Just a little trivia. Popeye originally was in the Coast Guard. He didn’t transfer to the Navy until 1941.
When we got to Port Angeles, we temporarily moved in with Mom and Dad. I found a job at a local Texaco Station. Later I had a call from the Shell representative asking if I would be interested in taking over a Shell station in Forks, but turned him down. We found a cute little house on the corner of 8th and Race and moved in. Mom bought us a Chihuahua we name Pedro Poncho Gonzalez Charlie Brown Towne, Pete for short. We also found a cat we named Gladys. I got a job at Rainer Pulp Mill and Joyce found one at a local Nursing Home close to where we lived. One problem we had was if we mentioned to Mom we were thinking of buying something, we usually got a call from Mom to come over and there it would be. I know she meant well and was trying to help us but it was kind of frustrating. We stopped talking about anything in front of her. I wasn’t happy working at Rainer because I ran into a lot of dangerous situations and it didn’t seem like it would lead to anything in the future. Port Angeles didn’t seem like home anymore.
We had friends that we hung out with. One time, late in 1962, we were at a party with a Coast Guard Telephone Technician. There had been a typhoon go through and he was there replacing telephone wires. While we were talking he was telling me about Electronics Technicians in the Coast Guard and all the extra money, pro pay and the re-enlistment bonuses. Joyce and I talked about it for a while and I called the Recruiting office. They told me that if I was really interested to come to Tacoma. We went over on February 4th, 1963. I told them I was interested in Electronic Technician. They gave me the entrance exam and scored 98%, qualifying me for any position I wanted. I signed up for Electronics Technician. I would have to go to Alameda, California, where they had a training company for prior service. I think they flew me out the next day.
I arrived at the Alameda, California Recruit Training Base, expecting to be assigned to a Prior Service Company, but they had just discontinued it and I was assigned to a regular Recruit Company, Mike 39. They informed me that I would be there for six of the eleven weeks of normal Boot Camp. The Company Commander was a First Class Boatswains Mate. After he gave me fifty ups for rolling my eyes, he informed use he hated two things; Air Force and Electronic Technicians. OOPS! I was the only one in the Company that had a rank insignia, Seaman. I ended up doing everything a new recruit does – getting the haircut, doing daily exercises, marching in formation. At the end of five weeks we were given a mid term where we had to do ten pull ups, fifty sit ups, fifty push ups. The next week I was ordered to form up in the morning with the class that would be graduating at the end of the week, Mike 34.
We had fire fighting training one day at an old Army Base, where we had to learn how to work together to put out an old building on fire. Then we had the final, where every thing doubled on the test and I passed. By the time I received my orders, I had lost two inches around my waist and my uniforms were loose. I think I was in the best shape of my life. I was given a couple weeks leave and orders to the twenty eight week Electronics School in Groton, Connecticut. First I flew home, meeting Joyce in Spokane and then on to Port Angeles. It was a short trip but we made the most of it. It bothered me that I was leaving her for an extended period. She would be staying with my parents. She was pregnant and it would be a while before I would be able to see my child. Chris would be six months old before I got to formally meet her.
The Coast Guard Training Center in Groton was a beautiful base that had once belonged to an old sea captain. It was near New London and the Navy Submarine Base. It was pretty impressive seeing them leave the river and enter the ocean, just off our base. The large, stone, mansion that housed the Base Commander and his family was right across the quadrangle from our room. I had three roommates going to the same class. We were a pretty close group and all chipped in to buy a savings bond when Chris was born. Electronics School was twenty eight grueling weeks, eight hours a day, learning to install, trouble shoot, tune and maintain a variety of electronic equipment. We had an exciting break one night. The Mansion had a Chapel connected to it and it caught fire. The guys woke me up to see but I went back to bed. I suspected we would be cleaning things up the next day, and we did. We shoveled trash into a dump truck and rode with it to the dump, where I was burned on the ear from flying embers. That was the only time I was burned from a fire while in the Coast Guard. In the end I graduated as a Third Class Electronics Technician. My orders were to the U.S. Coast Guard Base, Group Office, at the foot of Mount Elliot, on the Detroit River, Detroit Michigan. Having a couple weeks leave plus travel time, I flew home to Joyce and to meet my daughter.
Getting ready to drive east we decided the MG was not big enough for a growing family and to pull a trailer across the country. We went down to the local Nash dealer and traded the MG in on a two tone Pink/Mauve Rambler station wagon. Got a deal on a small U-Haul trailer because it was going back to Detroit. Loaded all we had and headed East. We arrived in Detroit late in the evening and pulled off the freeway onto Mount Elliot, turned right and headed to the Coast Guard Station at the foot of Mount Elliot. It was really dark. We were hungry and tired but thought it best to just go straight on to the base. We had pulled off in an area of Detroit that didn’t appear too friendly at the time. The watch and the Officer of the Day suggested going back out Mount Elliot to Warren, a suburb of Detroit, where we would find restaurants and a motel to stay in. They told us, when driving on Mount Elliot, to keep our doors locked. We unhitched the trailer and left it at the base and headed to Warren. The next day we started looking for a place to rent and found a trailer park with a trailer available. Drove back to the base, got the trailer, and we moved in. After settling in, I reported in to the base and the Group Electronic Shop. It was our first experience of becoming a part of a base family. I joined a car pool with a couple of the guys that lived out near us.
