Too Big

Have you ever thought about dinosaurs? Those things were huge. Giant reptiles roaming the earth, eating massive amounts of vegetation and meat. I've seen "Jurassic Park" so I know a little about dinosaurs.

Some dinosaurs were as big as city buses. Some stood as tall as three story houses. Gargantuan winged reptiles soared through the skies emitting piercing shrieks.

Have you ever wondered why there aren't any animals that big anymore?

The largest land animal is an elephant. They're pretty big but they're tiny compared to a brontosaurus. The largest flying creature is the albatross with its eight to twelve foot wingspan. They're miracles of efficient soaring.

If you look in the ocean, you can find creatures rivalling the dinosaur for size. Blue whales, the largest animal, can reach nearly one hundred feet long. Other whales are smaller but still massive. But whales have an advantage - buoyancy.

What was it about the age of dinosaurs that allowed creatures to grow to heroic sizes and survive. Why did they not run out of food necessary to support they're colossal frames? Why are there not similar animals roaming the earth today?

I've got a theory that goes something like this - There was only so much room in the ark.

Keep the Rubber Side Down, Part 1

Late in my high school career I started to dream of owning a motorcycle. Two wheels meant freedom, excitement, danger. It meant breaking away from the mundane. Motorcycles were cool.

My only previous experience with a motorcycle ended with me crashing into a trailer and opening a deep gash on my leg. That incident cost me a week in the hospital and about three months in a splint. I missed the last few weeks of my fourth grade year.

I wasn't going to let that stand in my way.

What did stand in my way was a lack of funds and an inability to save more than two dollars at any given time. My motorcycle dream was on hold.

While I was in the Navy I had subscriptions to a couple of motorcycle magazines. Every month I would devour the descriptions of the newest machines the motorcycle manufacturers offered. Each new model offered incremental improvements that rendered the previous model hopelessly obsolete. I could think of dozens of motorcycles I would like to own.

However, being somewhat intelligent I didn't want to buy the most powerful model for my first bike. I wasn't going to be one of those knuckleheads riding a GSXR 1000 while wearing flip-flops and no helmet. I was going to do it right.

One day I was reading the magazine when I saw the Suzuki Bandit 400. This motorcycle touched something very deep within my soul. It was red. Its tiny four-cylinder motor wasn't hidden by plastic. It revved to 14000 rpm.




It looked awesome.

I'd saved a little money during the Gulf War. I returned to a father happy to have me home and willing to help me buy a motorcycle. We went to our local motorcycle dealer and exercised Pop's credit card. The next day I rode home on my new motorcycle.

Do You Think You're Special, Recruit? Episode 5

I joined the Navy because I didn't want to go to college right away. I was sick of school. I thought it might be nice to spend a few years travelling the world.

So early that morning I climbed into the waiting van.

The recruiter drove me and a couple other guys to the MEPS station in Los Angeles. I completed more paperwork, peed in a cup to prove I hadn't taken any drugs in the last thirty days and then waited. I finally boarded a bus later that day with about 50 other guys.

There was a mix of bravado and quiet reflection on the bus ride to San Diego (the loudest talkers were the first to drop out). We arrived outside the San Diego Recruit Training Center at about 11:30 that night. A guy in a white uniform climbed on the bus and yelled at us to grab our things and line up outside.

I had seen the movies. I was expecting pit bulls in perfectly pressed uniforms to march on the bus with profanity and spittle flying, immediately identifying my deepest insecurities and causing me to void my bladder, before marching me in shame in front of all the other deeply shaken recruits. This guy was not exactly friendly but he didn't seem like he was going to eat me alive either. He marched us to a room and then yelled at us to line up on squares painted on the floor.

Another uniform clad guy starting calling roll. After questioning the parentage and intelligence of all of us, the guy had confirmed our identities and marched us to another room. More uniform clad people threw toiletries and towels at us. Finally, at about 2:00 AM we were led to a barracks to go to sleep.

About two hours later, a blinding light and a banging metal trash can woke me from my dreams of home. Men in uniform marched through the barracks yelling at us to get up, brush our teeth and "fall out." I stumbled to the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror.

I really did want to go to college.

Do You Think You're Special, Recruit? Episode 4

So there I was on a summer day in 1988. I was sitting in front of a Navy recruiter deciding what I wanted to do for the next few years of my life. Because of my color vision, the jobs I wanted were off the table. The recruiter was giving me three choices, none of which were appealing.

