by Dorien Grey
Mrs. Anderson was changing clothes to go to a reception for the President of Lebanon—George had gone back to the USO for the package, which he’d forgotten. Mr. Anderson came in, told me to make myself comfortable, and that they would be back around six. Juliette brought me a Pepsi, and I listened to the radio till George came.
Pat came in a moment later and George and I decided to unpack the clock and put it together before Mr. and Mrs. Anderson got back. That provided an amusing half hour while we tried to get the thing together and running.
Mrs. Anderson had invited one of Pat’s girlfriends and her brother to supper with us. The girl—her name is Sharon, and that’s all I recall—came up immediately—we all talked and ate candy(Delicious) Pat ordered from the store downstairs.
When Mr. and Mrs. Anderson came home, the clock was sitting on an end table, working quite well. Mrs. A was very surprised and pleased, as was Mr. A. He in turn gave both George and me two packets of rare seeds from the Cedars of Lebanon. There are only about five hundred of these trees left in the country—there are rigid laws on exporting or importing any seeds or saplings of these trees. The only reason Mr. A. had any was because he works in forestry. I’ll bring them home with me—I don’t dare mail them. And we will start raising little Cedars of Lebanon in our back yard. Of course, they take 3,000 years to grow, at which time they are 80 feet tall and the second largest trees in the world, next to our own redwoods—they look like this
Sharon’s brother John came up (they live in the same building). He’d been out to the ship that afternoon and had an exciting time trying to smuggle four cartons of cigarettes ashore. Since possession of more than two packs is punishable by a nice long jail sentence by the Lebanese government, he was not too anxious to get caught. He’d had them shoved up his shirtsleeves and in his belt—anywhere and everywhere. Waiting to leave the ship, he stood in front of two customs officials—naturally, two packs had to fall down his pant leg and onto the deck. Fortunately, he got in a different boat than they, and was long gone by the time they got ashore.
Mr. Anderson broke out two bottles of champagne and took pictures of us all opening them. We really had a wonderful time.
Supper consisted of tons of spaghetti, an excellent chopped Lebanese salad, two kinds of pie, and other side dishes. I was completely bloated. After supper we all went to the USO (except John, who wasn’t allowed)—it was the Point-Four night to be hosts, and the Andersons and Sharon all had to be there.
We talked and Mrs. Anderson dragged me out to do the Polka, which I haven’t done in years. At about ten thirty, they began removing all the ships’ flags hanging around the room, and left only the Lebanese and American.
Dick Hagenbach had joined us by this time, and you know the rest of the tale.
I really hated to say goodbye to the Andersons—they did more to boost my morale than anything in the world—aside from going home—could have done. Maybe, someday….
Love
Roge
19 March 1956
Dear Folks
A mail call today—in fact, two of them; first one for days. I got the St. Pat’s card, the one from Stormy, and three letters from you (which were as always very welcome).
Dad asked about whether we would join the Sixth Fleet. Father, we are the Sixth Fleet—us, the Lake Champlain (she’s returning to the States this month), and fifteen tin cans. The only really trouble spot we’ll be hitting is Algiers, and we might not even go there, if it gets too bad.
I hope, for the Andersons’ sake, there is no Arab-Israeli war; we haven’t a single battalion over there to protect them.
The last two days at sea have been weird ones—the sea like glass with a silver-grey haze blending sea and sky. Yesterday was beautiful in its “difference”—today was more drab.
A tour is leaving from San Remo to Venice and Milan—four days for only $49.00. Unfortunately, I just can’t afford it, so will go on a one-day Riviera tour. By the time I get home, I shall have traveled both the French and Italian Rivieras from Cannes to Genoa.
Our schedule, unless something unforeseen happens (such as going to war—unlikely—or the bottom of the ship falling out—probably), will be almost exactly as you have it.
Received two rolls of film from Rome and an entry blank to NISC. The film came out excellently. I was a little disappointed to find Northern only offers a minor in Journalism. Oh, well….
