The Last Voyage

An old cliché holds that there is a first time for everything.  Less often repeated is the obvious truth that there is also a last time for everything.  I now look back on several last times.  Some examples are my last transatlantic voyage (aboard the Comet in 1983), my last transpacific voyage (also aboard the Comet, in 1984), my last voyage as a paid employee (aboard the Kane in 1986), the last time I took the license exams (in Boston in 1984), and my last visit to company headquarters in Bayonne (in 1987).

More recently, I have experienced several last times in my family life ashore.  There was the last time I rode the train from Boston to the Family Headquarters in New York to visit my parents, the last time I walked home from the Mineola station, the last time I brought flowers to my mother, the last time I showed Mom pictures of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the last time I bid my parents farewell when returning to New Hampshire, and so on.

We also made a last voyage.  When my now-widowed father decided to leave the old family home and relocate to an assisted living facility here in Nashua, Miss Patty and I returned to New York to get him.  On Wednesday, August 15, 2018, he made what will likely be his last voyage aboard ship.  At 12:00 noon that day the three of us along with Bradley, the dog, sailed from Orient Point, Long Island, to New London, Connecticut, aboard the Cape Henlopen.

As a young man in the 1940s, my father had sailed on troopships across the Pacific and back.  He traveled in less-than-luxurious accommodations to less-than-idyllic destinations and was happy to simply return to the United States unscathed.  In his middle years, he skippered the family sailboat Justine along the South Shore of Long Island.  More enjoyable and much safer than his treks across the Pacific, these happy times yielded many fond memories and formed the basis of my own interest in the sea.  Later, on summer vacations, he crossed the Delaware Bay several times aboard the ferries of the Delaware River and Bay Authority fleet.  Still later in life, my parents made numerous sailings on the Cross Sound fleet to visit their grandchildren in New England.  Today’s voyage aboard the Cape Henlopen would serve as a fitting capstone, perhaps a grande finale, to a long family tradition.

We boarded the Cape Henlopen about fifteen minutes prior to her scheduled departure time and ensconced ourselves in a comfortable spot with a good view on the port side promenade deck.  The meteorological conditions were perfect for making a voyage: a clear blue sky with bright sunshine, excellent visibility, a very light breeze, a mild temperature, and a calm sea.  The “beauty of the earth”[1] indeed!  My father took in the magnificent view of Gardiners Bay and the Orient Point beach with obvious delight.  At the appointed time, the whistle blew and the Cape Henlopen backed easily away from her berth and set sail for New London.

For the next hour and a half, our little family, and my father in particular, savored the gentle motion of the Cape Henlopen through the water.  As she accelerated away from the dock at Orient Point the Susan Anne arrived.  The two vessels passed starboard to starboard, and then the Susan Anne eased into the berth that the Cape Henlopen had just vacated.  Proceeding eastward, the Cape Henlopen came abeam of the Plum Gut Lighthouse and then turned to port to transit the Gut and come out onto the more open water of Long Island Sound.  The Connecticut hills stood out clearly in the distance as the Cape Henlopen now turned onto a more northeasterly heading.  Next the Jennifer C and shortly after her the Mary Ellen came into view as they sailed in the opposite direction toward Orient Point.  To the northwest, close to the Connecticut shore, the Coast Guard buoy tender Juniper[2] lay stationary as she serviced aids to navigation.

The Cape Henlopen sailed on steadily past Plum Island and across the deep blue water of the open Sound.  As she did so, we ate a light lunch and recalled that five generations of the family have now sailed on this great ship.  As we discussed this and remembered previous voyages, Bradley made friends with several of the other passengers and their dogs.  He was the first family pet to sail aboard one of the ferries, and he seemed to like it very much.

Soon the New London Harbor Light at the mouth of the Thames River came into view, and then the John H came downstream and passed the Cape Henlopen close by to port.  It was a busy day on the water!  Too quickly—and these voyages are always too short—the Cape Henlopen proceeded up the Thames and slowed for her approach to the docks in New London.  Shortly after 1:30pm, it was time for us to disembark.

This was an especially bittersweet moment.  My father had enjoyed his voyage aboard the Cape Henlopen tremendously.  But we all knew, as we continued our journey north to Nashua and the assisted living facility, that at age 96 he would in all likelihood not return to Long Island again. Thus, there would be no more voyages aboard the Cape Henlopen or any other vessel.   Shakespeare expressed it very succinctly: 

I shall no more to sea, to sea,

Here shall I die ashore.[3]

Very sad, but time had marched on, and we could not turn it back.

