Bread of Tears

By Theodore R. Wiebe

He is a ninety-one-year-young man of the old school, such as being soft spoken and well taught in military life, with the ability to give and take orders with ease and authority. This is his first book and there may be more. His emotions are strong and he did everything for his family, i.e. mother, sisters, and brothers. In his book, he relates how he goes places and does things to earn money for them so they may have food and clothing. Later, he got married and had a son and then found he also had a stepdaughter with the lady he married first and also raises her.
There was a lot of confusion and often misbehavior related in his book and lots of bread or food for tears within his life. That misbehavior and confusion went away when he met and married a lovely lady and a great beauty from Santa Cruz, California, who had lost her husband. They became fast friends immediately upon meeting and married within two months. She also has a daughter who lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. His life has seen a great change, and he is now living in a small town with the lady he should have been espoused to long ago.
He has walked the streets of China, ridden on rickshaws in India, helped thresh oats, barley, and wheat in Canada, lived on the beach in Fiji as a native, spent hours in the rains of the Philippines, attended navy school in Florida Keys, experienced the Panama, chewed sand off the Mojave Desert, watched Italy disappear in the sunset, saw the enemys home towns, spent six hours swimming in the Coral Sea when the USS Lexington sank, outwitted the sharks, and then flew into Pearl Harbor in a TBD aircraft the day after Pearl Harbor had been attacked, viewing the death and ruin of that harbor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469126425

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Theodore R. Wiebe.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012906938

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4691-2641-8

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4691-2640-1

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-2642-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

102587

image%2012.jpg

Here I am, ninety-one years old and married to a beautiful lady, and we have been married for about ten years then and no kids yet? Well, I guess it all takes time. We’ll get around to it. It takes some time when you get a little older and you don’t move as fast as you did when you were twenty-five or thirty. Her name is Yvonne, but I call her Vonnie, and she has been getting after me to start writing this book of my life, as I had attempted to tell her a few stories of what some of my activities had been. So, I thought I’d give it a try.

I guess I should start way back when, so you will get to know a little something about how I arrived here. My father was about twenty-one and my mother just nineteen when they met and married. This was in Canada, in Alberta, and further, it was north of Edmonton, away on a 720-acre farm my grandfather (my mother’s father) owned and operated with horses, cows, sheep, chickens, ducks, geese, and had wheat, barley, and oats. When they threshed, it was really something! All of the neighbors got together and everybody worked on everybody’s farm to get the threshing done. Whosever house they were threshing at had to feed the people, and there were thirty to forty men doing all that work and the food on the table never seemed to stop coming. All the women did the cooking and serving, and we all ate like we were having our last meal. And then, we would get right out in the fields again and back to the threshing. Some of the smaller farms we would get through in one day, but in some of the others, it would take two to three days. It was a merry old time though, and the fields all were cut, stacked, and threshed… The fields were cut and stacked, and then they were picked up by the horses and wagons and taken to the thresher and threshed, where parts of all the raw oats, wheat, and barley from the chaff and the clean oats went into a sack and the hay went into a pile which was picked up, and the sacks were all hauled to the barn and stowed. The hay which was baled was all stacked under covers and left to dry. It sounds easy, but believe me, the work was heavy, and when all of the people had their fields harvested, everyone was tired. But we still had a lot of the neighbors’ farms to thresh before we were through. So we went off to the Oatmans’ farm for their crops. And so it went.

That harvesting went on until my father and mother had made enough money to go to the United States and make contact with relatives in Dallas, Oregon, where the orchards were getting ready to be picked. My mother looked like she was going to bust, as she was about eight months pregnant with me and ready to have me at any time. I knew, as it was awful tight in there and I wanted out. In about four days, they pulled up at a farm or orchard that my father knew and was set up in a tent with a stove and some outside cots to sleep on. Though remember that was 1920, we were ready to pick some prunes (plums) which were then sent to the dryer and processed into prunes with the drying and all that went with the process. I guessed it was getting pretty close to morning and I was getting darn tired of being holed up in that pregnancy process and I was going to get out, so I started kicking and jumping and seemed as if I saw daylight, and then boom! I was out onto that mattress. I looked around and liked what I saw and decided to stay out there. I was being washed and bathed and wrapped up in warm blankets and there came the container with the food and it was sure good warm milk. Wow! I had my fill and then went to sleep. That was how I started my life on June 5, 1920 in the prune orchard in Dallas, Oregon, and my mother and father picked prunes to keep us alive.