Tonight’s movie offering was that all-time classic “Fireman, Save My Child” with Spike Jones. I forced myself to stay away. When I get back to the States, I plan to take every weekend off—Friday nights will be spent at the movies, Saturdays shopping for clothes and at the movies, and Sunday getting my pilot’s license, and going to the movies.
Tomorrow is Tuesday already—Hooray! As of today I have only 146 more days to go.
Let’s see—it’s nine o’clock—have I time to tell you of my last day in Rome? Well, I can try—briefly.
I slept through breakfast and hated to get up for the tour at nine. We went first to the Vatican museum, and the Sistine Chapel. The museum itself is vast, ranging from the modern, pleasantly blended colors in some of the rooms of statuary to the gaudy and over-elaborate Library, whose books are securely locked in cabinets and whose every possible surface is covered with paintings—on the wood, wall, ceilings, and supporting pillars. It would take years to see it all in detail.
In a different section of the museum are the large paintings by Raphael (done when he was between 15 and 18 years old) and other famous painters. And then, into the world-famous Sistine Chapel. Built by Pope Sixtus IV, it is here that the Holy See meets to elect new Popes.
Michaelangelo was contracted to paint a mural on the back wall of the long, high, rectangular room. This he did in two years or so—depicting Judgment Day (I have a feeling I’ve written all this before—but I’ll do it again, for practice). The wall is about fifty feet square, broken only by a single door in the lower right hand corner. Before this wall stands the main altar. In the center of the wall is God, hand raised in passing judgment. He looks young, beautifully muscled. To his right stands Mary, unable now to intercede for the sinners, and about Him stand the Disciples, all with looks of awe and fear. Above Him are the Angels, hovering among clouds. Below is Earth—to the left, a graveyard with the souls and skeletons leaving the graves and ascending into Heaven, amid Angels and cherubs. To the left, Charon (a black, featureless form) rows the dead across into hell.
When he painted them, he made them all completely nude, figuring that no one would have time or need for clothing on Judgment Day. However, even in Michelangelo’s time there were prudes. One critic complained so loudly that Michelangelo was told that the figures would have to be clothed or the entire wall cleaned and begun again. Michelangelo became rightfully fed up and went back home. One of his pupils, trying to save the day, laboriously painted flowing bands of cloth over everybody, including God, which seemed a little presumptuous of him. Michelangelo was finally coaxed back, and when he saw what had happened, he because so furious with the critic that he painted him, naked except for a large snake wrapped around the appropriate places, and with the ears of a jackass, leading the condemned into hell.
The critic rushed at once directly to the Pope, insisting Michelangelo be punished or at least repaint the portrait. The Pope informed him that he was very sorry, but that he had no power whatever over hell.
And there he stands today, over the door in the lower right-hand corner, jackass ears and snake and all, glancing over his right shoulder and leading the souls into Hell….
Yes, I’m sure now I told you all this before. Just in case I haven’t, tell me and I’ll continue. If I have, accept my apologies.
Almost Taps, so I’ll close for now.