Happy memories of the bygone time remain, though, and some bright future still lies ahead.  Far from being isolated in a geriatric infirmary, the family patriarch now resides comfortably in a state-of-the-art facility with a home-like atmosphere close to a son, daughter-in-law, and grandson.  Furthermore, with the long range capability of the cell phone, he receives regular updates from and photographs of other grandchildren and great-grandchildren in Brazil and Alaska.  These family ties, both in person and electronic, dispel the melancholy of loneliness with the happiness of companionship, and prove the proverb, “As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country” (Prov. 25:25).     

Photographs of the Cape Henlopen, her fleet mates, and landmarks along their route abound in our family’s collection.  I’m pleased to share some of them here:

 

The New London bound Cape Henlopen as seen from the Orient Point bound John H on Tuesday, June 21, 2016.  The fresh coat of paint really stands out against the gray sea and sky.

The Cape Henlopen coming up the Thames River to New London, seen from the outbound John H on a bright and sunny Wednesday, August 17, 2016.

Bradley aboard the Cape Henlopen just prior to departure from Orient Point on Wednesday, August 15, 2018.  All subsequent pictures are from this voyage.

The Plum Gut Lighthouse with Orient Point in the background.

The Orient Point bound Mary Ellen passing the Cape Henlopen port-to-port just north of Plum Island.

The Juniper servicing aids to navigation on Long Island Sound with Connecticut in the background.

New London Harbor Light at the mouth of the Thames River.

The John H leaving New London for Orient Point and passing the Cape Henlopen port-to-port.

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[1] Folliott S. Pierpoint, “For the Beauty of the Earth,” in  Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1985, p. 92.

[2] The Juniper (WLB-201) has an interesting but sad history.  She participated in the recovery operations of Trans World Airlines flight 800 in 1998 and EgyptAir flight 990 in 1999.  Finally, she assisted in New York immediately following the terrorist attack of 2001.  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USCGC_Juniper_(WLB-201).

[3] The Tempest, II:ii:44-45.

All the Girls

The oceanographic survey ship Bartlett rested quietly alongside the wharf in Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Friday, January 4, 1985.  She was preparing for a two-weeks-long voyage in the Gulf of Mexico and would sail on Monday, the 7^th.   Late this Friday afternoon, the day’s work was winding down, but it would resume promptly the following morning.  Nearly at the end of my own duties for the day, I went up to the bridge and glanced out the windows in the direction of the inlet that connects Port Everglades with the open Atlantic, and there I beheld a great sight.

Entering port through this narrow inlet was the Cunard Line’s famous passenger ship Queen Elizabeth 2.  I watched as this magnificent vessel slowly and gracefully glided in from the sea, turned around in the basin, and eased alongside her berth.  Her mooring lines then snaked ashore, and she was made fast directly across the wharf from the comparatively diminutive Bartlett.  Next, I wrote up the log, went off duty, and had my dinner.  Afterwards, I went ashore for a closer look at the great Queen.

Almost a thousand feet in length, the Queen took up nearly the entire dock space on the east side of the Port Everglades basin.  To look this ship over carefully involved a lot of walking.  This great sight was worth every step, though, for the Queen Elizabeth 2 was clearly the most interesting  thing in Fort Lauderdale that day.  Several of my shipmates felt the same way, and a group of us roamed the pier admiring the Queen.

In the early evening twilight, the passengers aboard the Queen began to stream ashore to enjoy a night on the town in Fort Lauderdale.  They came out by the dozens, and they made for a somewhat odd sight.  The vast majority came ashore as couples.  Without exception, the men were much more advanced in age than the ladies.  This was clearly evident in their balding heads, gray fringes, sagging jowls, and pot bellies.  The ladies, by contrast, were tall and slender with long flowing hair and radiantly beautiful faces.  They were dressed in evening gowns, and the men wore tuxedos.

After stepping off the gangway, each couple walked a few steps to a waiting lineup of limousines.  The drivers, also attired in tuxedos, hurried with lavish gesticulation to open the doors for the young ladies.   Several of the older men gruffly interrogated the drivers about their vehicles:  “Do you have a wet bar?  Do you have a TV?  Do you have a phone?”  If a particular limousine failed to meet these expectations, the older man turned his nose up in the air and led his young lady away to a more worthy conveyance.  Once embarked in their limousines, the couples were chauffeured away into town. 