In retrospect, I should have thanked him for his time and excused myself with the words, "It looks like the Navy has nothing to offer me at this time."

If I had done that, he probably would have replied, "Wait a minute son, let me check the computer again." He would have found the opening for the journalism school I wanted.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I held all the cards.

Instead...

... I signed up for the Seaman Apprentice school for the shortest enlistment they offered at the time - three years active duty.

In that moment, I had decided the Navy would not be my career. I would do my time, get out, and go to college.

I phoned my dad and told him I had enlisted. He left his office in Monterey Park and drove to the MEPS station in Los Angeles. He watched as I raised my right hand and swore to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign or domestic.

I had mixed emotions as I spent the last few weeks at home. I attended going away parties with friends and a guy at my church tried to talk me into changing to the Air Force (no thanks). My sort-of girlfriend, Barbara, cried a little. My mom cried more. My recruiter gave me a list of items to bring with me (running shoes, stamps, my driver's license, and a little money) and prohibited items (tobacco, drugs, and alcohol). I packed my bag and went to sleep.

Very early the next morning, my recruiter was waiting outside in a van.

Do You Think You're Special, Recruit? Episode 3

The Armed Forces recruiting office was in a strip mall behind a barbecue take-out and an Acapulco Mexican restaurant.  The recruiters were crammed into tiny offices emblazoned with posters showing the exciting things their particular branch had to offer.  

The Navy recruiter was wearing a white polyester uniform with a couple of chevrons on his left sleeve.  He welcomed me into his office with a hand shake and then started asking me questions.  He wanted to know my background and my interests.  Had I ever been arrested or  taken drugs?  Did I have good grades?  What were my plans for the future?

The job of a recruiter is to fill quotas.  He's not there for wish-fulfillment.  He'll tell you all the bitchin' things you can do in the Navy, but he's really trying to get you into the job the Navy needs.  The recruiter talked to me about the nuclear fields and how I would get out after six years with an Associate's degree and skills I could use operating a nuclear power plant.  

That didn't sound very interesting to me, but I'd play along.

I took the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test and did pretty well.  The world was my oyster.  I was smart enough for any job in the Navy.  I wanted to be a journalist or photographer.  I could watch and record the action without getting my hands dirty.  It sounded cool.

I went to the Military Enlistment Processing Station (MEPS) in Los Angeles for my physical.  I was poked and prodded and evaluated.  I was doing pretty well until they tested my color vision.  I was colorblind. 

With this news, I went to talk to the guy who would choose my "A" school and future job in the Navy.  Before the physical he had been talking up the nuke program.  Now, instead of offering the nuclear program or another high-tech field, he presented three options:

1. Boiler Technician (Advanced Training Field)

2. Mess Management Specialist

3. Seaman Apprentice

Boiler Technicians (affectionately known as BT's) run the boilers in the Navy's steam powered ships.  Boiler rooms are hot, dangerous places.  A high-pressure steam leak in a boiler room will kill everyone in the space before they know something is wrong.  And it was a six year active duty enlistment.

No thanks.

Mess Management Specialists are cooks.  I love food and I love cooking but I didn't want to cook for 1500 people.

Nope.

Seaman Apprentice?  Apprenticeship training is where the guys who weren't smart enough to get "A" schools ended up after boot-camp.  Airman Apprentices do the grunt work on aircraft carrier flight decks.  Fireman Apprentices work in the engineering spaces on ships doing grunt work.  Seaman Apprentices go to a ship's deck department where they learn how to swab decks, chip paint, and haul on a mooring line.

Grunt work.

"What's the shortest enlistment I can get?"

Do You Think You're Special, Recruit? Episode 2

One day in the summer of 1988, I got a call from the local Navy recruiter.  He wanted me to come to his office and talk about how I could "be all you can be."  The Navy wasn't my first choice.  I was still waiting for the call from the Coast Guard recruiter.  But Fall was approaching fast and I had to do something with my life.

I didn't grow up in a military family.  My grandpa was in the Marine Corps but that was during World War 2 when every able-bodied young man was in uniform.  One of my uncles had been in the Army during the mid-fifties but he never talked about it with me.  My dad was medically disqualified for service in Vietnam.  All of his brothers were too old for the draft and my mom's brothers were too young.  None of my older cousins had chosen military service.  And so far, I am still the only one of my generation to serve.

Anyway, I had a general idea of what Navy life was like.  I'd seen a commercial that showed a group of young sailors, wearing their dress whites, enjoying a rickshaw ride in Hong Kong.  Our neighbor's son had been in the Navy.  His younger sister had a shirt he had bought for her in some exotic place called Djibouti.  And one of my dad's buddies had been an airplane mechanic in the Philippines.  He spent a lot of time scuba diving.