I was nice and warm in my blankets and robe, and periodically, there came that large thing with the nipple that just fit in my mouth and what food! All that steak and eggs in a liquid form, and it was good! That was coming regularly and then I’d sleep for a while and then get a bath and then fed. Really good. That went on for some time and then my dad told my mother to pack up, as the prunes were running out, so we would have to go find work somewhere else. My father heard that the fish at the coast were running good that year, so off to the coast we went. My dad found an old shack on the sand out almost to the bar of the big Nestucca River, and we settled in that shack. It had an iron stove, some bunks, and a porch and front steps that led to the sand in front of the shack and down to the water. The back of that shack sat back up against the sand dunes and was pretty well protected except for high tides.

My dad and his brother Abe came back one day with two boats and four nets to start their fishing venture, and I guessed they must have got the fishing license and all the stuff that was required for catching fish in nets. I guessed those nets were about one hundred feet long and were weighted on the bottom and had floats on the top, so they would float in the water and you had to pull the net into the boat from one end, and as you were doing that, you had to take those large fish out of the net and throw the fish into the area at the back of the boat as you pulled the net in and had to club them so they wouldn’t jump all over the boat and perhaps out of the boat. Each fish was about 45 cents a pound, and those were larger salmon. The average weighed about 35 to 45 lbs. As soon as the boat was loaded, they would row it upstream to the cannery and offload it and receive their money right then and there.

They had one set net and two drift nets, and that meant they would set the two nets in the river and then leave, and the drift net came right in from the water where the bay met the ocean when the tide was coming in. Making three runs with the three nets and then taking two boatloads to the cannery, then unloading and going back to the bay was a very lucrative job, as the fish were always up in price and some salmon, weighing 50 and 60 lbs, were caught. That fishing only lasted a short while. As soon as all of the fish had come up the rivers where they had been spawned, the run was over. That would be all until the next year, so when it was over, my dad and his brother sold their boats and nets to some of the people who lived there the year around, and we took off again. I guess about a year had gone by since we had come down from Canada. We had picked prunes and fished and were then back on the road. So my dad and mother were figuring out what to do then, and I was going along for the ride, and my mother was pregnant with my sister Pearl. I didn’t know it then, but it was to be a baby girl. I didn’t know how those things happened, but there we were. I was just up and running around and getting in everyone’s way and having a good time. My mother had a hard time keeping up with me.

Well, we drove inland and I found we were going back up to Canada, as my dad was going to build a house or two and some granaries for the farmers to store their raw wheat and oats in. So, there we were, back in Bashaw, Alberta, Canada. And in a huge old house, my Dad was building granaries and a house or two were going up. They had made a good stake there in Oregon prunes and fish, so it gave him a fair start to build. And that’s what he did while my mother was having the children, Pearl coming up.

It was coming up onto August and about the nineteenth when my mother called my dad and told him, Pearl is on the way. So I guessed he called the doc and old Doc Schlagel went out to the house to help Mom. She had never had help with me, but I guessed she needed it with Pearl. Things were a little different in Canada than in the United States. Doc Schlagel was there before my dad and he got busy right away. And then Dad came in the door and things got pretty lively for a while, and then there was the strong cry of a baby and then things got quiet and my dad came out of their bedroom, and the Doc asked me if I wanted to see and meet my new baby sister. I said sure and then I’d have some help. The next door neighbor lady came over and went in with my mother and looked like she cleaned up everything and took all of the old bloody sheets to wash or whatever. I was a year and three months when Pearl was born, and I think Mom only stayed in bed for three days and then was up and about, doing everything she had been doing when Pearl was on the way.

