This past weekend, I spent a considerable amount of time watching baseball.
Not the College World Series on television. My wife and I attended four games involving Alliance teams.
The Box Butte Bad Boys 10-Under; the A-Town Steamers (Alliance 11-Year-Olds) and the Alliance Spartan Seniors.
I witnessed some pretty good baseball played by boys that ranged from 10 to 18 years of age.
Alliance has some talented kids that who have obviously worked hard to improve their craft. And one doesn’t perform at the level that I witnessed by some of these boys simply on talent alone. There is a considerable amount of practice and, those words that are like profanity to some people: work ethic.
I’m sure that the coaches have had an impact on developing that work ethic. And some of the coaches at fathers. Dads of their own players. Fathers working with their sons of improving their baseball skills and helping to install the love of the Great American Pastime.
I never played baseball as a child. As a farm boy, I resided five miles from the nearest community. My dad made it very clear that neither he or my mother was going to make a daily 10-mile round trip just so I could practice and play baseball.
“If you wanna play baseball, then play ball with your brothers!”
Now before you draw a conclusion that my dad robbed me of the opportunity to experience something that most boys do, I will share with you (in a later column) several things that my father did provide that other dad’s couldn’t for their children.
But, first, some background on the Old Man.
Dad was born on July 18, 1930 in Lincoln. The son of a Russian immigrant and a Friend, Nebraska farm girl. He grew up living two blocks north of the University of Nebraska campus and its coveted Memorial Stadium.
My dad graduated from Lincoln High School in 1948 and promptly joined the United States Navy, obtaining the rank of Machinist Second Mate. When Dad was discharged in June 1952, he was earning $80 a month, which was a good salary considering Uncle Sam paid his room and board. His Naval career also meant extensive world travel.
Throughout the 1940s, Dad collected Nebraska football newspapers and other Cornhusker souvenirs. When his US Navy tour of duty expired, he returned home to find his Cornhusker collection had been either given away or thrown away by my grandmother. Dad had told me on several occasions, “I guess she just didn’t believe I was really going to come home.”
Dad began working at a very young age. In 1944, he worked at a wood planing mill, which was across the street from his house at 1052 Y Street in Lincoln, for 45 cents an hour. He also worked a garbage route while in high school. He began his employment with Norden Laboratories, which manufactured veterinarian supplies, in 1952 for $1.05 an hour. Dad stayed with Norden (which is now Zoetis, Inc located at 601 West Cornhusker Highway in Lincoln) for 39 years until retiring in 1991.
I was roughly six years old when I discovered what a teaser my father was. Dad told me he smoked cigarettes to keep warm in the winter and the reason clouds floated across the sky was because they had stomachaches.
It was also during this time that I discovered my Dad sported a tattoo on one of his shoulders. The needlepoint design was forever imbedded in his flesh while he served in the United States Navy.
I have learned over the years Dad’s naval career was more than just allowing his body to be the recipient of some wannabe artist. He traveled the seven seas and saw more of this world in four years than I ever plan to see in my lifetime.
Dad’s home for three-and-a-half years was the USS Hamul AD 20, a ship that sailed him through the waters of the Atlantic, the North Atlantic, the Pacific, the Caribbean, the English Channel, the Sea of Japan, and the North China Sea.
From the ship, Dad also saw the Azores Islands, Iwo Jima, and Korea. The ship’s ports included New York City; Seattle; San Francisco; San Diego; Norfolk, VA; Boston; Plymouth, England; South Hampton, England; Belfast, Ireland; Cherbourg, France; Brest, France; Leigh, Scotland, which is near Edinburgh; the Panama Canal; and Sasebo, Nagoya, and Yokosuka, Japan. He also traveled though Nagasaki and Tokyo either by train or bus during his Japanese tours.
Dad also sailed the same waters as the famed Titanic when he rode on an army troop ship from New York to South Hampton, England. There, he and 11 other sailors were dropped off, and the ship traveled on to Germany.
Dad’s final ocean voyage was in 1952 across the Pacific aboard another army troop ship that took him from Japan to Seattle, Washington, where he was discharged.
On October 14, 1950, his ship cruised several times around Wake Island. The ship served as a transmitter for a meeting on Wake – an island located in the North Pacific Ocean – between General Douglas MacArthur and President Harry S. Truman, in which the two men discussed strategy about the hostilities that had broken out in Korea four months earlier. Wake’s transmitter was not strong enough to send messages to the United States, so the ship’s transmitter was used to relay the messages back to the States. Dad described it as a long day, but an important part of the history of the Korean War.
In January 2007, and at the age of 76, his reflection of 56 years earlier was very vivid. Dad shared these memories about his time aboard the USS Hamul:
“The day we spent sailing around Wake Island (October 14, 1950) was really the same as any other day for most of us. That was to make fresh water. You had to keep a certain water level in units that was boiling the water to make the steam that turned into fresh water. We had to maintain high-pressure steam and certain low-pressure steam.
We also had to record the readings of several of the ship’s gauges every hour and of course, we were always keeping an eye on all water levels and pressure gauges.
The ship had tanks that held the fresh water we made, and when one of those tanks was full, we switched tanks and started to pump water to the ship’s main tanks that held thousands of gallons. We were always testing the water before sending it to the main tanks to see if the salt content was acceptable. The water had to be in better condition for boilers than for our drinking water.
Of course, there was always maintenance that had to be done, such as painting and fixing motors.
When we would go to the states and dry dock, the real work started. Everything had to be taken apart, water scales removed, and the ship cleaned up and overhauled. Everything was repainted, new insulation was installed, and the ship was made ready to last for a couple of years. That is how often we would go to dry dock. Basically, my chief duties were to stand watch and assist with maintenance.”
Next week, farm life and beyond with Dad.