You know… that lost sinking feeling in your gut like it’s gonna fall
through your asshole!?!”
“Yeah Pat, I bet you were having about as much fun as pissing on
spark plugs at that moment!”
“Yeah, I guess you could say I had that ol’ pucker factor going
on you’d been talking about!”
“Ha-Ha… I remember that
look on your face as you’d realized the ship was pull’n away from the pier… you
looked about as confused as a fart in a perfume factory!”
“Well as it was, the ship had been on a pretty strange schedule!
We had a new Skipper who was increasing the OP Tempo and we seemed to be up and
down the West Coast like a damn Yo-Yo!! If it weren’t Gun Fire Support off San
Clemente, it was Port Visits as south as Mexico and as North as Vancouver!!!”
“Hell, I didn’t mind being haze grey and underway! At that point
in our careers if we weren’t on watch or doing heads-n-beds then we were
watch’n movies, play’n bones, or read’n nekkid gurly magazines with the pullout
pin-ups!! That’s how I remember it!!!”
“Ha-Ha… yes, I suppose you would! Anyway, we’d pulled in under
the bridge that Friday and I was about as excited as a ten-year-old all sugared
up on a sleepover!
It was a duty day and I was due a favor from the ol’ Section
Leader, I got the Pier Watch so I could hang out and mingle with my wife!! The
only problem beings I also had the same watch on the 04-08 rotation and ya know
you gotta love the pier SOPA… their watch relief was always late!!!”
“OH Man… that had to suck!”
“Yeah, and to top it off… they announced the night before that
we’d be getting underway early on Monday morning as was usually the case! Man,
we couldn’t be more unlucky if we’d fallen in a barrel of cigars and came out
with a handful of turds!! It’s like if you made plans in advance, you could
pretty much expect those plans to be questioned… changed… and ultimately
canceled for the needs of the Navy!!!”
“Well, you know what they say, ‘When your day is going well…
chances are you ain’t pay’n attention!”
“In good fashion come Monday, my family and I left early that
morning to beat the mile-long military convoy to get on base and make it to the
pier promptly so I could give my heartfelt goodbyes and all! Strolling down the
pier feeling a little sad… I looked up briefly only to see the tug alongside
with the hawser running to the ship with the crane holding the brow up into the
air!! That’s when I got that pucker factor feeling mentioned above!!!”
“Ha-Ha-Ha… Oh Boy, we didn’t think you had a corn dog’s chance
in a hog trough to make it onboard! We couldn’t help but deride you and give
you a bunch’a shit!!”
“Yeah, you were an incorrigible bunch of bastards… about as
subtle as a gynecologist wearing a gas mask!”
“AAAH… the splendid fun
of confronting danger!”
“Anyway, once I saw the ship was pulling away I bolted like a
rat up a drainpipe trying to make it to the crane! After a dash at the crane
and a few explicative remarks, the crane operator was not so inclined to lower
the brow!! With adrenaline rushing, I stopped and looked at the ship… I must
have had that ‘whore in church caught with the old man’s wife’ look on my
face!!!”
“Yeah, I was gonna say you looked like an unwanted prick in a
room full of hookers but I like your analogy as well!”
“Well, I figured the ship about eight feet away
and a good flying leap I might be able to make the jump! I picked up my man
parts and started off as my shipmates were all hoot’n and holler’n while
pointing to my salvation as there was one of them Yokohama Fender like camels
between the ship and the pier!! I took that flying leap and bounced off the
Yokohama like a trampoline just managing to grab a chock with one hand and a
lifeline with the other!!!”
“Yeah, I remember I was part of the topside gang that pulled you
up before your sorry ass went into the briny deep!”
"I’d like to say I grabbed
that line and scaled the side of the ship like an Adam West-like ‘Batman’ or
‘Spiderman’ but if it weren’t for my shipmates pulling me up from the chocks I
might not of made it! I was hanging there like a piñata completely depending on
you guys!! You never let me down!!!”
“Hey, that’s what shipmates are for… right?!?”
“After the corpsman checked me over and the Chief in charge of
line handlers gave me that…’you dumb son-of-a-bitch’ look I was just glad to be
aboard! The Skipper and XO were both looking down at all the congratulatory ass
grabbing and ‘Good Gaming’ going on with a few high fives and such noticing my
ball cap floating away into the San Diego Harbor!! I thought I might of escaped
Skippy’s Mast but it didn’t work out as planned!!!”
“You know that ol’ saying… ‘It was time to bargain like a gypsy
and pay like a gentleman!”
“I had been to Skippy’s Mast twice during my enlistment, but
this one was my favorite if you can say that! I remember asking FC1 Hodges…
“If you have any
influence with the executive operations of a report chit… can you get them to
take it easy on me?”
“… The last thing I wanted to do was buttheads with the Skipper
or tap dance with the chain of command like a bunch’a disagreeable
skunks!”
“I bet the Skipper was madder than a mosquito in a maniquin
factory!”
“Oh he was… he didn’t consider my rather unorthodox arrival onto
his ship to be in good faith! And the ol’ man never minced words as he had a
knack for asking questions that just pulled away from the bullshit and made you
think!”
“I’ll bet while you stood there in front of the Skipper you felt
like that ‘whore’ everyone gossips about at the family reunion!”
“Something like that… Nevertheless my wife had
to visit me onboard for a couple of weeks! Funny, those were good memories
too!!
“Well you ol’ Codger… if it was even legal, I’m sure one or two
of your shipmates would’a gladly stood your restriction for you on a night or
two…!”
“With that being said… I don’t know if I ever thanked my mates
properly! If any of you ol’ salty bastards are reading this… Thank You!! It was
the Worst of Times and the Best of Times… because of people like you!!!”
“Aaah Hell Pat… Stop being so Sappy… you’re
gonna get somebody all teary eyed! That’s what shipmates do!!!”
“Last thing… I recorded this story and stashed it in a sea
chest! You know, that cardboard box in the garage with the medals, ribbons,
swords, rugs, Ball Caps, cruise jackets, Shellback and Golden Dragon papers,
CIWS & Harpoon patches and Zippo lighters… Just to let you know!!!”
Yep… Every Sailor who knows
the ol’ rascal Rachal love the Son-of-a-Gun! Nothing like Shipmates… Nothing
like Shipmates!!!