Then she would stop for a few minutes and nurse Pearl. That I knew all about and kind of envied Pearl. That good milk (steak and eggs) was sure good. Things were getting back to normal, and Dad was building houses and Mom was taking care of the two kids. A family life was going on as usual and Pearl was learning to walk and eat real food (oatmeal, rice, tapioca, and all of the soft food that we ate at regular meals). My mother fed us a lot of mashed potatoes with butter and milk and mashed real soft and then slowly shifted the new kid to real food (mashed and made soft for them) until we all ate the same food. Pearl was walking and getting into everything, and I was told to watch my sister and watch her I did.

Pearl was coming up onto the age of one when we found that my mother was pregnant again with Norman. We didn’t know, but it was a boy that time and a year and eight months, my mother gave birth to a boy, Norman Clarion Wiebe, and he was a screamer and hollerer. When he was hungry, he would yell and scream until he got that nipple into his mouth, and he never wanted to quit. He finally did after ten or fifteen minutes and then he’d go to sleep and be quiet. My mother said it was good to get him off the tit, as he about chewed it off. After about six months, things started to get back to normal and we then had a family of five. My mother said Ted, watch Pearl and Norman. So I watched them. Norman was one to be watched every minute.

Funny thing about Canada and the citizenship, after being born in Canada and when coming back to the United States, my folks had to pay a head tax for the two kids, Pearl and Norman. I don’t remember what it was, but after the head tax, Pearl and Norman then became citizens of the United States. Farther down the line, it was a good thing my mother saved those receipts for having paid the head tax for Pearl and Norman to become citizens of the United States. There we were, the whole family, heading back to Oregon and back to work in Portland. My dad found us a rental in Rose City somewhere. I don’t remember, but I started going to school but didn’t stay long at the Rose City School. My dad was building a house in Rose City. He had talked to a Mr. Drake, who owned Drake’s Lumber Yard, and they had set up a deal whereby my dad received the lumber to build and as soon as the house was sold, he would pay off the lumber bill. This agreement went on with my dad and Mr. Drake for quite a few houses as he built houses all over Rose City. We would move into one, and he would finish it and then sell it, and while he was selling it, he would start to build another one and we would move into it and he would sell it, then we would move into another one he would be building, and then he’d finish it and sell it and we’d move to another one being built by Dad.

Well there we were, moving into the twentieth house and two kids later! We had picked up Betty and Floyd by then, and five kids and two adults in a family made a nice family, and we were going to go out to southeast Portland. My dad bought a piece of land out there, a 100 × 100 lot with a couple of trees on it and large enough for a garden of some size, which was great. And then he built a 24 × 24 foot house on it. That was on Flavel St. in southeast Portland, Oregon.

The back porch had the privy on it, and the rest of it was for storage and getting our dirty clothes off before coming into the house. That cute little bungalow had a front room and two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a back porch with privy, and a small front porch.

We then had Pearl, Norman, Betty, Floyd, Jimmy, and me. One bedroom was for my father and mother, and one bedroom was for us kids with two beds, one for the girls and one for the boys. There was just enough room for the bunch of us.

We were pretty poor but didn’t know what the word meant. We had clothing and shoes and food. Was there something else we didn’t know about?

The family was getting settled down, as our dad said we were going to remain in that house until things got a lot better and he could build more houses. Our sleeping and living habits were getting routine, and we started to live and go to school from that new house we had moved into on Flavel St.

We lived in a district where we had that rather new school and good teachers. So Mom enrolled Pearl and me into the Joseph Lane Elementary School (grades from the first to the eighth). It had what was called the Platoon System. At the end of a period, we all went from one room to another for another class, perhaps art or geography. Then, when that period was over, we went to another room for the next class. That school had some of the best teachers, and we received a good education going from English to algebra, both academic subjects and professional subjects. When you graduated, there was a very fine high school about five miles away, and you could continue your education if you had the money to do so.

My dad had been working all over Portland doing odd jobs and anything he could pick up to feed us. There wasn’t any welfare to go to, so we just lived on what we could get. We would pick dandelion leaves, which was as good as spinach, and my mother baked bread every Tuesday. We always had fresh bread and rolls.

