Segundo Sea Stories About 1961 - 1963
                      by Ted R. Howell IC2(SS)

                    (As best as I can remember)

   Some where along here I think we had a trim party for a new officer (can't remember his name) who had the watch in the control room , back and forth we went and he was pumping water back and forth until the Captain  put a stop to it. I do remember this officer as tall and thin blonde hair. He said one time he was taking some psychology classes at San Francisco, so one night he run into this tall guy and decided to try some of what her learned in class. Come to find out the tall guy in the bar was Wilt Chamberlain and Wilt beat the shit out of Mr. Psychology Major. He said he learned a lesson that psychology does not always work.

 

  Lt. Taylor who was from Arizona and a cowboy. He chewed tobacco a lot. The brand was Four Brothers or Tinsleys Best, all I remember is was a twist and was strong. When we were running on the surface and he had the watch topside I would go up and visit and he would offer me a chew. I had an entire ocean to spit in at my leisure as long as I spit with the wind on the lee side.  One day we were submerged and Lt. Taylor had the watch as diving officer in the control room. He had a chaw in his jaw
and asked me if I wanted one, I was on watch as forward  electrician . I said "Sure"  and away I went with the chew. I had not been at it long before I had to spit. It was about seventy feet or so to the after battery head where I would spit in the urinal . Well I noticed that during that entire watch I had run back to the head about fifty times at least and Lt. Taylor never spit once. I said " Mr. Taylor how is it that I have been running back to the head to spit and you have stood here the entire watch and never spit once." and his reply was" Howell, that's for us professionals to know and your amateurs to find out."

    Someone made up a story of a pet alligator living in the bilge of the engine room (don't remember if it was the forward or aft engine room). Herman Hermosuri a Steward for the Officers Quarters was studying  his qualifications and was in the engine room when Sam Maubish told him that there indeed "was a pet alligator down there."  Herman would looked  but could find the pet.

One day Sam went to the galley and picked us some left over green lettuce and returned to the engine to await a signal that Herman was on his way back. When the call came that Herman was on his way, Sam opened the floor hatch leading to the bilge and was standing there tossing pieces of lettuce in the bilge pretending to   feed the alligator and saying to Herman " He should be out any minute to eat".  Herman still did not get to see the alligator after a patience wait.
Sam had one of the engine men run a air hose from a valve outboard the engine and down under  the dirty and murky bilge water and secure it .
Next day  Sam got  the signal that Herman was on his way  back and positioned an engine men out by the air valve. When Herman got there Sam opened the hatch and pointed to spot near to where the end of the sunken air hose was located and said: "He was there just a few moments ago".   Herman excitedly climbed down and inched his way closer for a good look. On a signal from Sam the engine man cracked the air valve enough to make a lot of bubbles and noise,  Herman flew out of the bilge and run back toward the ward room.

    We had a electrician on board named Eugene Cole, he was a farm boy with red freckles and a shock of red hair. He had a farm boy's appetite. That man could out eat and out work three good men. It was not uncommon for him to eat 5 steaks for dinner at  noon  or a dozen eggs for breakfast. He told me the story that he went to a place in San Diego called the "Chuck Wagon"  an all you can eat joint for $2.69 (not sure about the price) and put in his order. His reorder was the same, and the reorder after that, and the next, They asked him to leave, they felt he had his money's worth.
    The Captain had heard about Eugene's appetite and said on the bridge one day "God help us if he ever discovers whiskey and women"