When I wasn’t working on the base, I was traveling all over the area. Belle Isle Station was on Belle Isle, just across the river from the base. We covered all the stations in Group Detroit. Joyce, Chris, and I spent our first Thanksgiving and Christmas in the trailer in Warren. I remember we bought a bunch of bathtub toys for Chris that first Christmas. We wrapped them in a really shiny paper. She played with the wrapped toys until the paper came off and she had a new toy. On Christmas eve we were invited to the parents house of one of the guys on the station and were included in their gift exchange. We received a wrapped box of chocolates and really were made to feel like a part of their family. We did a lot of socializing on my off time and Chris did a lot of traveling in her car seat and sleeping on someone’s bed with pillows stacked around her. That spring we found a house, behind the 7/11 where we shopped. It had been a farm house. It wasn’t until we moved in we realized that as they added each room to the house, they wired everything in series. In other words, if a light burned out, all the lights went off like a strand of old Christmas tree lights. Then we had to go around changing light bulbs until we found the right one. Before we could move in, we needed furniture. There was a local store with “such a deal,” three rooms of furniture for $300.00. We bought a bed, dresser, bedside tables, a kitchen table with four chairs, a couch (hardwood covered with material), a couple of easy chairs and two lamps (we still have the lamps around someplace).
I was up in the attic one day and found where they had wired the whole house. There was a splice up there about the size of a football, a big fire hazard. I talked the owner into letting me and an electrician friend from the station rewire the house. It may not have been totally up to code, but it was a lot safer. That same friend was a buying a new Pontiac Catalina Convertible, so we drove him and his wife down to the dealer to pick it. While we were there the salesman brought a 1964 Pontiac Tempest 326 into the shop. It was a pretty car, Marimba Red, two door, full bench front seat and four on the floor. It had been a special order for a kid but he was drafted before he could take delivery. The salesman offered to let us try it out but I said we were going to Harsens Island for dinner. He said go ahead and take it. What a car, I burned off the lot, holding the steering wheel for dear life. It was quite a difference from our 59, straight 6, automatic Rambler. I took it back the next day for carburetor problems it was having and they fixed it. I was waiting for our Rambler and the salesman told us to take the Tempest for another day or two. I returned the Tempest again and the salesman got pretty irate with me. I said tuff, I wanted my Rambler. He went out and a few minutes later the head salesman came back wanting to know if I could put any money down. I just wanted my Rambler. He was sorry, the Rambler had been sold and was in Florida. Being half in shock, I said I could probably do $300. Today, I would have said, “Thank you for my new car.” We got back at the Pontiac dealer though. One day I was having the Tempest serviced and the head salesman came out wanting to know if I had changed the engine in the Rambler. I hadn’t. Seems when they were checking registration in Florida, the title didn’t match. It was for a sixty Rambler. When I had bought ours there had been a 60 on the lot and I think the Port Angeles Dealer had mixed mine up with the other title.
The base had put together a softball team to play in a summer league on Belle Isle. We were good, but couldn’t always field a full team and had to forfeit a lot and end up playing anyway. We won almost every time. It was that summer that I started a tradition of being a catcher. We’ve had a lot of catchers in the family since then.
That fall, 1964, we got orders to the Coast Guard Cutter Woodbine, a buoy tender/ice breaker out of Grand Haven, Michigan. Grand Haven turned out to be friendly little town in west Michigan and is Coast Guard City USA. We found a house, I think it was on Sherman, on top of a hill just a few blocks from where the ship tied up at Escanaba Park. It seemed like a giant house, two bedrooms on the second floor and downstairs a living room, sitting room, dining room, eat in kitchen and bath. Our three rooms of furniture hardly made a dent. We had all kinds of room for the three of us and Joyce found out she was expecting our second. The ship was like a big family. It wasn’t uncommon on the weekends for an impromptu gathering to take place at someone’s house and end up a BBQ, potluck and baseball game at a local park. Marylou (Midge) Tomborelo, the wife of a First Class Bosin mate, kind of adopted Joyce. When it was time for Joyce to have the baby, it was Midge who took her to the hospital. In those days the husband was not allowed in the delivery room, at least not in Grand Haven. January 14, 1965 Timothy was born. One time when I went to visit the nurse chased me from the room while Joyce breast fed him.