During that time, the president, F. D. Roosevelt, started a work program called the CCC, Civilian Conservation Corp., which paid $30 a month for the work we did. Some of the jobs paid a higher wage, like $45 a month for higher education jobs. But most all jobs paid the $30 a month, from which $25 was sent to the family and $5 went to the worker so he could buy soap and tobacco or what was required away from home.

My dad had just won a bid to build a college in Albany and would go to Albany in a couple of days, and that was probably his start in the building of Oregon. He was going to try to drive to Albany in the morning and drive back to Portland at night but would play it how he saw it for the first few days. Well, he left for work the next morning and we all saw him off, and we were all very happy, as that was a year’s job at least and he would get started in building on larger projects.

We all were real happy about that. About two o’clock in the afternoon of his first day, my mother received a telephone call from the sheriff of Albany saying my father had been in an automobile accident and was in the Albany Hospital. My mother did not have transportation, so she called Mrs. Spaulding, and Mrs. Spaulding came over to the house and my mother said she wanted me to go with her. The lady next door came over to sit with our brothers and sisters. So we took off for Albany Ore. We drove right to the hospital and went in to enquire about my dad and was directed to the room he had been placed in. My mother went into the room while I waited outside for her. The nurse came out and got me and took me into the room. I went in to see my dad, and he looked pretty sick to me, gray-faced, but the nurse said he was all OK. My dad told my mother to go home and he would see her the next day and we left to go home. Mrs. Spaulding took us home, and my mother prepared to go see him the next day.

She said she wanted me to go with her so I went. When we walked into the hospital, a nurse met us at the front door and addressed my mother and flatly said out to her that Jack Wiebe had died during the night and had been put into the morgue. My mother just broke down right there, and we had a bad time getting her home and into the house. We found out the next day that my dad had a punctured lung and no one knew it. He had died in his sleep that night.

After my dad was buried, it seemed like a large vacancy existed in our household, and things just did not run for a few weeks. My dad did not have any insurance, but there had been an insurance agent to see Mom about a week prior to my dad’s death and he tried to get my mother to buy insurance, but Mom never had any cash of any kind and so she never bought any. Then, this insurance man, after he found out that my father had died, applied a quarter to an application for a $2,500-insurance death policy and told my mother about it and had her sign all of the papers. She became eligible for $50 a month until the policy ran out. That was not much, but she could live on it, as the kids were still small. Then that put me into a position where I had to go find a job so I could also give toward the family expenses, so I applied at the courthouse for a job with the CCC and they said they would take me. I had to tell them I was a little older than I was for them to take me, so I said I was sixteen years, and they took me as soon as my mother signed the papers.

That would give my mother another $25 and, along with her insurance, would be good. I left home and was stationed in Vancouver Wash at the Headquarters Co. and was assigned to the mess hall as No. 1 dishwasher in the kitchen and was to wash a plate, a cup and a saucer, and huge fork and spoon for each man of two hundred men a meal. I kept that job for a couple of years. My assistant and I washed all dishes, pots and pans, and silverware. We were the best pearl divers in the USA. Red and I worked five days one week and three the next week, and that was our solid schedule for all that time. I could go home for the weekends and other days, but I was assigned as a relief truck driver and drove a truck on a lot of my off days, delivering food and clothing and supplies to the other camps and returning to our Headquarters Company. That driving was all over Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts of Nevada. We also fought forest fires when called and had a pretty bad fire in Bandon, Oregon, on the coast. We helped build paths, trails, and bridges in the forests. It was a great job and there was beautiful scenery all the time.

I remained in the CCC for about three years or until my seventeenth birthday or a little before and then enquired about the U.S. Navy. I found that I could join the navy when I was seventeen but would have to re-up when I turned twenty-one years of age, and that was called a Kiddy Kruise, so I got my mother to sign the papers to get me into the navy. The major and all of his staff said they were sorry to see me go, but it was my destiny to get going. I was discharged by reason of joining the U.S. Navy, so away I went.

I went home for a couple of days and then at the first of the week was going to catch the train for San Diego, California. There were only two of us going from Portland, and we joined up with twenty-six men from Seattle, all bound for San Diego and training to be sailors. I’d never traveled by train before, much more having a bunk on the train. It was going to be like a vacation. We spent three days and two nights until we pulled into San Diego, and it was about 2300, and we were put on a bus and taken over to the United States Training Station and put in a large room with bunks all over the room. We were lined up in a single line and went to a bedding locker and were issued a blanket and two sheets, a pillow, and case. Then we were taught to make our bunk and told to go to bed and to sleep.

