November 11, 2013

• A Story About A Veteran and His Stories

  This is not my usual Veteran’s Day post. It is a post in honor of my Dad and his service in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War, but it’s also a cautionary tale, AND it fulfills the promise I made to tell the story behind a photo I posted on Facebook. So you are getting a 3 for the price of 1 Veteran’s Day post here; what a bargain!

  My dad joined the Navy in the summer of 1949, almost immediately upon turning seventeen.

  
  He was a callow boy when he entered the military, and  a responsible man when he got out four years later.

  

  Over the course of those four years, Dad was assigned to three ships, stationed on both U.S. coasts, sailed most of the way around the world, and saw action off the coast of Korea.

  

  Going through the Panama Canal

  He had hundreds of sea stories and I heard most of them from my earliest years. Some of them were not exactly appropriate for a child to hear. Dad probably assumed we kids didn’t understand the… what’s the word I want… earthier details, but after hearing the stories 20 or 30 times we kind of figured out what was going on.

  At the time of this story, Dad was a tall (6’4”) robust man who was not easily intimidated or embarrassed.

  Now, as I’ve mentioned on numerous occasions, I was a painfully shy child and am still very shy and reserved around people I don’t know. But at some point in my life, I learned that whenever I put on a costume, I could take on a whole new personality and the shyness would temporarily evaporate. When I was about 19 years old, I bought a sailor-style blouse. (Don’t judge me, it was the 70s.) When I added white slacks, a sailor scarf and my dad’s old dress blue uniform hat, I had myself a dandy costume.

  

  One Sunday evening around 1978, Dad decided to take the entire family out to a buffet restaurant for dinner. We’re talking his wife and kids, a son-in-law, at least one grandchild, his brother and sister-in-law, a couple of nephews, a niece… I have no idea how many of us were in that restaurant, but several tables had to be pushed together to accommodate us. I showed up in my Navy costume, complete with hat, went through the buffet, sat down with my family, hooked my left arm over the top of my plate and held onto it with my left hand while I ate. In a very loud voice, I explained that this is how sailors held their plates at sea, to keep them from sliding. From there I started telling Dad’s sea stories as if they were my own experiences.

  At first Dad laughed. Then, as the stories began to get more… earthy… he began to squirm while the rest of the family roared with laughter. I think the only reason we weren’t asked to leave the restaurant is because we outnumbered all the other customers put together. Dad gamely smiled as I told the Burning Newspaper in the Head story, but I could tell he was uncomfortable. And then I said six innocent little words,

  “I had shore patrol in Jamaica…”

  Poor Daddy turned beat red, got up, walked to an empty table on the other side of the restaurant and sat down. The family, of course, howled and wept with laughter, but I didn’t have the heart to continue. I went over and sat down with Dad, took off the hat and promised to stop telling sea stories if he would come back and sit with the family.

  This is actually one of my fondest memories of my dad. It took 25 years and hearing his stories coming out of his daughter’s mouth to realize that maybe some of those stories should never have been told. Especially the Jamaica ones.

  

  • 12:35 pm
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