One of my duties, separate from maintaining the electronic equipment, was as oarsman on one of the lifeboats. We were holding a drill one day and when we came in alongside the ship, the Captain ordered us to use the monkey lines hanging from the davits to board before the boat was raised. I was never any good at climbing a rope and as I tried my muscles cramped and I had to slide back down. Captain Fugaro climbed down the lines to encourage me but I couldn’t, the muscles would not cooperate. He climbed back aboard, the boat was raised, and I was removed from the small boat crew.
August 4th is the anniversary of the Coast Guard and Grand Haven celebrated it with a festival and parade. After marching in the parade the ship would have an open house and guided tours. I was one of the crew assigned as a guide. Joyce kept me supplied with crisp, white summer uniforms, about three a day, during the festival. Escanaba Park was named after a the Coast Guard Cutter Escanaba that had been stationed in Grand Haven before it was lost during the second world war. All but two men on board went down in the North Atlantic. The park was on one of the main streets heading to the lake so we had to keep the Woodbine looking good for the tourists passing by.
We covered Lake Michigan from Chicago up to Green Bay Wisconsin. When we were in Chicago, we normally moored up at Navy Pier. I was working on a piece of equipment one day and flipped hot solder into me eye. They took me to the VA hospital and removed the solder but I had to wear a patch for awhile. Back on the ship, while I was standing on the buoy deck, a kid walked over and wanted to know why I had a patch on my eye. I told him that we wanted to be a pirate ship, we needed a one eye man with a patch and that I lost so they poked my eye out. Another time, we were escorting a ship through the ice in Green Bay, when it was announced, “Stand by for Collison! This is not a Drill!”. I was down in the hold working and I remembered we were escorting a large tanker filled with fuel. When he hit our stern, I was standing on the mess deck holding on. We had hit a windrow, a very thick area of ice that had stacked up, and the ship behind had lost control and couldn’t reverse. Luckily he glanced off our stern, denting and buckling some of the frames. He got control and we finished taking him in to port. Will always remember Green Bay Wisconsin, home of Schlitz Brewery, and our tour there once. After the walking tour we got to go into their tap room for free beer. I sent a lot of post cards while I was sitting, drinking beer. People who received them could follow how many beers I seemed to be having. The more beer, the less intelligible the cards.
We had a new Captain and one night, when I was on duty, a program we were watching was interrupted with news that a United 707 had crashed into Lake Michigan, close to Chicago. After calling the Captain, we started a crew recall, expecting to get ordered to Chicago and the search. We had enough crew on board and engines running and under way in fifteen minutes after we received the message to proceed to the area. Early the next morning we arrived in the area of the crash but there was a thick fog so we hove to and stood bye, until the fog lifted. We were in the middle of the floating wreckage and the other search boats had to come to us. For a week, we were designated On Scene Commanders of the search area, picking up debris and bodies. Shortly after, the ship received a $1500 check from United Airlines for our recreation fund.
The Woodbine was almost lost one time as we were checking our buoys. It was lunch time, we were having liver and onions, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans. A beautiful day with a two foot sea, hardly rocking the ship. I had just finished lunch and was standing against the inside bulkhead drinking a cup of coffee, looking out the porthole. The OD got the ship in a troth and the ship began to roll, first to starboard and then to port. When it rolled to starboard again, I watched as the portholes went completely under the water. Then the ship snapped back and started a roll to port again but kept going. The farther we rolled, the benches with men sitting on them and the tables came out of their holders on deck and were sliding at me. Liver, onions, gravy, mashed potatoes and men came flying at me, around and in-between my legs. Eventually the ship righted itself and the crew was able to get up, slipping and sliding out of the mess hall, to check the ship. Luckily no one was injured. We later found out that the Enginemen had started holding the engines on line manually as the roll indicator registered 49 degrees. The ship was designed to have the bridge break away at 52 degrees.
In 1965 the Coast Guard formed Squadron One, a squadron of 82 footers, for Vietnam. One of the ensigns on board received his orders for training in San Diego. Joyce and I were concerned that I could be called up but a message came in one day from the District Office, “Request one married ET2 for two-year tour to Keflavik Iceland”. I called Joyce and asked her if she wanted to go to Iceland. Where’s Iceland? She looked it up in the almanac and within 30 minutes of receiving the message our answer was returned to District and we got it. Joyce found out she was pregnant with our third child who it seemed would be born in Iceland. Our household goods got packed up for shipment and we loaded up the Pontiac and headed to Washington. Joyce and the kids would be splitting their time between parents while I went to Loran School in Groton, leaving the car in New Jersey to be shipped.