What an awakening? Wow! Whistles blowing, men yelling Reveille, reveille! Get up and get dressed, you swabs! Hit the Deck! Grab your socks! etc. When we were ready, we were told to stand by our bunks at attention, then to fall in double file and we’d go to breakfast. Off we went to a large building of which the best smells were coming from. We went in single file then and into the building and around a large counter to a stack of trays with my last name beginning with a W. I was getting to the line when some of the first were getting through eating. When we were through, we took our plates, cups, knives, and forks to an area for cleaning, and whatever was left in our tray went into a hole with water running down it and all plates and utensils were rinsed and piled neatly.

We were directed out of the building to our ranks, back to the barracks, and stood around until the chief petty officer got there. It wouldn’t be long until we found out that a chief petty officer was about the supreme person in the navy, and when he said to do something, you jumped to do it. We met Chief Petty Officer Hanford and were told to call him Mr. Hanford. What he said was Gospel for learning to be a sailor, and we said Yes sir when we spoke with him. The first thing the chief had us do was to draw clothing/uniform and the such, and that took us all day and into the night, during which we were introduced into our own barracks and assigned a number for our company. Our company number was 38-8, which meant we were Co. No. 8 and for the year 1938. We continued to learn each day from 0800 until way into the night when we started to stand watches, someone to watch the clothesline and someone to watch the people at night in the sleeping quarters, in case someone got sick or fell out of his bunk. We were armed with night sticks and an arm band identifying us as people on watch, and we could be looked to for help or we would not tolerate any one moseying around at night.

Those watches were training for when we go aboard and had to stand watches on board. I think it took us about three days to get all of our clothes and learn how to wrap them so they would all get stowed into a small locker and you could use that locker for everyday use.

After we received all of our uniforms and shoes and hats and kerchiefs and the other clothing to go with everything, we fit them on and stowed them all into a large sea bag (a bag about four feet in circumference and three feet tall), which held all of our clothes and shoes and everything but the shaving stuff that went into a smaller bag, which was called a ditty bag. That held shaving cream, combs, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, and all incidental things that didn’t go anywhere else. All of those things took time, and after about three or four days of learning, we had it down to use it.

We have been there just a day and I was tired already. I guess it had to be that way because of all the uniforms and clothing we had to have. That went on all day and we went back to the barracks. We were so tired that a lot of us did not go to dinner that night. That didn’t stop us from getting up early the next morning, but we who had finished with our withdrawing of clothing got to stay at the barracks and learn some of the good things That training kept up for one more week and then we started marching. We marched day in and day out until we all knew our left foot from our right foot and then we learned flag code and the Morse code and then how to row a boat and then sail a boat. We learned how to tie knots and how to splice rope and how to wear our clothes and how to wash clothes and how they would press if we folded them right, and then abruptly, almost six months were up and we were getting information about special schools and shipboard life. Then the day came. We were told to pack our sea bags and ditty Bags ready for sea.

We were marched to a bus and loaded aboard for the trip across San Diego to the fleet landing area where we were loaded aboard a motor launch and were on our way to the USS Lexington (CV2), which was a very large carrier for landing planes after they had taken off. We took that launch straight out the channel to sea and out to the ship which was anchored out about four miles to sea. When we got to the ship and up close, our launch would go up and down at the side of the ship and we would have to jump to the gangway and then go through a large porthole onto a shiny red deck aboard the ship. I would get very used to that quarterdeck before I got out. As soon as we were all aboard, the officer sent us up to the Mess Deck for some food, as it was lunchtime. When we got up to the Mess Deck, a master at arms took us over and directed us to tables to sit, and a sailor brought us some food. It was very good and there was lots of it. We were assisted by that master at arms, who was a second class boatswain’s mate, and he dished out the food just like our mothers used to do. When we finished eating, the boatswain’s mate had us all stand, and then we were directed aft on that deck to the stern of the ship. There, we were shown cots and mattresses and told to make up our beds for the night and that that was not going to be our regular sleeping place. We would be directed to other places later. But for then, we would stay in that compartment until further directed. We would be told what to do each day. We settled and slept well that night and were up at 0530 when the bugle blew reveille and we were told we would be shown where our tables for breakfast would be, so to breakfast we went.

