Looking Back: 12 – almost like one of the family

     I returned to Kendall, sometimes with shipmates, sometimes just me, many times in the ensuing months. The T.s were like a second family. I stayed overnight on weekends on several occasions. Carole and I took a liking to each other and it might have turned more serious under different circumstances, but she was in college and I was still in the Navy, stationed in Key West, only coming around from time to time. Sexual mores in those days were not as casual as they became as a result of the social revolutions of the 60s and 70s. My future prospects and whereabouts were not conducive to establishing a stable relationship. We were less than lovers and more than friends although we came close to the former one night on the beach. But that was special and will remain so.

Mary jumping the hurdles

      The T.s had a large property, around two acres as I mentioned earlier, and they kept a horse. Much of the backyard was a corral and, of course, contained a stable for the horse. Mary, the youngest, was an avid rider and jumper. She won several prizes jumping hurdles in equestrian competitions. 

Hallandale Beach

      Unfortunately, the perhaps inevitable serpent turned up in paradise. On one of my weekend trips up to Miami, this time with a couple of ship buddies, we took the three younger T children to Hallandale Beach, some 25 miles up the coast from downtown Miami, in my old '55 Ford. After a fun-filled day at the beach we were heading back to Kendall on the Homestead Extension of the Florida Turnpike. There were six people in the car: I was driving, Nancy, the second girl, was in the middle of the front seat and a buddy was next to the passenger door. Ricky and Mary, the two youngest kids and another buddy were in the back seat. 

      I was driving along in the outside lane heading south on the turnpike doing around 50 or 60 mph, within the speed limit. I noticed another car ahead on the left stopped on a road that crossed the 4-lane highway apparently waiting to get onto the highway. Suddenly, this car moved into my lane and stopped halfway onto the highway—directly in my path. I reacted immediately, hit the brakes hard and swerved to the right to avoid a head on collision into the other car's passenger side door (I could see a small child in the passenger seat), but it was too late to avoid hitting the other car altogether. My left front fender slammed into her right front fender avoiding a head on but still making a significant impact. Somehow, the driver of the other car hit the accelerator and sent her car plunging into a ditch on the other side of the highway. My old Ford was dead in the water, leaking radiator fluid onto the road. 

      In the car it was chaos. I had managed to throw my hands in front of my face before I slammed into the steering wheel and only bruised my forehead. The people in the back seat were scattered and jumbled about but didn't appear to be hurt. The guy in the passenger seat also managed to throw his hands up and avoided serious injury. Nancy, however, hadn't seen it coming fast enough to react and banged her head hard on the rearview mirror and was knocked unconscious.

To be continued...

Right-to-work/Left-to-slave

Michigan right-to-work bill

      It is remarkable how prescient—or astute—Orwell was when he turned the English language inside out in 1948. I'm thinking of the most recent addition to the ongoing debasement of the language—and possibly, by extension [or vice-versa], of society—the 24^th “right to work” bill just approved by the legislature of the great State of Michigan under the rubric of “freedom” of choice. When enacted Michigan will join 23 other States that already have "right to work" laws. You might notice that most of the 23 are in the "heartland" states.

      Well, in this era of global competition, business seeks the lowest common denominator, a race to the bottom of competitive wages. Until wages come up in the developing countries and come down to match in the developed countries, jobs will continue to be shipped to the cheapest labor pools available. 

 

        So, maybe the worst kept dirty little secret is that if American workers want to be able to compete on a global basis, they are going to have to accept lower wages to keep jobs at home. That is the message of this latest round of “union busting” that has been going on since the earliest days of the Industrial Revolution. 

 

        Another inside out term that goes hand in glove with “right to work” is “productivity” meaning more work done by fewer people for less pay. The trend is pretty clear and the handwriting is in the Michigan “right to work” bill.

       Just a thought.

PS: An opinion piece [linked below] by Harold Meyerson on this subject appeared a few hours later in the WaPo citing a study done by economist Lonnie K. Stevans of Hofstra University that found that "states that have enacted such laws reported no increase in business start-ups or rates of employment. Wages and personal income are lower in those states than in those without such laws, Stevans concluded, though proprietors’ incomes are higher. In short, right-to-work laws simply redistribute income from workers to owners."

Meyers concluded that "workers don’t get raises if they can’t bargain collectively, and all the hand-wringing about our rising rates of inequality will be so much empty rhetoric unless we insist ... on workers’ right to form powerful unions."

Harold Meyerson: The Lansing-Beijing Connection 

PS2: Even the most anal-retentive of conservative pundits, the incomparable Charles Krauthammer, understands what's coming down the pike, only he puts a slightly different spin on it. Basically, his attitude is tough shit workers of America, but if you want to work at all, you'll have to accept “competitive” wages. 

 

Says Charles in an opinion piece in the WaPo 12/14/2012: “For a generation, America had the run of the world. Then the others [the powers defeated in WWII] recovered. Soon global competition — from Volkswagen to Samsung — began to overtake American industry that was saddled with protected, inflated, relatively uncompetitive wages, benefits and work rules. Obama calls [right to work] a race to the bottom. No, it’s a race to a new equilibrium that tries to maintain employment levels, albeit at the price of some modest wage decline.” My emphases.

