Playing Fair and Being Kind

HANGING WITH THE TROOPS

And Finding Treasure

On Friday morning, the 23^rd of January, I finished breakfast at a diner in Virginia Beach. While sitting in the parking lot I used my phone and their WiFi signal to work a reservation at Naval Air Station Norfolk. I booked a room for two nights just to have a place to crash and rest from the long haul from Boothbay to there. I was feeling the familiar exhaustion and mind set from an extended drive. I needed a couple of days to unwind and to feed myself and replace electrolytes.

Norfolk boasts the largest NEX in the world and of course I went right for it. I needed a few items to round out my wardrobe and also I needed to cruise the commissary for specials in the vegan category. I did a similar thing at Cherry Point, North Carolina at their MCX. At the MCX however I was surprised to discover a section of outdoor living equipment like no other I’ve seen on military exchanges. The Marine’s retail store section on items suitable for hiking and camping rivals any specialty store I’ve ever been in. The prices are better as well. I didn’t have a need to shop for anything at the time but when I get to the Southwest I am going to check out the MCXs at Yuma and Pendleton. In the meantime I enjoyed a few trips around Norfolk and I had a chance to visit Don Spratlin’s grave site at the National Cemetery in Hampton, Virginia.

One of my usual stopping points was erased when John P. Kennedy died last year in Newport News. I spoke on the phone with our mutual friend and John’s golfing partner Bill Schoenburg. I asked Bill if he was open for a visit and a possible couch surf event but his life was filled with family visiting so we chatted a bit and promised to visit next time around. The gang is getting thin. George Stratton passed last February and we lost Ben Adams in Albuquerque last month. I don’t expect things to slow down. C’est la vie.

I found a charming restaurant in Norfolk called “Handsome Biscuit”. If one wants one can find a vegan sandwich there however since I hadn’t yet run into my beautiful and powerful and persuasive vegan friend yet I will just say that I enjoyed a few other types of biscuit sandwiches. I recommend this eatery. If you are near Norfolk do stop in.

While I was ensconced at the Navy Lodge on the Air Station I contacted MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina. I needed a cheap place to stay for about 4 days while events and schedules aligned for visits in Georgia and Tennessee. Little did I know that I would find an old friend nearby Cherry Point in Beaufort (Boh-fort). There is a BOQ on the Marine Corp Air Station that is open for space available lodging for retired military. I lucked out and they booked me in for a 6 day period for $18 per night. That’s an outrageous deal anywhere. I believe it is the cheapest lodging in the country for my purposes. The room is typical. It’s furnished with a queen size bed, a TV, a microwave, a refrigerator, and a private bath. I’ll take that any day. The drive down from Norfolk to Cherry Point is pretty straight forward. I took U.S. Route 17 the whole way just about. I finished the trek on NC Route 101. Incidentally, Rt. 101 continues into Beaufort. That’s a 16 mile trip.

During my stay on the Marine base I am often in close proximity of marines and their activities. I notice my attitude and posture improve. Also, I use the word “fuck” a lot more. It comes naturally I think because that is how I respond to the presence of marines. There is a natural tension between marines and sailors. I have a ton of marine jokes as do they have a ton of sailor jokes. At the same time one should never ever come between a marine and a sailor. We will kick your ass. I also know that marines admire submarine sailors. Begrudgingly of course but just the same. I am impressed with marine grunts. They have one hell of a tough existence. We never say these things out loud. I love saying to a marine that I was in the fifth grade before I realized that “fucking marine” was two words. I don’t listen to their jokes.

Part of my reasoning for passing through this part of the country was the hope that I would be able to find Denny Breese, my old shipmate from the Sam Houston. We served together about 3 years and he was the most insane of all my pals. We pulled some outlandish stunts together while living in Hampton, Virginia 55 years previously. I will not describe those events and actions in order to protect the innocent and to prevent you from being embarrassed with me. We had fun but we could have been killed as well. I spent a few hours searching the internet for Denny and I found a few entries that were certainly about him. He had left the Navy after 10 years and gone into the lonesome business. He worked as a scuba diver, a saturation diver, and a treasure hunter all of the years since. He was a crew member of Aluminaut, a deep submersible constructed of aluminum and, oddly enough, built by the Reynolds Aluminum Company. The submersible was built to advance the properties of aluminum as a structural material. I don’t know how that project worked out but the submersible was only in service for ten years and then retired to a museum in Richmond, Virginia.