When we went into eat, there was a mess captain, who dished out the food to the sixteen men who were at his jurisdiction. Two tables had eight men each, and when the food was brought in by the mess cook for those two tables, the mess captain made sure each man received a fair share of the food. Then the mess cook went back to the galley and tried to get some more food, as a few of the men ate quite heavily and wanted seconds. Being a mess cook, you always tried to get seconds for your men at your two tables as that would get you larger tips on payday. That determined how good a mess cook you were. (All unrated people were assigned to mess cook assignment for a three-month period.) You had to maintain the eating compartment, as it was the mess cooks’ cleaning station. That compartment was also the sleeping compartment, and at night, you strung up your hammock on the hooks provided for just that routine. Within that compartment, there was a hammock netting provided for your hammock stowage during the day.

That daily work and a lot of drills, such as general quarters, came and went at any time of the day. Then one day the plan of the day came out and said we were going to get under way the next day for Hawaii and were going to have exercises on the way over. I didn’t have a getting under way station, so I went to my cleaning station out on the starboard forward gun gallery. I had been assigned as first loader on the gun crew of No. 1 Gun on the starboard side of the ship, and as such, we had a loading machine down on a lower deck with which we practiced loading and firing, and I as first loader had to take a five-inch shell out of the fuze pot, which was a device with which the fuze setter set the fuzes in order for the shells to burst when they got so high. Actually, it was a timing of how long it took for the shell to get to a certain height before it burst and exploded shrapnel around it. So I took the shell out of the fuze pot and loaded it into the breech of the gun, and the gun captain hit the ramrod and pushed the shell into the barrel and closed the breech. Then the pointer and setter took over, and they coordinated their azimuth and aim, which hit the target (a towed large sock-like streamer flying or being towed behind an airplane which we fired at). Then, when the firing was over, the plane would bring the target back to us for evaluation to see if we had hit it and if so, how good we were.

We were under way on that Monday morning and steaming away from San Diego toward Hawaii, and as a matter of fact, the USS Lexington had made a speed run to Hawaii from San Diego and had done it in seventy-two hours and a few minutes. That was all done prior to nuclear power. After the three days of gunnery practice and our planes being recovered from their flight to the ship from San Diego, we reached Honolulu and had to anchor out, as the harbor was too shallow at that time for us to get into it. When anyone went ashore, they had to go by boat. I forgot that we had launched aircraft the day before we came to Hawaii and went to Ford Island, which had the facilities for handling all of the aircraft. What planes that didn’t fly in, we off-loaded when we anchored (a large barge came alongside and the aircraft and personnel all went ashore with the squadrons on it).

That is, all of the personnel also off-loaded to the barge in order to go ashore with the planes and equipment that served to repair and maintain the aircraft. The tug came out and took the barge in tow and headed for Ford Island inside the bay of the island. Liberty had started for the crew and the boats were called out by bugle to come alongside for the liberty party. Only 25 percent of the crew were allowed to go ashore at any one time, which left enough men aboard to handle any emergency having to get under way or attacks that would possibly occur. While we lay at anchor, the ship was kept with steam up and could get under way any time. We in the deck crew on the duty portion were ready to start our scraping and painting and cleaning up of the ship from out to sea. E. J. Klein and I had to climb the foretruk and paint the spar, which was the highest part of the mast. It had to be painted every once in a while, and that time, it was the leading seaman who directed me as to how and when to do it. Each time the ship would roll, it would go over about a roll of 60 degrees, and I would swing way out over the water to port on one swing and then back over to the starboard on the swing back. I guess some people would get seasick on some of these, but it was like a large swing to me. When I completed the painting, of course, the leading man had to inspect it and tell me if it was done OK or not, which he did, and we started to secure that project and to climb down. That in itself was a major project, especially with a paint bucket in your hand. We finally made it down to the flight deck and EJ said, Well done. It was about 1700. We quit for the day and went below to try to get cleaned up for evening chow.

