A World Ago

by Dorien Grey

  I’m sure it wasn’t the negligible quantity of alcohol that brought it all on—I haven’t been feeling too well in the stomach department for about two days.

  When I was not surrounded by clamors for liberty cards, I was directing shipping for the entire port of Genoa. All in all it was a strenuous night.

  Oh, yes, at about five thirty, JL (he has no name, just initials) woke the compartment strumming on a guitar and singing: “It’s reveille, you all.”

  Just got back from a quick breath of fresh air. We are now underway from Genoa as of ten minutes ago, so we haven’t gone very far. I thought I’d go up and take on last look at it. It isn’t a very nice day—not raining or anything, but the whole sky and sea (and Genoa, which hasn’t gotten out of bed yet) are a stodgy grey, and the wind imported from a Scottish castle.

  Somehow I was tricked into getting out of bed at 0600, but didn’t know it until I got down to the office and began wondering where everybody was. Once I’m asleep, there is nothing I like better than to stay asleep. Today we start 72 straight hours of Fleet Exercises, which means GQ at any and all hours of the day and night. Oh, such fun.

  With a pleasant surprise, I noticed that today my calendar says there are only 48 days between now and 12 August. Isn’t that nice?

  {LATER (MUCH)} Do you know what the name of the movie for tonite is? No, not “Birth of a Nation,” but you’re close—it’s “Naughty Marietta” with Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald! I think the Navy should have a new motto to replace “Join the Navy and See the World;” we’ll call it “Join the Navy and See All the Movies You’re Far Too Young to Remember.” Actually, I guess I wasn’t “far too young”—I may have been a devil-may-care rogue of six months when I sat through it the first time.

  I’ve been reading some more of Robert Benchley. I think he’s influenced me—that is, I hope he’s influenced me. Just think, he was funny day after day, and always found something humorous—even if it was only a blackbird doing a pratfall (which doesn’t strike me as being particularly amusing—but then I don’t have a daily column in the “World.”).

  Mail call today bought forth two letters from you, in which Father mentioned the fact that Father’s Day had come and gone with no word from yours truly. Again I say I’m sorry, but you are not forgotten, and I’ll make up for it next Father’s day.

  {STILL LATER} Now why should I criticize the Navy’s choice of movies? Every now and then they come up with one like “Camille” or “Rasputin and the Empress” or “Naughty Marietta” which are excellent or, at least, very enjoyable. It’s amazing how well movies got on before the advent of Technicolor, Wide Screen and Stereophonic sound.

  Perhaps the shortest, and by far the most fascinating conversation of the day took place this evening between Andy and myself:

  “Did you know,” asked Andy, “that I can crack a walnut with my big toe?”

  “No, I did not,” I said, expectantly.

  “Well, I can.”

  And so to bed.

  Love

  Roge

  26 June 1956

  Dear Folks

  Now that’s an original beginning. I’ve been sitting here for three minutes, staring at it and wondering what was going to come next. I still am.

  I suppose I could tell you what we had for supper (stew, and not very good), or go from there into a brief resume of the week’s menu, but somehow I doubt that it would hold your interest—or mine—very long.

  My admiration for Benchley grows by leaps and bounds. He shares with other writers that ability which I covet and lack; to ramble on at great lengths about almost anything. In the case of the first person singular, it is an impossibility; had I been designated to write “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” it would have been about three pages—and then only by using short paragraphs.

  My mind is rather like the little ball in a pinball machine, bounding from one thing to another and remaining on none of them long enough to do much good.

  In line with the idea-duration in the physical makeup of my sentences, most authors write so fluently that the reader is scarcely aware when one sentence ends and another begins. With me there is no doubt; they are as conducive to smooth reading as a brisk gallop over a stone quarry.

  Just went out and bought a box of candy bars, which I will regret, even though they don’t last long. Since I had to get up from this letter to do it, I bawled myself out for running away just because there was “nothing to say.” It is wonderful the lengths to which I will go to avoid work. It is so much simpler, when stymied, to say: “Well, I’ll do it later” and go off to something more pleasant and less exacting. By sheer will power (badly underdeveloped), I dragged myself back.

