What? Me? Reenlist?

When I first enlisted in the Navy I had no intention of reenlisting. I had a draft notice to report for induction into the U.S. Army when I enlisted in the Navy. Enlisting in anything had not been my idea. But what are you to do when the President calls and says, “Greetings...”

I joined the Navy reluctantly and would have guaranteed on the spot that I would never, ever consider staying in the service. But, as they say, “Never say never.”

As the expiration of my enlistment approached I was making plans to attend the University of Iowa. Then one day...

The Navy waved a reenlistment bonus in front of me. It was a substantial sum and for the time being I had to at least consider reenlisting. I needed the money. My wife had been in the Navy also, but after our daughter was born she was released from active duty. Unfortunately, while she was in the service we had spent money and had incurred debt, based on two salaries. When one of those salaries went away...well, let’s just say the money would come in handy.

I didn’t want to just reenlist for the money so I thought I’d ask for a choice of duty and location. I asked for recruiting duty in Iowa (my home) or Minnesota (my wife’s home). I figured that the Navy wasn’t about to give me money, my choice of type of duty AND location, so if I didn’t reenlist I could use the excuse they Navy hadn’t been fair to me.

But, quite the contrary, the Navy gave me all I asked for, money, and recruiting duty in Minneapolis, MN. I decided college could wait, plus I could always attend college at night. My time in the Navy had been good. I had been stationed at Oceana, Virginia, and served with a Fighter Squadron, met and married a young lady from Minnesota, and even got to act in about eleven community theatre productions at the Little Theatre of Norfolk.

The three years I had spent in Virginia also saw me getting to make two deployments to the Mediterranean. I had met a lot of people, became “worldly” and generally had a good time.

Now the Navy was going to give me a pile of money, send me to a school in San Diego, CA and then send me on to Minneapolis, MN where I would be a classifier (one of the people responsible for putting people into the right job) stationed with the Navy Recruiting District in Minneapolis. So, I reenlisted for four years. I reenlisted at sea, I don’t recall the exact longitude and latitude, but the Commanding Officer of the ship allowed me to “take command” of the USS FORRESTAL (CVA-59) for 30 minutes. His only warning, “Don’t run in to anything.” I didn’t.

I left the ship when it anchored in Naples, Italy. Now, I had already learned my lesson about flying military aircraft when I almost had to jump out of one, so I arranged a commercial flight for myself and my personnel officer who was also being transferred. We traveled by “slow” train to Rome, stayed a couple of days in Rome, and flew on to New York with layovers in Geneva and London.

Up to the point when we arrived in New York we had not been in any big hurry. We had time to sight see and explore some of Europe. But, once we hit New York we were both anxious to get to Norfolk, VA – our home port.

My personnel officer made up a story about how we were “needed” immediately in Norfolk and asked if there was anything the ticket agent could do to get us there quickly. (At this point we had to fly on standby, with no guarantee of how quick we could get a flight). The agent put us the next flight and upgraded us to first class. It was a good end to the journey. I called my wife from the New York airport before I boarded since she had no idea I was coming home and her first response was, “You can’t, the house isn’t clean.” I went home anyway...

Next...the trip to California on our way to Minnesota.

The New Math

My wife and I stopped by an ice cream shop (remaining nameless) for some ice cream this past weekend. I drove up to the window and placed my order, "I would like a 1/2 gallon of vanilla soft serve please."

To which the young lady responded, "I'm sorry sir, we no longer sell 1/2 gallons."

"You mean I can't order a 1/2 gallon?"

"That's right sir."

"There's no way I can get 1/2 gallon of ice cream?"

"That's correct, sir. We no longer sell 1/2 gallons."

"Do you sell quarts?"

"Yes, sir we do."

"May I order 2 quarts?"

"Yes, ...please pull forward."

Must be that new math...

It Was a Dark and Rainy Night

It was a dark and rainy night when the plane I was on started to fall out of the sky – it really was dark and rainy - I’ll get back to the weather report...but first let me begin my story at an earlier moment in time.