It was a fun trip from Michigan to Washington. Chris and Tim stood or sat in the back seat. There wasn’t a law that kids had to be in car seats back then. Tim liked to stand behind me and when he saw something he liked he would hit me on the back of the head and he would yell, “Tee, Tee, Tee!” as loud as he could. One day we pulled off the freeway in North Dakota, looking for a place to eat. It was a small farm town and we found a little café. I parked across the street from the cafe and we went in. The kids wanted chocolate milk. We put our order in and the waitress came back to the table wondering how to make chocolate milk. I asked her if she had chocolate to make milkshakes with and told her to mix that in with milk. She really thought it was a good idea. As we were eating I looked out the window. Where I had parked there were no other cars on the block but a car pulled in front of the Pontiac drove up to the end of the block and backed into our car. I went out and luckily there was no damage. Later, as we were coming down off 4th of July Pass into Idaho, Joyce started having pains. We came down off the pass pretty fast. By the time we reached Coeur d’ Alene the pains had stopped so we went on into Spokane. After getting everyone settled, I headed East.
The drive alone across the United States is not fun and I did it in three days. Got stopped in Iowa for failure, or confusion, about dimming lights for on-coming cars. Showed them my military ID, orders to Iceland, my Michigan registration and my Washington drivers license. The policemen suggested I stop and rest at the next rest stop and they wouldn’t arrest me. I did. My next stop was in Hershey, Pennsylvania, at my Uncle Gene’s. He wasn’t there but his Ward was and I got to sleep on a bed. Then on to Groton for six weeks of Loran C Receiver School. One thing about having a car at Groton this time, I was able to do some sightseeing on weekends; Mystic Seaport, Cape Cod and some of the surrounding area. While I was at school, I found out that Joyce and the kids would not be joining me in New York to fly to Iceland. It seems the Coast Guard was closing their Office in Copenhagen and transferring the crew from there to Iceland. A Lieutenant JG’s wife was expecting so they were getting the apartment reserved for us. When school was over, I drove to New York to the Coast Guard Station Stanton Island. I took the car to Bayonne, New Jersey to be ship to Iceland. I flew Pan Am to Keflavik, Iceland and lived in the barracks for a few months.
I finally got word that our car had arrived in Reykjavik but had been damaged. When off loading they had dragged straps over the top scratching it. After it was repair I went to Reykjavik to pick it up. Between there and Keflavik was thirty miles of paved road. I opened it up to blow out the carbon. I eventually put some hot plugs in because the only gas sold off base was 82 octane. One of the guys I was stationed with was friends with a rock band, The Icelandic Beetles. When we were visiting them in town one time, one of the band members really wanted to buy my 326 and offered me $8000, which I couldn’t take because of Icelandic Import Laws. I had found an apartment in downtown Keflavik and wanted to have some supplies for my family arriving soon. I had gone to the commissary and planned to take the groceries off the base with the family. While at the station, I was asked to pick up someone at the Reykjavik airport. Forgetting I had the groceries in the back seat of the car, as I passed through the gate, the Icelandic guard stopped me and confiscated the groceries and gave me a ticket. Luckily he didn’t find the bottle of booze I had stashed. I stopped at the apartment, 30 Suddergata if memory serves me, and called Lieutent Harrison, our Commanding Officer, and told him what had happened. When I got back to the base, he had it all settled. I would pay a ten Kroner ($10) fine and lose the groceries.
It was five months before I got to meet my daughter, Kelly. They arrived Thanksgiving 1966. After picking them up we went to the apartment and everyone got some rest. We were invited back to base to have Thanksgiving dinner. After a few days in the apartment, there was a knock on the door. When I answered there was a little girl, about Chris’s age, standing there. She looked up at me and said very slowly, “Will – You – Play – With – Me”. “Chris!!” Before long she was just one of the kids on the block, speaking Icelandic. The Icelandic people were very friendly if you showed a genuine interest in their country. They were not friendly if you played the role of “The Ugly American”. One day when Joyce went to the bakery we used, she walked in and saw the girl behind the counter was making it difficult for a very obnoxious woman to place her order. The girl just couldn’t understand. The woman finally got frustrated, purchased something and left. The girl then turned to Joyce and greeted her with a pleasant, “How are you today?” The Icelandic learn a number of languages in school because they deal with many countries. Almost all their supplies are imported. My Mom and Dad told me that Iceland was where they had their name legally changed to Towne (with “e”). Guess they had added the “e” sometime without making it legal and they figured it would be less confusing in the future in case anything came up. My birth certificate already had the “e” on Towne.
For about six months we lived off base while they were building officer’s housing. About the time we were to move on base, we found out that Chris had a medical problem that required she be flown to Germany. They scheduled her and Joyce to fly out on one of the weekly MAC flights. And it was arranged that I and the other kids would escort them. When I went to check in I heard one of the Navy guys at check in telling someone on the phone that he could bump three people off the flight and get them on. We were the three. When I checked in he informed me of the bump and said if I didn’t like it to take it to the base commander. I contacted my commanding Officer, who went to the Navy Base Commander. We were put back on the flight. When flying on a military plane back then the seats faced the back of the plane. As we were landing in Germany I mentioned to Joyce that there seemed to be something wrong. Three weeks later we were on the same plane to fly back to Iceland and I asked one of the crew. It seems there had been an engine on fire when we were landing. While we were gone the station crew moved our stuff from downtown. Finally we moved into our apartment on base. And when you move into a new house, you have to have a house warming party. I was just getting over the mumps when we were planning to have ours, so Joyce went to the base liquor store for supplies. When she went to pay, she had more than our monthly allotment of six hundred ounces. The Commanding Officer had to be called and he surprised them by sending someone over to help Joyce load the car. It was a good party. All the parties were good and fun during our stay.