  No one ever “forgets” anything. Just by sitting here concentrating, all sorts of things come back—First grade in Loves Park; the long white building with the porches onto the play-yard. Miss Johnson, my teacher, about whom I remember very little except that she lived in a big frame house on a corner, which had been there when most of the rest of the town was its farm. The little colored boy whose mother died of a heart attack trying to chase him out from beneath a bed, where he’d hid to avoid a spanking. David Wrena—poor, ugly David, whose parents wouldn’t allow him to say the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag—and this in the thunderstorm first days of the war. We used to sit in his unfinished basement and build sand houses until his father (E-ville Personified) came and chased us off. What an unhappy life he must have had.

  One thing, no matter how I may have turned out, I’m glad I had you for parents. Several things could have been arranged so that the end result came out differently, but it’s too late for that now.

  Then there was the time I fell backwards off the outhouse roof and was saved from a broken neck by being caught on a nail halfway down. Of course, I stayed there, upside down, yelling like mad until Mother came out and picked me off like an overripe banana (they grow upside down, don’t they?).

  The”185” stamped on the side was put there by Andy, who has been playing with a numbering machine. He tells me a number, clicks it furiously, and then asks me what number he’s on now.

  They’re having a tour to Paris, and I must say I’m tempted. But $69 will buy a few clothes, which I’ll need pretty badly. And besides, there’s always that “maybe they’ll send you home” possibility.

  Latest rumor is that now something has happened to the Intrepid and that when the Randolph arrives, she will relieve the Intrepid instead of us! One more extension, and I’m afraid this crew has “had the course.”

  We are now into our third extension (from 23 May to 17 June to 27 June to 3 August to ???)

  I’m writing this at Mr. Clower’s desk—mine I haven’t the energy to try and find amid all that rubble—and staring out at me from the protective safety of the plastic top is a paper on which is printed the following “Ship’s Schedual” (their spelling, not mine).

  May 29–1 June – Naples, Italy

  June 4–7 – Gibraltar

  June 7–16 — Enroute to States

  June 17 — Norfolk.

  Oh, well; guess I’ll go to the movie.

  Love

  Roge

  27 June 1956

  Dear Folks

  This afternoon I tried to spell Connecticut; whether I spelled it correctly or not is another matter. I tried it three different ways, and none of them looked right. A trip to Webster’s showed the above to be correct, but even it looks funny. Massachusetts I can manage, after quite a struggle.

  Mother mentioned in a recent letter—recent being 1956—that my first word after Mom and Dad was “Constantinople.” Doesn’t it strike you as a little odd that out of 600,000 words in the English language—among them such commonplace gems as “dog,” “cat,” and “the”—I should come out with “Constantinople?” Maybe it was just baby talk that sounded like Constantinople.

  Which brings us to the subject of penmanship, for no particular reason. I have the feeling that somewhere,
deep in my subconscious, I have a hidden loathing of my Penmanship teacher, and am showing my resentment every time I take up a pen or pencil.

  Penmanship, as I recall, was a class squeezed in between History and Mathematics (or, as it was known in my younger days, Arithmetic) twice a week. For this class we were issued thin, blue paper bound books about half the size of a comic book. On its cover was a beautifully written “penmanship” with a pen trailing off the last “p” as though someone had just dashed it off. It became increasingly obvious that no one just “dashed it off,” but that it had been written with a pair of calipers and several fine machine-tooled instruments. The idea being given by Miss Hines that we were all supposed to write like that, with improvements.

  Now, to make things worse, we had all been raised on pencils, and pens were as cumbersome as trying to write with a crowbar. The pens we were to use were only one step above the sharpened ostrich-plume stage, and the points looked like someone’s buck teeth from our habit of dotting our names on our desktops with them. Inkwells were in the upper right hand corner of the desk, at the end of the pencil trough. Most of the inkwell holes were without inkwell, though which we pushed pieces of paper and shreds of art gum erasers. What few inkwells there were were dry, caked with a blue smudge.