This spectacle continued for quite a long while.  There were just so many of these superbly dressed but oddly matched couples coming ashore from the Queen and then being whisked away by this enormous fleet of luxurious limousines.  This ostentatious display of wealth astonished me almost as much as each couple’s blatant disparity in age.  Yet there it all was, and doing a very brisk business.

Later in the evening, their shore excursions completed, these same couples returned to the Queen in their limousines.  The tuxedoed chauffeurs again held the doors for the young ladies, received their tips from the older gentlemen, and then drove their now empty vehicles away.  At dawn the next morning, Saturday the 5^th, the Queen Elizabeth 2 took in her lines and went to sea again.  The Bartlett remained behind and continued preparations for her own upcoming voyage.

My initial reaction on seeing this parade of old men and young girls was bewilderment.  Somehow it just didn’t seem kosher.  In thinking about it, I figured that they were probably not fathers and daughters, nor uncles and nieces, nor grandfathers and granddaughters.  I did not hear any of the girls call any of the men “Daddy,” or “Uncle,” or “Grandpa.”  The thought of such innocent pairings-up seemed too idealistic and unlikely, not to mention naïve.  By process of elimination, I concluded that I was most likely seeing what was euphemistically called an escort service.  These old men obviously had money, and they were willing to spend it on young, pretty girls.  And they no doubt expected returns on their investments. 

Fearing that I was becoming too cynical while still in my twenties, I was relieved to hear an older colleague remark, “These girls are making hay while the sun shines.”  It was expensive hay, too, much more than anyone on the Bartlett could afford.  Yet the Bartlett was crewed mostly by young men, about the same ages as these girls.  That seemed like a more natural source of attraction than old men so far past their prime.  But some such men still salivate over young, pretty girls, and some girls love what money can buy.  Otherwise, I could not imagine what they would have in common socially.  I wondered, though, when the sun stopped shining and the thrill of sailing on the Queen wore off, how would these girls then feel about their careers as “escorts?”

With their many warnings against moral decadence and degeneracy, the ancient scriptures attest that the lechery of old men is not a new phenomenon.  These senior citizens embarked on the Queen would have done well to heed the proverb’s counsel, “Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids” (Prov. 6:25).  They were not the only ones, though.

Many years later while working ashore, my employer feared that I had suffered a hernia and sent me to be examined by a physician.  Miss Patty accompanied me.  As we and numerous other people sat quietly in the waiting room, an odd spectacle developed.  The administrative area behind the receptionist was open by both sight and hearing to the waiting room.  Everything that happened there was easily visible and audible to the waiting patients.  When we first arrived, all was quiet.  But then an obviously older man (receding hairline, grayish-white fringe, sagging jowls, and pot belly) approached a much younger lady (slender, long blond hair, and pretty face) working at a desk.   At first we thought nothing of it, but after a moment, the one-sided conversation caught our attention.

As a room full of patients waited for the physician, this sixty-plus-year-old man flirted publicly, loudly, and shamelessly with this approximately twenty-year-old girl.  He laughed at his own inappropriate jokes while she sat silently and looked extremely uncomfortable with it all.  This performance continued unchecked for several minutes.  As we watched in amazement, I remarked to Miss Patty, “I wonder who that guy is?”

“I don’t know,” she replied  “Maybe he’s the office manager.”

After a few more minutes, the show ended and then we were called into an exam room by a nurse.  She took care of the preliminaries with us and then left saying, “The Doctor will be right in.”

A minute later, the old man who had just been carrying on with the young lady entered the room.  He caught us both by surprise, and Miss Patty blurted out, “You’re the Doctor?!

He then introduced himself.  Miss Patty and I exchanged inquisitive glances with raised eyebrows, and the Doctor saw this.  The medical checkup that followed was carried out in what we thought was an unprofessional and condescending manner.  This man had been caught, and he clearly did not like it.  My employer was paying him, so I did not protest.  If it had been my dime and my time, however, I would have left and gone elsewhere.  But the good news was that I did not have a hernia, only a mild muscle strain.