One day our Warrant Officer, another ET and I were sent to Reykjavik to trouble shoot a Loran Receiver on a French Naval Ship. As I was driving toward the main gate I saw a guy approaching an intersection just ahead of us. At the time Iceland was right hand drive. He was going pretty fast and for some reason I suspected he was not going to stop and was going to turn into our lane. He did. I swerved the International Carryall I was driving to the right. Looking down I saw his VW heading toward our back wheel. I cranked the wheel left, and down shifted. The truck went up on its right front wheel and the VW passed below us. I cranked the wheel right and landed on all for wheels, in my lane and facing the same way I had been going. I stopped and the Warrant Officer went over to the Navy Petty officer and told him to report to his commanding officer and that he would be making a report of the incident. We then proceeded on into Reykjavik. On the French ship we began to check for problems. We knew their receiver was ok, we had had it at the station for a few days. It took us about an hour to find they had a bad cable, fix it and depart. As we were leaving we passed our Commanding Officer and his wife heading to the ship for lunch and gave him a thumps up. Later my Warrant Officer called me to his office and asked how I missed that accident that morning. I told him that I had an out of body experience, standing on the corner watching it happen, and I told him the maneuvers I had taken. He didn’t say much about the out of body but figured the maneuvers were good.
We spent two and a half years in Iceland. It was a great experience and I would gladly return. But it was time to leave. I had been promoted to First Class and reenlisted, getting a really great bonus that would be payed annually for the next four years. We landed back in Seattle and with our bonus in hand Pop, Joyce and I went car shopping and found another family car, a used Mercury station wagon. Loading everyone in the car we headed to Port Angeles and my new station, the Group Electronics Shop, on the Coast Guard Air Station. We found a house close to Lincoln school. It was the school where I had attended 4th grade. With what was left of that years bonus we bought some new furniture. The three rooms we had bought in Detroit just wouldn’t do now. We even bought a used boat that needed some minor repair. For me, being at the Port Angeles Air Station was one of the best family times we had while I was in the Coast Guard. There were no extended travel times so I was home pretty much every night. Along with the boat, we bought camping equipment. It wasn’t uncommon for us to load everything in the boat and tow it to some park and spend the weekend boating and camping. There were a couple of stations I serviced, especially Port Townsend, where I could take the whole family and stay in one of their empty family units. For a work car, I got my 49 Hudson back. Getting a bug in my bonnet one day, I made it into a pick up, cutting the top off from behind the front seat all the way back. Guess it was kind of a Towne thing. Pop and I once cut twenty two inches out of the body and frame of a 42 Hudson he had.
We bought our first house in Port Angeles, 423 South Cedar. It was a little bungalow style built around 1920 for someone’s Mother-in-Law. The man that had owned it before was an elderly widower who didn’t really take care of, repair or clean the house. Before we moved in we had to clean at least a quarter inch of grease from the inside of the kitchen cabinets. After we were done, it was a house that everyone liked to come to for visits and parties. It had a huge fireplace in the living room, big enough to put the whole Christmas tree in to it. After I had set the tree on fire, our next door neighbor came running over to tell us we had a ten foot flame shooting out the chimney. One of my fondest memories was when we would go to Dairy Queen for ice cream cones. Chris, Tim and Kelly would play a game on the way home to see who could make their ice cream cone last the longest. I made a rule that if there was ice cream when we got home, I got to eat it. I did it one time and from then on as we pulled up to the house, the last bites went into their mouths. It was great fun. Shortly after moving in, I was transferred to the Coast Guard Cutter Winona that was home ported at the Air Station. Joyce became kind of a house mother when the ship was out. A lot of the younger wives would bring their sleeping bags over and camp out in our living room while the husbands were out on the ship.
I made Chief while on the Winona. It is a big thing, with an initiation and party. It so happened that I was the only one that made Chief between the Air Station and the Ship this particular time. It was quite a blow out and since I had to drink when ordered by other Chiefs, I got pretty smashed. It was great fun for them to pour beer over my head if I didn’t answer a question right. The bad part was, no one saw me leave the party to go home. I remember I had to stop every now and then driving down the spit and allow myself to focus the road back to one lane. I made it through the Pulp Mill and up the hill to home. When I got there, I smelled so bad Joyce made me take my uniform off outside the back porch before letting me in.
