AS I SAT IN CHURCH THE OTHER DAY, I MARVELED AT HOW THE APOSTLES AND DISCIPLES REMEMBERED ALL OF THE STORIES AND EVEN EXACT DIALOGUE DECADES AFTER THE ACTUAL EVENTS.  IN THIS ODYSSEY, DAVE AND I ARE ONLY TRYING TO REMEMBER THINGS WITH AS LITTLE DISTORTION AS POSSIBLE 50 YEARS AFTER "THE TRIP".

 

 

Should we or shouldn't we?

Dave and I sat in the warm sun behind the Methodist church where Dave's dad was the senior pastor. It was one of those days for serious discussions, like what shall we do this summer and are you going to get a job.

" I knew a guy in my fraternity who every summer goes out to the West Coast and signs on a tramp streamer and works up and down the coast. He doesn't make much money but he sees a lot of new stuff," Dave said.

Both Dave and I had been in the Navy for a couple of years but had never really been any place and here we were sitting at loose ends. Neither of had a serious girlfriend and no job and one semester of college under our belts. I knew I didn't have enough money to hit the tennis circuit that summer.

"Why don't we find out how he does it? I asked.

"He lives in Wichita. Let's go up and talk to him."

"Maybe we can take a real trip and learn some new stuff. I've never done anything like that before."

These are some of the thoughts that we were playing with as we tried to make the big leap. Sometimes it doesn't help to think, but to do, and let the mind come after.

In today's society we hear that we should plan our Work and Work our Plan. Our work at that time was a nebulous concept we had managed to fool around long enough so that it was impractical to go back to school. So our decision was made. We met with our new friend who was driving to San Pedro and who would wanted a couple of passengers to help defray the expenses and we headed out to California.

One of the major songs, which came out in the late forties and the early fifties, was "On a Slow Boat to China". How appropriate! We sang that over and over with Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney and a raft of other popular singers of the time.

 

                    I'd love to get you
                    On a slow boat to China,
                    All to my self alone.
                    Get you to keep you in my arms evermore,
                    Leave all your lovers (lovelies)
                    Weeping on the faraway shore.
                    Out on the briny
                    With the moon big and shiny,
                    Melting your heart of stone.
                    I'd love to get you
                    On a slow boat to China,
                    All to my self alone.

 

 

The first obstacle we ran into was a major longshoreman strike, which paralyzed the West Coast. This was not the first strike we were to encounter on our trip. But it did give us time to hit the Shipping Companies.

"What was the company your friend told us about?"

" I think it was the Scandinavian Shipping Co."

From now on we walk or maybe catch a bus but we needed to find the Scandinavian Shipping lines to see about ships and so we set out the next day. Talk about naive.

We found the Offices and presented ourselves and found they had a glut of sailors. What traditionally happened is that the Norwegian Sailors came in from a job on board ship from the Pacific and signed off and took a bus across he USA and caught another ship in the Atlantic to their homeland of Norway or Sweden?

.

PASSPORTS?

They at least wanted to know what our experience was and wanted to see our papers.

Papers? We had our discharge papers from the Navy but that was about all. They carefully explained to us that we had to have some kind of documentation before they would take us on so that we could get "back" into the USA. How about a passport? The Navy didn't require us to have one.

At least get a Birth Certificate! By this time I had remembered some words I had learned in the Navy I didn't use them.

They put our names on a list in case the strike broke and shuttled us out the door. We had work to do.

We called home and set the troops to work. I think we vaguely had the idea the parents would be relieved and thought that would be the end of it. NOT SO!

To this day I have my battered and bent birth certificate and I imagine Dave does too. We didn't have to show the birth certificates a lot and we ended up with World Health Organization cards as well. We are providing this blueprint for "wanna be's" if there be any like us.

52/20 CLUB

It became apparent that our money was going faster than we could afford and we were going to have to look into work like the thousands of other sailors on the West Coast. We had located used bookstores in the area and read the magazines in the Y and were eating a lot of peanut butter sandwiches. TV was so new that we could only look at it through the store windows. We even asked a policeman if he could put us in jail for room and board but he didn't think that was a very good idea. He'd have to book us and it would go on our permanent record.

Off to the Employment Agency in the area. We got in the waiting room and got numbers. The mission of the employment agency was to take the unemployed and get them a job so when they asked me what my last job was I told them "Aerographers Mate". The clerk rolled her eyes. I took it to mean that there wasn't a great need for that particular occupation in their files. She told me about the 52/20 club.

The federal government in their great wisdom figured that there would be a lot of unemployed service men from WWII around and developed this program where we could get paid 20 bucks a week for 52 weeks while we were trying to get some work. That and the GI Bill were the signs of an enlightened government. I don't know what happened to them since. Over exertion caused them to become brain dead I guess.

 

                        Far away places with strange-sounding names
                        Far away over the sea
                        Those far away places with the strange-sounding names
                        Are callin', callin' me

 

"No two people read the same book."

-Edmund Wilson

And probably no two people remember the same events in a trip in the same way.

We had only been in San Pedro for a couple of weeks when our birthdays came about. Our birthdays! We are only a day apart. I'm a day older than Dave is although I don't think I have always acted that way. However let it be noted that we were to turn 21 on October 10 and 11. Twenty-one has a special significance. My version of the story is that I suggested that we go in to a bar to celebrate and when the clock struck 12 we order and hope that we get carded. Dave doesn't remember it that way. At any rate we were not carded and I haven't been since, except when someone doesn't think I am eligible for a senior discount.

We have also disagreed as to when we went to the Fiji Islands. And when was the typhoon we were in., but never disagreed that we were there and it did happen.

It was over a month later that we got our ship, the Mosbay.

Living in an YMCA room for over a month waiting for a chance to

Get on with our trip was like a couple of rats being starved at 80 percent body weight to learn a maze.

We were ready!