One of the first things I saw in Pearl was the pass where the Japanese flew their planes on the attack. We were to take on fuel and supplies and rest for a few days.    While there we had to go through the escape tank and somebody fluffed in the lock. Never knew who did it, but it wouldn't have smelled any better if we had known anyway.
 They brought fresh pineapple out of the fields and I was surprised how good they tasted compared to the ones in the markets in San Diego.
Saturday after noon I with Frank Selucky, and two other mates( Can't remember their names) went ashore and rented a white Chevy convertible for 24 hours. I was the only one old enough to sign for the car so I got the keys and responsibility of driving. All that evening we rode around Wakakii beach area and took in a few night spots and shows. One of the guys in the car ( I'll call him Rusty, I think his name was Rassmussen) saw a nice lawn beside the road with coconuts laying too temptingly about. I stopped the car and he jumped out and snatched a coconut to bring home. The next day they had the duty so Prokupek and I took the
Chevy and drove around the island. We went to Diamond Head, Mount Paley, Blow Hole on the far side of the island where the high tides and crashing waves went under the rocks  and spewed up through a hole making an eruptive spray of air and salt water. We went to Scofield barracks that had been bombed and strafed during the attack on Pearl Harbor, later we rode around  and visited a few other sites of pineapple fields and high hills. I took Prok back to the base and returned the car an
took a bus home.

 

 Submarines were fortunate to usually get a phone and land line in the control room when we entered port. When some one had a
phone call whoever answered would call their compartment on the sound powered phone and say you have a phone call in the control room.  Next morning we were under way and about five miles at sea  for  Australia when some one in the control room calls some body in the after torpedo room and tells them you have a phone call on the land line. That unsuspecting person would run to the control room and pick up the receiver laying atop the gyro table that he had been "HAD" when he said hello and realized there was no one there and we were at  sea and everybody in the control room was looking at with a grin. This type of
incident happened in other ports as well.

 

   I had the watch in the control room and Ken Strutz 1Class MM and I were sitting by the diving planes.I had heard that Ken got a new tattoo in Pearl. Ken had a lot of tattoo's so this one must be something else.
 I said "Hey Ken, I hear you got a new tattoo",  He replied "I did" I asked "Let's see it". He unbuttoned his pants and pulled out his penis and there was a brand new anchor tattooed on the head.

 I asked "How much did that cost?" He said "Twenty five dollars, Ten dollars for the tattoo and fifteen dollars handling charges". My next question was "Why did you get that design and why there?"  His reply was " When I go ashore to drop anchor, I want to drop anchor". " Did it  hurt?"  I asked, wincing , His reply " I was to drunk to remember."

 

As we were leaving Pearl the Admiral of ComSubPac rode with us for a few days. One evening a few of us were standing around the gyro table in the control room drinking coffee and talking about bars they had visited in Japan on previous trips,  The White Hat, The Black Cat  were some names mentioned. The Admiral walked up and asked " Have any of you men been to the Cat's Paw? Everyone shook their heads and said they have never heard of it.
"Where exactly was it "they asked?  He replied "About three joints down from the Cat's Ass."

 

On the way Australia we crossed the equator with the usual pollywog's induction in to the world of King Neptuneus Rex (Robert Madill) and Davy Jones (Dirk Van Loon) his Royale Scribe to become a Shellback. That was a lot of fun, makes a memory that last the rest of your life. I remember Ken Strutz working the pump room on the lathe turning the points for Neptune's Tridents, the Royal Scepter for the up and coming Royal Court.

My charge was "living on a submarine tender for a few years and coming aboard a submarine and trying to act like a sailor". My sentence like that of other pollywogs was to kiss the royal Baby's greased belly (Charles Williams) and chew on a Tampax soaked in beef blood and saturated with Tabasco pepper sauce and God only knows what else. Some of it tasted like hydraulic oil. I think we got a small hair cut and then had the privilege of crawling through the canvas chute full of table scraps & garbage that had been marinating for a few days prior to the crossing not to mentioned the guy just in front threw up before you went in. Becoming a Shellback has it's benefits. You get to harass the guys in line behind you.

 

   I remember the  Southern Cross being pointed out to me for the first time one night when we surfaced to charge batteries and air banks. It was shortly after we had crossed the equator and a caution came also not to get it confused with the false cross.
   One night we surfaced to charge batteries and air banks, the Captain, two lookouts and I were on the bridge. Richard Everett Hume lll came up to take the bridge. The captain gave him all of the information about heading, engines, contacts, etc.  The Captain pointed out there was a light of a contact barely visible dead ahead on the horizon and that he should keep close watch on it and when he lost sight of it let him know. The Captain left the bridge to the conning tower for a brief pause by the radar operator and then to his quarters.  Lt. jg.  Hume  peering a few moments through the TDT reached down and pressed the switch  on the 7 MC and  asked the radar operator: "What is  the range to the contact dead ahead."  There was a brief pause and the operator reported " "The range to that contact is  10,000 light years away, it's a star, sir."

