schmoozer

haha… I have a lot of memories that are not printable. almost got married in both Taiwan, and Olongapo. Fortunately, neither happened. We are what/where we are now because of our past… wouldn’t trade my life for $100 million.

We seem to have drifted from the music theme…?

I wouldn’t trade one minute of those 5 years for a million dollars. It made me who I am today.

I remember being in a sushi restaurant in Fukuoka, the locals were buying us drinks for being “poor US sailors”. We were singing rock-n-roll songs along with the jukebox, woke up with on hell of a headache.

I have a patch somewhere for the USS Chicago being turned into razor blades in 1980, I was on the decomm crew. The captain was pissed and banned them from being worn.

I remember hearing about that issue… it was expensive, and the Suntory whiskey sucked. The beer was good.

We had nuclear ASROCS onboard DDG-14, but nobody talked about them. I remember hearing about the testing, fire one and book at 30 knots in the opposite direction, the ship still took serious structural damage. Destroyers were expendable, all to save the carrier.

The shellback ritual went woke, no abuse allowed. They saved a weeks galley garbage on a tarp on the aft deck we had to crawl thru. I had my shower sandals on my knees under my dungarees to keep from scraping them while crawling around the decks. got soaked with a firehose on the bow while doing 25 knots.

Never had any issues in Yokuska Japan, even went to Fukuoka in China. They were happy to take our money.

After that we monitored 2 ICBM launches from a sub. Was supposed to by 500yds from launch, it broke water about 200yds out, scared the crap out of everyone on deck. crossed the equator for shellback ceremonies, I have pictures of the event. It was intense, the firehose shelighlies hurt like hell.

In 1977 on Westpac, we did a unrep with the USS Shasta. Our aft boiler fuel pumps tripped and Had to do a breakaway. Shasta cut the cables before we could release, the cables wrapped around our port shaft, which was my engineroom. 85RPM to 0 in a heartbeat, the reduction gears jumped maybe 6”. Hit the main steam stop valve and booked it out of the space, never been so scared. We limped into Guam and spent two weeks there. Crazy times…

Qualified as 600lb and 1,200lb Engineroom Supervisor. left as an E-5. captains mast twice, once for telling a chief to KMA, once for getting tattoos in Hong Kong. Never liked having stupid people tell me what to do. Still don’t, became self-employed in 2007 after 20 years as an HVAC design engineer in the Bldg design industry.

I also did A school (MM) at Great Lakes.

Boot was in Orlando, co-ed. USS Buchanan DDG-14 76-79 USS Chicago CG-11 79-80 USS Prairie AD-15 1980 i was on the Prairie headed to Portland for the Rose Festival when MT ST Helen’s blew. We got diverted to Seattle, spent 3 days. Fell in love with it, the day I finished college in 85 we loaded up a u-haul and we moved to Seattle without jobs. Rented an apartment out of the paper, not really knowing where it was. It was on 2nd street across from the Seattle Center, didn’t sleep for a week due to the street noise. After 6months we moved into a house on Bainbridge Island near Fay Bainbridge park. Didn’t sleep for a week due to the silence.

I do remember doing a few other “things” while on shore. never made it to Singapore. HongKong and Subic Bay were the favorite stops. when were you in service? I did 75-80 out of San Diego 32nd street.

everything was bootlegged!!!!

What did it say?

I remember one, ”If you’re gonna ride my ass, the least you can do is pull my hair”🤣🤣🤣

Was in Seattle yesterday, sitting at the ferry terminal scanning my artist list on the phone. Played the Cream Goodbye Tour, 1968!👍👍👍 the drum solos are incredible.

“After the Gold Rush” was my favorite album! I found the album in a store in Hong Kong in 1977 while in the Navy. Bootlegged, cost $1.50.

I also picked up 2 silver rounds from a local casino, they were priced at $5 each🙃

Not African but SW Indian from the Santa Domingo Pueblo. Picked up today at a local estate sale. We headed into town and saw the sign, drove 2 miles to find out it was a house 3 down from us on the beach. A neighbor I had spoken to a few times while walking the beach, passed away last year. based on the clasps, thinking early 1900’s.

Loaded???🤣

Research research research… “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure” my apologies to the Ladies🙃 we have a couple other pieces we are still researching…