The Life of Samuel O. Sherlock

By William E. Blaine Jr.

William E. Blaine, Jr. practiced law and owned several
lumber companies. He taught as an adjunct professor-served
on nonprofi t: hospital, social service and college boards. Navy
pilotWWII and Korea. He and his wife Jo Ann have four
children. Residence in Columbus, Ohio.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465305367

William E. Blaine Jr.

William E. Blaine, Jr. practiced law and owned several lumber companies. He taught as an adjunct professor-served on nonprofi t: hospital, social service and college boards. Navy pilot—WWII and Korea. He and his wife Jo Ann have four children. Residence in Columbus, Ohio.

Book preview

Chapter One

My name is Samuel O. Sherlock. The ‘O’ has no meaning what-so-ever other than the fact that it gave my mother glee to have my initials spell SOS.

As a child, whenever I would do something of which my mother didn’t approve or that was irresponsible of me, she would always yell at me the letters, SOS. Until I grew older, I didn’t know what she was meaning by it. Then one day when I was old enough to know that SOS was an international Morse code distress signal meaning ‘Save Our Ship’, I asked mother,

Mother, why do you keep yelling at me ‘Save Our Ship’? We don’t have a ship. She looked at me with disbelief, questioning my intelligence and said,

Samuel, I’m not saying ‘Save Our Ship’, I’m telling you to ‘Sink Or Swim’. Mother has always had a perverted sense of humor. I might even call it twisted.

It was then that I realized that my mother was not your common, everyday, run-of-the-mill, variety of mothers. With me, she was always at arms length. There were so many times that I wished that she had held me and wiped away my tears when something had gone wrong for me. Instead, she yelled, ‘SOS’.

The only time that I can remember my mother holding me and wiping away my tears was in middle school when I forgot my lines in the school play. But I believe that she consoled me only because there were other mothers around and my mother didn’t want to appear indifferent to my shame.

*     *     *

Growing up, I would always go to dad for comfort and advice rather than to mother. That was due to the fact that I could never get close to mother. Dad was my companion, mother was my warden. I guess dad and I both feared mother.

When I needed advice, I would secretly go to dad but openly I would go to mother because if mother learned that I was seeking advice from dad instead of her, she would yell at me, SOS.

*     *     *

I knew that mother loved me, her only child, but it was hard for her to show it. Her mother, my grandmother, treated mother the same way as my mother treated me. They both just didn’t know how to display their affection for someone. Apparently they thought that showing affection was an admission of weakness. So I guess I couldn’t blame mother for being the way she was.

One time I remember my grandmother saying to my mother,

Gertrude, if you show people how you feel about them, they’ll turn on you every time. Keep your feelings to yourself.

*     *     *

Because of my mother’s less than warm display of affection toward me, I sought affection from others. When I was in high school, I would make advances toward the girls in my class but was usually rejected because I had a terrible case of acne. So it wasn’t until college at the University of North Dakota that I began dating. And whenever I had a date, I would look for the affection that I missed from my mother. As a result, I would either get slapped in the face or do some heavy ‘petting’—but never beyond innocent petting and respectability.

Then I met Patricia Carlyle. She sat two rows in front of

me in my engineering class at the university. I would spend

the class time staring at the back of her head covered with the most beautiful long blond hair that I had ever seen. All I wanted to do was run my fingers through it.

One day after class, I finally got up enough nerve to ask her for a date. I was so nervous that I sounded like an idiot. I said,

Ah—my name’s Sherlock but people call me Sam—ah—I mean my name’s Samuel but people call me Sherlock—ah—I mean Sam. Sorry, I’m nervous. Would you like to go out sometime? I felt like a fool. She looked like she was going to laugh at me but instead, she merely said,

Why are you so nervous. I won’t bite. I know who you are. Remember, we’re in the same class together. And yes, I’d like to go out with you sometime.

I was so surprised at her answer that I didn’t know what to do or say so I picked up her books and we walked out of class together. She seemed to appreciate my gallantry.