Denny was on board when the Aluminaut was used to search for and recover the unarmed A-bomb that was lost in an air collision of a B-52 bomber and a flying tanker during refueling over Spain in the 60s. Aluminaut worked with Alvin from WHOI to locate and ultimately recover the bomb. It was quite an adventure. Denny was in on quite a few adventures beginning when he was a young seaman serving on Nautilus, the Navy’s first nuclear powered submarine. While aboard Nautilus he made all three of the trips under the polar ice cap to find a way from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Tell me that wasn’t a nerve wracking series of events. Denny tells some wicked funny stories about the trip under the ice and also about the wonderful and zany receptions the crew got in Liverpool and in New York City after the final journey from west to east.

I made only one patrol out of Scotland with Denny on the Sam Houston. We got along well enough but there was always a sense of dissatisfaction hanging above him. He seemed out of place with the regular work environment but his knowledge of the equipment under our command was topnotch. Standing watches with Denny was rarely boring. His depth of experience and love of story telling kept the gloom at bay; time passed quickly and enjoyably.

I had often toyed with the idea of looking him up if I should ever pass close to his neighborhood in North Carolina. The usual trails through the state don’t go anywhere near the outer banks though. Any north-south routes pass through Raleigh-Durham or Rocky Mount or Winston-Salem. North-south travel in the coastal plains region is limited to U.S. Route 17. Denny’s ex told me that he had become more and more private and guarded. He’d been married 4 times and divorced an equal number of times. One more than me. His business dealings in the treasure hunting business were dicey and involved a great deal of subterfuge on all fronts. It appeared finding Denny in a way similar to who I knew in the 60s was going to be unlikely.

Denny lives in Beaufort on the inner banks and well off the beaten track. Part of the charm for me of this region is the flatness, the pines and palms intermingling, and the kudzu and Spanish moss overgrowing the whole place. The vegetation and the make up of the soil help to keep the landscape primitive and untamed. When I finally got around to searching out my old shipmate I faced the task of driving around in neighborhoods of this type. Private homes are small, grouped together into accidental communities centered usually near intersections of minor roads that rarely go anywhere. Much to my surprise a Google search revealed an address in Beaufort that seemed legitimate. A phone number I’d found earlier didn’t payout. The phone rang but never was answered and there was no machine to greet and record on the other end. This particular detail added to the mystery of who was my friend going to be when I found him.

I used my GPS to locate and track down the address. I found myself on a long straight two lane back road with a few houses displaying various collections of machinery and unusable items in the dooryards. You can imagine how low and lower my expectations were getting as I traversed this landscape of impoverishment. I was looking for “521” on the address. There it was. A black mail box on a post by the road next to a driveway. No doubt this was the place. The numerals were painted above a replica of a red and white dive flag. I immediately felt welcome. This was the place.

My joy was brief. The driveway was very narrow, dark, and completely overgrown with kudzu. The effect was unfriendly, almost hostile. I looked down the driveway. No house was visible. The drive turned to the left back about a hundred feet and only an imagination would be able to travel further. I wasn’t sure just what I would uncover if I traveled down the lane. I pulled into the narrow space permitted by the vegetation and slowly crept along the track. I noticed that the ground was hollowed and puddled in a few places and I cautiously continued along, avoiding the deepest parts of the ruts. My imagination was locked into high function. When I got deeper into the property it got worse. There at the turn was an outbuilding once a garage and an old car parked close to it. As I made the turn more was revealed and it wasn’t pretty. The road widened into a sort of parking lot and now visible were several more outbuildings and a house trailer that couldn’t possibly house any humans. Various pieces of diving and boat equipment littered the ground and I noticed a boat big enough for diving operations up on boat stands beyond the litter. If I were searching for Iron John I imagine this would be pay dirt.