My oldest daughter Jennifer was born on March 9th, 1974. It was a happy and joyous occasion – but there was a cloud hanging over the event. In 2 days I had to deploy with the USS FORESSTAL, the aircraft carrier where I was stationed. The Navy did not (probably still doesn’t) consider normal child birth as a reason to miss a ship’s movement. The ship was scheduled to deploy to the Mediterranean for a 6 month cruise bright and early on Monday, March 11th. As I road the ship down the channel to the Atlantic Ocean, both my wife and daughter were still in the hospital. It was a difficult departure and journey – I had teary eyes all the way to the Azores.

I will always be thankful for the Navy wives who stepped up and watched after my wife and daughter as I left on deployment. They came together and fetched and carried, shopped, and cleaned. They ran the household. They even picked my mother-in-law up at the airport when she came to visit. My mother-in-law took over taking care of everyone, but the Navy wives were at the ready. Everything was going well until my wife came down with phlebitis (blood clots in her legs). The doctors at the hospital thought it was serious enough to send a message to the ship. My Commanding Officer gave me 30 days emergency leave and I came back to Virginia. (Now, there’s another story to be told about how I got back. Remember, I was on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Mediterranean and it was not all that easy to get home.)

It took me over 48 hours of traveling to get home, and I arrived safely. The first thing I did was sleep after I found out everyone was ok. My wife was released from the hospital not too long after I arrived and we had 30 days to bond with the baby. My mother also visited, but her visit was cut short when my grandfather passed away.

Since I couldn’t stay on leave forever, I had to return to the ship. I didn’t want to, but the Navy has this thing called Unauthorized Absence where they put you in jail. Since jail didn’t appeal to me – off I went. I started my journey on a Sunday afternoon. The return trip was not going to be an easy task. I had to use a mix of civilian and government transportation and the two, at times, don’t mix well.

I flew from Norfolk, Virginia to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where I was told it would take 2-3 weeks to get processed and on an airplane to Europe. I certainly didn’t want to sit for 3 weeks. The Navy has a “way” of keeping you busy, and typically they keep you busy with unpleasant tasks. Since I was a Personnelman (a guy who works in the personnel office) I volunteered to do 14 of the processing centers transfers if they’d let me be number 15. The Chief in charge thought that was a great idea and a deal was struck. I managed to leave for Europe after only 3 days in Philadelphia.

My first flight left from Trenton, New Jersey and took me to Rota, Spain, where I caught another flight to Germany, where I caught another flight to Naples, where I caught another flight to Palma Majorca. It was on the next leg of the journey where it was a dark and rainy night...

The last part of the trip back to the ship was on a plane which was going to land on the carrier. I was excited about the prospect. We had been in the air about ½ hour when smoke started filling the plane. At first it was a slight smell of something burning, and then smoke - a lot of smoke. The flight crew started yelling orders and frantically searching for the source of the smoke. In the process I was handed a parachute and was assigned to a ditching station. I was only a Seaman and did not possess a lot of knowledge about the Navy, ships or airplanes, but I knew enough to know that ditching in an ocean at night, was not good – even with a parachute. I figured this was it – gravity was finally going to get me. The plane started losing altitude – and then I heard shouts of, “...it’s out...it’s ok. It’s a seabag”

It seems a seabag had been placed on a set of wires which caused a short, which caused a fire, which caused – havoc!!

The pilot turned the plane around and landed in Palma. I had to stay over night and I was told to catch another plane to the ship the next day. However, when the next day arrived, the ship had now moved into another area of operations, so I could no longer fly out to land on the carrier. I had to meet the ship at its next port, so I took a flight to Naples.

The flight to Naples arrived about an hour after the ship had dropped anchor in the harbor. At this point I was finished with planes. I took a small boat out to the ship. It had been a long journey – over 7 days to get back to the ship. I was glad to be back to the ship– something I was surprised at feeling, but the ship was familiar territory. I may have been glad to be back, but my heart was still in Norfolk with the little girl I had just briefly met.

