Always Drawn Back

My son Steven remarked to me that I had “just scratched the surface” of our vacation in San Francisco in my recent compilation on the subject.  He was right, of course.  Like all major cities, San Francisco and its environs are a large subject.  One week is nowhere near enough time to take in everything the region has to offer.  This realization makes it easy to understand why some people return to the same places repeatedly.  They simply want to experience everything in their favorite vacation spots.

San Francisco, with its surrounding waterways and with the happy memories it that holds for me, remains one of my favorite locations for both vacation and nostalgia.  It’s difficult to mentally separate even the present-day city from the memories of the happy golden years that I spent aboard ship.  With these thoughts in mind, let us once again take a stroll through the town and along the waterfront and perhaps even another voyage across the bay.

Starting in the historically Italian North Beach neighborhood on Sunday morning, June 8, 1980, we come upon the Church of Saints Peter and Paul:

Operated by the Salesian Fathers, who provided the photograph, this church offers Masses in English, Italian, and Chinese, and its façade displays the famous opening line of Dante’s Paradiso:

La Gloria di colui che tutto muove per l’universo penetra e risplende.[i]

This verse rendered into English becomes:

The glory of him who moves all things through the universe penetrates and shines.

Returning to this church with Steven on Saturday, August 2, 2025, I photographed this inscription for both old times’ sake and posterity:

In concurrence with Dante, I’ve long regarded the Deity in seafaring terms, as the Master and Chief Engineer of the universe, and I’ve seen his glory countless times both on the world’s oceans and in the celestial sphere above them.  Saving this thought for another day, however, we next climb Telegraph Hill and proceed to the Coit Tower to take in the view of the harbor front.  With Steven on that same Saturday, I recorded this northward view which shows the historic freighter Jeremiah O’Brien resting quietly alongside her pier:

Next, this eastward view shows several of the old freighter piers as well as the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and Yerba Buena Island:

For comparison, here is the same view on that June Sunday in 1980:

Looking northward that same afternoon, we see a scattering or recreational craft on the bay:

Since the development of containerization, most of the cargo is now handled at more modern facilities in Oakland.  These old piers have been repurposed and now host an assortment of offices, restaurants, retail shops, museums, and some light industry.  Their facades have been cleaned up and now present a pleasing aesthetic at street level as we see here on the last day of July of this year:

At the approach end, however, some of the old piers seem less well preserved but sport vestiges of their glory days.  Here is Pier 33, seen from the ferry Alcatraz Flyer on Tuesday, July 29, 2025.  Note the very faded but still legible inscriptions of the structure’s former tenants: the Union Line, the Pacific Far East Lines and the Furness Lines:

Also on that same overcast morning we see the Coit Tower by looking upward from street level at the waterfront:

Forty and more years ago, two ferry lines connected San Francisco with the communities of Sausalito and Larkspur to the north of the city.  Now, a vastly expanded fleet also links the city with Oakland, Alameda, Berkeley, and Richmond.  The voyage to Oakland took Steven and me under the Bay Bridge on Thursday afternoon, July 31.  This was my first time sailing across the bay and passing beneath the Bay Bridge since the Comet returned from Japan early on the morning of Easter Sunday, April 22, 1984.  It felt great to be back and crossing the bay again, especially on such a bright and sunny afternoon:

Most of the ferries that serve San Francisco begin and end their voyages at the iconic Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street.  In the 1980s the front of this building was obscured by an ugly, unfinished, and never-used elevated expressway.  Irreparably damaged in the earthquake of 1989, it was subsequently demolished, and the classical façade of the Ferry Building was once again exposed to the light of day.  Since then, the Ferry Building has been completely refurbished and restored to its former grandeur.  Now, besides hosting ferries, its cavernous interior contains retail shops, restaurants, and other travelers’ services.  Its clock tower, seen here on Saturday, August 2, is visible from all around and stands out as one of the gems of the city skyline:

The rejuvenation of the iconic Ferry Building leads me to recall that in my teenage years I had developed an interest in architecture and even looked into studying it formally at the university level.  To my great adolescent dismay, however, I discovered that it was a five-year full-time program that led to the degree of Bachelor of Architecture, and that was followed by a two-year full-time program that led to the degree of Master of Architecture.  Seven years in college!  I was horrified, and so I never pursued the matter further.  But my interest in the subject has remained with me through all these years, and I found San Francisco to be an architecture lover’s dream.  I suppose entire books have been written on the subject, but I’ll content myself with a few amateur photographs.

