RECOLLECTION

James L. Rice 1987

“Inspection on a Destroyer”

The word was passed: Inspection to be the next day of all personnel. Now on a Tin Can that means everyone tries to find a way to get out of it ! Now I had a perfect out. I had the watch at the appointed hour in the Forward Engine room Switch Board.

Rank has it’s privileges, but when Eisenhour told me to he would take my watch so I could stand Inspection, I wasn’t exactly pleased. I tried every way to squirm out of it. My finest idea was that I didn’t have any clean whites. No problem says “IKE”, I’ve got a clean set you can wear. So when the hour arrived, there I stood in “IKE’s” whites while Captain Robertson and his party began their inspection of the Engineers. Holy smoke Captain Robertson stops in front of me. “Rice there is a big blue stain on the back of your collar, looks like ink. Did you try to get it out?” Now when faced with a situation like this, every old salt knows the thing to do is lie through your teeth. “Yes Sir, I tried every thing.” “Did you try bleach?” “Yes sir.” The party moved on. They made the turn and came back down the rank inspecting our backs. When they got to me, the Skipper stopped again and fiddled with my collar. He lifted up my collar and I knew what he saw – there emblazoned across the Jumper was stenciled “Elmer Eisenhour”. Visions of “Leavenworth Prison” for wearing a stolen jumper were mine. The Skipper sort of gave a laugh and said, “Why don’t you get Eisenhour to help you with that stain?

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“Out of sight, out of mind.”

Homer (10^th-8^th Century B.C.)

Hanging on the bulkhead in its own little bracket in the Electrical work shop rested a huge open end wrench. The length of this monster must have been four feet with a jaw opening of at least 16” – 18”.

No one knew what is was for or what it might fit. It must have weighed 50 pounds and undoubtedly had a free ride since the ship went in commission. Everyone was sick of looking at it.

One dark night it fell over board and into the deep six. Poor thing! The very next day we discovered on the pivot of the 24”searchlight a large locknut that it fit!

“For the want of a nail, a shoe was lost.

For the want of a shoe a horse was lost, etc…”