Afterwards, I read the Doctor’s posted credentials in the waiting room.  He was a board certified surgeon, had medical licenses in two states, and held academic degrees from two of this country’s most prestigious universities.  With all these lofty qualifications, I would have expected more professional behavior.  Instead, I thought of Shakespeare’s famous lament, “How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!”[1]

On a happier note, a portrait of the Queen arrived in the mail some time after my encounter with her in Port Everglades.  This was part of an advertisement for a travel agency.  It was a beautiful photograph of a beautiful ship, and it proved that not all junk mail is junk!  I’m happy to share it here: 

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[1] King Henry IV, Part II, V:v:51.

Finished with Engines

The two ships that passed in the night in early January of 2018 stayed their courses on their voyages through life.  Following her birth on January 24, Miss Katherine Elizabeth was officially underway on the outset of  what we hope will be a long, healthy, and happy voyage. Her great-grandmother—my Mom and my children’s Nana—remained on home hospice care on Long Island, buoyed by news and photographs of the new baby.

As winter gradually became spring, my daughter-in-law brought Miss Katherine from distant Alaska to her family home in New Hampshire, with plans to visit Mom in New York as well.  During this interval, however, Mom’s long voyage started winding down more quickly.  Finally, during the night of Thursday, May 24^th, four months after the hospital staff’s prediction and one week before Miss Katherine’s scheduled visit, Mom quietly rang up “Finished with Engines.”  She was 99 years, 6 months, and 23 days old.  With her earthly voyage at last concluded, she returned to the celestial realm from which she had come nearly a century ago.

Mom and Miss Katherine crossed paths the following Wednesday, May 30^th.  The very young paid respects to the very old in a graveside service at the Cemetery of the Holy Rood in Westbury, Long Island.  Though she never met her great-grandmother face to face in this life, little Miss Katherine sat happily on her great-grandfather’s lap and brought joy to his heart.  The family line was continuing unchecked, and our baby’s future looked bright.

The next afternoon we returned to New England.  At sea between Orient Point, Long Island, and New London, Connecticut, we sailed aboard the ferry Cape Henlopen.  By its very nature, the sea has always been an ideal place to contemplate eternity.  This time, however, there was an added dimension.

With Miss Katherine now embarked, fully five generations of our family have sailed aboard the Cape Henlopen.  In the 1970s, my grandfather and my parents and I sailed on her when she was working the Delaware Bay route.  Since she joined the Cross Sound fleet in the 1980s, Miss Patty and I have sailed on her with our children and grandchildren.  The Cape Henlopen, then, is the vessel that bridges the generations, the ship that we all share in common with each other.  She thus holds a place of honor in our family heritage.

On that calm, cool, and sunny afternoon as we sailed once again aboard the Cape Henlopen, I gazed at the eternal sea and sky and thought of the beloved lady whom we had just laid to rest.  She had always enjoyed the sea and admired its supernal beauty.  I like to think that she was looking down lovingly on her new great-granddaughter, and in her own sublime way, was wishing Miss Katherine Elizabeth a fair wind and a following sea throughout her earthly voyage.

Going Back to Work

Leaving home to join a ship was seldom a simple matter.  Some complication usually arose, which meant that going back to work was often an adventure and sometimes a misadventure.  Factors such as flexible schedules, weather delays, changing dock assignments, and personal emergencies contributed to the confusion, but they were all part and parcel of the transportation business and so were understandable.  Sending a crewman to join a ship which by its very nature was moving most of the time could be a hit-or-miss affair.  But sending someone to join a vessel that was parked in a drydock seemed like a comparatively simple job, since the ship was now a stationary target.

On Saturday, May 24, 1980, I left New York aboard a United Air Lines DC-10 bound for San Francisco.  In my third assignment as third mate, I was on my way to join the Mercury, then in drydock in Alameda, California.  I had spent the previous day at company headquarters in Bayonne, New Jersey, where the powers-that-be had prepared me for my flight west and my subsequent new position aboard ship.  For my part, I had complete confidence that they had fully prepared me for everything and that it would all proceed smoothly and with no problems.  How naïve I was!  Sitting comfortably on the airplane as I crossed the North American continent for the first time, I remained blissfully ignorant of the disarray that awaited me on the West Coast.

On landing in San Francisco, I was to take a taxi to the Islander Motel in Alameda, across the bay from the city.  The crew was being billeted there until the shipyard work was complete, and then everyone would move on board.  I was to be one of the last crewmen to join the ship; most had already arrived.  There would be a lot of work to do on a tight schedule, but by the end of the coming week, the Mercury would sail.  Being young and ambitious, and after two months at home, I was ready to go!