Three stops on the subway from the Ferry Building is the Civic Center.  Presiding over this campus is the San Francisco City Hall, a building that looks more like the capitol of a state or country than of a city.  Here we see it in less-than-ideal photographic conditions in the early evening of Tuesday, July 29:

Sharing the Civic Center acreage with City Hall are the San Francisco Public Library, the San Francisco Opera House, the Supreme Court of California, the Asian Art Museum, the Federal Office Building, the Herbst Theater, and the Graham Civic Auditorium. While they are all architecturally significant structures on their own, together they form an even grander masterpiece that can rival any European capital.  On the lighter side, the Civic Center, and particularly City Hall, were portrayed in the James Bond film A View to a Kill in 1985.

More sublimely, in the nearby Mission Dolores neighborhood, the original Mission Dolores chapel, dating to 1780 and erected by the Spaniards when they first brought Christianity to the region, still stands and remains in use.  Miraculously, this building survived the earthquake and fire of 1906 while the entire surrounding neighborhood was destroyed.  Here we see the interior of the colonial Mission Dolores on Friday, August 1:

Adjacent to this venerable structure stands a newer basilica that features non-identical twin spires.  This is the taller of the two on the same day:

Surmounting the main altar of the basilica is a dome complete with pastel-colored stucco-like walls supporting a red tile roof, all key elements of Spanish Mediterranean architecture:

For many years, San Francisco had a large Spanish Mission style railroad station at the corner of Third and Townsend Streets.  Unfortunately, this magnificent building was demolished in the postwar era.  Happily, however, as part of California’s more recent investment in public transportation, classic railroad stations in nearby cities have been restored and rejuvenated and are now heavily used.  On Thursday morning, July 31, Steven and I visited the lovely Southern Pacific station in San Jose which still proudly bears the name Southern Pacific Lines over its center arched window:

The interior, also renewed and refurbished, has a bright and airy atmosphere enabled by the oversize arched windows, another architectural feature that the Spaniards brought with them from the Mediterranean:

While these and many other cultural aspects of San Francisco and its environs combine to make it a fascinating seaport and a world class city, my favorite part remains the ocean.  Accordingly, then, I will indulge myself for a moment and revisit the city’s oceanfront.   On Friday morning, August 1, Steven and I rode the Judah Street trolley to the end of the line at the western edge of the city:

We disembarked from the trolley, hiked the short distance through the dunes and across the brown sandy beach to the sea:

Standing at the water’s edge, we gazed upon the great Pacific Ocean.  A low overcast, a gray veil of fog, and a cold onshore breeze laden with salt spray combined with the mild surf to form a magnificently beautiful and inspirational sight.  Only a few other people were there, mostly joggers and dog walkers who did not linger.  Thus undisturbed and undistracted, we stood there and stared at the sea and sky and watched and felt the unceasing motion of the wind and waves.  Time itself seemed to stand still.  In the back of my mind, however, I realized that the time we had at this spot would be much too short and would pass much too quickly.  I would have been perfectly content to remain there in front of the Pacific Ocean all morning and then return after lunch.

Eventually, Steven said to me, “Well, I know you could stay here all day, but I’m getting cold.”  He was not dressed as warmly as I was, and my paternal concern for my young son overrode my desire to stare at the ocean all day.  Reluctantly, then, and with many backward glances toward the sea, I walked with him back across the beach and through the dunes to the trolley stop.

It felt very difficult to leave this beautiful location, but it had indeed been a great privilege, especially after so many years, to have stood again before the great Pacific Ocean.  The scriptures enjoin us to “stand in holy places” (D&C 101:22).   Surely the oceanfront is a holy place, one where we can at least temporarily escape the world of human concerns and be inspired and edified by communing with the Deity through the sublime magnificence of his Creation.  While standing in this holy place, Steven and I truly saw “The glory of him who moves all things.”

---

[i] Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, third part of the Divina Commedia, c. I. v. i.  

After All These Years

One of my favorite seaports, and arguably one of this country’s most distinctive cities, is San Francisco.  I first went there aboard the Mercury in 1980 and later aboard the Comet in 1984.  I have long wanted to return, but until recently had no occasion to do so.     This changed when my son Steven had the unexpected opportunity to spend several days there as part of a larger itinerary, and he invited me to join him.  Naturally, I jumped at the chance.

