0023 Three Carriers At Least

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Hanging over the side of my ship is one of the little men, a leprechaun. Someone asked if maybe I took this picture on Saint Patty's day. Is this a leprechaun---or did I spill food on my slide? Now this is surely not the Fiske. Once, the ship sent me up to Rhode Island for some more radar schooling---Mark 25 radar. It was Essentially what I had learned in Gunnar School, same radar basically. And I had been operating and maintaining the thing all along on board ship. But they sent me anyway. This ship might be the one I caught back to join the Fiske out there in the Atlantic. Now the ship's office paid my way up and back in cash. Here's what happened. I asked them for some leave I had coming, seeing as Wellesley was still my place to call home---just a foot race from Providence. And the ship gave it to me without deducting any travel expenses. I remember the yeoman clearly; I liked and kind of knew him, having helped him with inventory when ship had dry docked in Charleston. Anyway, I jumped ship (just an expression), headed for the bus station, where I donned my civvies and on a whim called Jacksonville Naval Air Station. "Got anything going north?" I asked. "You better get your ass here PDQ." was my answer. They had a P2V on the runway that was headed for South Weymouth Naval Air Station. I asked the cabby to step on it. I didn't tip him. I didn't know you were supposed to. "Get in uniform." an officer ordered. Then they raced me out to the runway where the P2V Neptune sat---no kidding. And there we sat, seat belts fastened for the rest of the day. That's cool. Beats the Greyhound. After some hours we revved up and took off; and I flew in the belly of a P2V straight to my brother's house. My brother Bud, an ex-Navy man, listened to short wave transmissions there in Weymouth to the comings and goings of Navy pilots. Lot's of touch and go, meaning practice flying. Now on this evening the weather turned bad and my brother was paying special attention to one P2V asking for and getting permission to land. Permission was granted but much todo was made about the weather. So my brother listened through the whole dialogue. Then, and this is the truth, in the pouring, windy rain his kid brother, soaked in dress blues and back home from the Navy, was heard banging on his back door. They stayed up late, just the two of them, and talked round the kitchen table.