Once upon a time on usenet George Shirley wrote:
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.
You are a very lucky man George Shirley - I envy you. Alas my life didn't
turn out as planned - not even close.
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.
I've been learning to use this site over the last month or so. With a bit of
experience you can soon be better at estimating the future weather than
those performing monkeys on TV;
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current....99,30.28,1003
You can zoom in and out (mousewheel) and click and rotate the earth and see
what's going on in real time. You can click a place on the map and get data
for that point. (Windspeed, total preipitable water and wind power density.)
I centred it over the US for those URLs, you can move it to where you want
it before bookmarking it yourself and the bookmark will store the scale,
lat. and long. that you set
Enjoy.
--
Shaun.
"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)