Thursday January 13, 2005 – Out To Sea

Thursday January 13, 2005 – Out To Sea

We set sail from Yokosuka on Monday August 2nd, 1965. It was a warm muggy day. The uniform of the day aboard ship underway was denim shirt and pants and navy hat. Most of the denim pants had a slight bell-bottom to them, but many sailors spent the extra money to tailor the inseam so that it narrowed from the crotch to the knee—tightening around your thighs. From the knee to the pant bottom, the taper widened producing the bell. As the tugs nudge the Michelson out of the harbor and pointed us in the direction of the open Pacific, the ship’s master took control and steered us out onto open ocean. To be precise—someone besides the master most likely the first mate was at the wheel.

On deck in the focsle (“forecastle” area of the deck near the bow) I leaned over the side and watched the bow of the ship slice through the waters. There was a breeze blowing as we picked up speed and I walked aft to the stern of the ship and watched as Tokyo bay receded into the distance. It was just after midday and the crew was sluggish from the muggy warm heat—about 85 degrees Fahrenheit with 90 percent humidity. I had been in Japan for a couple of weeks but my body was still adjusting to the humidity. I had left El Paso a couple of weeks earlier where the humidity was less than 10 percent and the temperature was in the mid 90s. I had broken a sweat during the walk from bow to stern. We were pulling three eight-hour watches and mine would start at 1600 hours (4:00 PM).

There is a smell to the ocean, a mixture of salt and the organic smell of ocean life—not the smell of fish, though its odor is combined in the mixture, The smell embodies an amalgam of scents from ocean plant and animal life blended to produce one distinctive odor. When all signs of land had vanished and there was nothing but blue sky above and the wide expanse of ocean surrounding the ship, I went below deck to my room. On warm days like today, the interior of the ship could equal or exceed the temperature outside. Our only relief was a vent that blew a steady stream of air. I had one above and toward the foot of my bunk.

Ship routine got firmly established the first morning after leaving port. Everyone not on watch would find their way up to the enlisted men’s mess hall. The mess hall was on the port side of the ship (left side as you face to ship’s bow). It had seven tables each fixed to the floor with benches on either side—what you’re likely to find at a fast food restaurant. On board ship there is virtue in furniture that doesn’t move with the constant motion of the ship. A row of four tables greeted you as you entered the mess hall, extending lengthwise into the room from the bulkhead where they were bolted, benches bolted firmly to the deck on either side. Turning left you would be facing the galley with the remaining three tables at your left. Two portholes in the mess hall and one in the galley lit the interior during the day and naked four high-wattage overhead incandescent light bulbs—two over each set of tables—lit up the room at night.

Officers and civilians had a separate mess facility with their own stewards. Our steward was a character called Butch, a name that fitted his rugged look and his anti-intellectual speech and demeanor. He was much smarter and more sensitive than any one of us enlisted men could have imagined. Butch was a merchant marine and in combination with our cook, a towering black man who was a great cook, were the equivalent of “mom” to us had this been a normal household. We never got to know “Cookie” as he was affectionately called. He was shy and hesitant to engage in conversations that stretched beyond simple greetings and brief comments: “Cookie, how about them Yankees?” to which he would reply, “Them boys know baseball.” From there you’d have to serve up another question to keep the volley going.

Butch on the other hand was one of us. He had the build of a boxer, eyes that seemed to look beyond you even when fixing you in his gaze, no hint of a beer belly, broad shoulders, black hair struggling to escape his shirt at the neck and sleeves, big hands—far too masculine for the dainty task of serving dishes, which he did remarkably well. After getting everyone fed, he would sit with us and join our conversations. Morning conversations right after the ship got underway invariably centered around everyone’s adventures on shore. Butch described his new girlfriend. He had rented a house in Yokosuka and set her up there. She continued to work at the bar where they first met, but did not need to earn extra sleeping with men to help earn money for extras. Butch was already providing most of that in the house he was paying for.

He was beginning to worry that she was becoming more and more dependent upon him and in the process becoming more possessive of him as well. She knew he was not cheating on her during his time at sea. Every bar girl in Yokosuka knew the comings and goings of most of the ships that docked at Yokosuka. They knew that the “Mickey Maru” their name for the Michelson went to sea for 28 to 30 days and returned without going into port anywhere else. They probably had a good idea of what we were doing out there as well. He knew she was expecting him to marry her and take her back to the states. He was fully aware that he would not be able to deliver on that expectation and he was becoming increasingly concerned about the time some months hence when he would have to break the news to her. Before my tour was up, I would hear this story many times over.