Spring has continued to be pretty nice here in mid-coast Maine. The weather has been "seasonable" meaning some very nice days in the 70s with some colder than desired nights back into the 30s ... but generally partially cloudy with temps between the mid 60s and the low 40s. Pretty much standard for Maine this time of year.
The lawn is greening rapidly now and I've even had to mow it once. Peggy and I visited the gardening center at Home Depot the other day and now it's time to get the flower beds cleaned up and planted. Neither of us has a green thumb by any stretch of the imagination - but well try and get some color around the house for the warm months. It has to be an improvement over the stark white that has hung around these parts for the past many months.
Yesterday Peggy and I took drive up to Hallowell, ME to visit Vaughn Woods. Vaughn Woods is private property that has been set aside for public recreation as managed by a local land trust and the Vaughn Homestead Foundation. The property is just outside "downtown" Hallowell and consists of 150 acres of woods, fields, streams and waterfalls with several miles of walking trails to enjoy the setting. The homestead has a colorful history going back to the late 1700s. The very old stone bridges over Vaughn Brook convey scenes right out of a Tolkien novel - thus the nickname for the place - "Hobbitland."
Pretty Day for a Walk-in-the-Woods.
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The other day I heard someone comment about how fast a year can go by and how little they feel they get accomplished. As I thought back about the past year I thought about how much traveling we had done, how many home improvements I got accomplished, how many "projects" got done - those kinds of things. All counted - I guess we "accomplished" a lot.
Then I got to thinking further back ... a dangerous proposition for sure. What year did I accomplish the most? What year were my accomplishments the greatest? I decided 1970 was the "Year that Was."
The month was August and the year
was actually 1969. Man had just set foot on the moon for the first time just a few weeks
ago and there I was – an extremely young 19 year old living with his parents in
Sacramento, California and had just finished registering for my fall classes at
Sacramento State College. Did it matter to me that I had only signed up for 11
credit hours and 15 credit hours were required to be considered a “full time”
student and keep my “2S” draft deferment? Nah. Did it matter to me that once my
Draft Board found out - I would be immediately reclassified as Draft
Classification 1A? Nah.
Well – it mattered once I
received that notice of reclassification before the year was out. It must have
mattered because I was visiting the local Air Force and Navy recruiters soon
after that and was signed up for a delayed enlistment in the U.S. Navy before
the end of January 1970 and was scheduled to take the oath and the trip to boot
camp in mid-March.
Did it matter to Peggy in February 1970 that I was about run off and join the Navy within a few months? I guess not. She went ahead and agreed
to marry me at some unknown time in the future anyway. After all – we were both
19 and had the whole world figured out. What more did we need than love?
So … I finished that semester,
sold most of my worldly possessions (motorcycle and car), and hopped aboard
that bus in Sacramento the evening of March 10, 1970 – headed for the Oakland
Armed Forces Induction Center. By the time midnight rolled around on March 11th
– I was a E-1 Seaman Recruit (actually receiving Seaman Apprentice (E-2) pay)
walking off another bus at the Recruit Training Command – Naval Training Center
– San Diego … a whole different world!
Just about nothing I had
experienced thus far in my life had prepared me for the next 10 weeks, except
maybe two-a-day football practices in high school. I may have been in the Navy,
and probably wasn't likely to be shot at soon … unlike my friends in the Marines or the Army … but I needed to learn how to jump when someone said jump
and not ask “how high” or question “why.” Just jumping was all that was
necessary.
After that 10 weeks of
indoctrination I was anointed as a Seaman Apprentice, given the pay they had
kept for me during those first 10 weeks (minus the cost of my sea bag and its contents), given a few days travel time, and sent
off to ‘A’ School at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in sunny and muggy
North Chicago, IL.
What an adventure for an almost
20 year old who had just recently taken his first jet airplane ride and was
about to travel east of Reno, NV for the first time! Pay in cash twice a month,
3 meals a day, and a place to sleep – what more did a fellow need?
I spent the summer months of 1970
learning how to operate a steam power plant on a Navy ship. Most of my training
was in a classroom but they did let us “operate” a real power plant for a few
days. I’m pretty sure we barely knew what we were doing, but somehow we kept
the place operating and nobody got hurt – so I suppose we had learned enough!
So now it is right around the 1st
of October 1970, I am now 20 years old, I have been in the USN for 6 ½ months,
and now I am qualified to operate a Naval Ship Propulsion Plant (non-nuclear) ….
Oh yeah … I also just got promoted to a third class Petty Officer and I’m
EXPECTED to be able to operate a non-nuclear Naval Ship Propulsion Plant ---
even scarier!
Sometime during that summer Peggy
and I set our wedding date. We set the date for October 4th – two
days after I was to graduate from “A” school and with no clue on where I was
going from there and when I had to be there.
We were now 20 years old, still in love, and still had the world figured
out!
Fortunately for us, my original
“orders” after “A” school were changed at the last minute. I was originally
assigned to serve on an ammunition ship located off the coast of Vietnam but
then was reassigned to report directly to Naval Nuclear Power School Mare Island, CA for
a class scheduled to start within 2 weeks after my “A” school graduation.
So-
- I flew home to California after graduation on Friday October 2nd
- We
got our marriage license on Saturday October 3rd
- We
got Married on Sunday October 4th
- We had our 1
evening honeymoon in San Francisco, found an apartment in Vallejo, CA, and
drove back to Sacramento to Peggy’s apartment on Monday October 5th
- We moved our wordly
possessions to our new apartment on Tuesday October 6th
- We finished putting
our “stuff” away on Wednesday October 7th
- We drove to my
parents home in northern California for a visit on Thursday October 8th
- We drove back to
Vallejo on Saturday October 10th
I started 6 months
of Naval Nuclear Power School on Monday October 12th
Thank goodness we were 20, in love, and had the
world all figured out!
