On 8/15/2015 3:17 PM, Derald wrote:
George Shirley wrote:

think I was many years before your service Derald. We had folks that
washed and dried our clothes for us.
USS Boston's last crew and her last WESTPAC ('nam) cruise 69-70.
New crew members normally spent their first week aboard working for
ship's MA (good way to learn one's way around a heavy cruiser). I was a
RM, a "critical" rating, and my division's CPO was the ship's senior PO.
When he discovered he had two radioman aboard he rescued us from the MA
after two or three hours but for those hours I worked in the ship's
laundry operating the extractors ("spin dry") and the dryers.

I was going to be a Aviation Electronics Tech when I went in, got to the
school in Millington, TN and found out that aviation electronics where
huge tubes and hard wired, dropped out deliberately and went on to Pax
River and became a Yeoman, AKA, Titless Typist, was a good job as I also
crewed on prop driven aircraft with VR-1 and got to fly all over the US,
Canada, and the rest of the world for nearly two years. My flying job
was "Flight Orderly," did the weight and balance, looked after
passengers and cargo, nowadays it would be a Load Master. Made E4,
passed the E5 test and got sent to sea on a WWII destroyer, a real sub
chasing gun boat, spent a lot of time sailing out of Newport, RI and up
along the Atlantic ice pack for thirty days and then we would go back to
Newport, get the ship working good again and then to the Caribbean for
thirty days. What a hardship!

Got recalled to active reserves for the Cuban missile crisis in December
1962, got out in June 1963. For that six months in 1963 I got to go to
college on the Vietnam GI Bill, they paid me enough money for that that
my wife finished her last two years on it. I was making good money in a
petrochemical plant and it was a hectic four years what with wife and
kids, work, run a gunsmith shop in what spare time I had, farmed ten
acres, worked swing shift at the plant and college. Good thing I was
young and healthy then. Of course I had the advantage of studying at
work since I ran a lone wolf control room well away from all the bosses
and busy bodies. G

I was intending to be a lifer but fell in love and my wife grew up at
Pax River and wanted no part of being married to a swabbie who would be
deployed three fourths of the time and leave her to take care of the
kids and everything else. Love and lust trumps wanta be a sailor every
time. We will be married 55 years come this December. Guess it all
worked out. Two kids, five grandkids, six great grandkids, and our
eldest granddaughter is getting married soon so there will probably be
more great grands to love and teach.

snip

Boot camp in Dago in 1957 we washed our clothes on a concrete table with
a scrub brush and strong soap, rinsed, and then ran them up a line
attached to a tall pole.
Great Lakes (North Chicago, IL), 1968, same same; hung'em with
clothes stops. On rainy days we used steam heated drying rooms. Of
course, when in school, I did my own on base.

snip

Just got a weather alert for severe thunderstorms, we can only wish that
it is true,
Here's hoping. So far this year, we're ahead of annual "average"
but that doesn't mean much. It'll take more than a few such years to
begin to reduce the groundwater/aquifer deficits. it's over 100F outside
at the moment and the clouds we can

Weather experts my back end.
...and you just noticed?

Naw, I've known it for a long time, TV just makes it worse as they put
these "Emergency" screens on every hour when someone at the weather
bureau sneezes. I think my arthritic back is better at guessing the
weather than the Phd that is on TV.