Lieutenant "Dusty" Rhodes was the best, and probably, the least unflappable officers I ever had the pleasure of following. He was generous, and was a "sailor's officer". He always backed me up in personnel decisions, allowing me to do some things that had never been done before at any place I had been stationed. An example was Christmas season. I had worked my men hard all year, and we had accomplished many positive things. I thought they deserved special consideration during the holidays as a payback, so on about the 1st of December until about the middle of January, I gave my men liberty every day at 0800 just after morning quarters if they were not in the duty section, and the off going duty section had liberty as soon as they were relieved, with the understanding that all equipment was up and working. Those kids couldn't believe the liberty they were getting, and neither could the other sailors on the base. They never let me down, and all our equipment was maintained in a highly efficient manner. The base never experienced any deterioration of service, which included all the Ground to Air (tower) communications.

Some of the men who aided and abetted me were ETC Bob Valk, ETC Art Gould, ET1 Bob Pierson (who I thought was the best ET1 in the whole USN), Darryl Stingley, Buie, Lomnitz, Theis, ET2 Athey, Skaw, Darryl Upson, Walter Yake (a civil servant), Larry Borden and Harry Huffman, another civil servant. Also, Ernie Harpham in the EMO's Office, and of course, Lt. Rhodes. I know there were others, but memory fails me. I wish I had the memory of this darned computer.

I never had another group like those guys and the duty at NAS Whidbey was the high point of my Naval Career. From there it was all down hill, even though I made Master Chief 3 years later. I experienced nowhere near the satisfaction that I did when I made Senior Chief. When you are in a place surrounded with friends, and are happy and satisfied with the results of your work, it is tough to give it up and leave.

FUN AND GAMES

These were the days of the good times. Hardly a week went by without something came up that was interesting, like a camping, fishing, or sightseeing expedition. Even the Division Parties were fantastic. For one of the parties, we rented the Knights of Columbus Hall and had a dance. The galley prepared the food, and Special Services provided the beer. I provided the music, with my hi-fi and records, along with other records provided by some of the guys. There were only four or five gals, and maybe two of my techs were lucky enough to have girl friends, but most didn't, so the ones present, Ann, Mickie Pierson and I believe Diane Valk, Chief Valk's wife. Those gals nearly got danced to death that night. Everyone had such a good time. I know Ann could hardly walk for several days afterward.

Another time, we had a Division cookout on a secluded beach on Puget Sound. As before, the galley furnished the food and Special Services the beer, but this time, we had so much beer we didn't get it finished, so we loaded it up and took it to my garage for storage. The next day, I told Bob that I was gonna give everyone who was not in the duty section some special liberty so that we could continue that party at my house and finish up that beer. We called the gals who quickly put together a whole bunch of burgers and hotdogs, along with the beans, etc, and continued our party. (Back in those days, it didn't take Ann as long to get a picnic together as it does today!!).

Our home was located in Broadview Subdivision on the west side of town. On a clear day we could look down the street and right into the Cascade Mountain range. We could look out our kitchen window and see Mt. Baker over 70 miles away, sticking up there like a big inverted ice cream cone. It was beautiful country and the temperature was always great. We had roses blooming in December, but it never got hot in the summer either. I think the highest I ever saw was 86, but if you got in the shade, it was cool. You needed a sweater or jacket when you went out at night, even in the summer. At that latitude, the sunset around 9:30 pm in the summer.

One event I must relate. OPENING DAY of Trout season in the Northwest is like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The season commences at 0001 April 1st and anyone who is anyone is out there, wetting their lines and lures. Well, this tale concerns OPENING DAY 1966. Special Services were swamped with requests for the few boats they had to check out for the opening of trout season, so they usually conducted a raffle in order to be fair. For the first time in my life I won something. I won the use of a boat on the opening day of trout season. We intended to fish in Deception Pass State Park, a small lake, but well stocked with trout. The boat we had was a small flat bottom skiff, with the capacity of about three adults.