Love
Roge
20 March 1956
145 B.D.
Dear Folks
I’ll start this letter, but know it will be a short one, for any minut
e now Cou will come roaring in the door and we shall all begin running around like something out a Max Sennett (spelling) chase scene. Tomorrow, one hundred and sixty-eight tons of food will pass from one ship to another—the Ti on the receiving end, for a change. I’ll have to get up at 0500 for the occasion, though I’d as soon stay in bed. We are, supposedly, operating with NATO forces in some sort of exercise, though I haven’t seen a single ship other than ourselves. It has suddenly become 2030 (8:30 p.m.) and I’m still waiting for something to do. No doubt the fun will start around 9:00, and the festivities will stretch far into the night. I may not even bother going to bed tonite—who knows. Just sitting here, picking my nose (a nasty but necessary habit if I wish to breathe), wondering what to say next. Something will probably come up. Daydreaming of coming home again. Neither of you are home from work yet—I unload the car, play with Stormy, and spread all my gear all over the living room, like one of those shops over here. I’m still debating on whether to send my film home or not. I have a dread fear of them being lost in the mail. Yet if I send them to you, it will be like you were there, too—God knows I’ve got to do something with them—I’ve got 15 rolls now. Oh, well…. If, when we get to either Valencia or Barcelona, they have a tour to Madrid, I’m going to take it. I regret not having much money saved, but can you blame me? Sure wish I had enough to go to Venice! Took a little time off this evening, earlier, to read some more poetry. I really enjoy some of it—Omar Khayam’s translations and Robert Browning especially. These guys make me feel terribly inferior—I just don’t have the “word power.” Oh, I’ve got it all right—you ask me what a word means and two times out of five I’ll give the right definition, but putting it on the other hand—when I know a definition I’ll be damned if I can think of the word I want. My cold, if not a topic of interest at least one to fill up space until something more intelligent shows up, is still with me. The scene on the Throat front finds the cold moved down to where my neck branches out and becomes my shoulders. Here it is apparently making a last-ditch stand, with the result that every time I swallow, I have the uncomfortable feeling of something being wedged there. There is also a sensitive spot directly above it so that every time I breathe it tickles and I am forced to cough. I tried solving this by not breathing (read in this morning’s “paper” that a guy held his breath for 10 minutes and some seconds. It must have been a lovely funeral), but it didn’t work—which just goes to show what habit will do to you. Oh, yes—the ship has affected “water hours”—water is turned on only during certain hours. We’ve been gone from home now for almost five months, and never had to worry about it before. But suddenly everybody “has been exorbitantly wasting water” and they slammed it into effect. Of course, it has nothing to do with the fact that some knucklehead allowed salt water to get into two of our fresh water storage tanks (mentioned it when we were in Beirut). Just think—after tomorrow we’ll have some food on board! Real American-type food. Which reminds me…. It’s now twenty till ten and still nothing. Now I’m sure I’ll be up all night. Well, back to poetry. More tomorrow. Love Roge
21 March 1956
Dear Folks
Every night about this time the Chief and I go through a little office ritual I call “the battle of the pen.” There are numerous pens in the office, but most of them don’t work—and of the ones that do, the Chief has a favorite. Since it writes a little heavier, I use it too. Do you think he would use any other pen? No, he would not. Reminds me of our seating arrangements at the table at home. I used to get so irritated by father’s insistence that we sit in the same place, night after night. I remember one night when I beat him to the supper table and moved my glass over to “his” spot. We both nearly had fits—dad insisting I move and me not being able to understand why he had to sit in that exact spot! Ah, what fun.
Up at 0510 this morning, much to my regret. Replenishment went off exceedingly well; we loaded 168 tons in just two hours.
Read some more poetry this evening—I am now 1083 pages deep into it. I’ve come to the conclusion that I like poetry very much—IF it rhymes or has a rhythm, and if it comes out and tells what it wants to, and is not so distorted or loftily symbolic that it takes a slide rule to figure it out. The modern poets (I’m up to Robert Frost) seem to ramble too much, or try so hard to make it crash and bang that it wears you out before you’re halfway through. From tonight’s reading, I especially like an excerpt from George Santayana—
For some are born to be beatified
By anguish, and by grievous penance done;
And some, to furnish forth the age’s pride,
And to be praised of men beneath the sun.
And some are born to stand perplexed aside
From so much sorrow—of whom I am one.
I like it all except for the “sorrow” part—I’d substitute “confusion,” if it would fit the metrical scheme, in which I am not the least bit interested.
I’ve been thinking, lately, about becoming a teacher. Oh, not of sniffly-nosed little fourth-graders, but of High School or college. Why, I don’t know—maybe because that is about the only way I can talk for hours without interruption. Yet, somehow, I have a dread of it. Of course, I have no doubt I’d be kicked out of a school as fast as I got in, and labeled anything from “extremely liberal” to “downright fanatic.” I would, no doubt, be what my students label a “character.” There’s something fatalistic about the whole idea. But if, as I hope, I am to become a free-lance writer, what am I to do for eating money? Oh, well, I’ll cross those bridges when I come to them.
