A Sailor's Story

Our living quarters are called berthing areas; each man gets about 15 square feet for sleeping and storage of personal items. The berths have a reading light, a ventilation duct, an earphone jack for the boat's audio entertainment system and a curtain to provide a small, but welcome, measure of privacy. Because of the challenging living conditions aboard a submarine, the crew builds a strong bond of fellowship to one another.

I didn't receive my first letter until we returned to port; it had been seventy-seven days since we had first departed from Bangor. Mail call is almost as important as shore leave to the crew of a submarine; almost being the key word. I actually received two letters that day. The first one that I opened was from Mr. Taylor, my broker, telling me that he had made my stock purchase and that things were going really well. He had purchased 417 shares in the IPO on September 23. After a stock split of 3 for 2, I now owned 626 shares valued at nearly $13,200. He told me that he would not do anything with my shares until he heard from me, which was fine with me as I intended to hold the stock for a long time.

The other letter was from my mother.

Dear Tom,

I hope you are well and happy. I can't tell you how sorry I am for everything I have done. I have been an absolute failure as a mother and a woman. Can you ever forgive me? I've been sober for almost a year now. It was tough at first but now my previous way of life seems like a horrible dream, which I never plan to revisit.

I met a wonderful man; William was one of my counselors and has helped me over the rocky road which I have had to travel. We've been seeing each other regularly on a personal level for the last several months. He's from the mid-west, single, about 45 years old, and as straight-laced as they come. We're planning on getting married next month. I know you won't be able to come, but I thought you should know. None of this would have been possible without you. I owe you my life.

I've enclosed a couple of pictures so you can see how I've turned my life around.

I just have one thing to worry about. Your father used to tell me that a man wants a wife who's an angel in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom. Well I certainly qualify for the latter; I just hope I can satisfy him in the kitchen; hopefully, I won't kill him in either area.

I love you,

Mom

I was still laughing when I pulled the two pictures out of the envelope. The first was a picture of my mother. She was dressed in a somewhat conservative for her dress, which accented her natural assets, while not being overly sexual. With her long blonde hair, a brilliant smile, and wearing high heels that only made her long legs appear even sleeker, she could have passed for a finalist in any beauty pageant. The second was a picture of her and a William, taken at the community pool. I'm sure my Mom turned more than a few heads on that day. They both looked fit, and made a very good-looking couple.

"Hey who's the good looking babe?"

My buddy and mentor Jake was just passing by my berth as I was looking at the first of the pictures. I didn't have time to react before he grabbed them out of my hand and looked at the second; the one by the pool.

'Holy Shit, she's built like a brick shithouse, who is she?"

Taking back the pictures I said, "That's my Mom, and the guy, based upon the date on the letter, is my new step-dad."

"Sorry kid; I meant no disrespect. Your Mom? I sometimes forget how young you new guys are. It must have been very tough on you growing up with a mother that looked like that."

'Jake, you have no idea.'

Jake was a lifer. He had been in the Navy over 25 years and, although being a little rough around the edges, he had taken a liking to me -- and vice versa -- and had made my transition to the Navy life a smooth one. As a "puke", a new submariner, it was Jake who had helped me pass my training tests on all of the boat's systems; and he was the one who had, during a special ceremony, presented me with my "dolphins" signifying that I was a qualified submariner.

Soon, thanks to Jake, everyone in my section had had a chance to see the pictures. I took some more good-natured ribbing about how young and sexy my mother looked and inwardly I was really proud of her. For the first time in my life, she looked truly happy.

Now that we had returned to base, we were joined by the Gold crew and for the next 35 days performed maintenance on the submarine. After our maintenance period, the Gold crew took control of the boat and set out to sea for the next seventy-seven days. It was now our turn to do maintenance on the base facilities, including the dry-dock and the base equipment, order supplies and parts that were used during the time that the Ohio was in port and to take additional training on the all her systems. When the Gold crew returned from patrol, the maintenance period would begin again, after which we would return to sea.

