Main Characters: Ltjg Troy Jones (Class ’74) and me. Approx. dates: Jul 1976; Oct 1976
For the Nation’s Bicentennial in July of 1976, the Jonas Ingram was assigned to show the flag of an active-duty Navy warship in capitol city of the State of New York: Albany. We arrived in New York Harbor around July 1 where there were over a dozen Tall Ships there from all over the world. It is a little over 300 miles from the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to Albany. We took a river pilot on board, so I did not have to navigate that trek (whew!). We got to see West Point from the Hudson. Quite an impressive site.
We were the first US Navy warship to visit Albany in decades and we were VERY well received. Thousands of people visited the ship. Among them were two young women who wanted to meet naval officers and give them the warmest of welcomes. One said she found naval officers in their white uniforms to be very alluring. Troy and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in Albany.
We made two major cruises after our jaunt up the Eastern Seaboard. The first was to Portsmouth,
England and then to Le Havre, the port nearest to Paris. From there we went up to the North Sea, thru
the Skagerrak and Kattegat into the Baltic Sea. The second cruise took us first to the west coast of Africa, then up to the Straits of Gibraltar with a b-line to the Suez Canal, into the Persian Gulf and from there out into the Indian Ocean to the Seychelle Islands, then over to Mombasa, Kenya before going back thru the Suez Canal with a stop in Sardinia before going through the Straits, to the Azores and back to Mayport. That second cruise lasted over 7 months.
While crossing of the Atlantic on our way to Portsmouth, we received a distress signal and rescued a French couple that was on a life raft. We dropped them off when we landed in Portsmouth and told them that we would bring the life raft to Paris when we visited Le Havre. Portsmouth is the naval base closest to London. We spent at least a week there which gave us ample time to see the sights. Several of the ship’s officers took a day trip to Stonehenge and Bath. Stonehenge was just sitting out there on the side of the road – no guards, no fence – just out in a meadow where we were able to walk up and touch and sit on the stones. We went to Bath and swam in the ancient Roman baths there. It was quite a testament
to Roman engineering but had become rather dingy after two millennia.
Ladies and Snails in London.
A day or so later, Troy was serving as the officer of deck on the ship. The primary location of the OOD is on the fantail where the gangway is so you can control who comes and goes on the ship. It was a similar experience to Albany – many hundreds if not thousands of tourists, mostly Brits, came to see our warship. The OOD has to make sure that all is done properly, everyone is escorted and accounted for, and no one drops off any bombs.
Among the visitors were two very attractive British girls, Elaine and Angela. I expect Troy flashed them one of his classic (later Tom Cruise copied) lady killer smiles. We learned later that unlike the Albany girls, they were there simply to tour a US warship (Elaine’s father had served on a British destroyer in WWII.) Elaine said that “When I saw Troy there in his dress blues with his black beard, I could not resist stopping and talking to him.” (The allure at work again.) In short order, arrangements were made for them to be tour guides in London for Troy and his mate (me). In addition to being beautiful, they were classy and knowledgeable and proved to be excellent guides for some of the main sites around London.
Among the things that Troy really wanted to do was go to a concert at the Royal Alpert Hall which he said had the best acoustics of any theater in the world. There was a famous pianist performing Tchaikovsky and we got two tickets for the last day before getting underway. We sat up in the balcony overlooking the stage and I remember being amazed at how clear and sharp we could hear every note the pianist played. (There was no sound amplification system.)
The girls had been so nice to us that we really wanted to go all out to treat them. We arranged for them to meet us after the concert and from there we went to a fabulous Italian restaurant overlooking the Thames: Villa d’ Ceasari. It was a two-story white stone building that looked like it had been transported from Palatine Hill in Rome. The second story was essentially a wide balcony surrounded the first floor. We were all dressed to the 9’s. I remember stopping and
taking it in. Here I was a boy from the hayfields of Mississippi now in London, England in a magnificent restaurant with a beautiful English girl having just left a concert at the Royal Alpert Hall. I was euphoric. And Troy obviously was feeling pretty cocky himself. He asked the waiter to bring his recommended bottle of wine. The waiter opened it and poured a sample for Troy to taste. When Troy did, to everyone’s astonishment, he spit it out and threw the wine glass on the floor and broke it. Troy said it was terrible and surely, the waiter could do better than that. The girls were quite impressed at Troy’s savior faire. (I started recounting the money in my pocket.) The waiter brought another, and of course much more expensive bottle of wine which Troy approved. Everyone had appetizers. Troy ordered a steak – which he sent back because it was not cooked to his satisfaction. The entrée that I selected was the special – a seafood dish featuring escargot. We had desert and after dinner drinks. And then the bill came. (Before we got to the restaurant, I put aside the money that we would need to buy two train tickets to Portsmouth.) The dinner cost over £100 which is equivalent to $1,000 today. Well, that was just about exactly how much money we had. Which meant we had NO money for a tip. We sent the girls out ahead of us by a few minutes and then piled every piece of currency we had, except the train ticket money, on the table and bolted. We looked backed and the waiter was immediately at the table counting the money. As we reached the front door we looked and saw him coming after us. Shouting! Troy thought it was hilarious. The girls weren’t so impressed. They gave us a kiss goodnight and pointed us to the train station. That was the last I ever heard from Elaine or Angela.
We had timed it so that we would catch the train that would get us to Portsmouth an hour before the ship’s departure. The problem was we were relying on the Sunday schedule. It was now Monday morning and the weekly schedule was different than Sunday’s. We got to the station just in time to see our train pulling out. The next train was more than an hour later and it cost a bit more than the Sunday train so we did not have any spare change after buying the tickets to even attempt to call the ship. By the time we were on the train, it was becoming obvious something was amiss with me. I had welts breaking out all over my body and then my throat began to constrict. By the time we got to the Portsmouth station, I was having major trouble breathing. We arrived about 10 minutes before the ship was scheduled to leave. It was about a half mile from the station to the ship. Troy had to practically carry me the whole way. When the ship came in sight, we saw that they had already pulled in the gangplank and several of the mooring lines. Troy dropped me and sprinted to the pier where he pleaded with the Captain to let us on board. That I appeared to be dying helped his case. It was mortifying for our enlisted men to see their division officers in such pitiful circumstances. The Captain re-moored the ship and Troy drug me on board. The chief
corpsman gave me a shot of Benadryl which soon restored me. (To this day, I am highly allergic to snails.) Understandably, we were in deep do do.
In the next story, I will tell how Troy and I were able to turn the poo into fertilizer.