After the aircraft landed I collected my luggage, went out front, and found a taxi.  As I put my suitcase in the trunk, I told the driver that I was going to the Islander Motel in Alameda.  He gave me a confused look, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “Where dat, man?”

Startled by this inquiry, and thinking that of the two of us he should know, I replied with, “You’re asking me?”

Leaving me to wonder what I had just gotten into, the driver stepped into the dispatcher’s office.  Through the window I could see the two men studying a map.  After several minutes he returned to the taxi and said, “Ees okay.  I find eet.“ Away we went, then, over the Bay Bridge, across Oakland, and then through a tunnel.  Emerging into the daylight again, the driver turned to me and announced, “Deesa Alameda.”  The Islander Motel stood a moderate distance farther along.

In an attempt to situate myself, I asked the driver about the locations of the motel, the shipyard, and the subway.  I specifically asked him, “Can I get the BART1 subway here in Alameda?”  I preferred to use that instead of paying for expensive taxi rides.  The driver assured me, “Yay, ees right by dee hotel.”  And a moment later we arrived there.

As I checked into the Islander Motel, I explained to the desk clerk that I was to be a crewman on the Mercury and was joining a group of shipmates who were already registered there.  The clerk stared at me uncomprehendingly and replied that there were no crewmen from any ship staying at the Islander.  Seeing my bewilderment, he then inquired about the Mercury and my business with her.  In the course of this very confused conversation, it became clear that my employer had sent me to the wrong place.

Feeling bad for me, the clerk placed a call to the shipyard so I could try to get some information about the Mercury and her crew.  The yard bird who answered the phone resented my inquiries and threw a minor tantrum:  “There ain’t no Mercury here!  She’s still the Illinois!  You guys don’t even own the thing yet and yer askin’ me all these questions!!  How am I supposta know this stuff?  I ain’t no infermation booth!!  Why don’t you come over here and see fer yerself?  There’s a couple a yer guys on the thing.  Maybe they kin tell ya what’s goin’ on!”

I had already decided to do just that.  After all, I had gone out there to work, not to just sit around and wait for something to happen.  So I asked the desk clerk to point me the way to the subway station that the taxi driver had said was near the motel.  He looked at me in astonishment.  “There is no BART station in Alameda,” he exclaimed.  “You need to go into Oakland for that, and it’s much too far to walk.  I can’t imagine why he said there’s a BART stop here.  That’s just crazy!”  He called another taxi for me instead, and off to the shipyard I went.

The Todd Shipyard was a modest affair situated on the north side of Alameda Island and across the Oakland Inner Harbor from Oakland itself.  Aboard the Mercury I introduced myself to Captain Edward Lanni.  Completely surprised by my unexpected arrival, he asked me many questions.  “How did you get here?  What are you doing here?  And why are you here on Memorial Day weekend?  Did you just come out from the base in Bayonne?  You got any luggage?”  And so on.  Another very confused conversation followed, and it left my new boss feeling exasperated.

“You gotta be kidding me!” the Captain finally exploded.  “Those folks in Bayonne!  They need to look out the window once in a while!”  Counting on his fingers as he spoke, he continued, “First, they send you out here on a holiday weekend.  They don’t want to pay overtime, so the crew isn’t working until Tuesday.  You could have stayed home with your family longer!  Second, they send you to the wrong hotel.  We’re all put up at the Jack London Inn.”  Pointing across the water, he went on, “It’s right over there in Jack London Square.  Nice place, good neighborhood, great restaurant, and a short walk to downtown Oakland.  You can get the train there and go into San Francisco.  Third, they don’t tell you anything about the ship.  We don’t even own it yet, but we’re here anyway to get her into shape.  She still belongs to States Lines, and she’s still officially the Illinois, and they’ve got their own skipper and chief mate here to help us out.  Fourth, there is no way this ship is going to sail a week from now.  It takes more time than that to bring a ship this size out of layup and put her back in service.  And finally, I suppose they didn’t give you any cash for your taxi rides or your dinner tonight.  Am I right?  Yeah, I knew it!”  He threw up his hands and shook his head in disgust.