© 2006 Robert Allen Hill

History Lesson

A friend of mine sent me this - I have no idea of the truth of the matter - it does make some sense, at any rate it's a good story.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, everything had to be transported by ship and it was also before commercial fertilizer's invention, so large shipments of manure were common. It was shipped dry, because in dry form it weighed a lot less than when wet, but once water (at sea) hit it, it not only became heavier, but the process of fermentation began again, of which a byproduct is methane gas.

As the stuff was stored below decks in bundles you can see what could (and did) happen. Methane began to build up below decks and the first time someone came below at night with a lantern, BOOOOM! Several ships were destroyed in this manner before it was determined just what was happening.

After that, the bundles of manure were always stamped with the term "Ship High In Transit" on them, which meant for the sailors to stow it high enough off the lower decks so that any water that came into the hold would not touch this volatile cargo and start the production of methane. Thus evolved the term "S.H.I.T " , (Ship High In Transport) which has come down through the centuries and is in use to this very day.

You probably did not know the true history of this word. Neither did I.
I had always thought it was a golf term.

The Rainbow

My wife and I had just finished eating at a local restaurant. We had one of those meals that come with a small desert. The waitress asked me what I wanted and I said, “Orange sherbet.”

She asked, “How about some rainbow sherbet?.”

“Ok…” I said thinking that a taste of lemon and lime would be nice.

When she brought our deserts she put a dish of orange sherbet in front of me.

“I thought you were going to bring rainbow sherbet?” I asked.

“I did” she said, “I just took it out of the orange part of the rainbow.”

© 2006 Robert Allen Hill

Neologisms

I had to introduce a Word of the Day at a Toastmasters Meeting I attended. The idea was to come up with a new word that people can use. I found the word, “neologisms”, which basically means a new word or expression. We’ve all heard them:

ginormous (adj): bigger than gigantic and bigger than enormous

confuzzled (adj): confused and puzzled at the same time
woot (interj): an exclamation of joy or excitement

chillax (v): chill out/relax, hang out with friends

cognitive displaysia (n): the feeling you have before you even leave the house that you are going to forget something and not remember it until you're on the highway

gription (n): the purchase gained by friction: "My car needs new tires because the old ones have lost their gription."

phonecrastinate (v): to put off answering the phone until caller ID displays the incoming name and number

slickery (adj): having a surface that is wet and icy

I thought that once the meeting was over, that would be it, the word neologism wouldn’t cross my path again. Well, it did...yesterday. My daughter-in-law sent me to a new web site: http://www.urbandictionary.com/. It is filled with neologisms and words used in a different content.

Take for example the word, “bandwidth” which when used in talking about technology refers to the measure of the capacity of a communications channel. The higher a channel's bandwidth, the more information it can carry.

Now there is a new meaning: ability (or lack of ability) to complete work given the available resources (people, time, money, etc.).

Examples: Since we can't afford to replace the guy who just quit, our department doesn't have enough bandwidth to take on new projects right now.

Joe's so overworked; he doesn't even have the bandwidth to train his new assistant.

Keep an eye out for those Neologisms and if you find any send them to me...

© 2006 Robert Allen Hill

Every Profession Has Obstacles

Every Profession Has Challenges and Obstacles

Our youngest son’s birthday is on the 4th of July and this year we celebrated by going to my older son’s country club. They have day long activities, swimming, eating, golfing, eating, sitting by the pool, eating, tennis, eating...(I see a trend there)...at any rate, they also have lots of activities for the kids. One of the activities just happens to be “balloon art” done by a couple of clowns. You could tell they were clowns because they were dressed as clowns, including the big, oversize floppy feet. There was a girl clown and a guy clown (equal opportunity and all).

At any rate, during one of my frequent trips to recycle some of the liquid I had been consuming, I came into the restroom and discovered an un-happy clown. The “guy clown” was standing in front of the urinal. I can only imagine what the difficulty was, but I did over hear him curse under his breath - something about these damn big feet. It seems he couldn’t get close enough to the urinal because the big feet were hitting the wall. He had to re-group (so to speak) and use a stall. The turmoil’s of being a clown...I wonder if they teach bathroom tips in clown school?