Each of the crew-members was assigned to the Ohio for three years. At the end of that period, you could leave the service, request to be reassigned to a new boat, or re-up for another three years on the Ohio. Of course if you were staying in the Navy, the final decision was not yours. Fortunately for me, my Chief Petty Officer liked my work and requested that I remain on board.

My Navy career lasted for a total of eighteen years. I experienced the millennium change four hundred and fifty feet deep under the Pacific. I had served under three Presidents and had been promoted to Chief Petty Officer. The other CPO's tried to convince me to stay; citing among other things that I almost had my twenty years in order to qualify for my pension. They thought I was crazy to give that up. Little did they know that I didn't need the pension. Besides what I had been able to save from my pay, I still owned all of my Home Depot stock, which had gone through13 stock splits since its inception. I now owned 142,611 shares with a current value of almost $8,000,000.

I had spent half my life in the Navy and it was time to begin the next chapter of my life.

Chapter 3

On June 28, 2000, at the age of 37, I saluted the officer of the deckstepped off the gangplank of the Ohio for the last time, and started towards the transportation center in order to catch the next bus into town. I watched as other members of my crew were met by loving wives and smiling kids. As I walked, I saw a face that sort of looked familiar. As we made eye contact I realized who it was. My mom was still as beautiful as ever; she still looked ten years younger than her age. When she saw the smile on my face, she approached me at a brisk pace and threw her arms around me holding me tightly.

"Mom, what are you doing here? Are you OK? Are you here alone? Where's William?"

"I'm fine; yes I'm here alone; William's back at home. And as to the reason why I'm here; I never got to see you off when you left for the Navy; I was damn not going to miss welcoming you back home. This way, I have a rental car, grab your things and let's get going. We have dinner reservations back at my hotel. You look so handsome in your summer whites, do you mind staying dressed that way for dinner?"

"Not as long as I'm dining with a beautiful woman like you. Besides, all I have left is my work clothes and they're pretty grungy."

As we entered the hotel, we got more than our share of looks; whether it was my dress whites or the beautiful blond on my arm I'll never know; but neither did I care. We had about an hour to kill before our dinner reservations and I hesitated when I asked if we should wait at the bar.

"Tom, I've been sober for more than nineteen years, but I'm a grown woman and I can handle being in a bar."

We sat at a table and she ordered a club soda with a twist.

"Please, Honey, have a drink; we're here for a celebration."

I ordered a pint of Guinness. When the waitress brought our drinks, Mom lifted her glass and made a toast: "To my son; he turned out to be one hell of a man." We talked for over an hour, catching up on nearly twenty years worth of the things that don't get written in letters. They had indeed gotten married and had made themselves a wonderful life together. They had moved to Nebraska, where William was from, and had opened a retail shop and done quite well. They had sold the store when he turned sixty-two and after a couple of years had retired in Arizona.

At one point in the conversation I couldn't help but ask, "So Mom did you ever learn how to cook?"

With a chuckle and a gleam in her eyes, she shook her head and said,

"No, but he never seemed to care."

We both laughed and soon we were being called for dinner. I paid the bar tab, over her objections, and proudly walked her into the dining room, where the conversation continued. When the waiter brought our check, it was my turn to object when she grabbed it from my hand and charged it to her room. We walked out of the dining room, and I turned to kiss her good night.

"Tom, where are you going? You have no place to stay and it's too late to go anywhere. Why don't you just sleep in my room tonight?"

For a fleeting moment, visions of that night all those years ago, flooded into my brain, and I hesitated to give her an answer.

"Oh, please! I promise to be on my best behavior, and besides I'm old enough to be your mother."

With a hearty laugh, she took my arm and led me to the elevator. When we reached her room I was relieved to see that there were two beds. We each showered and changed into our night-clothes, separately of course. I was already in bed, when Mom came out of the bathroom. I don't know why I did it, but as I heard the door open I looked at her just before she shut the light. She was back-lit by the light from the bathroom and her body, while more womanly than I had remembered, was still just as sexy.

"Good night, Mom," I said when I knew she was in her bed.

"Good night Tom. It's good to have you back again."