Liberty in Hong Kong, souvenir t-shirts from the Horn of Africa, and swimming in tropical waters.  It sounded pretty cool.

And the Navy had ships.  Ships that travelled the world.  Instead of getting stuck for four years in some God-forsaken hell-hole, ships stop for a few days in hell-holes and then leave.  You never have to sleep in the dirt either when you're in the Navy.  Your bed travels with you.

Because it seemed like I would never get a call from the Coast Guard, I made an appointment to talk to the Navy recruiter.

Do You Think You're Special, Recruit? Episode 1

Cast your mind back to the summer of 1988.

Ronald Reagan was in his last few months in the White House.  Depeche Mode had just played the most friggin awesome concert in the history of British electro-pop concerts at the Rose Bowl.  A Mustang GT, one of the fastest cars on the road, had all of 205 horsepower.  Gas was about a dollar a gallon.  And I was a recent high school graduate with my entire life ahead of me.

I had finished school with decent grades and a good SAT score.  What I didn't have was a strong desire to go to college.  I was pretty tired of school at that point.  I didn't want to go to college right away and I didn't have the money to spend a year abroad.

I had only a bare outline of a plan for my future.  It was something like this:

1. See the world
   
2. Save money for college
   
3. Get lunch

I had thought about joining the Coast Guard.  It seemed like a pretty good deal.  I'd get assigned to a small boat crew on the coast of Oregon or Maine and spend my days rescuing distressed boaters and interdicting drug smugglers.  It would be pretty cool.

But Coast Guard recruiters don't call lazy high school graduates.

So I spent the summer sleeping late, working at a Mexican restaurant, rebuilding the engine on my 1967 Chevy truck with my friend Eric, and hanging out with my sort-of girlfriend Barbara.  One day, my hands covered in grease, I got a call from the Marine Corps recruiter.  He wanted to talk to me about all the great things the Marine Corps could do for me.

I had seen "Full Metal Jacket."  Even though my Grandpa was a proud Marine, I wanted nothing to do with the Marine Corps.  All the yelling and push-ups and marching.  No thanks.

And then one day, the Navy recruiter called.

Ya Gotta Know a Little Bit About Football

I took journalism my freshman year in high school. I had big dreams of being a reporter - notebook and pencil in hand, I would go to the scene of breaking news, collect information, and craft a well-written hard hitting piece. With my name on it of course.

One of my classmates was writing articles for our local give-away newspaper. The paper needed someone to cover high-school football games. My friend recommended me for the job.

There was a hitch. I didn't really know anything about football.

I knew that one side tried to move the ball by either running it or throwing it. The other side tried to stop them. A touchdown was worth 6 points and a field goal was 3 points. The finer points of the game were lost on me. I didn't know what the positions were other than the quarterback. I couldn't tell a linebacker from defensive back. I wasn't off to a good start.

I told my dad I was going to be writing about a football game. He replied, "You don't know anything about football." This time, he was right.

I looked up "football" in my handy encyclopedia. I might as well have been reading Latin.

My first game as a sportswriter was away for a non-league showdown. I rode to the game on the bus with the players. Our coach was an old-school son of New Mexico coal miners. The players wore their helmets in the bus.

Anyway, during the game I tried to take as many notes as possible. I just wrote down player numbers in the hope I would be able to match them to a name later. After the game (a loss for our team) I went home and wrote up the game. When I called the editor at the paper and read the article to him, he was underwhelmed.

Not surprisingly, he found someone else to cover the next game.

I still don't know much about football.

Wow! You Guys Look Old.

There comes a time in every man's life when he realizes it has been twenty years since he graduated from high school. This realization causes one to reflect upon one's misspent life. One wants to get in touch with one's old friends in an attempt to recapture some of that lost youth and measure one's progress down the road of life.

Several weeks ago I got in touch with my bestest friend from high school, Shanon, and suggested we might have a little get together with a few close friends. She liked the idea and ran with it. So today, we met at a restaurant in San Dimas for lunch.

It was fun. It was a gathering of nerds but it was fun. I hesitate to include myself in the category of nerd only because I lack the requisite intelligence. I'm the idiot amongst the nerds.

Marcelo brought his four-year-old son, Marcelo.

Shanon came with her husband, Dave.

Me and Shanon.