It was by now getting late in the afternoon.  With nothing for me to do just yet aboard the Illinois-Mercury, and with my belongings in a room at the Islander, we agreed that I would spend the night there and join everyone else at the Jack London tomorrow.  Captain Lanni would dispatch another young mate with the company car on Sunday morning to help me change hotels.  Come Tuesday, he would have the purser reimburse me for my taxi rides and dinner tonight.  Finally, he ordered me to have some fun: “This is a great port.  Go out!  See the sights!  Have a good time while you’re here!  Just be ready to work on Tuesday morning.”

As promised, the second mate arrived at the Islander Motel with the company car the next morning.  He was Manny Subda, a graduate of Fort Schuyler and a few years older than I was.  Delivering me to the Jack London Inn, he described the crew’s work schedule and duties while the Illinois-Mercury was undergoing her renovation.  Everyone lodged at the hotel because the ship was as yet uninhabitable.  We would all move on board when the domestic mechanical systems became fully functional and the company officially took possession of the vessel.  Then the Mercury would sail, probably in mid-June.  This was good to know, and I started to feel better about everything.  Then, after settling in at the correct hotel, I followed Captain Lanni’s orders to “go out” and “see the sights,” and San Francisco soon became one of my favorite cities!

On Tuesday, May 27, I went to work.  The company vehicle shuttled the crew between the hotel and the ship, which over the holiday weekend had been refloated and towed to the Military Ocean Terminal on the west side of Oakland.  One of my first duties was meeting with Charlie Malone, the purser.  While grumbling about the time and money that Bayonne had wasted in sending me to the wrong place, he did all the paperwork necessary for me to recoup my expenses.  “One of us could have gotten you at the airport with the rental car and brought you to the Jack London,” he lamented. “No need to send you chasing all over California!”

As things turned out, I joined a good ship and a good crew.  I spent many hours working with Manny Subda, the second mate, stockpiling and organizing nautical charts, navigational publications, and related materials, and we became quite friendly.  I also assisted Paul Dino, the chief mate, with several projects relating to cargo stowage and emergency equipment.  He, too, was a very good shipmate, and also a mentor for many of the younger fellows.  In my free time in the late afternoons and on weekends, I explored San Francisco and its environs, using the BART system as inexpensive and reliable transportation.  No more taxi rides for me! 

In due time, through the good work of all thirty-five crewmen, the Illinois-Mercury became fully ready to go to sea again.   Some bureaucratic snags delayed the transfer of ownership, and we officially took charge of the Mercury on Friday, the 13^th of June.  That same day we all checked out of the Jack London Inn and took up residence aboard ship.  At 9:00am on Fathers’ Day, June 15, 1980, the Mercury departed from Oakland and went to sea.  It was my first time sailing on the bright, blue, and beautiful Pacific.

While this assignment got off to a bad start, it had a happy ending.  More importantly, this experience taught me valuable lessons.  Never again would I blindly believe everything the Bayonne folks told me about a shipboard assignment.  Never again would I assume that a taxi driver knew where he was going and what he was talking about.  Never again would I fly off to a place I had never been before without first studying it on maps and memorizing its salient features.  Never again would I leave company headquarters without company cash in my pocket for the inevitable unexpected expenses.  Never again would I enable such a fiasco to take place.  Skepticism and improved self-preparation would replace naive gullibility and misplaced trust.

Church leaders in recent years have spoken extensively about life experience, self-reliance, and preparation, applying these points to both spiritual and temporal matters.   President Thomas S. Monson once asserted that “Life is a school of experience,”2 and that “Preparation for life’s opportunities and responsibilities has never been more vital.”3

Wise people prepare as much as possible for everything, learn from both good and bad experiences, and avoid repeating mistakes.  By following these simple principles, we find assurance that “The day will come when we will look upon our period of preparation and be grateful that we properly applied ourselves.”4  My trek to join the Mercury taught me both the educational value of experience and the practical value of preparation.

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1 Bay Area Rapid Transit.

2 Thomas S. Monson, in Teachings of Thomas S. Monson, comp. Lynne F. Cannegieter, Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2014, p. 10.

3 Op. cit., p, 231.

4 Op. cit., p. 231.

The Great Paper Chase

When an officer reports aboard ship and takes up his duties, one of the first things he does is post his license.  Just as a physician or a dentist or an attorney would display his credentials in his office ashore, so does a Merchant Marine officer aboard ship.  The Master, mates, and radio operator typically display their licenses together in locked frames built into a bulkhead near the bridge and radio room.  The engineers display their licenses in the same way near one of the entrances to the engine room.  Thus, when I joined the oceanographic survey ship Kane as chief mate, I posted my license in its assigned spot.  Anyone who was interested could then look at it and see for himself that I was qualified for my new job.