San Francisco has a certain mystique that defies description.  Largely surrounded by water, it has long been a very important seaport, although it is much more than that.  One of the cultural, educational, and medical capitals of the West Coast, it abounds in diverse neighborhoods, eclectic architecture, an intriguing street plan, excellent public transportation, and tremendous natural beauty.  In my distant younger days, I reveled in exploring this great metropolis in my off-duty hours.  In my recent older days with Steven, I resumed this exploration, but at a more sedate pace.  We had a list of specific things we wanted to see and do, and my favorites of these involved the ocean, the bay, and the ships that plied them.

After 41 years, my first view of the bay came on Monday afternoon, July 28, 2025.  Standing on the promenade behind the Ferry Building, I felt awed by the sight.  Beneath a sunny blue sky, blue water stretched out before me.  Alcatraz and Angel Islands stood out in the distance.  Ferries, sailboats, and other assorted watercraft scurried to and fro.  It felt wonderful to be back after so much time!

Early the next morning, on Tuesday the 29^th, we boarded the ferry Alcatraz Flyer for the short but pleasant voyage to the island.  A strong breeze came into the bay through the Golden Gate.  It was a cool and cloudy morning that soon changed to warm and sunny.  The self-guided tour of the historic prison was interesting enough, but more so for me was learning that the Alcatraz Island Lighthouse, established in 1854, was the first such aid to navigation on the American West Coast:

Also more interesting were the views of the surrounding bay, prominent islands and peninsulas, and commercial shipping.  The highlight of our visit to Alcatraz came when we emerged from the prison and saw the tanker Harrisburg sailing into the bay from the Golden Gate.  She was bound for Richmond[i], and we watched as she passed between Alcatraz and the mainland:

Close on the Harrisburg’s heels came the container ship Ever Mild.  Appearing faintly at first through the mist, she sailed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and soon afterwards passed between Alcatraz and the city on her way to Oakland.  Ferries and sightseeing craft shared the bay with her:

Returning to the city about midday aboard the Alcatraz Flyer, we walked to Pier 35 where we came upon the historic freighter Jeremiah O’Brien.  This was especially interesting.  Named after a naval hero of the American Revolution, the O’Brien is a floating museum.  A painstakingly preserved liberty ship from World War II, she serves as an educational vessel representing the approximately 2,700 such ships constructed in assembly line fashion during the war.  She also serves as a memorial to the more than 6,000 American merchant seamen who perished at sea during the hostilities, a very sobering but often overlooked statistic of the war.  The self-guided tour included the bridge and chart room, the engine room, one of the cargo holds, the crew’s quarters, the galley and chow halls, and the open decks.  I found the 1940s state-of-the-art navigational equipment with its near-total absence of modern electronics particularly interesting.  Steven found the machinery space with its twin boilers and single reciprocating steam engine fascinating.  Steam propulsion and celestial navigation ruled the waves in the O’Brien’s day!

Before we realized it, we had spent over two hours aboard the O’Brien.  Hunger pangs finally jolted us out of the distant past and brought us back to the present.  Before leaving the waterfront, however, we paused to take photographs.  The first shows the vessel’s starboard side accommodation ladder:

Next, we have a starboard quarter view of the O’Brien.  Her stern faced the street, and her bow pointed toward the open bay:

Finally, we have a profile view of her port side, taken from an adjacent small boat basin:

The next day, Wednesday the 30^th, we left San Francisco early in the morning and traveled by train to Sacramento.  Our purpose there was to visit the California State Railroad Museum.  Along the way, the train skirted much of the shoreline of San Pablo Bay, to the northeast of the city:

Beyond San Pablo Bay, the train passed by Suisun Bay, the home of the anchored Ready Reserve Fleet.  This has long been a collection of unused cargo ships held in reserve against a time of future national emergency in which they would again be needed.  After I left the Comet in 1984, she went into storage in this anchorage and remained there for many years, with brief recalls to service in the Iraqi wars, before finally being slated for the scrap yard.[ii]  Few cargo ships now remain of the dozens that had been mothballed in Suisun Bay, as this picture of the entire present fleet makes clear:

In Sacramento, the railroad museum was the main attraction; nonetheless, railroad history includes shipping history.  In the old days, passengers and freight bound from points east to San Francisco disembarked from their trains at the end of the line in Sacramento, and then they sailed aboard river and bay steamers for the remainder of the journey.  One of these vessels, the Delta King, now serves a different clientele as a floating hotel, restaurant, and theater:

The next day, Thursday the 31^st, we sailed from the Ferry Building in San Francisco aboard the Carina to Jack London Square in Oakland.  After passing beneath the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, we enjoyed a panoramic view of the southern part of San Francisco Bay, complete with more anchored cargo ships:

Also along the way, we passed two noteworthy vessels docked in Oakland.  First was the freighter Maunalei of the Matson Line.  This ship sails on the California-Hawaii-Alaska domestic route, and Steven has seen her in Anchorage several times:

The second was the lightship Relief.  Formerly a floating aid to navigation, she now rests quietly alongside a wharf in an industrial neighborhood.  No information about her was available, but I hope that she is docked here awaiting preservation and not destruction:

After disembarking from the Carina, we walked around Jack London Square.  Steven wanted to inspect the new Amtrak station; I indulged myself in a few moments of sentiment.  When the Mercury was being taken out of layup and put back into service in 1980, her crew was housed temporarily at the Jack London Inn in Jack London Square[iii].  This arrangement lasted three weeks in May and June.  Then the Mercury sailed on Father’s Day.  At the time, I felt no particular attachment to this generally nondescript modern hotel.  After 45 years, however, my outlook changed.  As I stood in front of this building once again after so much time, it almost seemed unreal that I had actually come back to this spot.  I had never expected to return, nor did I have any reason to do so until now.  But it felt good to be back, and I was glad to see, with scaffolding in place, that Jack’s hotel was being well cared for:

Returning to San Francisco aboard the Carina in the late afternoon, we passed the container ship HMM Pearl as she headed for the port facilities on the west side of Oakland:

On Friday, the 1^st of August, we set out early and rode a trolley through the western part of San Francisco to the oceanfront.  A beach and a high ridge of sand dunes separated the ocean from the city.  So effective was this dividing line that, when we stood at the water’s edge, the city seemed so far distant as to not be there at all.  Nothing of human habitation could be seen or heard, despite its close proximity.  Instead, the sight of the open Pacific and the sounds of the surf and the cold onshore breeze prevailed.  Fine particles of salt spray blew at us; a dense and gray overcast covered the sea; and distant fog obscured the horizon.  And yet the sight was truly beautiful, even glorious and grandiose:

On Saturday the 2^nd, our last day in town, we scaled Telegraph Hill and took in the panoramic views of the city and its harbor front from the Coit Tower.  Despite a low overcast and thin fog, all of the port’s salient features were easily discernable.  Afterwards, as we reposed again on the promenade behind the Ferry Building, two more noteworthy cargo ships came by.  The first was the Torm Brigitta, shifting berths from Richmond to South San Francisco and seen here passing Yerba Buena Island:

The second ship came along soon after the first and was the Peregrine Pacific, bound from South San Francisco seaward and to Chile:

That Saturday evening, Steven and I departed San Francisco the same way we had arrived—on Alaska Airlines.  While everything we had seen and done on this little vacation was an excellent experience, my favorite was simply standing at the edge of the open Pacific and staring at the ocean.  It was cold, windy, foggy, overcast, and fourteen days’ voyage from Japan.  None of these features would appeal to a tourist, but all of them invite the Spirit to abide with those “that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters” (Ps. 107:23):

The sight of the great Pacific Ocean called to mind the opening verse of Dante’s Paradiso, as it stood inscribed over the front doors of the nearby Saints Pater and Paul Church:

La gloria colui che tutu                       The glory of the One who moves

                        muove per l’universo                          everything through the universe

penetra e risplende.                             Penetrates and shines.[iv]

This glory, doubtless a major factor in the mystique of San Francisco, most certainly penetrated and shone over the city, the harbor, the bays, and the magnificent Pacific Ocean during my recent visit.  May it forever remain. 

---

[i] Information concerning ports of departure and arrival from www.marinetraffic.com.

[ii] Information from www.maritime.dot.gov.  This website includes the Comet’s design features, construction and configuration, deck plans, photographs, and historical narrative.

[iii] Jack London (1876-1916), an iconic figure on the San Francisco and Oakland waterfronts, was a merchant seaman and the author of The Sea Wolf, one of my favorite books and a classic of the seafaring life.  A statue of him now stands near the water’s edge in the square that bears his name.

[iv] Dante Alighieri, Paradiso, third part of the Divina Commedia, c. I, v. i.

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.

---

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.