I still chuckle at the sight of that clown standing 2 “feet” away from where he needed to be!!

© 2006 Robert Allen Hill

Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way

I heard a discussion yesterday about leadership and what traits a good leader should possess. I never seem to hear any discussions about “followership” – what does it take to be a good follower.

I recall the first lesson I received in following. It was shortly after I had reported to the USS FORESTALL (CVA-59) for my first tour with a Fighter Squadron. I was a Seaman Apprentice and I was walking around in awe of the size of the ship. I had a small understanding of physics and why steel floats, but the fact that this ship could float was still totally amazing. I was a country boy from Iowa and I had never imagined something as big as an aircraft carrier – it was bigger than my home town (with a much larger airport).

My supervisor, a crusty First Class Petty Officer, took me on a tour of the ship. As we climbed up and down ladders he shared his expectations and the rules he wanted everyone in the office to follow. We ended up on the flight deck and as we walked to the edge of the ship he yelled...J UM P!!! He jumped into the catwalk (an area around the flight deck where you can walk).

I didn’t jump – gave him a silly look and said, “Why?”

He let me know, “How do you know that I didn’t just see a cable snap and in the 5 seconds it took you to ask ‘why’ you’d could have been cut in two and each half of what used to be you could be flopping around on the deck bleeding all over the place? Who’d clean that up?”

Now there’s an image that’ll get your attention. He went on to explain, “If I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it. If I have time to explain, I will, but, if I don’t, just do it and we’ll talk later.”

Since that day in 1971 I’ve studied a lot about leadership, and as a consequence, followership. People follow for 5 basic reasons:

Fear of retribution - “If I don't I may get fired!"
Blind hope - “Somethings gotta be done. I hope this works!"
Faith in leader - “He's a great person. If anyone knows the answer, he does!"
Intellectual agreement - “What a great idea. That makes sense."
Buying the vision - “What a brilliant idea. I don't care who thought of it."

Environment can also play an important role in the interaction between leaders and followers. The blind faith response works when you’re in an environment where your life is literally on the line, where if you’re told to jump you jump, but may not work well in a corporate setting.

Volumes have been written on leadership, by people with a lot more experience than I have. I will end this thought with this, “Lead, follow or get out of the way.”

© 2006 Robert Allen Hill

The Music Man

Another Life’s Lesson

It was about a month after I left college and I found myself selling shoes in a small town in southern Iowa. The year was 1970 and I was oblivious to how my life was going to change because of my being “asked” to leave college. I was living on my own earning $75 a week writing poetry about living alone. One of the bright spots was my old high school speech teacher was living and teaching in the same community. She was one of my favorite teachers in high school who I secretly had a crush on. (I suppose it’s not a secret any longer.) I was pleased to discover she was living in the same town teaching speech and drama at the high school.

The high school drama department was putting on the production, The Music Man, and my friend asked me to help her with the production. How could I say no? I was still clinging to the dream of becoming famous in New York and Hollywood and had most recently been a theatre major in college. I was experienced. At any rate, I volunteered and we worked diligently for a couple of months preparing scenery, coaching the actors, and hanging drops (painted scenery which drops from the ceiling). It was quite the set.

Opening night was successful. The second night…was not so successful. About mid way through the production a scene had to be changed by raising one of the drops. There were about 4 drops suspended by rope and pulley stored in the 80 foot ceiling. As the drop was being raised the rope came off the pulley. There were 5 of us trying to pull the drop up, but it was stuck. About 25 feet up the wall was a little balcony and I figured that I could climb up there and gain some leverage on the rope and perhaps get it back on track. The theory was working well and with the 4 guys pulling from the floor, combined with my leverage the drop was raising. We had managed to get it up about half way. And, then…I began to learn some life’s lessons, combined with a physics lesson.

