Playing Fair and Being Kind

ANGUS SMITH

My last tour of duty for the canoe club was in Long Island, New York at Sperry Gyroscope Company. The plant was in Great Neck. My passive-aggressive behavior coupled with my incorrigible streak kept the Navy fully entertained and wondering how to get rid of me. It was during this phase of my development that I ran into an old shipmate from my Sam Houston (SSBN 609) days.

The Sam Houston was built in Newport News, Virginia in the beginning of the 1960’s. Our first patrol commenced around October 1962. The Navigation Department consisted of six Electronics Technicians and four Quartermasters. Angus Smith was a Quartermaster. I recall he had tattoos on his wrists like fancy watch bands or bracelets. The colors were vivid green, blue, red, and black. I think Smitty was aboard for three patrols or so. We stood watches together on occasion and I admired his tattoos and commented on them once in a while. You have to remember we were submerged for months on end and conversations were almost automatic after a few weeks.

I don’t think I saw much of Smitty after 1962. The original crew of Sam Houston was thinning out and new men were reporting aboard. I left in 1965 after making six patrols. Fifteen years later, 1980, I was an old salt with twenty-three years’ service finishing up my career at Sperry in Long Island.

The job at Sperry was as a Technical Representative in the Special Projects Office Technical Representative division, SPOTR. My tour of duty would have been for three years but my attitude and view of Navy life had changed radically so it was shortened by a few years, thankfully. (I elected to retire earlier than I’d planned. I got out July 1980.)

I was doing some work involving responding to requests from the fleet of submarines at sea to approve or review their requests for variances in procedures or repairs of the navigation equipment in use at the time. I went to my desk in a cubicle to return a file to its location and noticed a gentleman sitting near my cubicle-mate Mike. Mike and he were discussing technical writing of repair manuals and the gentleman was unfamiliar to me. I pulled my chair up and tuned into the conversation as long as they were right there.

The gentleman was exchanging comments with Mike and I was only half listening but still I was giving this guy the once-over. I noticed his wrist had a faded tattoo encircling it. I looked closer. Green, blue, red, and black faded ink. His other wrist had the same colorful, but faded tattoo. I said to him, “Smitty?”. He turned full on to me and just stared at me. “Angus Smith?”, I added. He said, “Yeah?”. I said, “We stood watches together on the Sam Houston back in the sixties!” It was reunion time. Smitty finished his business with Mike and then we jawed for a good hour or so and laughed our way back and forth from fifteen years before to the present. Never saw him after that.

Smitty would pop up in my memories once in a while. It was mostly regarding those tattoos. This morning I saw him in my mind again and I wondered if he were still around. I spent a little time searching the internet but no luck. I thought about searching for his boss from those days long ago, Bob Folks. I found Bob’s phone number in Tennessee. I dialed his number (that’s a term no longer applicable) and we spent an hour talking about those days. He recalled Smitty and his tattoos right away. Bob’s had three heart surgeries and he’s still in good humor. We laughed a lot about our physical conditions and lack of mobility. Other names came up; Tom Owens, Captain Willis, Bill Usilton, Charlie Boehme, George Hubbard and a few more I can’t name right now.

I’m guessing this is how we survivors honor the rest. Talk well of them and laugh a lot, chuckle and smile with their youthful faces in our minds. What a fucking honor it is to be that enamored of those young men from all those years ago. The honor goes both directions too. Just so damned wonderful. I am so lucky, you know?

G. M. Goodwin
January 23, 2020