To the ambitious and career-minded young officer, his license was the single most important piece of paper in the world.  No license meant no job, no career, no future, no money, no home, nothing.  Losing one’s license was a catastrophic professional failure that led inevitably to unemployment, impoverishment, destitution, and desperation.  In short, the license was everything—practically life itself—and every conscientious Merchant Marine officer guarded his license with his life.

When the Kane returned from a survey voyage on Monday, May 19, 1986, she docked in North Charleston, South Carolina, and remained there for the rest of the week.  Several crewmen were scheduled to leave the ship that week, most of them going home on vacation.  The one exception to this was the radio operator—always called “Sparky” aboard ship—who was leaving the company and taking a new job aboard a cruise ship.  To this end, he signed off the Kane and went ashore with all his belongings about noon on Wednesday the 21^st.  He planned to stay overnight in a local motel, and then on Thursday fly to Honolulu where he would join his new ship.

In the course of my work that Wednesday afternoon  I went up to the bridge and chartroom and walked past the spot where the licenses were posted.  Something about this display caught my eye; something about it just didn’t seem right.  Then, to my complete astonishment, I realized that Sparky’s license was still there!  He had gone ashore and left for a new job in Hawaii without his license!!

Horrified by this discovery, my mind raced with a jumble of hurried thoughts.  What would Sparky do in Hawaii without his license?  Could we possibly get it back to him?  Did anyone know what airline he was taking?  Or what motel he was staying at?  Could we possibly intercept him before he left Charleston?   I ran down to the next deck, burst into Captain Weckstrom’s office, and blurted everything out to him.  Like me, he did not know the details of Sparky’s itinerary.  Neither did the purser.  Neither did the chow hall crew, and they usually knew everything that was going on.  Finally, Captain Weckstrom and I agreed on the most likely way to find Sparky and return his license to him.  I would get Frenchy, the bosun, and we would use the ship’s rental car to drive to the airport and there ask what flight Sparky was booked on, what address and phone number the airline had for him, and so on.  It seemed like a good plan, but there was no guarantee that the airline people would tell us anything.

Since Frenchy knew the Charleston area better than I did, he drove.  And he talked. “I can’t believe anyone would do this!  How could he forget his license?  Of all the stuff to leave behind!  What was he thinking?  I ain’t got no license, but I sure know how important it is!  What’s he gonna do on that there cruise ship when he finds he ain’t got no license?  I’ll tell ya this, mate—it sure ain’t gonna be pretty!”

After a short drive and a long soliloquy, Frenchy parked at the airport. We went inside the terminal building and found four ticket counters for four airlines: Delta, Eastern, Piedmont, and one local carrier.  Since no airline flew nonstop from Charleston to Honolulu, I figured that Sparky would need to change aircraft in a major city such as New York or Atlanta.  That made Eastern and Delta the most likely choices.  And so with Sparky’s license firmly in hand, I approached the Eastern ticket counter and addressed the clerk there.

Giving him Sparky’s real name, I asked if he was booked as a passenger bound for Honolulu.  Not surprisingly, the clerk responded with “I’m sorry, sir, but we’re not allowed to give out that information.”

Explaining that Sparky was a Merchant Marine officer on his way to join a ship, I placed his license on the counter so the clerk could see it.  “He’s going to need this when he gets there,” I continued, “or he’ll be out of a job.  I really need to find this fellow and return his license to him.”

Looking quite surprised and taking the matter more seriously now, the clerk responded with, “Well, in that case,” and typed the name into his computer.  He asked where and when Sparky was going and studied the screen for several minutes.  Finally he sighed and said, “I’m sorry, but I have no passenger with this name.  He must be going on another airline.”  I thanked the clerk for his efforts, and then Frenchy and I walked across the concourse to the Delta counter.

I made the same inquiry and received the same initial response from the Delta ticket clerk.  On showing him the license and explaining the urgency of the situation to him, he also took the matter more seriously and started looking for Sparky in his computer.   After a minute or two, he found him.  Sparky was booked on a Delta flight the next morning from Charleston to Atlanta and thence to Honolulu.  The clerk also gave me the name, address, and room number of the motel where Sparky was staying overnight.  I glanced inquisitively at Frenchy. “I know that place, mate,” he said.  “It ain’t far from here.”