One day another Chief Electronics Technician showed up to the ship. He had been stationed in Rhodes, Greece. While his wife was home in the states she had been killed in a auto accident. I was thinking that I might be taking his place in Rhodes, a station I had requested a number of times. But my orders came in and they were for Loran Station Cape Christian on Baffin Island, Northwest Territory, Canada. Joyce had just found out she was pregnant and here I was leaving, again, for a year. It put quite a strain on our marriage.
November of 1971, I reported to the First District Office in Boston. They were so concerned about what they were hearing about the officer commanding the station that they made arrangements to send me up quick. Also, the aids to navigation Captain wanted to know what other problems faced the station. They usually sent personnel up through Winnipeg, Canada to pick up arctic gear. Instead, I flew out of Boston in a snow storm without artic gear. I had forgotten my overcoat in Seattle and all I had was my winter uniform and a rain coat. As we were making our approach into Montreal, I was looking out the left window and could see the glow of the runway lights way off to the left. About that time, the pilot applied power and we raised back into the air. The pilot came on the intercom and announced that ground control approach was going to have to realign. So we circled a few minutes and then landed. I checked in with the airline, Nordair, that would be flying to the city Frobisher on Baffin Island. Since I had excess luggage I had to pay, then find a hotel, due to the snow storm. Next day we landed in Frobisher but weather was too bad to go on. So I stayed in a hotel in Frobisher. The next day weather was still bad. I was pretty low on funds so I put on long my underwear and a fur hat I had picked up when we were in Iceland. I transferred my hat emblem from my Coast Guard hat to the fur hat. Then I stayed at the terminal to wait. Periodically, the Royal Canadian Mounty would stop in and check me out and finally inquired as to why I was there. Next day we were delayed again so I was going to try to use my gas card to get cash since ATM’s weren’t around yet. Finally, Nordair put me up in their facility until weather broke and we could fly out. We puddle jumped up Baffin Island in a Twin Otter that was not sealed very well so not the warmest plane. We first landed at Clyde, a little town near Cape Christian. There was a Mounty there from Cape Christian who saw me and asked if that was all I was wearing. I assured him that they were flying me directly to the station. It was going to be an interesting year.
I checked in with the CO and was up front with him about the concern at the District Office. I did make a few changes that weren’t popular, but I could cook and since they didn’t have a cook there at the time I sometimes filled in. Cape Christian turned out to be an interesting year. One of the first things we tried to order were a couple of snowmobiles. District turned us down because they thought we would go out and get lost in the tundra. Almost everyone on the station learned to run our D6 Caterpillars. You needed something to do so you could get away by yourself and with the D6 you could slam into and level snow drifts on the landing strip. We had one man scare us by threatening to commit suicide with our station shot gun. I think he was faking but you can’t take a chance. Another cut off the fingers of his right hand on the station table saw when he was trying to make his going home box. Both took some arranging but we got them flown back to Boston. We would get in new movies every time a resupply plane came in, as well as fresh eggs and bread and other commissary supplies. We basically ran an open house for visitors, Canadian and Eskimo from Clyde. The Eskimos always stocked up drinking our cool aid so if they had a carburetor freeze up on the way home, they could defrost it by peeing on it.
With the Canadians we shared fresh eggs and bread. We got a lot almost every week and their supply came in about once a year. The station had a beer supply and honor refrigerator where we purchased beer on our off times. The Canadians weren’t allowed to buy beer directly. They could buy some through one of the guys on the station but couldn’t leave the station with it. We had a lot of parties with and without guests from Clyde. There was an annual Christmas Party for the Eskimo families and kids. The District would send up a lot of toys for Santa to give away and we would serve a ton of sandwiches, potato chips and pop. The Eskimo brought large boxes and when they took their coats off would put them in their box. Smart idea but when the food was put out, the coats came out of the boxes and food went in to take home for later. In the spring we were able to get outside more. On 9 January, a telegraph message was forwarded to me through the District Office, “Jan 8, received via Western Union. Quote, Arrived 730, Mom fine Love Mike, Unquote.” I looked at it and asked, “Who the hell is Mike?” The guys standing in the radio room laughed and told me it was my son. On my birthday, July 26, I left the window open in my room and the next morning had about a half inch of snow on the floor when I woke up.
As the year was coming to an end, I found out we were going to be stationed at Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington DC. I wrote Joyce to tell her and told her I thought she should buy a new car with air conditioning because of the humidity there. I placed the letter in the mail bag for the next plane out. When I got my mail from that plane, there was a letter from Joyce telling me about the car she had just bought, a new 1972 Mercury Colony Park station wagon. It had all the bells and whistles, we would be driving to DC in style. In October 1972, I flew out of Clyde. As I was walking through the terminal in Montreal I noticed a beautiful lady sitting there. As I got closer I realized it was my wife, Joyce. We got to spend a couple of days in Montreal and then flew to Boston. I checked in at the District Office and made my report to the head of Aids to Navigation as he wanted, blaming a lot of the problems on the District Office. Joyce and I spent a couple of days in Boston then flew to Washington DC to look for a house.