    First port was New Castle. The Segundo was the first submarine to visit there since WWll, so they told me, any way there was a large number of people there on the pier to greet us when we tied up. We received a very warm welcome from everyone there. Chief of the Boat Chester DeNeen assigned me the first top side watch upon entering port.
We were over whelmed with Sea Scouts, news reporters and the public at large asking a million questions. After liberty was started we had open house and escorted people down the forward torpedo room hatch though the boat and out the after torpedo room hatch. 

There was a lot people came through that boat that day. Some of the girls started writing their names and phone numbers on the vinyl mattress covers with ballpoint pen and started to look for things for souvenirs. They even took small boxes of breakfast cereal. We had to hide a lot of stuff.
 I met a man by the name of Allen Christy who invited me out to the Return Serviceman's League (that's like our AMVETS or VFW) that next evening.  When I got on the bus to ride out there the bus driver would not accept my money. He said we were guest and did not pay. We spent the entire evening at the club and my money was no good. They would not let me buy a drink or sandwiches or chips or anything. We closed that place and went to a pub that had closed but were friends of Allan and they let us in the back door for awhile and  a couple of drinks and still my money was no good. Wouldn't let me pay for a thing. It was getting near day light and someone wanted to go for breakfast so we went to a Greek restaurant, a Dane (merchant seaman)  had jumped ship and stayed in Australia. He and his girlfriend joined us. They bought my breakfast and flat refused to allow me to pay for anything.  How many times does that ever happen in
your life.
 The Aussies like their beer better that any body , I think.  Allan was a part of the local military group and gave me a tour of the gun emplacements up at the old fort. They had guns there from WWll, as he said were 17 & 21 mile snipers because of the range at that time.
   After a few days in New Castle  we were taking in the lines to leave when Allen came to the dock with his bag pipes and piped us away as we backed down from the pier. As we were clearing harbor we could hear bagpipes. The Captain said what is that sound and I pointed to Allan standing on a huge rock at the waters edge. He  had jumped in his car and speed a head of us as far as he could drive and then climbed over a few more rocks to get as far out as he could, stood tall and straight playing his pipes saying goodbye as we left that morning. I had heard that it was considered to be a great honor to be piped out of the
harbor.
 I wrote to Allan a few times but lost contact.

   Next stop was Brisbane. The three things I remember about that was the long swift river we had to negotiate from the ocean up river to get to the city. The current was so swift I didn't think we would ever get the boat turned around and tied up. It strained the mooring lines to the max. As usual there was a line of people about four blocks long waiting to see the boat. That meant more tours and another million questions about the boat and submarine life.

There were the reporters looking for a story and we had plenty to tell them. The Red Cross wanted us to donate blood and there were many volunteers.  Nice parks in Brisbane with Koala Bears to pet. Their furry coats would stick to your dress blues and make a mess.
    There was a rusty old Russian freighter tied up on the opposite side of the river the day we were leaving and they hung up a huge sign in English that said "Go Home Yankee Cock Sucker." The X O, Smith did not want to start a confrontation so he ordered everyone topside to face the other direction because shouts of insults were about to commence.

   Next stop was McKay for the Coral Sea Celebration, which commemorated the naval battle for the Coral Sea in WWll.  We had to travel through a lot of shallow water and dodging coral reefs.  It was night  and Lt. Weiner had the watch topside and we were on the surface and you could see the breakers rolling over the reefs at a fairly close distance, close enough  to make one uncomfortable. Lt. Weiner would call for fathometer readings to check the depth and for radar to report the range to shore or any contact in the area. Unbeknownst to him the Captain had
instructed the fathometer operator to send up false readings. Every time Lt. Weiner would ask for another reading it would be more shallow than the previous sounding. Just as the fathometer reading reached  "0 feet" the Captain ordered the forward torpedo room to fire a water slug from the torpedo tube making the boat shudder and halt like it had run aground. This was a test for the skills of the officer on watch topside.

