Turtle Rock

A few days after returning to Ohio, I learned that an arrest had been made. Upon inquiring at the bank, I was told that the bank would not return my money until there was a conviction. An actual date for his trial had not yet been set, so I obviously wasn’t going to get my money anytime soon. That didn’t sit right with me. After all, it was my hard earned money and I was anxious to pay Mom and Dad Shepherd back. Meeting with the bank president, I fabricated a story about my wife being seriously ill and in need of surgery, making it clear that if anything should happen to her because she couldn’t have it, I would hold him personally responsible. Excusing himself, he returned a few minutes later with a check to cover my losses. I had the cash in hand before leaving that afternoon, and closed my account on my way out. Driving directly to Mom and Dad Shepherd’s house, I paid them back while once again expressing how thankful I was.

We hadn’t been back in Ohio long before Mom starting calling us between 2:00AM and 3:00AM on Sunday mornings. It was always after she had been drinking, just like she did to that schoolboy in the middle of the night years ago. Only now, she was asking if Pam was pregnant yet. I asked her if she knew what time it was. Emphatically, she replied that she didn’t care. She only wanted to know if she was going to be a grandma yet. Of course, it was only between 11:00PM and midnight where she was calling from. By the way, she didn’t stop there. She continued calling every week, at the same time, in the same intoxicated condition for the first year we were married until she ultimately asked if I knew what “that thing” is for. I reminded her that she and Dad waited nine years to have me. I asked her to please be patient and understand that we had been apart for two years and we just weren’t ready for children yet. She once again reminded me that she just wanted to be grandma before concluding that she was going to hang up now so we could “get to work on it.”

One day at work while talking with my friend, Carter, I did the forbidden. I asked him how much he made as a machinist there. He insisted that I wouldn’t believe him if he told me, but I didn’t give up. He finally admitted that he made only $3.00 an hour. You could have knocked me over with a feather! Sadly, I did believe him and from that moment on, I proceeded with eyes wide open. I had been there a little more than two years, didn’t have near the experience he did and I was making just thirty cents an hour less than a highly skilled machinist.

After looking around to get an idea how much other machine shops were paying, I learned that I was working at the lowest paying shop in the area. I was however grateful for the opportunities afforded me there, but I knew that I would never be happy there. Taking my concerns to Harry, I asked him for a raise. He then informed me that he knew I had been looking around. That took me by surprise, but it’s not like I was trying to hide anything. On the contrary, it was his shop that wasn’t transparent. Explaining that Pam and I had been talking about starting a family, we realized it wasn’t possible on $2.70 an hour. He mentioned the standard ten cents an hour increase in which everyone received each January, but that was the best he could do. All of us knew to expect that. Pushing the envelope, I told him that I was hoping for thirty cents now. He assured me that he couldn’t do that. Satisfied that I had done my best at that point and that we understood each other, I thanked him for his time and returned to work in the shop.

During a phone call with Pam’s parents, we informed them that I had been looking for another job within the trade, of course. As the Mare Island Naval Shipyard Commander’s secretary, she recommended I apply there, where the pay and benefits were as good as could be found. Asking her how I could that could be possible from across the country, she told me that she would send me an application form. I was to complete it as best I could and send it back to her. She would then take it around to the people she knew. What did I have to lose, right?

A few weeks after I had sent her the completed application, she called us back and told us that she had taken it to the the superintendent of the inside machine shop, Shop 31. Upon reviewing it, he told her that he would hire me. Excited with this turn of events, I teturned to work the following morning and informed Harry I would be leaving in two weeks. Obviously disappointed, he asked if there was anything he could do to change my mind. I explained that I had a job in a machine shop waiting for me in California for more than twice the pay and that once again, Pam and I would be near our own families. He had already informed me what he was limited, but I did feel an obligation to explain.

Harry didn’t take it well and unfortunately, things were unnecessarily tense between us after that. I was only looking out for number one. Then in what appeared to be a sudden burst of rage, he stormed out of his office, rushed by the long bench against the brick wall to where I was working and fired me at the end of the first of my two weeks. Disillusioned, I began putting all my tools away as he sat, watching me through his office window. As I was close to finishing up, he reimerged and unable to look me in the eye, he told me that he had acted in haste and said I could stay the following week if I wanted to. Not much of an apology, if I do say so myself! Why would any reasonable person want to stay after all that? I didn’t need the money and I certainly didn’t need this. I only gave him two weeks notice so he would have time to find a replacement for me. I continued cleaning up my tools and putting them away when he asked me to stay the following week. Realizing that that was as close to an apology as I was going to get, I accepted his gesture and completed the two weeks I had promised him. Pam and I were soon on our way back to California with trailer in tow the last week in August.