I invited Bob (I think it was Bob?), and with Chuck along (he was a great Boy Scout), we packed all our camping equipment into our car and took off for Deception Pass. We set up the tent, laid out the sleeping bags in the tent, and built a huge camp fire. We had something for supper, don't remember what. I know several of the boys from the shop visited us, and sat around the roaring campfire with us, telling sea stories until it got time for some serious fishing. You might say that we killed time until midnight, when trout season opened.

At midnight, everyone there (must have been 500) launched their boats, (no motors allowed) and we all started fishing. The wind had been picking up for the last hour or so, but we paid it no mind. Up there, even in summer, when the wind blows, it gets cold, which I guess is natural since it is so far north. Because of being so far north, April Fool's day is still in the Winter season. So, with that wind picking up, it started getting cold. Chuck was in front of the boat, while we were in the rear fishing. After an hour or so, he told me his feet were getting cold and wet. I asked him where the water was coming from, and he said it was splashing over the bow. Sure enough, the wind was blowing the whitecaps into that little boat and the bottom was filling up with water. We started bailing with a can, and was able to control it, but our feet were getting colder and colder and wetter and wetter. Also, our little anchor wouldn't hold either, so we just gave it up and went back to shore and camp.

I was so cold that I never did get warm that night. I stayed up all night keeping the camp fire warm. That was the second coldest night I ever spent in camp. You might recall the other one up on Yosemite National Park in the same tent and sleeping bags. As soon as it got light, we struck camp and went home (five miles away). Ann greeted us and (being a smarty pants) wanted to cook trout for breakfast. We had pancakes!!! That was a cold, miserable experience that I wouldn't take a million for, but would never do again.

We often would go driftwood hunting. Most of the coastline of Puget Sound is littered with thousands of logs of all sizes, shapes and variety. You could find enough good logs to build a house in no time flat. When we had nothing else to do, we would beach-comb for exotic pieces and shapes of driftwood. We found one piece that we kept for 20 years before it finally deteriorated to the point that it was unusable. It was just the perfect shape to hold a board with our house number on it. We used it while there, in Panama, Alabama and Mississippi before it finally rotted away. I should have preserved it better in the later years, but I neglected it like lot's of other things.

Dieter and Gisela Pressler were our BEST neighbors on 375 Ave. West. They were German expatriates, who had migrated to the US after the war to make their way in our society. Dieter had gone to college at the University of Buffalo, and had relocated to Tacoma to teach school. Eventually, he got a job teaching German in Oak Harbor High School and moved to our street. After living next door to us for several months, they found a place to buy up near Deception Pass in a beautiful valley. In later years, at their request. we were happy to write letters of recommendation to the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) relative to the their becoming citizens of the USA, which they eventually did. After we moved to Mississippi, We were fortunate in having them as guests in our home again. It has always been our dream to be able to visit them again on Whidbey Island. Unfortunately, since then, they have become divorced of each other, but we still treasure the memories that are associated with them. One such occasion entailed camping on Baker Lake for several nights. We all camped together and had a very good time. Dieter and Gisela were very personable, and we miss the closeness of our friendship with them.

Another good neighbor, who lived in the same house after Deiter and Gisela moved, were Joyce and Bill Stanton. He was a P2V pilot (patrol plane). We became quite close to them also, but alas, as with too many of our friends, they either left the Navy or got transferred to another distant location. Bill left the Navy a few months prior to our departure and took a job flying for Pan American Airways. We last saw Joyce in Des Moines, Iowa as we were being transferred to Panama. After we got to Panama, Bill came buy one evening to visit us while he was laying over on a flight to Brasil. He was 3rd Officer at the time.

Other neighbors, who lived a couple of doors up, and with whom we were close, were Jim and Georgia Neil and their son, Drew. Jim was also a coin collector, and he introduced me to the Whidbey Island Coin Club, and several others in the area. Unfortunately, they were also divorced while we were living there and Georgia married a Lt. Schroller.