   Once in McKay we were once more met with a warm welcome. The local city fathers had planned a parade and wanted the Segundo crewman to march in the parade. Have you ever seen boat sailors march. Not the kind of thing they like to participate in.
   We took on fuel in Australia and their fuel is more refined that our requirements were for our engines. It is lighter and more buoyant. When we had our first trim dive after leaving we had a hard time getting to boat to submerge. Had to refigure compensation.

 

After leaving McKay it was on toward Japan.
   Ray Reardon Electrican had a guitar that we had played on to while away some time. He stored it out board the cubicle in the maneuvering room one night after a hoot nanny. Because of the extreme heat of the cubicle (electrical componets) it melted the glue in the guitar. When it was found the next morning it was more U shaped than guitar shaped because of the tightness of the strings and the melted glue.
     Some Japanese laundry guys in Yokosuka  came and picked up our clothes. I told him to please patch my dungarees after they washed them and he said OK. I had forgotten   a pair of pants that I watered batteries was in the bag. That pair of pants had about forty holes of various sizes eaten by the acid. When the laundry came back a few days later, every one of those holes had a patch on it. I think the pants weighed two pounds more that when they were new.
   Speaking of battery wells and time spent down there watering and wiping of acid residue. I got shocked more times that I care to remember and each time jerking back only to hit my head. I still have indentations of the emergency light case in the top and sides of my head.
  We played some beer ball games in Yokosuka and drank a lot
beer(Ashahi) and wine (Akadaima).  I think somewhere about this time I qualified, I still have the original set of Dolphins that were given to me.
Our Yeoman, Lowell Day was a good soft ball  pitcher for not having no place to practice much. I caught for the team and all I had to do was give him a target and he could hit it with any thing he wanted to put on the ball. But good old Hotch in his little Yeoman's shack in the forward battery mumbling foibles and curses with a pound or two of BS thrown in at some of the officer types for one thing another, pitched a few good curves of his own.
One night I was coming back to the base when several hundred  (more or less)  sailors were at the gates trying to get through while  the Marines checked ID cards of each man. Off to the right side and an about twenty yards in front of the Marine gate there was a woven wire trash container about thirty inches high stuffed with discarded papers. There was a tall sailor standing facing the waste basket and his back to the general passing crowd of seamen.  Something unusual caught my eye about this situation. I noticed a yellow pool of liquid running out of the bottom of the basket and on to the sidewalk and past the sailor shoes.
Because of so many people I don't think the Marines saw him. As I got closer I noticed this guy was tall and broad shouldered. As I passed I noticed he had dolphins on his chest and was from the Segundo. I couldn't believe who I saw, who would ever suspect the Ship's Cook.
   One night the shore patrol brought David Holmes back to the boat drunk. I asked him what happened and he said," He was in a Jap bar off on some side street away from the normal sailor haunts. He was setting at the bar on a stool and got in an argument when they asked me to
leave, so I turned around and said do you guys remember the big boom and made a mushroom shaped gesture with both arms in the air. Next thing I know Howell, they were coming at me like flies and then the shore patrol showed up"
     After running around awhile I think we went to the Philippines for operations. I did visit Coregidor and wondered how any body could have lived through all of the devastation.
  DON’T LIKE SAN MIGUEL BEER.  It always tasted green and drinking it down there in the tropics and heat make you sick before you got drunk enough to enjoy it.
  Yeoman Day invented a two handed musicians salute, at least that was how he explained it to the shore patrol one night in Long A Poo , who questioned why he was holding one cupped hand in front of the other cupped hand in perfect alignment with his open mouth in a public
establishment.