The rope was old and it broke between where I was holding it and the 4 guys on the floor. The drop was heavier than I was so as it started to fall the rope I was holding went up. It pulled me out of the balcony. Now, I did a quick computation and figured that if I continued to hold on to the rope it was going to take me 50 feet or so to the top, strain me through the pulley and then I’d fall a total of 80 feet. I figured that was a bad idea – so I let go.

It did feel like time stopped and I was moving in slow motion. I was falling onto to the stage from the height of about 25 feet (without a parachute) and I was sure I was going to die. I was falling head down hearing, “76 trombones lead the big parade…” Then I hit – luckily for me I landed on an actor who was delivering his lines. He didn’t know what hit him. Unlucky for him when I hit him I cracked his neck. Lucky for me I hit him because he slowed my fall. If I hadn’t hit him I probably would have broken my neck.

We did bring the play to a screeching halt and I remember hearing “Is there a doctor in the house?”

We both survived, his neck hurt, and he had to wear a neck brace. My back and kidneys hurt, but we weren’t dead and the show did go on. This was another encounter I had with gravity and as I learned from the horse and the windmill I confirmed that gravity rules.

© 2006 Robert Allen Hill

Blogging

This “Blogging” just might be ok. I’ve told myself frequently that I should start a journal and record some of my random wonderings...even wanderings. I’ve even gone as far as to purchase a nice journal - one of those leather bound books you can get at Barnes & Noble. I’ve got a couple of those now, and they’re so eloquent. I still haven’t written in them because I think I should have something really profound to say before I write in them. I’m waiting for a profound thought to come to me.

This Blog is better because I can always hit the DELETE key and start over if I need to. I can even start without a profound thought...

The Bubble Bath

The Fountain

It’s been 37 years since I graduated from High School and I suppose I’m like a lot of people who ponder the life I’ve lived, the choices I’ve made, and the lessons I’ve learned. Upon reflection – one of Life’s Lessons I learned is that we are never aware of the ramifications of the choices we make in life, because we simply cannot see into the future. To illustrate...

After high school graduation, I decided that I was going to attend a private school (name not released in case they’re still mad at me – as you will learn), one which was expensive, and perhaps out of my reach financially. I was going to be a theatre major, get a fine arts degree, go to New York and then on to Hollywood, fame and fortune. I ignored the advice of my parents, who suggested that a junior college closer to home, would be a better choice. To heck with parental advice, I was now an adult! I went to the private school, majored in theatre, and was prepared to make my mark on the world.

Trouble started almost immediately when I rebelled against taking a “regular” gym class. I though I was done with that ... I ended up signing up for ballet – something recommended by my counselor.

Ballet didn’t turn out too bad – it was a class filled with 10 women and 2 men. This fed right into my other majors in college, wine and women. I excelled...

One Friday evening, while I was studying the “wine” part of my education, I ended up consuming an excessive amount of vodka. This led to my acquiring a box of Tide; why, I have no idea, but I found myself standing in front of the college’s very colorful fountain. There were water sprays, and different colored lights – it was so inviting.

I discovered that an entire box of Tide makes a nifty bubble bath – it was a warm evening, the bubbles were inviting, so, I stripped down and jumped in ... most would think that this was my biggest mistake, but no! After my nice bubble bath, I walked around campus au naturel and introduced myself to the couples who were sitting on the benches. This was still not my biggest mistake!

The biggest mistake came when I introduced myself to the local campus security person. That was the mistake that changed my life.

He invited me, okay, took me, to his office and called the local police. To my good fortune, the policeman who showed up was the brother of a friend of mine, so he escorted me back to the dorms with the admonition about never, ever, doing something that stupid again.

Little did I know that my “bath” would affect the entire rest of my life. It was 1970, and the school authorities invited me to leave the school. As a result, I lost my student deferment from the draft. It wasn’t too long before I won the only lottery I ever won – the draft lottery! I was drafted, but I fooled them -- I joined the Navy. That one bubble bath, that one moment, that one box of Tide, put me on path which saw me completing 30 years in the Navy – who knew?!


© 2006 Robert Allen Hill

The Horse and the Cliff

The Horse

I had received my draft notice and pretty much decided that my life was over. I was sure I was going to be inducted into the Army, sent to VietNam and die. I just knew it...