144 days left. Oh, how tired you must be, listening to me slowly tick off the days like an old clock. The days past are nothing—garbled memories stacked, with more pattern than I realize, in the front of my brain. But the days ahead—one tomorrow is farther away than a thousand yesterdays.
Tell me—do you think I’ll ever be a writer? Or do my thoughts run onto the paper like dead may-flies on a bridge. While I’m thinking these thoughts, they’re alive—I hear myself thinking, speaking the words very distinctly in a voice of silence. But once they hit the paper, they are as dead and meaningless as yesterday.
Why do people ask opinions when they will only be willing to accept one answer? Still, what do I expect you to say? You are too busy living your own lives and thinking your own thoughts (not just you—everybody) to bother with mine.
And yet, if I could just effect a “breakthrough”; if people said “Why, that’s exactly the same way I feel (or think),” then we could all unlock our minds—not to let our secrets out, but to let the fresh air in.
I find it almost impossible not to “do unto others what you would have done unto you.” That isn’t particularly conducive to success in this “survival of the fittest” world.
Maybe I should teach philosophy? Heavens, no! I’d have everyone in the madhouse.
Oh, well….
Love
Roge
22 March 1956
Dear Folks
Having eaten just enough shoe-string potatoes to make me never want to see one again, it now comes time to sit down and write today’s entry into the “journal,” while my stomach decides whether it wishes to be uncomfortable or not.
A mail call today helped brighten the entire week, even if there was only one letter; plus one from Lief.
Life on the bounding main may have been exceedingly attractive and adventurous at one time, and offered innumerable journalistic possibilities, such as storms at sea, dissension and mutiny among the crew, pirates, scurvy, and sadistic captains. But today, roaming the innards of a 43,000 ton whale, things are different. Storms? We have them occasionally, at which time they are fascinating. But an aircraft carrier lacks some of the cork-like qualities of wooden ship. Dissension? Lot of it, but hardly the type wherein the crew cares to mutiny—and if it did, where could one hide an aircraft carrier? Scurvy? The Chief has a fit if we have less than half a ton of lettuce on board.
Onward and onward and onward. Tomo
rrow San Remo, Italy. According to reports, it can’t be too much—its main industry being the cultivation of flowers. In a way, that is good—that way perhaps some of us can save money. Being located almost exactly between Nice and Genoa, the “girls” of both cities will no doubt drop over, to renew old friendships and make new ones.
For some of the men on this cruise, their tours of Europe have been limited to the distance between Fleet Landing and the nearest bar.
After reading mother’s letter, I have decided 1) not to live “off campus” and 2) not be a school teacher.
It is now nine-fifteen. The office is unusually still, with only the sounds of the ship (soft hums and purrs and the tingling vibration). Around me, two chairs by Mr. Clower’s desk—in “railroad” fashion—on the first the book of poetry, open to page 1185 and beneath it a dictionary. The telephone, with its hook on backwards (no wonder it’s been so quiet). On the desks, two stained coffee cups, several ashtrays with the mangled bodies of cigarettes—many, many papers, all scattered about, very un-military; one pair of shoes in Coutre’s basket (under “Incoming”); one glass of pencil stubs of varying sizes and sharpness); and one can of “Betty Lou Shoestring Potatoes”—oogh!
Tomorrow is also Friday—field day—when the office will be cleaned and scrubbed so that no one will come in and look at it, anyway. Well, it needs cleaning. This will be the first time in three weeks.
Now, with your kind permission, it is time to close.
Love
Roge
P.S. Did you notice, not a single “first person” (excluding three “me“s).
23 March 1956
Dear Folks
Arrived today at San Remo, Italy, where the clouds lay like thick grey wool, cutting off the tops of mountains. The sea is very green, and the city itself quite small—scattered along the shore like sown seed.