Fools Gold (3)

Like the story of the boat saving the downed crew of the the B-52 in the hurricane, a story that someone later published in Readers Digest, there were other stories. A new person on a submarine gets filled in on the legends of the boat. Some are recent, such as somebody emerging naked from a restroom in a foreign liberty port with toilet paper trailing from their butt only to have a shipmate set fire to it with a zippo lighter. Others went back decades such as the emblem for the train on the boat's WW II battle flag and the story of the Barb sinking the Karafuto Express. There was another more recent story.

One night, the topside watch stood alone on a seemingly endless night. A head popped up through the hatch, and a body of a shipmate followed. The shipmate told the topside watch that he was wanted below, and that he would relieve him. The watchstander handed over the belt with the .45 calibre Colt, and went below to see what the story was. There was no story, below. Puzzled, he returned topside to discover that his "relief" had used the .45 to commit suicide. It was soon learned that he had just received a "Dear John" letter from his wife.

Such events are not pleasant and especially so for a tight-knit crew. Moreover, there is, as you can imagine, an investigation and a lot of paperwork for such a casualty. In the aftermath, everyone was admonished over and over to watch out for their shipmates and to try to notice any changes in disposition that could alert them to such feelings.

Jerry had heard these stories. So had his chief. His chief had been there during the event and the ensuing investigation and was perhaps a bit more impressed with the instructions. So it was that one day in the radio shack when Jerry opened a letter and upon reading it screamed and dropped it that the chief radioman, Chief Bendy, a young black man who had dreamed of being a professional basebal player, was on it in a second, to see just what in this letter had caused that reaction.

His eyes widened at what he saw. An adding machine tape stappled to the Credit Union's statement added up his accounts and printed out the amount: $1,101,415.36.

"Jerry," the chief looked at him and exclaimed, "you're a millionaire!"

Before Jerry could collect his thoughts the chief was out of the radio shack to spread the word.

It was months before the mistake was straightened out.

Meanwhile, there were people who had sought small loan amounts, in recent days, that he had turned down, who quickly put him on their shit-list. There were others from whom he had borrowed ten or twenty dollars while on liberty who were also asking, "What the fuck, Jerry."

Even if he were a millionaire, he realized quickly it was not all a blessing.

While he was sure that it was a mistake, he dragged his feet at confronting the credit union. It was a nice fantasy, after all, a dream from which he did not wish to awaken soon. And so, in the minds of some, it was still presumed, even decades later that he was a millionaire who had decided to go to sea in submarines.

Fools Gold (2)

Somehow he never doubted that his ship would come in, someday. But he never stopped working to find a way to earn the next dollar in the meantime.

Prayers worked in the hay fields, when it was hot. The prayer for a breath of a cool breeze brought one. Sometimes a rain dance brought clouds then rain. Too much dancing sometimes brought too much rain. So much so that the tight-lipped, serious foreman--old Jack Irving--said, "We got to get this hay in. No more dancing."

First month on a nuclear fast attack submarine--just trying to learn the job and feeling overwhelmed--did what he was told. When the chief of the boat told him to, "Read the SSORM," he did. He sat down and at the end of the afternoon had it pretty much committed to memory, before replacing in its slot between the diner-like seats of the crew's mess.

The SSORM was the Standard Ships Organization and Regulations Manual. It was the boat's bible and described who did what when.

The next morning, when alarms went off, he didn't stop to wonder if it was a drill. The book had described what should happen in any event. He was programmed.

"Intruders in the torpedo room."

He knew the *could* have nuclear warheads, nobody had filled him otherwise. In a moment, he was down in the torpedo room, had the attacker in a full nelson, and was banging the offender's head against a torpedo. Looking up he saw an officer, wide-eyed, with a card hanging from a breast pocket saying, "Observer."

It was the boat's second in command who asked, "Who are you?"

"I'm the security response team," he had replied, quoting the SSORM.

The XO had perhaps not read that part of the manual himself, had no idea who this was never having seen him before, and wondered perhaps whether word of the drill might not have gotten to the base where they were tied up.

Thus he made the acquaintance of the XO, the torpedo gang-including Chief Torpedoman Hentz who had been a true hero swimming through a hurricane to save a downed B-52 crew--and a (now) slightly bruised Weapons Officer, Mr. Ritchie.

The XO's report described Jerry as the single casualty of the drill. It seemed unfair, but there was enough embarrassment to go around nobody wanted to discuss it further. So, he had been through the drill of getting killed on a submarine. A short time later he went through another drill to find out what it was like to be a millionaire.

Fools Gold (1)

He never expected to actually win the lottery. He seldom even bought tickets, thinking of the old folks on fixed income who seemed to do so with such need. He wasn't one of them. How depressing that those folks had so few hopes left. When he did buy the tickets, he did so with a sense of guilt. Life had presented him with so much in the way of good fortune, already; buying a lottery ticket was like looking a gift horse in the mouth.

If you bought one, then could you resist the little prayer, "Please God, let me win?"

"What a sorry thing to pray for," he figured. "You've already won the biggest lottery in the Universe, just being alive. On top of that you were born human. You were born in the U.S. of A, too -- richest country in the world. Yet you've lived in places where a man could piss in his own backyard whenever he wanted to. You may live in a city, now, but you've seen country life, and you'll see it again... no doubt."

"You've lived dangerously all your life: farming, drinking, whoring, doing the whole Vietnam thing, then the Navy and submarines. You've dirt bike raced and survived a broken neck. You scuba-dived where there were sharks, survived flooding casualties on a submarine, jumped out of an airplane many times and once out of one that later crashed with twelve good people aboard--several of them you know were more righteous than yourself. Then there have been truck accidents, biking accidents, and near misses aplenty. Even when you've merely been low on gas, and prayed for a way out in the middle of nowhere, help was provided... more than once. Sometimes, even without praying, your guardian angels were there"

To waste a prayer for wealth was to tempt God into never answering prayers again.

"Lord," the angels might say, "Jerry is praying to you."

And the almighty might answer, "Don't worry, he's probably just just asking for money again.

But on a deeper level Jerry knew better. God was never distracted from anyone in need and could easily forgive even the occasional wrong-headed prayer. The reason God didn't see to it that he won the lottery had to do with God knowing what he needed more than what millions of dollars could buy, and it had to do with the whole free-will thing. Happiness wouldn't depend upon choices people made if they could game God, and maybe happiness was all about how we decide to live when decisions aren't easy. Besides, in leau of winning the lottery, Jerry could talk to God.

Maybe it wasn't God at work, then. The instant he learned that the computer-picked numbers were winners, he wondered whether it was a curse.

"Maybe I should give this all to charity," he was his first thought. The fear of evil at work prevented him from feeling any pleasure at all... at first.

Is this why...

...there are always crickets in my shower in the morning?

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7927