Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Swastika


      More Letters From Paradise
              Swastika
The hated Nazi symbol is  now often seen among groups of extreme right-wing people and members of the Ku Klux Clan. But free of its Nazi past, the swastika has been used by the Native Americans for centuries. I learned in an archaeology class, its use by ancient Greek pottery makers. During the so-called Geometric period you see swastika bands around the neck of an amphora (storage jar).

My grandfather Beal was an inventor. He invented a vending machine, thermostat, and as he was fond of playing cards, a card game. He named the deck of cards "Swastika." This was before WWII. But with Hitler and its use of the swastika, grandpa changed the name of the game to "Cheyenne." I am looking at a deck of his cards. The deck of cards show the profile of a Native American with a feather headdress. Below there is a tomahawk,arrows, and a string of beads. And below is a swastika. Above and below the name "Cheyenne" is the fact that the game   is a registered trade mark.

The back of the red colored deck we read the words"The Great Home and Social Game" Price 50 Cents Cheyenne Game Co. Adrian,Mich.

Sliding the cards from the pack a swastika is printed on the back of each card, and a sheet of instructions is included. These cards must be very rare. I think I am probably the only person in the family to own a deck. I never learned if grandpa made any money from this invention. I rather doubt it.

Aloha
Grant

 

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Navy Blue


      More Letters From Paradise
             Navy Blue        
I am afraid that anyone having read "My Old Ship" was led to believe that my entire time spent in the Navy was aboard a ship. Not so, as the following will clearly show.

I enlisted in the Navy twice, the first time was when I was a junior in high school.The summer of 1954, I attended boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, not far from Chicago. At the end of summer, my parents separated, and following graduation, I tried to go on active duty. I was told that I had a heart murmur, so I was given an Honorable Discharge.

But it just so happened that one Navy recruiter lived next door to us, and the other Navy recruiter rented an apartment from my grandmother. And guess what? I enlisted for the second time and spent the next four years in the Navy. I think the recruiters had a quota to fill. So I went to boot camp again, this time in the winter.

Following boot camp I was ordered to Naval Air Station Norman, Oklahoma. It was a school for men who were to serve in  Naval aviation. I fabricated an aluminum wing, safety wired a carburetor on an engine, drew weather maps, and a whole lot more.One of the most interesting aspects of the school was when I was wearing a parachute harness, and climbed a tower, only to be dropped into the middle of a swimming pool. The idea was to get out, and swim to a life raft. One other event is that I was taught to start up a F4U Corsair. That type of plane had a huge propeller and a gull-shaped wing which you had to lean out to see anything unless the plane was up and running. This was the carrier based fighter plane used in the Pacific War.

There were locker clubs in Norman where you could change into civilian clothes. For weekend liberty we went to Oklahoma City, which at that time was very dry, only 3.2 alcohol served in bars,unless you belonged to a club, or knew a bootlegger. One time while going up in an elevator in the Hotel Black,the operator (no self-service back then) asked if we sailors would like a drink. We quickly replied and he opened his double breasted jacket and disclosed several brands of booze seen in pockets. Five bucks would get you a half-pint.

My next stop was photo school located in Pensacola, Florida. Naval photographers belong to the aviation branch of the Navy and are often called "airdales." Photo school was a mixture of sailors and marines of both sexes. It made for some great parties. The school was very easy for me as I had worked at two photo studios while still in high school. Interesting assignments and use of various cameras. Pensacola is where Navy pilots train, and is home of the famous stunt flyers the "Blue Angels."

Following graduation from photo school we were able to choose where we would go next. I chose to go to Panama. Why? Simply because how many people go there?

Another sailor and I were the only passengers on a DC6 which was also carrying an airplane engine and cans of hydraulic fluid. We landed at U.S. Naval Station, Coco Solo, Panama Canal Zone. I became the newest member of Fleet Aircraft Service Squadron 105, or simply Fasron 105. This was a company of men who worked everything relating to Naval aircraft. There were two photographers, a guy named Gene Leach from Philadelphia, and me.

Our barracks had screens for walls and parking below. Every night a fog jeep would fill the interior with DDT so dense that you could see a light bulb glow. The chow hall was in the building also. I should mention that of all the branches of military service the Navy chow is noted as being the best. The best food I had in the Navy was at Coco Solo. For example Sunday morning breakfast. "How do you want your steak,"a cook calls ahead of the line.

The photo lab was located with weather men in the control tower. Part of the photo lab was air conditioned. It is hot and humid in Panama, leather would grow mold, and shoes were kept in a hot locker with a light bulb burning.

