USS James Monroe Just a little illustration of how the navy had changed during my life. I was attached to the USS James Monroe SSBN-622, a ballistic missile submarine in 1985. We had just returned from our three month deployment from Holy Loch, Scotland, to transit to Charleston, South Carolina. I was looking forward to… Read More
Category: American Diary
How I Met My Wife Back in 1977, I was a single young E6 in the navy, stationed on board the USS Von Steuben, a ballistic missile submarine home ported in Charleston, South Carolina. At the time, I was probably the oldest and most senior guy living in the enlisted barracks, but also probably the… Read More
Fred’s Fabulous 60s and 70s It may be hard for anyone living in the rich commercialism of today to understand the climate of the late sixties and early seventies. You could make a good amount of cash in freelance photography. Poster art was big and companies were looking for new poster art material as well… Read More
Kitty Hawk Mutiny The USS Kitty Hawk riot was the first mass mutiny in the history of the U. S. Navy and were it not for military law, the incident might be passed off as a demonstration. Following the civil rights demonstrations of the 60s, White people went over board in trying to erase any… Read More
Why I have bad feelings about Motown… I was working as a photographer at the J. L. Hudson’s department store in Detroit back in the 70s. One day, I get a call from Motown saying that they have a new album scheduled to be released and would like for me to take the cover photos.… Read More
People ask, if you can’t swim, why join the navy? When I applied for the job at Charleston County Park and Recreation, I was initially hired as the mechanic because of my diesel engine training and experience in the navy. The emphasis is on “diesel”. I knew almost nothing about gasoline engines. But, because of… Read More
WABX Free Concerts on Sundays on the WSU Campus Tartar Field After my first enlistment expired, I moved back to Detroit and enrolled in college at the Wayne State University. After first trying to get into the medical school, I decided to major in fine art, but later realizing where the money was, switched to… Read More
Tigers in Vietnam I was in Vietnam for only a year during the war and riding a river patrol boat, never saw a real tiger, but I did pick up tiger stories from some of the marine units we worked with. The NVA and Viet Cong were bad enough, but these poor jarheads also had… Read More
So much of our diesel submarine history will soon be edited down to data, numbers, and brief descriptions on Wikipedia. But the old converted World War Two fleet submarines were much more than that. Obsolete by todays standards, they were the first line of defense in the beginning of the cold war. Almost all were… Read More
My Return Home from Vietnam When I returned from Vietnam in 1969, I made three decisions. One was going to Woodstock instead of the “New York City Soul Festival”, another was getting out of the navy when my enlistment expired, and yet another was moving back to Detroit. Upon arriving in Detroit, there were other… Read More
How a submarine sailor ended up on a patrol boat in Vietnam During my tour on the USS Piper, the war in Vietnam escalated and became evening news. My next duty station was the USS Croaker, another GUPPY conversion. GUPPY stands for Greater Underwater Propulsion Power Program and was initiated by the United States Navy… Read More
Who remembers putting color screens on their black-and-white TV sets? It was the dream for many middle class American families in the 1950s and 1960s: colored TV. Although the technology was available since 1953, the high prices of colored television sets meant most families couldn’t afford the exciting advancement. Back when color television sets were… Read More
Sea Store Cigarettes It’s no secret to us old salts that our survival kits usually included a pack of Lucky Strike or Camel cigarettes. Sometimes the packs were so old, the paper would have turned a dark yellow. In 1965, first during the U.S. Army’s Basic Training Course & later in Pre-Airborne Infantry Training, while… Read More
Commercial Freelance Photography in the 1960s It may be hard for anyone living in the rich commercialism of today to understand the climate of the late sixties and early seventies. You could make a good amount of cash in freelance photography. Poster art was big and companies were looking for new poster art material as… Read More
Pulling the race card (or How I got to meet Princess Grace) Princess Grace, Grace Patricia Kelly, was an American film actress who became Princess of Monaco by marrying Prince Rainier III in April 1956. While making a med cruise on board the USS Piper back in 1964, we received permission to pull into the… Read More
The President Is Dead Way back in 1963, while stationed on board the USS Piper, we pulled into the port of Djibouti, Africa as one of our scheduled Med cruise port calls. Djibouti, is a country located in the Horn of Africa in East Africa. It is bordered by Somalia in the south, Ethiopia in… Read More
By John F. Kennedy President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen: I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief. I am delighted… Read More
Two true submarine stories… Once on the USS Piper back in 1962, we were operating with a group of navy SEALS. The SEALS had just been formed as a special forces group a year earlier from the navy Underwater Demolition Team or UDT. Usually the UDT teams were culled from the navy seabees or construction… Read More
The streets have all changed from when I was a kid growing up in Detroit. We lived on West Philadelphia Street and I went to Cass Tech High School so I had to catch the Dexter Avenue bus to go to and come from school. On the way home, the bus would go past a… Read More
Funny you never realize the generation gap until you mention something from your past to a teenager. At fifteen, I wanted to be a “beatnik”. My idol was a chacter named Maynard G. Krebs from the 1959 TV show “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis”. Maynard was played by Bob Denver. Maynard was American television’s… Read More
The Mars Theater on Conant Street, Detroit, opened in 1947 and closed in 1958. The Mars was the closest neighborhood theater throughout the 50’s. The seats in the Mars theater were luxurious and covered in equally luxurious cranberry velvet. You could sleep very comfortably in those seats. Cartoon Saturdays were a noisy affair that attracted… Read More
Fred the Hunter During my stay in juvenile, my social worker was impressed with my art work and pulled enough strings to get me into a foster home run by the Wilcox family. They had two sons of their own, one younger than me and one older. Staying at their home had it’s drawbacks and… Read More
My One Minute Love Affair With Diana Ross When I was ready to enter high school, my mom got the idea in her head that I had to go to Cass Tech. Cass Technical High School was the best school in the city, but my grades were borderline. The school required an admissions exam and… Read More
My Days at Courville Elementary School My mom was always on a fanatical crusade to see that I got the very best education, long before she enrolled me into Cass Tech High School. My first memory of my elementary school days was when she enrolled me into Courville Elementary while we still lived on Minnesota… Read More
Moving on to Junior High in Detroit There wasn’t a graduation ceremony, but by the time I had grown old enough to start junior high school, my mom had moved us from the projects to a nicer second floor apartment in a two family home on Lemay street. This was a big change both in… Read More
My First Trip To Mississippi Still recalling my very first visit back to our family home in Gore Springs, Mississippi. At least the first trip that I was old enough to remember. It was way, way back in 1955, shortly after the lynching of Emmett Till in the little town of Money, Mississippi. Money is… Read More
The Butcher Shop Back in the 1950s Detroit, before Walmart Super Stores, big chain supermarkets and packaged meat, you got your meat from a butcher shop. The butcher would actually cut the meat exactly how you wanted and weigh it right in front of you. If you wanted your porkchops thin, that’s how you got… Read More
Tales from my Childhood As a poor kid in Detroit, there were several ways to earn a little pocket change. If you had a bicycle, you could try to get a paper route. Another was to shine shoes. My local barber shop had a chair set up where you could shine the shoes of the… Read More
I was only three years old when my mother and father separated and divorced, so I never knew very much about my dad except that he was a strong person with a short temper. He came to visit us a few times as I was growing up until the last time I saw him he… Read More
Growing up in a poor neighborhood in Detroit in the early fifties, our neighborhood gang was composed of Black kids as well as the kids of European immigrants and there was even the girl next door that hung out with us for a while. We did fun things like exploring empty lots, laying in the… Read More