Old Friends, Old Stories, and New Hope
My friend Jack spent a few days with us last week. Jack lives in Washington's Pacific Northwest and flew to the Midwest to visit a shipmate from our Navy days who lives near Omaha, Nebraska. From there, he rented a car and drove north to spend some time with us. The last time I saw Jack was in the spring of 2018, when we traveled out west to visit my brother Bryan and his wife Sue near Portland. Before that visit, we hadn't seen one another in close to forty years. We only had a few hours together that day, so it was especially nice to have several days this time to catch up on what’s been happening in our lives. We spent a lot of time reminiscing about our days serving together in the Navy aboard the USS Fresno, where Jack was a quartermaster (navigator), and I was a radar operator. And we shared some weed. I recalled the time Jack, Speedy, and I got busted for smoking a joint on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii in 1978. We were sitting in the sand, chatting, when I noti...