  Upon opening our Penmanship books, which we did grudgingly, we saw wide, blue-lined pages like an enlarged section of a sheet of music. The paper itself was something of a marvel—in the middle days of the war, the paper available for our everyday use was coarse and rather yellowish—the Penmanship book’s pages were smooth and white. I hated to louse it up.

  At the top of each page was the exercise for the day. The first page was circles—sort of like a compressed steel spring.

  Again, it was machine-drawn, and don’t try and tell me it wasn’t. The object was to repeat this exercise, using swift, circular motions. Mine, I’m afraid, left something wanting. It was a rare thing if my circles even resembled circles to begin with, and if they somehow touched either line, it was a miracle. And to think we were graded on that stuff! To this day, I doubt if I could make a passing mark.

  The remarkable thing about it all is that not once since I left fourth grade have I been called upon to make freehand coiled springs.

  I have finally figured out how they’re working that “Three-Room Suite” bit at Northern. Two rooms next door to each other will have four bunks each, for sleeping. One room across the hall will be a “Study Room” for the eight men. Frankly, I think it’s a lousy idea and I wish now I hadn’t enrolled there again. I think also that one semester will be plenty, and then I’ll drop out and look around for another college—if I stay at Northern sure as hell I’ll end up teaching and that is far down on my list of Things I Would Like to Do.

  What I would like to do is write to Pensacola and see about buying an SNJ—they’re changing from SNJ’s to T28’s, and have literally hundreds of them sitting around down there. Some of them are in excellent shape, and the J is a good little plane all-around. They should be fairly cheap, as the Navy now has no further use for them.

  Mmm—a quick calculation throws a thin blanket on things—the J uses 110 gallons of gas in about four hours. Now, I don’t know the cost of Aviation Gasoline, but at, say, 50 cents a gallon, the price is a little prohibitive. Well, let’s face it—on my income almost everything is prohibitive.

  Today we had “Battle Messing” which means feeding 2,600 men during General Quarters. The result was a little like a picnic—I laid on a large bag of laundry and sipped pink lemonade (Fruit Punch) from a paper cup, while munching on a ham sandwich, a beef sandwich, and a piece of cake—simultaneously. I had an orange, too, but didn’t like the feel of it so didn’t bother eating it.

  Cannes is our next port, where we arrive 8 July, and I have that old “Gee, maybe I’ll be leaving” feeling again. Like 9/7 of my premonitions, though, I’ll end up riding the ship back.

  On sale in the Ship’s Store are some beautiful pieces of Wedgwood China. I fell in love with all of them but can afford practically none of it. It is, in my humble opinion, the most perfect china in the world—the simple, clean lines with the white figures on the blue of the china. Today they offered a dinner set of 109 pieces—serving for 12, for $228.00. It isn’t like the other in color, design, or anything but the name—it’s called Florentine Wedgwood. I don’t particularly care for it.

  Haven’t heard from Lirf for some time now. Tell him to get on the ball.

  Say—what do I do about voting? I’m eligible, you know, but I won’t be home in time to pre-register, or will I?

  Just had a surprise mail call—one letter from Dad and one from Mother

  Now it is I who feel slightly sheepish—I would like to say that I planned down to the minute when the package would arrive, but unfortunately the Navy doesn’t work that way—I mailed the package Aunt Thyra got about a week after I mailed the binoculars. Besides, they are your Christmas present (last Christmas, that is). Still, I’m very glad they got there when they did. I am also pleased to hear that they met with your approval; I was pretty sure you’d like them.

  Now that I know the other packages got back all right, I think I’ll send the rest after the 1st of July (taking no chances with Customs—relieved that they didn’t charge for that last batch). All told, they made pretty good time.

  Well, this should hold you for one night. Till tomorrow or so

  Love

  Roge

  28 June 1956

  Dear Folks

  Our little chat for this evening should be called “Prostitutes I have Known.” Granted, one does not generally discuss such things in letters—especially to one’s parents, but I have no qualms (though I probably wouldn’t be able to talk about it), being of Pure Heart and Mind.