    Some where through here I think we went to  Hong Kong. Good shopping for clothes and jewelry. Go from tailor to tailor and drink their free beer and enjoy their hospitality and haggle over prices. Get drunk and buy something you later decided you really didn't want after you sobered up.
   Water was really scarce in the city of Hong Kong because the
Communist on the main land would cut off the supply everyday in the afternoon. We distilled a lot of sea water before we came  to have
enough supply to last us our stay without using shore water.  Ray
Reardon was the forward electrician in the control room while distilling battery water in the engine room. The enginemen would come to the maneuvering room and tell us that they were ready to blow a load of water up to the tanks and we would call Ray and let him know  there was a load coming forward. Ray waited too long to check and the tanks overflowed and flooded the area behind the officers state rooms. A lot of things got wet including some of the Captain's personal belongings.
 After docking Hong Kong,  one day the shore patrol brought David Homes back to the boat and wanted to write him up for being drunk and a sleep in a door way in town. The X. O.  Smith talked them out of it by offering them five gallons of fresh drinking water.
Lt. Kerry Gentry from Sedila Mo. had a love of guns. Rifles, shotguns etc. , while there he bought a couple of new ones. A Weatherby or Browning of fine quality.

   There was a hurricane coming and we left port a day early. On the way out some guy is a bum boat cut across our path directly in front of us. The bridge called all back emergency .  I was in the maneuvering room on the sound powered phones As they were trying to get into all back emergency,  a fire broke out on one of the resistors on the field controls of the main motor. I passed the word "Fire in the maneuvering room" , the captain ordered the anchor to be dropped hoping to stop the boat before hitting the bum boat. The Chinese would try to get hit so they could sue the U.S. and they would be set for life. Besides it would be a bad mark on the Captains record.  We did get the boat stopped and
missed the bum boat made repairs and then on out to sea.
   When ever I would get stumped on a electrical problem I would go to Chief Charles Williams(Fat Willie) and ask for help and his first question was " Have you looked at the Manufactures Instruction Book", I would say "no" and he would say "Go get the book and read it."  About the third time I came to him and getting the same question and answer it was starting to sink in. Every once in awhile I would start to ask him a question and then catch myself and say out loud to  him " Get the manufactures instruction book" as I was turning  in the opposite direction  to go get the book.
   Tom Clark  EM 2 was a sea sick career sailor, as least that was what they accused him of at the Royal Court when crossing the equator. Tom had a good sense of humor and spent a lot of time working on the A/C unit for the after battery which was out of commission most of the time.
He swore that when we went to dry dock the first thing he would do was shut down the A/C  unit for the forward battery.
    It is amazing how a person can change when they set down at a table and some cards are passed out and poker begins. Tom took on an entirely different look and personality while playing poker.  Just looking at him and listing to his jokes you would never suspect that he could play poker. Tom was from around Branson Mo. and when they built either Table Rock  or Tanneycomo lake the Army Corps of Engineers took his family's
farm.     

 When we reached Sasebo, Tom did shut of the forward battery A/C unit but is was a short duration until they ordered him to put it back on line.
    One night after we had dry docked we were standing around the dock area talking and a little Japanese guard with a pressed paper hard hat and sawed off pump shotgun with a sling attached
came along and we started talking to him. We asked about his shotgun and he held it up to show it off when Prok reached out and took it out of his hands and put it to his shoulder and aimed high in the shy checking out the heft and feel of the stock for balance. The little guard was in a near panic and shock, he wanted the gun back but was not tall enough to reach up and take hold of it. He  just reached out with both arms stretching as high as he could trying to get his gun back and asked if he could have it back please. Prok gave it back to him and he was much more at ease after that and shortly went on his way checking his rounds.