I was struck by how much Marcelo and Shanon have aged. They really look a lot older than I remember from high school. I, of course, have not changed a bit. A little more handsome perhaps, but still young. You be the judge:

Tropic Of Cancer

I remember looking at a world map when I was a kid and seeing the "Tropic of Cancer" stretching across Latin America.

I was concerned because I had also seen a map showing the advance of "killer bees."

Was cancer, like the killer bees, coming to America?

Another Tale of Navy Woe

The first cruise I went on when I was in the Navy was a two month trip to Korea. We were at sea for 30 days participating in a multi-national exercise before putting into Pusan, Korea for 4 short days of liberty.


When we left Korea, a typhoon was ravaging the western Pacific. Navy ships don't willingly sail through typhoons. Why deal with 50 to 100 foot seas when you can avoid it. Even though we didn't sail through the storm, we certainly felt its effects.


For a week we had 25 foot seas. The USS Missouri was a "wet" ship. The bow plunged deep into the oncoming waves as water rushed down the deck. It was unsafe to go outside so the weather decks were closed. Finally after a week of rough riding, the seas subsided to the point where we could go outside and clean up.


The decks looked like... well... like a hurricane had passed through. There were fire hoses strewn across the deck, fire extinguishers hanging loose, and everything that wasn't welded or bolted on to the ship was loose. Navy ships are known for being ship-shape. Somebody had to clean up the mess. That was us - the Deck Department.

I was on the main deck on the port side cleaning up. Every now and then a wave rolled down the length of the deck, forcing us to pick up our swabs and buckets to keep them from floating away. I was rehanging a fire hose when I turned just in time to see a massive wall of water coming over the side.

The ship could be steered from two places - the bridge and aft steering. Aft steering, buried deep in the bowels of the ship, was used in emergencies. Several times a day, the bridge conducted aft steering drills to practice shifting control of the ship. This time they made a mistake.

Instead of hitting the waves head on, they turned the ship so the wave hit from the side. The side of the ship went down and the water came up. As this wall of water closed in I had only a millisecond to decide what to do. I chose wrong.

I tried to climb up to the next level. The wall of water hit like a runaway train. I was slammed into the bulkhead and washed back toward the side. I could feel the fire hose in my hands. I knew it was attached on one end. There was no way I was going to let go of that hose if I were swept over the side.

I wasn't. I was laying on the deck in the fetal position with the fire hose in a death grip. A foot of seawater sloshed around the deck. My head hurt like crazy and I couldn't see because the wave had knocked off my glasses. I jumped up.

My shipmates were running around trying to figure out if anyone was hurt. I yelled, "Is my head bleeding?" One of my friends said, "No, look at your leg." I turned and saw that my pants had ripped from the belt down to the knee. I was bleeding from a puncture wound just below my right butt cheek.

I found my glasses on the deck. They were undamaged. I put them on and then made my way, soaked to the skin, down to Medical. They stitched up my puncture wound, gave me a tetanus shot, antibiotics and Motrin, and put me on light duty. I cleaned the head for the remainder of the trip home to Long Beach.

I still have the scar but I won't show it to you. The torn pants are in a box in the garage.

No Love From the Bosun

Many years ago I was a young seaman recently assigned to the Deck Department of the USS Missouri (BB 63). One of our many tasks was keeping the rust at bay. Salt water loves to eat steel.

We were chronically short of supplies for our constant painting. We didn't have enough paintbrushes, rollers, or paint thinner. We did have plenty of red lead primer and paint in various shades of gray.

One day we were painting the bulkheads on the main deck. I went to the paint locker to find a brush. The only one I could find had been used for the red primer. I searched in vain for a jar of thinner to clean the brush.

There I was with a dirty brush, a bucket of gray paint, and a bulkhead to be painted. I figured if I were very careful I could apply the gray paint without getting any of the primer mixed in. So I started painting.

I was doing a good job too. I checked my work and I couldn't see any primer spoiling my new coat of gray paint. And then the ship's Bosun walked by.

The Bosun, Chief Warrant Officer McTiernan, was covered in tattoos. He patrolled his domain with a chaw in his mouth, a cigarette in his lips, a cup of coffee in one hand and his spit cup in the other. He had been in the Navy since Moby Dick was a guppy. I was, quite frankly, terrified of the Bosun.

The Bosun walked past me and did a double take. He yelled, "What the f--- are you doing?" as he snatched the paintbrush from my hand and tossed it over the side. "Get another f---in' brush," he growled as he stormed off.

I found another brush.