Some older friends of mine decided that I needed one “last trip” before that fateful induction day arrived, so they took me on a trip to Colorado. We stayed with some of their friends in town, but went up into the hills to visit another couple they were friends with. It was quite a drive up the mountain, a few scary curves, and more than one bump in the road. When we finally arrived at our destination, it was a trailer parked on the side of a pasture.

Actually, it was quite picturesque, with horses grazing in the field and the pine trees off in the distance. We were met by the man of the house and were invited in to visit. The trailer was packed with “stuff” – cowboy stuff, boots, belts, spurs, guns, ropes and cats – at least 100 - okay, it seemed like a hundred, but there were at least 10 cats. They were everywhere! When we sat down to eat, so did the cats and no one but me seemed to mind that a cat was “tasting” the mashed potatoes ... yuck!

After lunch we were asked if we’d like to take a horse ride. Well, I’d never been on a horse before, so I was a bit reticent, but I ended up in the saddle, with my friend sitting behind me.

We were on a spirited horse who did not take direction well. The horse seemed content on letting us know who was boss, and it wasn’t me. My friend, not exactly an experienced horseman himself, encouraged me to kick the horse to let him know who was boss.

Kick I did, and the horse took off like a shot ... actually, it was a fairly smooth ride, until the horse got to the cliff. Now, the horse knew the cliff was there; we did not. The horse stopped dead in its tracks; we did not. I went sailing over the horse’s head and the last thing I saw was “little cars” on the road below.

I hit something soft. I figured I was dead, and was surprised that dead felt “prickly”. I was up-side-down in a pine tree! It took the better part of an hour to extract me from the tree.

The Life Lesson(s) I learned ... gravity rules and stay away from horses ...

© 2006 Robert Allen Hill

Life's Lessons Learned From Parachuting

The Windmill

Before you get impressed, thinking I had the courage to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, let me explain…

I had to have been 8 or 9 years old and I had just finished watching a John Wayne movie where parachuting was a main aspect of the movie. Now, I was an imaginative child and I just had to find a way to emulate my hero, John Wayne. I lived on a farm and not far from the farm house was a very tall windmill. Now the one thing I knew was that, in order to parachute, one had to jump from some height. So I determined that the windmill was going to be my platform.

Now for the parachute... Well, in the movies they are big and white and wide, and what was on the farm that I could use for my chute? A sheet … that is, a double sheet. A single sheet would never do. A double sheet would work quite nicely. Now, how do you attach a sheet to your body? I concluded that heavy-duty strong string should do the trick.

I manufactured my parachute, complete with my heavy-duty string tied to each corner, and the string then attached to me. I climbed the windmill. I thought that the very top was a bit high to try an untested chute, so I climbed about half way up and jumped. This is where I began to learn some life lessons…

Life lesson number one: heavy-duty string tied to the corners of a sheet doesn’t work so well for a parachute!! The string came off my chute.

Life lesson number two: survey the area below the platform before jumping. It seems I jumped on the side of the windmill that had a fence. I landed on the fence, gashing a pretty good hole in my arm (a scar I carry to this day). After getting patched and stitched and consoled, and, as I recall, yelled at after my folks determined I was going to live, I redesigned my chute. I allowed as how since the string didn’t work tied to the chute I would use twine (much heavier) and put it through the sheet at the corners.

I climbed a bit higher for the second jump. Having learned life lesson number 2 from the first jump (“look before you leap”), I went to the other side of the windmill.

I jumped. I immediately began to learn some additional life lessons: twine didn’t work either, design didn’t work (as the sheet ripped), and the little shed at the bottom of the windmill was wider than it appeared. I didn’t hit the fence, but did manage to rip out all of my stitches when I hit the roof of the shed.

The big life lesson I learned: let John Wayne jump out of airplanes. I decided to play “soldier” on the ground.

After my parachuting accident it was several years before gravity and I had another encounter with heights...and, well, that’s another story...

© 2006 Robert Allen Hill