One of the things you have to learn if you are to make a career of serving your country, is that you have to make do with what you have. Many times you just don't have the money to buy low priority items, so you have to learn to make them of what you have, or do without.

Which brings me to FLINTSTONE'S GYM, a contraption I made in the back yard for the kids to play on. What it was a conglomeration of old wooden packing crates, sawed and nailed in crazy patterns to give the kids a combination hidey-house, climbing platform, and with part of an old discarded swing set, a brand new swing set with one side attached to the gym. It was the hit of the neighborhood. No other kids had one (probably their parents were glad) and our three oldest one's spent many hours during the summer on that thing. They still remember it fondly.  At the left is a satellite picture of our home and street in Oak Harbor...admittedly not a good satellite pix......but nevertheless......a picture.

Wayne's most fun came from playing in my flower beds and eating dirt. You had to watch that boy like a hawk when he was outside. If you didn't, soon you would see the tattle-tale markings of dirt around his mouth, and you'd know what he had been up to. None of our others kids ever exhibited that trait. But he was always a good boy,   and seldom ever cried. I guess he was having too much fun.

In the summer of 1966, we called Relle and Valaria Lyman, who had been our division officer and neighbor at NAS Cecil Field. He had also been my instructor while in I was a student in "A" school in Great Lakes. In the intervening years we had become very close friends. Anyway, we asked them to meet us half way and we would spend a week camping and renew auld acquaintances. At the time, he was stationed at Armed Forces Radio and Television Service in Hollywood. We agreed to meet at Hayden Flats campground in the Trinity National Forest west of Redding about 50 miles. We left home a week early, intending to camp in Crater Lake National Park and other places along the way. We headed south on I-5 to Portland, the turned east up the Columbia River to Hood River. We spent the night on a bluff in a state park overlooking the Columbia River. The next day, it started raining, as it so often does on the west side of the Cascades, so we broke camp in a downpour and headed south, across the eastern flank of Mt. Hood, and south towards Crater Lake. We stopped at Lava Butte, one of the many buttes in the area between Madras and Bend, and drove to the top. They are miniature volcanos, with a crater and all. There were many chipmunks running around on the rim and in the crater, which the kids had a ball chasing. We continued our journey south on US 97 till we got to Crater-Diamond Lake Junction, where we turned west to Crater Lake. Once in the park, we looked around and located a campsite at the Mazama campground. It was probably a 1000 feet lower in elevation than the campground by the visitor's center near the rim of the crater (I didn't want to freeze, I finally learned my lesson!). Anyway, we had a very nice camp, and we especially enjoyed the Ranger's tales around the huge campfire each evening. We always attended those.

Crater Lake is really something. Some facts not readily known by most people, (and probably most people don't care to know them either):

After some good times, lots of walking and sightseeing, we left and headed south toward Klamath Falls and California. We were headed down US 97 to Weed and thence on south to Redding and then west into the Trinity Mountains. We skirted the Trinity River to Big Bar and found Hayden Flats Forest Camp in the Trinity National Forest. Relle and Val showed up soon and we spent a week camping and playing in the river.

One thing happened there that made me sick. We had two little mixed breed (pekinese/chihuahua) dogs, brother/sister, Prince and Princess by name, that we had brought with us. We couldn't afford a dog watcher at home, so we brought them. Of course, we kept them on leash all the time, and the kids usually looked after them them. Shortly after arriving at the campsite, Ann told me she thought Princess had gone into heat. Not knowing too much about that, we decided to keep them separate. I didn't want them mating, so that night, I put Prince in our car, and we kept Princess in the tent with us, as we normally did. Prince was highly P.O.'ed at that. He showed it by alternating between periods of high pitched barking and silence. This continued all night long.

When I arose the next morning and went to let Prince out of the car for his morning stroll, I was horrified. What that little rascal had been doing during those periods he was quiet, was ripping the interior of my car apart. The overhead was in shreds. The door panels were in shreds. The ledge above the back seat was in shreds. What could I say???? That beautiful 1959 Ford Custom 300 was in tatters, and I could have cried. It was the best car we have ever owned, bar none, and I was just sick.