I thanked the Delta clerk for his help, and added that he had just saved a man’s entire career, and possibly his life as well.  Then Frenchy and I returned to the car and set out for the motel.  Once again, Frenchy spoke his mind.  “Well, mate,” he began, “it’s a good thing you done the talking in there.  I wouldn’ta been so polite like you were, especially when they first didn’t wanta tell ya nothing!  Now I just hope we find we find Sparky at this here motel.  If he ain’t there, what next?”  I was wondering about this, too, but for the moment just didn’t want to think about it.

Frenchy drove up to the motel and parked in front.  We got out of the car, found Sparky’s room, knocked on the door, and waited with bated breath.  After a minute the door opened and Sparky stood before us.  What a relief!

Sparky greeted us very enthusiastically.  “Hi, mate!  Hi, Frenchy!  Nice of you to stop by!  Are you coming to the party tonight?  A lot of the fellows from the ship will be there.”

I thanked Sparky for the invitation, and then explained that we were not really there on a social call.  Holding his license up for him to see, I told him, “We found that you had left this behind, and we wanted to get it back to you before you flew out tomorrow morning.”

Sparky stared at his license in silence.  The look on his face said it all—disbelief, horror, astonishment.  He looked up at me, then at Frenchy, then back at his license.  He started stammering.  “Oh, my gosh!  Oh, my gosh!  How did this—?  How could I—?  How could this happen?  How did you know?  How did you find me?”

I briefly described how we had tracked him down through the airlines.  Sparky recovered his composure as I spoke and blurted out, “Well, I’m glad you found me!!  Thank you so much!!  Thank you both!!”  He repeated this many, many times and then continued, “Can I buy you a drink?  Can I buy you dinner?  Can I get you anything?  Whatever you want, I’ll get it for you!!  Name your price!!”

Well, Frenchy and I were on the clock, and we needed to return to the Kane.  Besides, we really had not expected to reap any great profits from simply bringing this man’s license back to him.  It was just the right thing to do.  But Sparky insisted so much that we agreed to stay for a sandwich and soda with him.  He put his license away safely in his briefcase, and then we followed him into the motel’s combination snack bar and lounge.  There we found several other crewmen from the ship, and a very pleasant social visit followed.  In his excitement, Sparky dominated the conversation, telling everyone there how we had heroically rescued his license and saved him from a fate worse than death.  I found these remarks a bit extravagant, but if it had been my license, I suppose I would have been just as effusively appreciative myself.  Anyway, after an appropriate interval, Frenchy and I wished everyone well and drove back to the ship.

Aboard the Kane again, I met quietly with Captain Weckstrom in his office.  The news of Sparky’s forgotten license had spread among the crew, and the Captain was asking me how the matter had been resolved.  He listened studiously and nodded thoughtfully as I narrated the story to him.  Finally he said,  “Well, he is a very lucky man.  He is lucky that you noticed his license was still on board, and he is lucky that you and the bosun were able to find him.  Imagine if he had gone all the way to Hawaii only to realize that he’d left his license here.  He would be despairing out there while his license was floating around the Atlantic with us!  Yes, he is a very lucky man indeed.”

As lucky as he was, Sparky may still have found some scriptural injunctions suited to his situation. “Set in order thy house” (D&C 93:44), and “prepare every needful thing” (D&C 88:119), for “if ye are prepared ye shall not fear” (D&C 38:30).  When joining a ship one’s license is most certainly a “needful thing,” one of many such to be packed up and brought along.  Hence the command to “search them diligently, that ye may profit thereby” (Mosiah 1:7).  No doubt Sparky had searched diligently and sincerely believed he had brought everything with him when he signed off the Kane.  With his license missing, though, he clearly had not searched diligently enough.

Many years later, my own license is no longer posted aboard ship.  Instead, it hangs over my desk at home.  I gaze at it from time to time and think about the good old days which it now represents.  No longer is it the most important piece of paper in the world.  Its prominence has been superseded by several other documents.  Among these are my children’s birth certificates, their Eagle Scout awards, their high school diplomas, their college degrees, their marriage records, my grandchildren’s birth certificates, and of course, all their photographs.

Life in the fleet at sea gave me one perspective; life with my fleet of children ashore since has given me a new point of view.  No longer do I focus on acquiring sea time and making it to Master by age thirty; instead I treasure time with my family, time that always passes too quickly.