Our major task was to photograph every ship that was going to transit the canal from the Atlantic. The lab would receive a call telling us the name of the ship and its location, either docked or anchored out in the bay. If it was my turn I would go  to the boathouse and get a boat and a crew. We used all kinds of small boats including PT boats. What a fast wild ride they made. And it was me who told them where they should go for my photos. I felt very important. We were to shoot pictures of each side of the ship and a three-quarter bow and stern shot. As this was the "Cold War," we always took a lot of pictures if it was a Russian ship. I will always remember one British ship loaded with only women heading to Australia and New Zealand seeking husbands. Both world wars had greatly reduced their chances of getting a husband. We circled the ship many times after taking my pictures, and they called, waved, and threw kisses at us. It was all so very sad. We wished them good luck.

One other interesting event was when I went with my boss and a couple of  F.B.I. agents to an Italian cruise ship that was docked in Colon, Panama's largest city on the Atlantic coast. We wore civilian clothes and carried a suitcase containing a tripod and camera. We went to an empty stateroom where the camera was set up and I was given address books and some other stuff. I laid on the floor and turned pages as the photos were taken. When we finished taking our pictures one agent took the film from us and departed. After a time we also left the ship, and the agent took us out for dinner.

Another event which comes to mind is a wedding. My boss knew that I had worked for two wedding studios before I joined the Navy. So I guess that is why he asked me to go with a friend of his and take pictures of a wedding. I agreed to do so, as it meant a trip to a little village in the jungle where the wedding would take place. We had the only car in the village, and it was used to take the bride and groom to the church. People came to the wedding barefoot or on horseback. Women carried jars on their heads. I took a lot of pictures. Music came from guitars and large throwing drums. There were lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling in each one of the four rooms of the little house. Platters of roast pig were served. I remember a picture I took of a  man chewing on a leg of the pig. The father of the bride had managed to buy a case of scotch, and there was a lot of chichi fierce (strong corn) to drink. I got good and drunk and fell asleep to the sound of drumming. My high school Spanish was put to good use as I managed order breakfast the following morning. I no longer have those wedding pictures as they failed to make the trip to Hawaii.

I was having a splendid time in Panama, when somebody way up in the chain of command decided to transfer our squadron to Puerto Rico. We sailed aboard the a WWII Liberty ship  George Goethals (the man who built the Panama Canal.) I think it was a three or four day sail and squadron sailors with families were kept to the forward of the ship. We docked in San Juan and were taken to our new home, Roosevelt Roads, a forlorn base sixty miles from San Juan, consisting of one huge hangar, a couple of barracks, one for a company of Marines, and a small sheet metal sided photo lab. There was also a chow hall, and a single juke box playing the same tunes for two years, and a single pinball machine. Five miles away was the enlisted men's club reached by a bus every so often. You were able to buy a horse for $25.00. These horses had been used to test for malaria. One guy got so drunk one night that he rode his horse into the barracks and tied it up to his bunk.

This was quite a come down from Panama. Boredom and drink became the order of the day. Most times a square table would be filled with bottles before chow time. The only escape was to take a Publico (long distance taxi) into San Juan.

But we did have some things to do. We would develop 16mm film from fighter planes. They would shoot at a target towed by a plane, and wanted to see how well they had been shooting. Our method was as primitive as laughable. The film would be unreeled in the darkroom and thrust into a bucket of developer, and then into another bucket of hypo. a quick rinse and then taken outside and hung by clothes pins on a line. When dry the film would be wound on a reel for showing. We called it the "spaghetti method." We had a bunk with a mosquito net where each night one of us would spend the night just in case of a crash. One night the guy on duty in the hangar sat in a chair and smoked three or four cigarettes and then blew his brains out with his 45 colt revolver. Many pictures taken. There were also plane crashes to cover as well as showing damaged airplane parts. We had a cable across the end of one runway held up by car tires cut in half and attached at each end by long lengths of heavy anchor chain. If a carrier plane  arrived without ability to stop, his tail hook would do the job.

I have failed to mention that the base was built during WWII to house people from England in case of invasion by Hitler's armies. There were many underground bunkers  and the Sea Bees (construction branch of the Navy) were kept busy sprucing up the  base. This was also where the Navy trained its "Frog men," known today as "Seals."

Well, that was pretty much it. I could write about the whore houses in Panama and Puerto Rico but I think I will save it for a novel sometime. My story ends here when I was ordered to report to my ship.

    Aloha
    Grant