We ate and then went out to the deck for a cigarette and let our stomach settle from the evening meal. Just about that time, I heard the boss’s mate pipe for the working division to set up the movies or rig for the movies, and that meant for our division to get down to the hangar deck and set all of the chairs (folding chairs). We had special chairs for the admiral and the captain, which were brought down from the admiral’s quarters and the captain’s quarters and were padded and armed, so if they came to the movies, they had a more comfortable place to sit. We had to set out about 200 chairs for the people we expected to come to the movies. Those small chores were done by the men who had been to captain’s mast and received any punishment, like extra duty. They also showed up to get an hour or two taken off their sentence. Then when the movie was over, the same division took all of the chairs down and stowed them into their spot below deck in a small compartment until the next night’s movie. By that time, TAPS had sounded and that meant for us to get into our hammocks and get to sleep. It just happened to be I had the 2000-0000 watch for the deck hands and that meant I had to go get my belt of authority and my flashlight and get ready for my continuous patrol looking for fire or anything that would disturb anyone. I was walking up and down and around the main deck over all of the area that belonged to the First Division to see that it was all safe and secure from fire or any disturbance of any kind. My relief was seeing another man in the First Division, and it happened to be another man who had been in the same training company I had been in. His name was Burges. I had to call him in time for him to get dressed and relieve me by 0200 at a predetermined spot, and then he relieved me and we talked for a bit. I gave him any information I had about the watch and then about the girls in Honolulu and what we were going to do when we went ashore. That was Thursday and the next day at 1600, the weekend started. We could go ashore and not have to return until Monday morning at 0800. Hardly any of us ever stayed over the full time, as we just didn’t have the money, but sometimes we got lucky and then that was bad, as it usually led into getting back to the ship late, and that would lead to a loss of some liberty, which was not good. Every once in a while, we would get a sour pickle in the barrel, and those guys just wouldn’t care, so consequently, they would get into trouble and would be put out of the navy. A typical fellow was a guy who did just that and was forever being late or not following orders, so he was awarded an unfavorable discharge, which put him out and not able to get back into the service.

Anyhow, off to liberty I went and grabbed a taxi from the main landing where the boats dock when they come from the ship, bringing the men from the ship to shore. That was kind of a fleet landing where all of the ships’ boats landed in order to drop off the liberty parties or any one coming from the ship to shore. Then you had to go up the ramp and across the street to catch a cab into Honolulu. The cab would carry about six to eight people and charged each person a quarter (remember, that was before World War II), and they dropped you off at the YMCA downtown and right across the street from the Black Cat Cafe, which served everything. So I went in to the Black Cat and up to the bar and ordered a draft beer. A cute little waitress brought the beer over and I found out her name to be Sybil. I did not enquire as to her last name. I’m pretty sure she would not have told me anyhow. She went away and delivered a few beers and then came back and talked to me more, and I found she was from San Francisco and had come out to Hawaii with her husband, who was a first class aviation mechanic in a squadron on Ford Island, and she had been there for about two years and liked working at the Black Cat and she wondered what I was going to do the next day.

I said, Nothing, but you have a husband, and I’m sure he would wonder what you were doing.

But she said she and her husband had parted and she was just living in the same house because it was convenient for the both of them (Remember, I was seventeen and still wet behind the ears and thought that beautiful girl was a great person, and we made plans for the next day at the beach, so I told her I would be ashore at 1000 and meet her there at the YMCA.). My plans were agreeable to her, and we talked and planned what we would do the next day. She said she had a car and we could go where we wanted to. I thought, This is really something just met a beautiful girl. She has a car and she likes me. Wow! Well, needless to say, I went back to the ship and was getting prepared to go meet that pretty girl the next day, so I guessed I had better be on my best behavior. The next day being Saturday, I could get off the ship at 0900 in the morning, so I did and got over to the beach at about 0930 and walked up to the YMCA, and sure enough, there was Sybil in her 1935 Ford sedan, one like my father had.