The next morning we had breakfast together. I told her of my plans for the immediate future. That I wanted to see this great country of ours and that, after being cooped up in a tin can for nearly two thirds of the last eighteen years, I wanted to do it on my terms and at my pace. I told her I planned to hitchhike all over the country, and that I was going to start by seeing Alaska.

"Please be careful. Will I ever see you again?"

"Of course, Mom; give me your address in Arizona, and maybe I'll surprise you someday."

"Call first," she said with a twinkle in her eye. "William can be such an animal sometimes; I think I created a monster."

I filed that under 'way too much information', then got serious and gave her a big hug and a kiss.

"Thank you Mom, you can't image how much I enjoyed this time we had together."

"Me too Tom, me too," she said as the tears rolled down her cheeks. We parted company, each going our separate ways, each knowing that we had lost so much precious time, but thankful to have completely reconciled again.

I found a Sears store in a mall not too far from the hotel There I bought a pair of jeans to go with my navy work uniform; a couple of shirts, both long and short sleeved; a one-man tent, and a heavy duty back pack. I packed everything I could into the backpack, I had given my dress whites to Mom for safe- keeping, and anything that didn't fit in the pack was tossed into a bin for goodwill. I stood at the entrance to northbound Interstate 5 before a trucker stopped to pick me up.

"Where you headed, Son?" he said eyeing my USS OHIO cap.

"Anchorage."

"You on leave?"

"No I'm out for good; now I'm ready to see the USA."

"Come on, hop in. I can take you as far as Vancouver."

He dropped me off near an entrance to Canada's Route 1, but not before calling out on his CB and arranging for me to get picked up by another trucker who was heading to Fairbanks. I got picked up about an hour later; the trucker's name was Red. He was an older man, unshaven and overweight, but he proved to be a really nice guy, which was good, because the drive to Fairbanks was over forty hours long.

"Can you drive?"

"No, sorry. I have a drivers license, but I've been on a submarine for the last eighteen years, so I'm a little out of practice, and there's no way I could drive a rig like this."

"Too bad, we could have cut a day off our trip if you could drive."

For the next two days, Red would drive nearly eighteen hours a day, then pull off to the side of the road and get into the sleeping berth in the back of the cab. When the sun came up, he would head back out onto the road again. Being an experienced sailor, I could fall asleep standing up if I had to, so I had no trouble sleeping in the front of the cab with my head resting against the side window. There was no shortage of conversation during our trip. We talked about how he became a trucker, my life in the Navy, and any other topic that came to mind. It seemed that Red was just as happy to have me along as I was to get a ride.

When we reached the city limits of Fairbanks, Red explained that we first had to drive through the grounds surrounding Fort Wainwright, which took about twenty minutes. Soon, we were driving through the city. I had heard of Fairbanks before, and had pictured a much different place. At this time of year, if somehow you had been transported and found yourself standing on any of the streets in the downtown area, without looking at license plates you would be hard pressed to figure out where you were. You could be in any small city in almost any part of the country. There were small one-story houses, convenience stores, small two- and three-story office buildings, residential developments, and parks and museums.

I thanked Red, we shook hands and said our goodbyes, stepped down from the cab, slung my backpack over my shoulder and went exploring. To the south of the city I found a rather large river and a lot of open land covered with pine and fir trees. I set up my tent in an area near the river, at the end of a dirt road. From here, I could walk into town; have my meals and experience life in Fairbanks. During the day the temperature was in the high sixties and at night it dropped down into the low fifties.

I spent a day at the local branch of my bank, making arrangements to have my credit card tied into my savings account. I called Charlie Taylor, who had taken over my account when his Dad retired, and had him transfer ten thousand dollars from my money market account, where the dividends from my stock were being deposited, to my savings account. With all my financial business completed, I felt free to spend a little of my sailor's pay. I replenished my food supply, bought a CPO jacket at the Army/Navy store in town, and even splurged one night by staying in a bed and breakfast. It felt really good to sleep in a real bed again, if only for one night.