I sat in the car for about a minute waiting for any sign of life. None. I had my window lowered so I could listen. No one and no thing moved or made any sound. It was quiet. Cripes…what a shit hole this was. If this was Denny’s house then he was indeed in need of privacy. There was nothing about the yard or the house trailer on the outside that made me want to see the inside. I got out of the car and checked the ground around to see if it would be safe to turn and leave the way I came in. Which I did.

I drove into Beaufort to check out the rest of the town and I was left deflated. The part of town that was visible from 101 and 17 was depressing. I got a breakfast at a 5 star (according to local standards) diner and over a plate of scrambled eggs and rye toast I decided to return and leave a phone number in the mailbox by the road where I could be reached. If Denny existed he could give me a call and I would then consider the case closed either way.

When I returned to the property I drove in more emboldened and there were two young men loading some equipment from the various piles of stuff into two cars parked where I’d been earlier. I stepped out and asked them if Denny was around. They looked at me with suspicious eyes and one of them said that Denny was in his trailer and nodded toward the previously mentioned dwelling. The windows were covered both inside and out and the approach was kind of makeshift; a series of boards and stones to get past the damp ground. I picked my way to the door and gave it a sturdy knock with my knuckles and I sensed my body was tense. A few second passed and then I heard movement. I tried to look casual and in charge with my hands planted loosely on my hips, sort of teenage style. I could see a shape move toward the door and it opened with a house trailer kind of noise and there was Denny.

He was dressed in black long underwear and sandals and I recognized very little except the shape of his head and his eyes.

I said, “Hi, Denny.”

A smile spread across his face very slowly. His large head with very short thinning hair was lowered to peer at me through the narrow doorway. He recognized me immediately. I felt better immediately. It was Denny alright and he looked good.

“Well for crying out loud! Come on in. Can I get you a cup of coffee? Here have a seat. Let me move that stuff out of the way. It’s just junk. Don’t worry about it just sit right there. How the heck have you been? You want a cup of coffee?”

I moved gently into the space he indicated and sat on the edge of the seat at the table that converts to a bed if needed. It was covered with papers and books and an ashtray and a cup with nothing in it. I muttered a few classic idioms and greetings and throw away lines and we began the process of checking each other out without appearing to.

Well, this story is growing longer than I intended but that is how many of my meetings with new friends from the social networks and older friends from days gone by begin. In just a few minutes we were jabbering nonstop and soon after we were chuckling and laughing. Not about any one thing. I could sense that there was no distance and no space left in that old shitbox trailer for us to span. Denny Breese and I were back more than 50 years younger but also more than 50 years wiser. The respect for our individual journeys showed in our dialog and we had a wonderful time sitting and sharing paths crossed and taken. We both had found adventures in deep submersibles and we had both stayed tied to the sea. I had remained in the Navy as a career while he had turned to civilian ocean going pursuits.

For the remainder of my stay in North Carolina we met daily for a few hours and a few projects. I was able to help Denny mule haul a few items around. It was fun to talk as well as demonstrate skills we had gained over time. My initial impression of his abode faded in a short space of time and as his story unfolded pieces fell into place. Denny had been married four times, as I said, once to a movie actress on a film he’d been hired to consult for diving concerns. His live was as colorful and filled with risks and failures as was mine. What a pair of joyful losers we are. Losers but joyful.

Denny still has a number of irons in the fire for sunken treasure. His description of these projects sound intriguing as well as over the edge. I don’t envy him but I certainly appreciate what he brings to this earth and to its inhabitants. 4 days with this guy was plenty. We are intending to stay involved and he has shared some information with me that will give us plenty to work on. I am glad I crept through the kudzu. We parted company with a great hug and I kissed Denny on his balding head. Funny thing. His head hasn’t gotten any more bald since I first ever met him.

My trip to North Carolina was fruitful and my life is better for it. Now I’m off to South Carolina a few days earlier than expected. A nice feature of my travel is no expectations. There are a few people in the low country with whom I have a loose connection. I intend to go to Charleston but I have made reservations at a place I loved to visit back when I lived in the area. I am going to use a one room cabin by Lake Moultrie just north of Charleston. I also intend to eat a more healthy diet and walk more. The weather ought to be warmer in the low country region and I look forward to seeing it again. The SAAB is approaching the interval for an oil change. I call ahead to Summerville and speak with a mechanic.