THE END OF AN ERA

Eventually all good things come to a end. When I made Senior CPO, that signaled an end to shore duty at NAS Whidbey,as they had no billet for a Senior Chief Electronics Technician. So after a few phone calls to ETCM Jack Ware in Washington at the Navy's Bureau of Naval Personnel (BUPERS), I was assigned to duty at the Naval Communications Station Balboa, in the Panama Canal Zone.

Right after Christmas 1966, we went over and talked to Lloyd Miller of Gearhart Ford in Mt. Vernon and traded our beautiful, tattered and still faithful '59 Ford Custom 300 for a brand new 1967 Ford LTD. It was to be the second worst new car we ever bought, not because of breakdowns, but because of a resonance in the drive train that cause an incessant vibratory noise when driving. Countless trips to Ford agencies in Washington, Ohio and Alabama never pinpointed the problem. They laid it on tires, etc. We took several short trips up into the mountains with it, getting it broke in for the trip home. It was a beautiful car with a powerful 390 cubic inch engine, and it would definitely get it.                                                                               

On 1 May 1967, we arose at 0540 to depart the best duty station to which we had ever been attached. We were staying at the Lone Oak Motel on Midway Ave, because our furniture had already been picked up We ate breakfast in a local restaurant and left at 0840 PDT for the east and south. Our first stop was to be in Akron to visit Dad. We headed south out of Oak Harbor and caught the ferry on the south end of Whidbey Island. It cost 2 bucks per car then. We sped westward over the Cascades and down to Mountain Home, ID where we spent the night at the Town Center Motel. It cost us all of $15.95 for the six of us. We had traveled 626 miles.

We left the motel at 0755 MDT and for the next 200 miles we averaged 77 miles per hour. The roads were long, straight and over the high desert. At 1540, we pulled into Little America, WY for gas and refreshments. During that stretch, we had to have three of our four headlamps replaced because of trucks throwing gravel at the Green River Construction area where lots of oil well rigs were being constructed. At 1925 hours we passed through Medicine Bow, WY where we stopped for food. We ate and after a bit of exercise, we took off to get a few more miles prior to stopping for the night. We ran into fog east of Cheyenne, and as we crossed into Nebraska, we were forced to tailgate a fast moving 18 wheeler in order to make any time. On reaching Kimball, Neb., we stopped for the night, after putting 818 miles on the speedometer.

We arose early and left Kimball at 0650 CDT and made several miles before we stopped for breakfast. We arrived in Des Moines, IA after an uneventful foray across Nebraska and Iowa and stopped off at the Holiday Inn($18.05) to visit Joyce Stanton. We traveled 773 miles our third day out. Joyce had been one of our best next door neighbors at Whidbey. Her husband had been a Patrol Bomber pilot, flying P2V's in Vietnam. He had takaen his discharge and was now in training with Pan-American Airways to gain a job flying one of their airliners. (We were to see him later in Panama on one of his runs to Rio). After a nice visit and overnight rest, we left at 0845 the next morning and made the 398 mile run into Akron on the evening of the 4th of May.

While in Akron, we visited for several days with Dad, and made plans for our journey.  While there we  had an air conditioner installed in our car to get it ready for duty in the hot, humid  Canal Zone. After spending five days visiting Dad, we had to say our goodbyes, and get it on. We departed the 9th at May at 0540 for the drive south to Cullman. We went south to Lexington and took the Blue Grass Parkway over to I-65 to avoid Louisville. We crossed into Tennessee at 1315 and raced south to cross into Ala. at 1540. It was exactly 10 hours from Akron, and we had come 667 miles for an average speed of 66.7 mph. We sped on to arrive at Cullman soon thereafter. We were tired, hungry, and sleepy. All, and I do mean all, transfers and vacations led through Akron, Cullman and Birmingham. We spent a good deal of our leave and travel with all the driving to and fro visiting our long distance family.