I did a quick stop by the Loran Office I would be working at to get some ideas of where we should look. The next day we saw a real estate agent in Woodbridge Virginia and she started showing us some houses. For October it was un-seasonably warm and really hot to me, coming from the Artic. She refused to turn on her air conditioner because it was October. We found a house to rent and made arrangements with a friend, Marylou Dills, whose husband I had been stationed with on the Winona, to supervise the unloading of our household goods when they arrived. Having 60+ days leave, we flew home to Washington.
We landed in Seattle where I was finally able to meet Mike, face to face, after nine months. We picked up the other kids and headed to Port Angeles. It was kind of a whirlwind period. When you’ve been away a year, it takes time to integrate back into a family. Then there was the house to sell, packers to arrange and moving trucks to get loaded. When December arrived we were ready and headed over to Seattle to say good bye to our parents. At Joyce’s Mom and Dad’s, Mike came down with pneumonia. We spent a few days there until the Doctor said it was ok for Mike to travel and we were on our way. We arrived in Woodbridge, Virginia, on Christmas Eve. The house had boxes everywhere and that is pretty much where they stayed. We found a Chinese restaurant and had dinner. When we got back to the house we found some of the Christmas decorations and some of the presents and had our first Christmas in Woodbridge. The next day we joined Marylou and her family for Christmas Dinner and then went home and started the process of settling in. As a family, we visited a lot of the tourist sights in and around Washington DC. We didn’t get to a lot of places because of how expensive it was to live in the DC area. The Smithsonian was one our favorites. When we had visitors we usually always hit the museum of flight and then some we hadn’t seen before. I remember one time, when it was raining, there was a river running down the street by our house. The kids went out and water sledded down the gutter.
After the New Year, I signed in to Headquarters and started working. When I had visited in October, I had a beard. I had actually grown it shortly after I made Chief. The Commanding Officer of my office was expecting me to come back clean shaven. I didn’t. The Navy Times had just run a cartoon of a Captain and his Bos’n on the deck of a sailing ship. The Bos’n was holding the arm of a sailor with half his beard shaved off. The caption read, “Good job Bos’n, if you let one do it, they all will.” I posted it on our information board and no one ever mentioned my beard again. I was called up to the Captain of Aids to Navigation Office about my recommendation for new communication equipment for Cape Christian. They were hesitent to spend money for new equipment because the station would be closing soon. I pointed out the accidents that required emergency communication. They approved and sent new equipment. I had an opportunity to talk to the Commanding Officer that was in charge when I left. He told me he didn’t know what I had said to the District Office in Boston, but they were getting planes in almost every day for a couple of weeks with supplies that had been on order for years.
Because parking was a premium in DC we were required to car pool. I joined one that was made up of three officers who enjoyed leaving early to have a late lunch and cocktails at the Officers Club. We always ran late heading home, an interesting drive. Luckily, we never had an accident. It was the fifth year after the founding of the Coast Guard Chief Petty Officers Association and the National Headquarters was in DC. I became the National Special Projects Officer. One of my jobs became looking for office space we could rent. While waiting to move in, I drew and painted a three foot copy of the CPOA patch that would hang there. I also participated in the fifth Annual CPOA conference. The Washington DC Chapter held a lunch for some of the Admirals. I and another Chief escorted a couple to the lunch in our Mercury. Listening to them in the back seat I almost laughed, they were discussing how it was a Chief could afford a car like that.
I was encouraged to test for a two year advanced training school. I passed and chose DeVry Institute in Phoenix Arizona. May of 1974 we packed up everything and were ready to head West. Because we didn’t know what we were going to be running into or how long it would take to find a house, we flew Chris, Tim and Kelly out to Washington State to my folks house. Joyce, Mike and I headed West, towing the Vega I had bought while in the car pool. We actually headed Southwest, stopping and spending the night in New Orleans at a couple’s house we had been stationed with on the Winona. I think it was somewhere in Texas I was getting pretty low on fuel and it was time to find a gas station or motel. I pulled in to a little town late at night and happened to see a policeman. I stopped and asked him if there was a gas station or, if not, a motel. He sent me to a station that was closed but said to knock on the door and tell them he had sent us. We did and we got our tank filled. I doubt you could do that today. When we arrived in Phoenix we decided to stay at a KOA camp ground and live out of the back of our station wagon. Our household goods were scheduled to arrive any day and we figured we would be able to get our camping gear.
