Tag: Navy

Did you know that:

Schoolchildren in the UK are now being taught that black people built Stonehenge and that the Roman Emperor Nero married a trans woman. He, Nero, was so happy with his choice that he lit a torch of enlightenment and we all know what happened next:

“Hey, does anyone know how to play this thing?” He was heard to say.

And….

Spring ahead at Stonehenge.

I did not know that. One can only laugh.

Hey, is Canada dead? Just asking, as Prime Minister Carney always dresses as if he is a mortician / undertaker.

Quote of the week:

“Women who are slightly overweight tend to live longer than the men who comment on it.”

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“Listen to me, young lad. Adapt, and don’t let them get you
down, or get to you emotionally, in your thoughts, and if you do
it right you will have fond memories of your and your mates’
experiences and a lot of laughs. But I’m sure it isn’t as bad as
when I went to school. That was day and night back then. No rest
for the wicked boys and girls, as they said. We was all orphans.”
He paused, as if to let that last comment sink in. Then he
turned, slightly, to blanket another part of the rink with water.
Silent! I followed him around.
“Orphans? In Ireland? Wow.” It seemed so far away, and too
much to sink in.
“Orphans, yes. I don’t remember my mother or my father.
Just the school, the orphanage, the nuns and priests. But I got out
of it. Ran away and joined the Navy.”
And as if sensing my next question. “I was fourteen.”
“Yup, Royal Navy, the Senior Service, as they say.” He
volunteered, “It was also harsh discipline thar, in the Navy, but I
thrived on it cause I was already used to the abuse… Aaaargh.”
He laughed out loud.
“But in the Navy they had free rein to kill ya if they so
choosed. For being out of line, AWOL, or desertion as they
called it. But again, my mates kept me sane and my wingers safe.
And justice? For the smallest infraction, there was shipboard
justice… before the mast, before the Captain… the Coxswain
would cry out in his loud and booming voice: ‘MARCH THE
GUILTY BASTARD IN!’ As I said, I loved it. Rum was dirt
cheap and the cigs even dirtier cheapier. Clean sheets and three
squared—if you liked kippers and hard tack that is. But
compared to the boarding school, and the Army, I thought I had
died and gone to heaven.”

He paused, while directing the water to another section of the
rink. The was a moment of dead silence except for the crackling
sound that the water made when in contact with the frozen
expanse of the ice. He then continued with his story.
“I came through the war unscathed though. Only once did
providence come to my side.”
“What’s providence?” I interrupted
“Providence is a sort of destiny’s luck,” he continued. “Like
something that happens to you in the present that makes no sense
at all except that it has an enormous impact on something in the
future.”
He looked at me whimsically, quizzically, probably knowing
full well that I didn’t have a clue of what he was getting at.
“Let me explain it this way. I was transferred to an oiler—
that’s a ship that refuels other ships at sea, like a floating,
moving gas station on water—and just before boarding that ship
to leave port and to go out to our war station at sea, I was called
back. Some sort of emergency at home. How could that be, I
thought? I had no home! So the ship sailed without me and
when I arrived back in the town where I had lived at the
boarding school, it turned out that I did indeed have a younger
sister who was quite sick, had been given last rights, and had
asked for me. Turns out she, like me, had also been given up and
had been sent to another boarding school, but in the next village.
Damnation, I thought. I had a sister. As it turned out, her school
was a front for the so-called Magdalene Laundry Houses—or
asylum. You wouldn’t know about those places, but there was
nothing asylum about them I can tell you that. They was an
affront for sure, those sweathouses. An affront to humanity
human kindness, compassion, empathy, everything civil and
just. The Irish nun’s laundry school from hell. And that’s all I’ll
say about that.”
He paused briefly, then continued.
“But, as unluckily as it was for her that this was, it was also
luckily for me because that oiler took a hit and being so full of
oil went up like a some heavenly torch, burnt the sky crimson, in
spectacular fashion it was with shades of reds and oranges and
yellows, before being doused to eternity’s sleep as she slipped,
stern first, into the sea, breaking up below the waves to the
bottom below but with one last glorious belch of sea salt from
old Neptune himself, or so they told me after. No one survived.”
He let that sink in for the moment. Then continued, “I
survived the war though death really hit home. I cried and I cried
and I cried. I don’t know why I cried so hard because I didn’t
really know anyone on that ship, thank God for that. And I didn’t
know my own sister either yet I cried so hard for her.” He made
the sign of the cross with a free hand.
“What happened to your sister?” I asked, politely.
“Died… a lung disease. But she really died from one of life’s
broken hearts, and broken promises. I never knew her but I think
I loved her. Funny that. Not knowing somebody but still loving
them, potentially I guess, unconditionally perhaps, for I never
knew, I never knew her. The ties that bind, I think. You understand
me, boy?”
“I think so,” I said. I didn’t.
“Good, ’cause I’m not sure if I do… understand myself or
my life, that is.”
Silence again. Much longer this time as the time was needed
to take in this account of his.
“You should be getting home,” he said as he turned again to
strike out at another area of the rink.
“Stay in school, and don’t let them penguins get to you. By
the by, what’s your name?”
“John,” I answered, awkwardly.
“Well, John. I am Desmond O’Brian. Des for short, but not
for long.” He guffawed. “You can call me sir.” He guffawed and
guffawed again. Then he was suddenly snorting, snorting then
coughing, coughing hard, a bronchial, nicotine-laced cough that
went deep into his own form, shook his entire physical being
relentlessly before dying down and out through his throat.
“Glad to make your acquaintance, John.” He choked again
and waved me off with one arm, coughing again.
I left, turned away toward my street, and off I went, carefully
as the ground was extremely icy.

Before I was out of sight I stopped, turned, and looked back
at the rink. I could see Mr O’Brian ever so faintly, or should I say
his silhouette, which really resembled a dark, lifeless shadow in
the stillness of this winter’s night. The stream of water continuing
to rise, then arc, then cascade out and down and out again in
a frost-like icy fog over the surface of the rink. Tomorrow that
ice surface would be an awesome shade of greyish blue, a
smooth virginal sheen of ice, as fragile as frozen glass, bordered
by the brilliance of clean white snow, until the inevitable cut and
crunch of the first set of cold steel blades hit its surface.

I never saw Mr O’Brian again.

In today’s world, that park is bereft of young boys and girls
playing. Sadly, it is deserted all year long. Its lifeblood is a
distant memory.

Taken from:

I Thought I’d Died and Gone To Heaven

An irreverent look at growing up in a parochial, conservative environment in pre-woke era Toronto of the 1950s and 60s.

Shakeyjay is out of sight, out of my mind and out of here.

Have a great day, or week, or month, maybe a year.