Charles Krauthammer opinion piece 
 

Looking Back: 11 – getting acquainted

     If you can imagine a fairy tale castle, writ small and transposed from the Bavarian alps to the palmetto strewn plains of South Dade—that's what the T's home seemed like to me. It was, actually, only a 4-bedroom ranch with a couple of bathrooms set and secluded in a palm treed driveway and landscaped with other tropical plants and shrubbery. And—the cherry on the sundae—a private pool right off the living room. It was as though I had done my time in purgatory and gone, at last, to heaven. It was Florida living, close to the ground (no cellar) and open to the sky. People lived half in half out of doors the climate was so genial. Well, it wasn't completely “open to the sky”, Florida has humongous mosquitoes, the pool was screened. (Just so you don't think I had gone completely batty.)

       Those very friendly people, the T family, that we had met at a roadside drive-in in the Keys, turned out to be the real McCoy. They had been sincere when they gave us their address and phone number and invited us to visit their home in Kendall. On a weekend pass, not too long after we had met Mom and the four kids, we hopped in my '55 Ford and headed up to Miami. We thought better of just appearing on their doorstep in case they had had a change of heart. Mr. T had not been at the drive-in and we thought that maybe he, having attractive young daughters of a certain age, might not be so enthralled with the idea of having three sailors in his home—given the image we believed many people had of sailors. When we got to Kendall and before driving up to their address we called them from a phone booth along the highway.

       There had been no need to worry, they sounded delighted to hear from us and that we were calling from a nearby phone booth. Of course, we didn't say that we had come especially to see them, but that we had a weekend pass and decided to come to Miami and check out the beaches and since we were already in the area thought we'd drop in and say hello, blah, blah, blah.... That gave them the opportunity to back out of the invitation and us to save face. But, no, they insisted that we come to their house. We did so, as I said before, “with bells on.”

       The house sat on a couple acres of land, as we soon discovered, and it was like nothing any of us had experienced before being all northerners. Our houses up north were closed in with cellars and central heating or cast-iron stoves. But this was tropical living. We were ushered into the house and immediately saw that you could just step out of the living room into the screened in swimming pool—don't forget the mosquitoes. The whole living room wall was made of sliding doors that could be pulled aside to leave the whole side of the house open to the pool. It gave the feeling of living out of doors, yet sheltered from the elements—the ultimate evolution of the cave.

        Mr. T was at home this time and he turned out to be a terrific guy and host. He was an airline pilot with Pan American Grace Airways. His regular runs were between Lima, Peru and Miami International Airport. Drinks were mixed and poured and we all relaxed and got acquainted. Finally, someone asked if we had brought our swimming trunks and would we like to use the pool. We had and we would like very much indeed, thank you so much for asking. (I suppose they couldn't have missed the fact that we kept glancing at the pool and oohing and aahing about how great it was to have a pool right outside your living room.) There was a cabana on one end of the pool and we were invited to change into our swimming trunks...and would we like to stay for dinner?   

      “Oh, no, no, we couldn't possibly put to you to so much trouble, thanks anyway. And we do have to get back to Key West.”

      “Right away?”

      “Well, er, no, not right away, necessarily, but.....”

      “That settles it, you're staying for dinner.”

      “Well, if you insist, we'd love to.”

      “Are you hungry?”

      “Are you kidding, we're starving!”

      “Good! We'll do a barbeque. Have another drink, jump in the pool....

To be continued...

Looking Back: 10 – chance encounters of the best kind

     Sometimes something wonderful happens when you least expect it

US Naval Base, Norfolk, VA

      Perhaps Norfolk had a a negative view of sailors because of the size of the naval base there and the ratio of military personnel to the actual civilian population. At any rate, Norfolk didn't make us feel like “America's finest” and the “good” people tended to shun us. It was really two different worlds and rarely did the twain meet—if ever. The feeling was mutual and that was why I couldn't get out of Norfolk fast enough and landed in the clink. Henceforth, I'll put Norfolk and negativity to rest once and for all.

like sunshine emerging from a dark cloud

      Florida was like sunshine emerging from a dark cloud and so seemed the people. The Key West Naval Air Station was a small naval base at the southern end of the Florida keys. Sailors were not tainted with the brush of notoriety and bad reputation. Key West was a pretty laid back, sleepy mañana kind of town, hospitable to people of all persuasions—including sailors.