Once in the restricted industrial area of Mare Island Naval Shipyard, the machine shop appeared to be the biggest building on the shipyard, dwarfing the one I had spent the last three years in. Following my interview on Thursday, September 5, Mr. Tamargo, the General Foreman of the section where I would be working, informed me that he wanted me to start the very next day. That next day, however, was my birthday and while I didn’t really want to work on my birthday, but I did.

Day shift began at 7:30AM. Upon arriving, I was assigned to the automatic screw machine section of the machine shop. After all, the automatic screw machines were where I had most of my experience albeit the ones I had learned on were many times larger. They were 6 and 8 spindle machines, compared to the single spindle machines in Shop 31. In the old shop, we were required to work two machines at a time while often sharing a third one with another employee. In Shop 31, no one was allowed to work more than one machine at a time, 8 hours a day, five days a week. That was a hard adjustment for me! What was I going to do with all that free time? It wasn’t until the very next day that I realized how lucky it was that I didn’t get to California any later than I did. On Saturday, September 7, the very day after I started my new job, President Nixon put a freeze on all government hiring.

Not long into the hiring freeze, the outside machine shop became overwhelmed by their workload and requested assistance from the inside machine shop. Being the low man on the totem pole, I was put on temporary loan where I was now working in a dry dock, overhauling a submarine in the missile compartment. Those temporary assignments rarely lasted more than a few months. Slipping through the cracks, I ended up out there for just over one year, delaying my chances at becoming a permanent employee and receiving the benefits that weren’t available to temporary employees. After three long years of temporary employment, I finally became a permanent civil service employee where I began paying into the civil service retirement system and receiving health benefits. Prior to then, I was paying for that out of my own pocket.

1976 was the nation’s bicentennial celebration. Pam was expecting our first baby. I had been working 12 hour shifts, seven days a week for two months. While visiting my parents, we told them that if the baby is born on July 4, we would name it George Washington Haskins or Betsy Ross Haskins. We both got a kick out of my dad’s reaction. “You wouldn’t do that to a kid, would you?” He shouted. We kept him on the hook until our son was born on the 15th.

In the meantime, Pam had contracted gestestional diabetes and they induced labor on the morning of July 14. She was in hard labor for 24 hours. Eighteen hours into labor, they decided to take some x-rays to get a better look at what the problem was. Subsequently, the doctor decided that more aggressive procedures were necessary. They began by pushing down on her abdomen and manipulating the position of the baby by hand to help the labor along. Our first son was born a short time later. Pam was totally exhausted. Her delivery was so long and difficult, the doctors recommended we not have anymore children.

Years later, we learned from Pam’s mom that one of the nurses who was on duty that day, had informed her that Little Ted had ingested a strep germ and became so ill that they didn’t expect him to survive.

After I knew Pam was going to be fine, I left the hospital and drove directly to Mom and Dad’s house, across town, to break the news. I mentioned that he looked like a little Eskimo baby. Mom was an Alaska native so that wasn’t an unreasonable observation. Their reaction wasn’t anything like I thought it should have been following such a comment. I suppose if I had known then that I wasn’t their biological son, I would have known how ridiculous it really was.

Little Ted, as we called him, became jaundiced. It continued to get so bad that they decided that a blood transfusion should be performed. At the very last moment, however, his numbers finally began to come down, avoiding the transfusion. He was a greater blessing than we realized for years.

The 12 hour shifts I had been working finally ended and at the same time Mom informed us that she wanted to take us to Alaska for a few days so that her mom could meet her first great grandson. While we were talking it over, Pam told me that she didn’t have any desire to see Alaska. She thought that it was all ice and snow until I explained to her that Ketchikan was not what she had envisioned and assured her that she would love it. Besides, I really needed the break after three months of 12 hour shifts, seven days a week!

Little Ted cried the entire flight. We felt so badly for all the other passengers as there was nothing anyone could do to make him stop. Shortly after arriving at the hotel in downtown Ketchikan, Little Ted went right to sleep and for the first time, slept throughout the night.

The first full day in Ketchikan, “the Salmon Capital of the World,” started early for the three of us. We decided to go for a walk and see the sites. It was a brisk autumn morning as we strolled downtown and looked at all the netting boats in the harbor before going to a popular destination known as Creek Street which back in its heyday was a red light district, where the original houses still line the river and millions of salmon begin their inland journey during spawning season. I don’t remember when or where we started talking about eventually owning a log home, but it could very well have been during that trip.

Grandma Tompson lived in a state run home for Senior native Alaskans at zero cost to them, with a complete medical staff on site. She was a very quiet woman who when she spoke, it was usually in English, her second language. She always sounded to me like a little girl. While saying very little during our visit, it was clear that she felt a great affection for her first and only great grandson.

The rest of our visit and the return flight went without a hitch but I still miss flying in from Seattle on a sea plane like we used to do back in the 1960s, before the Ketchikan airport was built.

More to come!

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