   Near the dry dock was a big pile of gravel and about one hundred feet down the dock was a form for making concrete sea anchors and by the form as a platform make of poles and bamboo at a level equal to the top of the form. There was a woman Japanese school teacher off for the summer in charge of the operation. There were several older women at the gravel
pile filling woven baskets of gravel. One man with a wheelbarrow would lift the baskets and dump in the wheelbarrow. Then push the wheelbarrow over to the platform and shovel the gravel up and on to the platform where a couple of other guys would mix it with cement and water into concrete and shovel it into the form to make the sea anchor. Everyone had a job that way.
          While the Segundo was in dry dock in Sasbeo Japan on a dark ,stormy and pouring down rainy night Ted Howell had just finished a shower and started aft from the after battery when one of the Japanese yard bird came running forward through the forward engine room with eyes as big as coffee mugs holding up the index fingers of both hands making
an X sign and  repeating the words at the top of his voice" Dinky,
Dinky, Dinky" I had no idea what he wanted or what was happening so I followed him in to the after engine room.
Just aft of the outside hatch on the port side where the shore power attached to ships power terminals was a shower of sparks and smoke and fire coming from the shore power terminal. Howell ran in to the maneuvering room and reported" fire in the after engine room" on the 7 MC. Some one in the control room repeated the  message on the 1 MC.
Howell in the mean time gripped a C02 fire Extinguisher and was spraying at the blaze when help started arriving. Richard Lindsay left the boat to find the source of power. The sub station at the other end of our shore power cable was a wire cage with open knife switches out in the open weather( mind you it is pouring down rain). How he managed to get the power off and not get killed  I don't know but he did.
Needless to say Howell  had a excitedly good grip on the handle of the CO2 bottle even after the fire was out.  Lt. Slater the engineering officer was standing to Howell's  left when  Howell  squeezed the handle too hard from all of the excitement and filled his shoes with CO2. He was not impressed as much as  he was surprised. After that things got settled down and back to normal.

I remember our radar going on the blink while on operations and the captain would never say his radar was out over the radio to other ships or aircraft we working with. His reply was "my crystal ball is cracked."

   Some where out here while underway someone in the maneuvering room was playing around with the top of the levers. The push button atop of the levers was a lock release that made it possible to move the lever to the forward or astern direction, changing ships direction or speed, adding or removing generators from batteries or on line direct etc.  Who ever it was unscrewed this innocent little button sitting there minding it's own business when along came a clumsy thumb and forefinger and twisted it in a counter clockwise direction until the loaded coil spring
released it's energy sending the cap and spring into the air.  Immediate panic and search. If there had been a bell change for that lever it would not have been possible with the button and spring missing. After a frantic minute the cap and spring were found and replaced, a lesson learned by a curious junior controllermen.
   I stood my watches in the maneuvering room and Frank Tamberilli stood his watch in the forward torpedo room. We would get to see each other in the line for chow around noon. I would get in line before he arrived. We he walked by going to the end of the line I would say "Everyday I see a Dago by." Frank had a good sense of humor.  Howell ( junior controllerman) and another electrician were on watch in the maneuvering room
late one evening Prok came back with something he had mixed up in the galley. He had browned caraway seed and sugar in a pan and added 180 proof alcohol. I think he called it Calomel. Not a bad drink, we had a couple of shots and told some lies.

                    San Diego operations about  63

A electrician striker by the name of James Dundas  (Later dubbed JJ- (junior jackoff) came aboard and started to work on his qualification. Jimmy was red headed and a short fuse for patience when frustrated by a simple piece of equipment. One day I was going forward through the after battery and JJ was working on a twelve inch three bladed fan, for some reason he couldn't get the screws started back into place and began stabbing the fan with his screw driver until some of the frustration dissipated.

Lt. Joe Urhane (harmonica player) would call me up when we were in port and bring a guitar and we would play folk songs in the ward room after all the other officers had left.
   When Lt. Urhane had the conning tower instead of calling to the
diving officer to cycle the hatches he would write it on a piece of
paper and lower it on a string and dangle it around the diving officers head until noticed. Something to break the monotony.

Lt. Kerry Gentry like so many of the young submarine officers in the fleet was summoned back to Washing D.C. to be interview by Admiral Hymie Rickover for nuclear power submarines.
Rickover asked " why aren't you in  nuclear power boats by now"
Gentry's reply was " Nuclear boats stay at sea to long and I have this hobby with guns I enjoy, if I stay out that long I will have no time for my guns."
Rickover told him "Go out side my office and sit down on that bench and think about what you have said and I will call for you later."
About an hour passes and Rickover calls him back into the room.
Rickover asked; "Have you thought over your answer" Gentry's replied "I prefer to stay with the Segundo and not go to
nuclear power" Rickover dismissed him to return to the Segundo.
I guess the it could be rightly said that "Lt. Gentry stuck to his
guns."     

