Turtle Rock

As I sit with a fresh cup of hot coffee on my back porch, overlooking the woods beyond our vegetable garden and backyard, my mind wanders back to what was a rather imaginary childhood. Even what I was told was true, ultimately turned out not to be. That, however, is another story. I was a “navy brat” and an only child, a combination that would have spelled trouble in many households I’m sure.

My parents were married nine years before I was born. Mom and Dad found it challenging if not impossible to conceive. In their eyes, I was nothing short of a blessing from above when I came into their lives. Not because I am a special person by any means, I assure you. As hard as I tried to be a good little boy, there were moments when my mischievous nature got me in trouble.

Dad was an enlisted man in Uncle Sam’s navy for 21 years. One of my early memories was Mom getting us ready to take him to report for duty on the shipyard. I remember Dad, along with everyone else, stopping the car on the causeway to get out, stand at attention and salute upon hearing the national anthem being played throughout the shipyard. Upon arriving at their destination, Dad got out of the car and Mom moved over into the driver’s seat. My attention turned to all the civil service employees, apparently at the end of their work shifts, exiting the nearby dry docks. Very young and impressionable, I was fascinated by that image of those men exiting the submarines and marching out of the dry docks. I told Mom that I wanted to do that when I grew up. She thought it was cute and I never gave it another thought.

I spent many weekends of my childhood in the two movie theaters downtown and watching a lot of television. Westerns were my favorite and whenever we drove anywhere, I found myself looking at the countryside and thinking what would make good scenery for a western movie. I guess it was natural that I might fancy a career in one of those two industries as well.

Leaving home when I was 17 years old, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life. A career in entertainment didn’t seem a logical choice for me. However, I was fortunate to have a second father figure who used his influence to get me a job as a shipping clerk in a machine shop. It was there that I learned the machinist trade. As fate would have it, in my early 20s, I was later hired and found myself working on that very same shipyard, in those very same dry docks I had observed as a young, fanciful boy. I had been on loan from the inside machine shop to the outside machine shop for one year of my 20-year career there until I became one of the many victims of the shipyard closure.

Returning to school, I earned a degree in television production where I worked for the following 20 years before retiring.

I consider myself very fortunate to have had not one, but two 20-year careers in seperate fields that I truly loved.