I told her that I would pick her up at her dormitory

at 7:30 Friday night and we would go to Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner and to ‘The Hunch Back of Notre Dame’ which was playing at the local theater. How romantic could an evening be??

*     *     *

I never thought that Friday night would ever come but it finally did after lost sleep and chewed fingernails.

I was at her dormitory at 7 o’clock to make sure that I wouldn’t be late. When she finally came down to the dormitory’s main lounge, she looked beautiful in her short skirt which showed an abundance of leg and in her tight blouse which showed her full breasts and with her long blond hair that bounced with every step that she took.

How pathetic was I when I shook her hand and almost bowed?

*     *     *

After dinner at the Coronel’s, we started for the movie theater when Patricia suggested that instead of the movie, we go back to her dormitory room and listen to records. She said that she had just bought Frank Sinatra’s latest recording of ‘All or Nothing at All’. I innocently asked,

But what about your roommates? She smiled when she said,

They’ve both gone home for the weekend. We’ll be alone. There was a slight hint of lure in her voice.

*     *     *

Her room was like I had expected a girl’s dormitory room to be—neat and smelling of lotions, powders and perfumes. It made me slightly light-headed.

Patricia put on the Sinatra record and came over and sat down beside me on a soft, cushioned sofa. When Sinatra began to sing the words of the song, Patricia leaned over and whispered in my ear some of the lyrics,

—half a love never appealed to me—if it’s love, there is no in-between—but please don’t bring your lips so close to my cheek—all or nothing at all.

*     *     *

We began to kiss, slowly and softly, in the beginning. But then our kisses became more passionate and I could feel her warm breath on my neck and smell her silk hair that had a slight hint of soap. Patricia was the one who was making the advances but I was welcoming them because it was the love and affection that I had never had with any other girl. Patricia was fulfilling a need that I had always had. Her hunger for more matched mine. We became animals and fought to gain an advantage.

When it was all over, we had both won—we had conquered each other. We each had been conquered—to our supreme satisfaction. No war had ever been waged with such total victory.

We slept in Patricia’s dormitory bed although it was small for the both of us. Perhaps that was why we found it hard to sleep or perhaps it was because we wanted to repeat what had happened before, several times during the night.

*     *     *

After that evening, Patricia and I became inseparable until we graduated and our lives went in different directions.

Patricia returned to her home in Tulsa, Oklahoma

to teach school.

I won a Rhodes Scholarship to Merton College, Oxford University in Oxford, England. But World War II had begun in Europe and English cities were being bombed by the German Luftwaffe. So I decided to wait until after the war to continue my education. When I told mother of my decision, all she said was,

You’re smart enough now. You don’t need any more schooling. Go get a job.

Chapter Two

The year was 1941. The winds of war were blowing. The Japanese were threatening the peace of the United States.

I had graduated with an engineering degree from the University of North Dakota and instead of joining the military service, I got a job with the Morrison-Knudsen (M-K) construction company which had been hired by the United States government to send workers to the small, desolate island of Wake in the middle of the Pacific Ocean to prepare a runway, housing and other defensive facilities in anticipation of war with a Japanese nation that wanted to rule the Pacific.

I was one of those civilian workers sent by M-K to Wake Island. We all volunteered to go to that forsaken island because the pay was enticing.

*     *     *

Wake Island is a coral—atoll about 2000 miles west of Hawaii and on the opposite side of the International

Date Line in the North Pacific Ocean. It is shaped like a large U with a lagoon in the middle. Each side of the U is about five miles long. The strong ocean winds blow unabated across the atoll, a treeless island made up of nothing but sand, scrub and coral.

My fellow laborers and I worked seven days a week preparing the island for an invasion by the Japanese which was expected at any time. A contingency of Marines and Navy personnel were on the island to set up defensive positions in preparation for an attack.

*     *     *

Across the International Date Line, on December 8th, 1941, simultaneously with the attack on Pearl Harbor 2000 miles away, the Japanese bombers attacked Wake Island.

Navy Commander Winfield S. Cunningham was in charge of the military and civilian forces on Wake Island. During the fighting, he was asked by his superiors in Washington DC if he needed anything and his famous answer was, Send me more Japs!