I stayed in Fairbanks for about three weeks and then I decided to go back to my original plan and head for Anchorage. Bright and early the next morning I packed up my campsite and headed south. After about a half an hour of walking, a guy in an old pickup stopped.

"Where are you headed?"

"Anchorage."

"Hop in; I'm going in that direction."

We drove for about an hour and a half, talking mostly about the weather and scenery; then he said,

"Well, this as far as I can take you, from here it's about one hundred and fifty miles; just stay on the George Parks Highway and I'm sure someone will pick you up; eventually. Good Luck."

I got out of the truck, waved as he turned east, picked up my pack and headed south. There was very little traffic headed in my direction and the ones that were heading south didn't seem inclined to pick up a hitchhiker. I walked all day, through the nearly barren countryside. Out in the distance on either side of me I could see low mountain ranges, covered with trees. Along the road, a small river meandered from one side of the road to the other, then disappeared completely only to reappear a couple of miles later. I must have covered about thirty miles before I decided to leave the road and set up camp for the night. Even though it was only the end of September, the nights were all ready getting cold. That night, as I gazed up at the amazing display of stars, I spied a "shooting star" cross from the west to the east and I made a wish.

'I hope I get picked up tomorrow, otherwise I have four more days of walking ahead of me.'

The next morning I started out at sun-up. Traffic was still light and I had little hope that I would get a lift anytime soon. It was a little after one in the afternoon; I'd been walking for about five hours, when I decided to have a snack. I had a bag of trail mix and emptied my bottle of water. About a hundred yards to the right of the road I could see the river. 'I'd better refill my water bottle.' The water was cold and clear, so I filled it and snapped it back onto my belt. After another couple of hours, I stopped and took a drink. The road, at this point had climbed a low hill and I found myself standing at the top, looking down at the valley below. I watched as the old beat up pickup truck that had passed me only minutes before, headed east along what appeared to be a dirt road and soon disappeared leaving behind a cloud of dust. I took another long drink and resumed my trek south. It took me about a half hour to reach the turn off that the pickup had taken, when I suddenly felt a grumble in my gut and an intense pain. Panicking, I crossed the road and ran a short distance down the dirt road. I suddenly felt nauseous and up came the trail mix. After a few minutes I felt a little better and then suddenly I had an attack of a different sort. 'Oh, shit.' I dropped my pants, leaned against a tree and unloaded. When the crisis had passed, I cleaned up as best I could, pulled up my pants and took a couple of steps back towards the road, when I felt another attack coming on. Afterwards I thought,

'There's no way I can go on now; maybe if I travel up this road, I can find the guy with the pickup and he can put me up for the night.'

I started up the road, which at times became only a path between trees and seemed to branch off in various directions. I stayed on what I thought was the right path for what seemed like a mile or so. With each step I felt weaker and weaker. I began to sweat and had another attack until I knew there was nothing left inside of me. The path turned to the right around an outcropping of rock and when I turned the corner I was confronted with a large hand painted sign: "Black Jack Mine No Trespassing".

Suddenly I heard the pump of a shotgun and a moment later a booming voice yell out,

"Who the fuck are you? Can't read? Get out!"

I looked, and just before I passed out, I thought I saw my mother, only bigger, pointing a shotgun at me.

I woke up in a strange bed; the room had no windows and was lit by a single candle.

"Hello, is anybody here?"

Suddenly I heard a chair scrape along the floor and the body of a woman filled the doorway. "I see you finally woke up, Tom Walker; how are you feeling?"

"My head is killing me and my body aches, but other than that I'm fine. How do you know my name?

"From your driver's license, you're a long way from home back in Georgia."

My hand shot under the covers, searching for my wallet. Not only was my wallet missing; everything else I was wearing was missing as well.

"Don't worry. After I carried you back to the house, I had to get you out of your clothes, get you cleaned up and put you to bed. Your clothes are hanging in the shop; they should be dry by now."

I tried to get up, but when I did the room started to spin and I flopped back down onto the bed.

"Easy Tom, you've been out for two days. The fever broke last night, but you're going to feel really weak for the next couple of days. What did you do; drink the water from the river?"