I had checked with the District Office in Long Beach to see if they had housing available since they had been arranging housing for the incoming students. They didn’t have another house available so we started looking for one to rent. There weren’t a lot of rental houses that would facilitate our family so we decided to buy. We found one and needed some help with the down payment so I went to Coast Guard Assistance. In the meantime, mom and dad arrived in the motorhome with the kids. It was 115 degrees during the day and I wanted to get into our home. There was a Captain in the District office that needed to approve loans and he didn’t want to approve one for us. I called him one day and wanted to know why. He thought we would be taking on too much. I explained that we would actually be paying less buying than renting. He persisted and said his officer in charge of arranging housing said there was housing available. I told him he was being told what he wanted to hear, I had already checked. But if, in fact, housing was available, I wanted a house by that afternoon since it was 115 degrees and I had four kids living out of a tent and the back of a station wagon. Mom was standing close to me and couldn’t believe I was talking to a Captain like that. We got the loan to purchase the house but we had to wait for closing. After our second week in the camp ground, Mom and Dad thought it was too hot and left. We packed up our gear and moved out to one of the local rivers and camped for a week, swimming and tubing a lot. One more week to go before we could close we packed up everything. We located a Motel, checked in, got our room, turned on the air conditioner and TV and vegged out for a week till we moved in to our home.
DeVry was going to be my station for two years. When people found out I was in the Coast Guard and stationed in Phoenix, they always asked, “What’s the Coast Guard doing in Phoenix?” My reply, “Well, the Coast Guard’s motto is Semper Paratus, Always Ready. With California expected to fall off, we are going up and down the new proposed coast line, building new stations.” Sometimes I would clarify that I was going to school and sometimes I would just walk away. School was five days a week, eight to four, so I had a lot of time to be with the family. We traded in the Mercury and Vega for a nineteen foot Travel Queen Motorhome and a Toyota Corolla. I drove the Toyota to school which left Joyce driving the motorhome to work at the Highway Patrol business office. Weekends were spent camping, fishing, swimming and touring all around Arizona. We went up to Flagstaff in the winter to do some sledding.
I think one of our favorite trips was down in to the Grand Canyon. Of course we picked the hardest trail to go down. We all had backpacks and water canteens, even Mike with his pack carrying our lunch and some of his toys. One of the canteens got knocked over the side and I was getting blisters on my feet. I had to hold back because Mike was having a hard time. Close to the bottom Chris and Mike took off and beat us down and I limped in the rest of the way. We spent the first night in the bottom of the Canyon and the next day headed to Indian Gardens, about half way up. On the way we were running out of water so I went ahead and found water and refilled the canteen. I was pretty pooped and asked one of the day hikers going down if they could take the canteen to my wife and kids. We met up at Indian Gardens and set up camp. It was a beautiful spot. At night the cactus on top looked like giants with the moon shining behind them. The next day we lay on our sleeping bags and watched it rain on top, evaporating before it got to us. The next afternoon, we were sitting at our picnic table and this guy came over and sat down. We didn’t say much, thinking it was a friend of the people next to us. Turned out, he was from New Zealand and that was how he met people, by just being obnoxious. He had an orange that he peeled and asked the kids if they would like some biscuits. We explained they were cookies and they took some. The next day we headed up. Chris, Tim and Mike took off. Joyce, Kelly and I took our time. The other kids had gotten to the top and found some people we had met in Indian Gardens. They stored their packs and bought them some drinks. As we were coming to the top, the kids placed a drink on the trail and encouraged Kelly to keep coming. “Come on Kelly,” and out of the crowd we heard, “Kelly, a grand name, may you be blessed with many children.” What can I say. We went to our room at the hotel where every one took showers and cleaned up before we went out for dinner. At dinner we all chowed down: salad, steak, baked potato with all the trimmings, and apple pie alamode. That evening, we all got sick. You should never eat a lot of rich food after having been on a bland diet for a few days. It was a great trip.
Heat was a big problem. It was so hot during the summer, we usually had our air conditioner set at 80-85 degrees. One week Joe, Joyce’s brother, and a friend of his, Mick, came to visit. It was funny watching these two big guys, over six feet tall, come unwinding out of a VW Super Beetle. We didn’t have our pool yet but the neighbor next door told us we could use theirs. Mick was sitting in the pool one day with a glass of wine and repeating, “I can’t believe they have their air conditioner set at 80 degrees.”
Before graduation, I found out we would be getting orders to Coast Guard Loran Station Point Arguello, California as Officer-in-Charge. So one week we packed up the motorhome and drove over to check out the station. To get to the station you have to drive through south Vandenberg Air Force Base. Port Arguello was a very picturesque station, setting on a bluff looking out over the Pacific. It had an unmanned light house on a hill above the fog horn on the point. There were two duplexes, a garage and the Loran building. My first feelings were I would be taking on a lot of trouble. You could almost cut the tension with a knife. We didn’t stay long. Instead we headed for Disney Land and parked in their camp ground. We got some really good tickets from one of Joyce’s cousins, Monica, who worked there. After spending all day in the park, we decided to go out for dinner. We were walking to the restaurant and Mike, three or four at the time, could hardly walk because he was tired, hungry and just plain in a bad mood. All the way back to the camp ground, with his mouse ears on, he just kept singing, “M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E, Mickey Mouse” over and over.