Naval Air Station,  Key West, FL

      Being stationed in Key West was the next best thing to being on permanent holiday. Except for my dipstick Ensign of broken bridge wing fame, duty on the Sally was pretty hassle free. We were in the auxiliary service fleet, rigid regulations of dress and protocol were relatively relaxed. It was as nearly idyllic (from my decidedly non gung-ho point of view) as it is possible to be in the military. We were between wars—hot ones that is. The Korean War had ended with an armistice in 1953. In 1954, President Eisenhower stated the “domino theory” related to Southeast Asia after the defeat of France at Dienbienphu. The paranoid fear was that other SE Asian nations would fall, like dominoes, to Communism. The Geneva Convention (1956) had split Vietnam in two (North and South), and the first American military advisers and trainers arrived in Saigon laying the foundation for America's evolving involvement. But the debacle it was fated to become was still just a blip on the horizon and we were enjoying the Florida sunshine.

typical roadside establishments in the Keys

      A couple of my shipmates and I were on one of our usual sojourns up the Keys. I think it was around Key Vaca, but I'm not sure. At any rate one Key was pretty much like another along the Overseas Highway, basically lined with drive in restaurants and motels. Key Vaca is situated about halfway along the Overseas Highway between Key Largo and Key West. We had stopped for something to eat at one of these drive ins and were eating, drinking and shooting the bull. There was what appeared to be part of a family (no man) sitting at a nearby table, an obvious mother and four kids (three girls and a boy). The oldest girl was about my age, maybe a little younger, and very attractive. The whole family, as a matter of fact, was attractive. Assuming they wouldn't want to associate with a bunch of sailors we pretended not to notice them.

     All of sudden, the mother addressed us quite boldly and straightforwardly asked us if were trying to avoid them. I guess our masquerade of pretended indifference was pretty transparent. Taken aback, we turned and started laughing. I said something bantering like: “No we're just minding our own business and keeping out of trouble. Hope we weren't being too loud and disturbing your lunch.” That broke the ice and we all started chatting. 
 

painting "At the Silver Slipper, Key West," by Waldo Peirce

     Peg, the mother, was very open and vivacious, but my eye kept roving back to Carole, the eldest. They were from Kendall, a suburb in Dade County south of downtown Miami, and, like us, they were out for a drive in the country—or, I should say, a drive in the Keys. Mr. T., who was an airline pilot, was away on a flight. We told them that we were sailors stationed in Key West and, lo and behold, no “Oh!” and no raised eyebrows. We were being treated like ordinary guys instead of dissipated sailors and it felt wonderful.

      And then, beyond belief, these terrific people invited us to visit them at their home in Kendall and actually gave us their address and telephone number. I think I said something like: 
    
      "Thanks. We don't get up to Miami very often, but if we're ever in your neighborhood we'll give you a call."  

     And, then silently, to myself:

     “We'll be there with bells on!”

To be continued....

Looking Back: 9 - look out below

"Sally" with uncrumpled port wing (with life preserver)

      The funniest event, in the way that seeing somebody slip on a banana peel is funny, aboard the Salinan was something that happened when we were chasing a barge that had gotten loose in a hurricane and was drifting around in the Gulf of Mexico. We were assigned to go out, find it, capture it and tow it back to port. The only problem was the hurricane wasn't entirely over yet and the sea was still pretty rough with very large swells. Large waves tend to bounce and throw the ship around, whereas swells cause it to roll queasily back and forth.

      We proceeded out of Key West, heading into the Gulf looking for this wayward barge. Eventually, with the help of radar and sharp-eyed lookouts up in the crow's nest (not really in the crow's nest, only figuratively—crow's nests went out with tall sailing ships), we found the old rust bucket helplessly bobbing around and rolling in the swells of the hurricane's aftermath. Needless to say, we, too, were rock and rolling enough to make American Bandstand dancers look completely arrhythmic. (American Bandstand was a popular rock 'n roll TV dance program in the 1950s.)

ooops!

      I was on the wheel, as usual in tight circumstances, as we approached this rusty behemoth barge that was at least twice as big as the Sally. Our dipstick ROTC Ensign “had the con” (he was in charge of the operation) as we pulled in alongside the barge. The idea was to get a tow cable over and secure the barge so that it could be towed back to port. I looked out the wheelhouse portholes (windows to landlubbers) and could see this humongous derelict rolling dangerously close when I heard some shouting from the deck below that we were getting to close and should pull back before we collided. The Ensign, confused, didn't know what to do so, too late, the captain took over the con. By then, precious seconds had been wasted and the gap between us and the barge had narrowed too much. We were bobbing up and down and rolling left and right and so was the barge. Then the bobs and rolls lined up just right. Up came the barge and down we rolled onto it with our port (left) side bridge wing which caught and was pried up like the lid on a freshly opened tin can. Fortunately, everyone on the bridge wing scrambled quickly enough and no one was injured—except the Sally with her broken wing.

      Our Ensign, red faced, quietly slunk away. Being an officer, he would not be reprimanded publicly by the captain in front of enlisted men like me. But I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in the officers' quarters later on. The captain was not happy.

      After the collision the deck crew managed to get a line over to the barge and board it. The towing cable was attached and we headed back to port with what must have looked like a very funny profile from behind with one crumpled bridge wing sticking up in the air. And I could only imagine one very unhappy and humiliated Ensign confined in the wardroom to his bunk with an ice pack on his head.

To be continued...