After days of severe fighting, the enemy finally took command of the island and all of its defenders—including me.

The war ended after two weeks of severe fighting, with the surrender of the American forces to the Emperor of Japan.

Some civilian and military prisoners remained on the island and were forced to help the Japanese repair the buildings and lengthen the runway. All other prisoners were sent to POW camps in Japan, Philippines and Asia—including me.

*     *     *

I spent four, dreadful years in various POW camps and when I was finally rescued by the United States Marines in June of 1945, along with my fellow prisoners, I had lost half of my body weight. When I first arrived on Wake Island, I had weighed 235 pounds and when I was rescued four years later, I only weighed 105 pounds.

The pain, fear and hunger that became my life in the POW camps left me with memories that I can never forget regardless of how hard I try.

*     *     *

When I returned home, my mother remained indifferent to my appearance. She saw me walk in the front door of our small walk-up apartment in New York City’s Queens after being gone for nearly five years, looked at me and said,

You look terrible. Don’t they feed you wherever you’ve been? And take off those big, heavy boots before you come inside. I don’t need marks all over my carpets.

It was a little after that when I heard my mother in her room, crying. I know that she was glad to see me after all that time away and saddened that she didn’t know how to show her joy in seeing me safely home.

*     *     *

Within a year, I was back to 235 pounds mainly because of my mother’s cooking and I was finally able to claim my Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University where I spent two wonderful years in England studying and obtaining an advanced degree in engineering.

*     *     *

When I returned to the United States from England,

I again got a job with the Morrison-Knudsen company.

I enjoyed the work, was well paid and advanced in the company. But after nearly 6 years with the M-K company, some of my friends and I decided to form our own construction company. We named it Sherlock, Owens, Stow and O’Brien (SOSO) and established our offices in New York City.

*     *     *

During the 15 years that followed, SOSO became one of the top construction companies in the country while expanding and doing business in other countries.

I was reaping the fruits of a successful business and able to enjoy the finer things in life such as a luxury apartment and servants. I was glad to be able to give mother and dad, who were still living with me, such pleasures. All mother ever said about it, however, was,

I can’t be expected to keep a good cook if you insist on coming home late for dinner all the time. You know how hard it is to get good help. Do you try to make my life miserable?

*     *     *

It was during this time that my life became a circus and I was often the clown.

Chapter Three

I often think of Patricia and our time together at the university but I have never been able to find a wife of whom my mother approves.

At 49 years old, I’m treated by my mother like I was still in high school. Even today when I come home from work, my mother greets me with,

Samuel, how many times must I tell you to hang up your coat?

I think this makes five hundred times, mother.

Don’t be impertinent, Samuel.

I guess I love my mother but I think I fear her more. She certainly isn’t compassionate. I often wonder whether dad had proposed to her or whether it was the other way around. Never-the-less, they are still married after nearly 50 years.

*     *     *

I live in the city’s most exclusive town-house with a butler, a chauffeur, a cook, a maid and my loving parents that includes my nagging mother. I wish my parents would find a place of their own for which I would be more than happy to pay.

My office at Sherlock, Owens, Stow and O’Brien is on the top floor of a building in New York City. My windows look out over the Hudson River past Ellis Island toward the Statue of Liberty. I have the building’s most elegant office because my partners felt that since I am the head of the firm, I should have the best office. In jest, I would have preferred something more subdued and conservative like the Oval Office or Queen Elizabeth’s throne room.

*     *     *

The buzzer on my desk phone roused me. I had just closed my eyes in order to get a few minutes rest before the meeting started that I had called. I was exhausted from having just returned from half way around the world where I had visited an old friend, Mohammad bin Bhoji, the Sultan of Qaqar. Even though I had enjoyed the long trip in the comfort of the company’s private jet, it was a long and tiresome trip.

I guess I should have told my secretary, Miss Bates, not to disturb me but it was too late now. She had already disturbed me.

I pushed the little yellow blinking light on my phone and said in a voice that