 In about 1963 the Segundo went to Seattle for the Sea Fair. Don't have to many remembrances of ship activities except we went to Port Everett and all of the women were ugly ( I think the city fathers had all of the pretty ones hid) and you could not stand up at the bar and drink your beer or carry your drink across the room to a table, the bartender had to carry it for you.  I had family that lived near there and spent most of my time with them.
   We went up to Canada to Esqumalt and Victoria  and then to Alaska, up the Straits of San Jaun de Fuca. The first place was Port Haynes near Chilcoot Pass.
   As we approached the pier to tie up I kept wondering what are they doing with all those short black logs stacked like cord wood on the pier nest to a freighter. When we got closer and I could see better those short black logs were frozen salmon being loaded on the freighter.
  There were fish every where, a stream not more that six foot wide and a little over ankle deep had good size salmon .  A electrician's mate named Riley took off his shoes and was wading trying to catch them with his bare hands.
The most exciting things there was the pet moose that followed people about town trying to get into cars, boats and houses and the  bowling alley  called "Totem Bowl Bar."
 They had two brothers playing guitars for musical entertainment. They were really good, the youngest brother had written a song that had done real well in the charts called  "Mr. Blue." One of the guys from the boat used to play drums with the Everely Brothers in Tennessee sat in with them. Made a nice trio
 There was on the counter behind the bar a long string of reindeer
pepperoni links that the bar keep would take a butcher knife and chop off however much you wanted  for twenty cents a hunk.

I for get the X.O's name ( Betchler  ?)  was working real hard on a
fifth of Haig and Haig Pinch Scotch whiskey behind the bar at fifty
cents a shot, big money then. One night we were standing there and he asked for a phone book. He looked at me and said " let's call somebody up and invite them down for a drink". He picked out a name, a name not like just any other name but a name that was " Emma Schable" and dialed the phone and when they answered he handed me the phone. I explained who
we were and asked "Would you like to come down for a drink". They were busy and could not make it.   The next day I was invited by a local  to go to a family's house for a short  visit and it turned out to be "Emma Schable" and family.
 As we were getting ready to leave there was a crowd on the dock to see us off as was every port we visited, the maneuvering room passed word up  they  could not get any oil pressure for the lube oil pumps on the main motors. Some how the oil was  contaminated with salt water and had emulsified. We could not leave until the bad oil removed and clean oil pumped in. This was taking time and was somewhat embarrassing for the
Captain wanting to leave and the boat not ready in all respects with a crowd assembled to wave goodbye. I was a phone talker on the bridge and Capt. Meir & X.O. Betchler was there.  Ens. Boley  was the officer on the forward capstan had not changed his uniform before getting  under way and needles to say his khakis were very rumpled, dirty  and disheveled. The X.O. leaned over to me to pass the word by sound powered phone to the forward capstan and said, "Have Pig Pen Boley report to me at the dog house door."  After their discussion  Mr. Boley always
appeared in public better dressed.
    I do remember someone asking the question in town:
  "What do you do on the long winter nights up here."
Came the reply:  "Every girl in the senior class at high school and the teacher are pregnant, does that answer your question."
   Next we went to Sitki. They had a totem pole park and an old Russian Orthodox Church to go see. Most of the natives looked more oriental that indian.
 One night a bunch of us had come back to the boat and was sitting on the pier enjoying a night cap before we turned in.  Capt. Meir pulled up in a taxi cab, got out and someone  spoke up and said "Captain, come have a  drink with us" with that he reached in his blouse pocket and pulled out an old fashion glass with a fresh drink in it. One of the quartermasters said I bet you can't do that again, Captain reached in the other pocket and pulled out another fresh drink and we finished our night cap being up staged by the Captain.