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| Storm Clouds |
I remember going aboard my ship as though it were only yesterday. I had arrived in Long Beach, my new home port, of which I would not see as much as I wanted to, but that's life on a ship. I remember Gary Sigwing, a fellow radarman telling me that he had asked all of his friends to write to him and at the first port of call, he had stacks of mail which he then had to answer. Gary said that it had never occurred to him that he would not get mail every day. Ships are at sea for long periods of time, much longer than your average travel in a car, truck, bus, or airplane, and the mail chases them until the port of call and the ship match up. Sometimes the mail is delivered in the middle of an ocean from a refueling ship or a supply ship. I'm glad Gary told that story for I had not thought of it and I might have had the same feelings if he had not stepped up with the information. I had enough mistakes to make on my own.
I had been on leave since finishing Radar "A" school at Treasure Island, San Francisco, and as it fell at Christmas time, I had sent a telegram requesting additional leave so that I could stay in Pawhuska over Christmas. With the extra days granted to me, and actually being in debt to the navy for leave, I flew from Tulsa to Los Angeles but we could not land there and landed in Oxnard, California; then we passengers were bussed to downtown Los Angeles and then I took a bus to Long Beach. I arrived in Long Beach, late and very tired. Just off of Ocean Boulevard and across from The Pike was a park I would generally learn to steer clear of, but there was where the bus stopped. I do not remember the name of the park today but I think it was bordered by Magnolia Street. I was seventeen and even after the long journey, even though moments before I had been so tired I might fall asleep on my feel, my excitement level became so high that I suddenly had energy to burn. So I walked across the street and onto a landing with the arch above it in high neon that read simply, "The Pike." I wanted to see it but I did not know where to begin. Also, the reason we had landed in Oxnard was fog. It was still so foggy all the way down to Long Beach that all I could see when I stepped from the bus was the neon sign. So, I counted my money and began to think about how to get to my ship--how to find it first. All I knew was Long Beach, California, as my orders read. Where would you put a ship in Long Beach? I asked a few sailors I saw and all of them were older and tipsy so they offered, "Get a cab." I did. The driver made a few exchanges with a radio that I could not understand, neither the secret code of taxi drivers and dispatchers nor the static and explosions of noise emanating from his radio, and we were off on our long drive from downtown Long Beach across the bridge and to Pier Echo where the Point Defiance was tied up. This does not mean she was gift wrapped or tied to a chair as a captive heroine might be; she was berthed to a pier with her brow extended onto the concrete pier and lines doubled up fore and aft. Even after my basic training and radar school, I knew nothing about ships. I did know the etiquette for boarding though and after paying the taxi driver, I walked up the brow, faced the ensign flying aft, saluted sharply and turned to the office of the deck, a young man but older than I was, well dressed in his uniform and coat and with my very best and well trained decorum, I barked out, "Request permission to come aboard SIR!"
"Permission granted!" he returned with a smile, perhaps a wry smile, but I did not understand that, yet. But for the time being, I was on board the Point Defiance and it was my home, for the next three years.
More on the next watch.
Stevie Joe Payne
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