  I have no intentions of going into sordid details, sobbing confessions, or hatchet-waving denunciations. However, it is a subject which does affect the Navy in particular and, therefore indirectly, me. It is something which is as much a part of our in-port liberty as is sightseeing and drinking. In many cases it is much more important than either sightseeing or drinking.

  Coming, as I do, from a comparatively isolated town with amazingly high morals—compared to what I’ve seen since—I knew there was such a thing, but had never seen it, just as I knew there was a Europe, but had never seen it either.

  My impressions of Norfolk’s East Main Street have been recorded before. Norfolk, being a Sailor Town was therefore a Den of Iniquity and other trite exclamations for “somewhat promiscuous.”

  Not to be waving a little American flag (while a music box tinkles The Star Spangled Banner), but Norfolk’s worst only comes up to Europe’s average. I suppose a lot of factors enter into it—the war, the low standards of living, etc.—enough things to write a large and not very interesting volume.

  It’s here, it’s been here a long time (the Second Oldest Profession—what is the Oldest?), and will most likely to be here for a long time.

  However, we seem to be getting away from the topic—namely Prostitutes I have known. Actually, there aren’t a great number. I try to avoid the bars where the B-girls come with every bottle of champagne (in some places, they’re included with the champagne). Whenever I’m with a group of guys, though, we almost always end up in one of these bars.

  Naples was where we held our divisional party. The manager of the restaurant we’d rented said he would provide “everything,” and sent the word among the girls of Naples.

  Most of them spoke no English—or only enough to transact the necessary financial arrangements. They simply came in, sat down, and ate. Some of them looked half starved, and ate accordingly. Almost all of them wrapped sandwiches in napkins and put them in their purse. One small, mousy-looking girl was seen scooping potato salad into her purse. They didn’t try to laugh, but just sat there, eating and being mauled and looking bored. One short, plump girl in a white sweater looked like a 1929 Betty Boop (or whatever her name was). She looked definitely dis
dainful and didn’t try to hide it even by looking bored. There was also a midget, whom I may have mentioned at the time. Had she been normal size, she might have been very pretty—rather like Donna Aden. I’d seen her before, in a “business establishment” which I believe I described before, —if not, I will sometime in the future.

  In Valencia, I talked with a girl whom I like to think was not a professional, or even an amateur, but then I’m pretty gullible. She gave me the story on the operations of the bar—how the girls get a commission on every drink they make the guys buy. All in all a very sound business, and quite complex, too. I enjoyed talking to her, because she was not the clinging-vine type, and was also not stupid. We conversed as much as was possible with my limited Spanish, and I had a very good time. Later that night, after we left the bar, we met a very young girl I like to think of as an apprentice streetwalker. One of the guys was fascinated by her, with the result that we followed her all over Valencia. She was definitely new at the game, and giggled quite a bit when he tried to talk to her. Then she’d shake her head and walk off down the street, only to stop at another store window and wait for us to catch up. I won’t tell you whether they ever came to terms or not.

  In Istanbul, one bar employed girls under 14—I know I told you about that place! I didn’t even try to talk to them—we left as soon as we could. That was going a little too far.

  I’ve saved Paris for last because it was the best. There, I had a marvelous time and made no bones about it. I even got a big charge out of Pigalle. The very first night we were there, we were stopped by a very pretty redhead in a fur coat. She was willing to take us all for 1,000 Francs apiece! Well!! That got things off to a rousing start. One of the three other guys kicked himself ever since for not accepting her offer.

  In Paris, prostitution is taken as much for granted as the SUZE signs and the Eiffel Tower. Paris just wouldn’t be Paris without it.

  In a restaurant we met Yvonne and Kitty. Kitty was heavy-set and spoke Spanish, so we got along beautifully until the time came when I had to decline an invitation to go dancing. Yvonne and Bob Schmall were getting along very well, too, and it was they who suggested the going someplace. Jim Bessette had run off to a movie with a Russian named Olga, who showed Jim a picture of her brother (in the Red Army) in front of the Kremlin. He endeared himself to her by yelling: “Yea, Bolsheviks! I’m a Bolshevik from way back” and drinking a toast to the Revolution—in vodka, of course.