She said, I’m glad you made it.

And I was also glad and it seemed we got along all OK. We got into her car and we drove out toward the beach and she was telling me all about the area and what streets we were on and where Waikiki was and the Royal Hawaiian Hotel was, and we drove down a little farther and there was a sea wall out in the water and an enclosed area for swimming. She already had her swim suit on, so I had to find a place to change into my suit. She suggested the car, and I took advantage of it and changed in the car. When that was over and I was in my suit, we took the large blanket she had brought and laid it out in the sand and we lay down on it. Sybil went back to the car and got a large basket which I found had been filled with sandwiches and salad, just right for a picnic.

Sybil said, Let’s go in.

So we went into the calm water, and it was as warm as could be, real nice, and we played around and swam for a while and then went up and lay down on the blanket and sunbathed. We were just two hundred feet south of Waikiki beach, and it wasn’t as crowded as Waikiki, but it being a Saturday, it would be crowded soon.

Sybil said, Let’s take our stuff and go over to the park.

That was OK with me, so we picked up the blanket and basket went to the car. She asked me if I wanted to drive, but I told her I had better not as I didn’t have a license for Hawaii. Off we went to the park. I knew nothing of where to go, so I just relaxed and let Sybil do the thinking and driving. It wasn’t very far away; just down the street and on the left side of the road. She parked under trees, if you wanted to call them that. They didn’t compare with some the trees of the northwest, but if they wanted to call them trees, well.

She parked and said, Let’s go across the street.

So we did, to a beautiful area under palm trees and near the water with grass toward the beach and spread our blanket again and Sybil brought the basket out. She had sandwiches and a couple of bottles of beer, a couple of cans of pop, and about ten to fifteen sandwiches and a salad. We sat down on the blanket and Sybil spread everything out and we had a picnic. The weather was the best, and after eating, we lay down on the blanket and talked, and I guess I fell asleep, because the next thing I knew was water running down my face. I awoke to Sybil dripping water on me. She was so close to me that I reached up and kissed her. She didn’t slap my face or get angry, so I kept it up. Then she shoved me away and said we should not do that in public, but I looked around and no other people within any close distance, so I tried to kiss her again and she didn’t push me away. We lay there and necked for a while, and I began to like it, so she said it was better not to go so far. I had begun to move my hands over her body, and it was all there and a little more. When things started to get out of hand, she said we better stop there in public. So we just lay down, and she was in my arms and lollygagged and talked and dreamed. She was from San Francisco and had married her present husband four years ago and had just recently parted.

I guessed I came along at the right time.

She said, It sure is.

It was getting sundown time and time for something to eat again, so I asked Sybil where we should go.

She said, There is a little Sai Mim place over in the woods, just up a way.

So up there we went, and it was a counter along the side of a building, all open to the public on the beach, about a mile south of Waikiki. Sybil ordered for us and ordered a large bowl of noodles with a couple of sticks of barbecued meat. We received a large, and I mean large, bowl of noodles with something in it that looked like small chunks of fish, which is exactly what it turned out to be. And the barbecued meat on the stick was great. A very large meal in a bowl and on sticks. I was learning. We ate that and then got a beer to sip on.

We lay around there for a while and then it started to get dark, so Sybil said, Let’s go.

I said, Where?

She said, I’ll show you.

We got in the car and she started driving, and we went around a lot of places. I did not know where, but we ended up next to a shed and under some trees and there didn’t seem to be too many people around.

Then Sybil said, Let’s get in the backseat.

So into the backseat we went, and back there, all inhibitions stopped and it got wild. We were making love like it was going out of style. I didn’t seem to know what was happening, but I had been had and things were very hot. We sat up and started to straighten our clothes, and Sybil said, Where are you going?

It turned out I wasn’t going anywhere as she again reached for me. I thought Wow! and off we went. Well when we came up for air, it was pretty dark outside, and Sybil said she had to go. So she drove me down to the landing, where I caught our liberty boat for the ship. Prior to that, she said she would call me or get a message to me. I was ready to get back to the ship and rest from a hard day of swimming and eating and some extracurricular activity, and so I caught the next liberty launch back to the ship.