Lee Patterson was a bachelor dairy farmer. He lived with his brother, a divorced father of one, on a 140-acre place about 35 miles from the outskirts of Buffalo, NY. The farm was typical for the late 1940’s. It had no indoor plumbing or electricity. The place was heated by Read more…
Jim, my roommate for the last three of our college years, arrived for our senior year in 1963 with two new possessions: a beat up red pick-up truck and a Great Dane. Jim and I had become roommates in our sophomore year when we both foolishly decided to live in Read more…
The first time I ate beaver was in late February of 1965 at Camp Pickett, VA. I have to confess it was the foulest thing I have ever tasted. I had expected something sweet for although I was a brand spanking new Ensign direct out of NROTC at Cornell, I Read more…
I could never figure out why the Navy refused to pay us for the three hazard duties for which we qualified. It was also never clear why they excluded diving, the most dangerous of the lot, especially when swimming pure oxygen re-breathers in the middle of the night in the Read more…
Those of you who know me likely suspected that I lacked the computer skills to set up this blog. You would have been correct and, if you doubted that I actually knew how to post these entries or amend them, you would also be right. Daughter Karen, to whom I Read more…
The last time I saw him I was standing at the end of a lonely pier watching him disappear over the horizon. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. I didn’t cry easily in those days, unlike now, some 45 years later. He wasn’t my father, or necessarily a father figure. Read more…
Editor’s note: This article was originally published a couple years before the Covid-19 pandemic. This spring’s scare over the H1N1 virus, the so-called Swine Flu, prompted me to order John M. Barry’s book “The Great Influenza, The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History.” I do not necessarily recommend that Read more…
“Stand up!” shouted Chief Boatswain’s Mate Everett Owl. The ten heavily laden young SEALs struggled to their feet. We were all burdened with bulging rucksacks and rifles in addition to our main parachutes and reserves and there was little space inside the cramped C1-A twin engine Navy prop plane. The Read more…
Nearly 200 fresh-faced sailors and junior officers showed up on 28 December 1964 in Little Creek, VA for Class 33E of UDTR. Some seriously scary Instructors greeted us. There was towering Chief John Bakelaar, a regal and imperious Chief Bernie Waddell, and the impressively athletic Instructor Newell. But, the one Read more…
These days the space shuttle’s return from a mission gets about 30 seconds on the evening news. Astronauts spend months in the Space Station ignored by the media unless there is a technical problem. Forty years ago it was very different. The space program had captured the imagination of the Read more…