CROTCHETY OLD MAN TELLS ALL

My writing buddy, Michelle Scott of Lilith Straight fame, told me I need to have a webpage or a blog or some such electronic space to give readers my particulars, opine on writing and the grand subjects of the day, and in general plug my book. I know Blogspot isn’t the sexiest of places to do this, but it’s like my old Malibu Maxx – it’s not pretty, but it doesn’t cost much and it gets me where I need to go. So here it is, and here I am:

I am a Navy veteran, as if you can’t guess after looking at the cover of THE CHAIN LOCKER. I am the son of a veteran, the grandson of a veteran, and the proud father of a serving Air Force officer. My 18 year-old father plowed the waters of the south Pacific on a Navy supply ship in World War II. My 17 year-old Canadian grandfather fought the Kaiser's army in the muddy, bloody trenches of Passchendaele and "Wipers."  My son takes care of the nation's business at an air base in the heartlands.  And me? I helped save America from the commie menace by sitting in the back end of an E-2B radar picket aircraft while being simultaneously airsick and frightened to death by the thought that the two pilots trying to land our 40,000 pound monster were 24 year old former college goofballs just like myself.

The aircraft carrier we were trying to park ourselves on was CV-62, the late, lamented USS Independence. The Indy plays a major - to the tune of 60,000 tons - if silent role in THE CHAIN LOCKER and the books to follow. She was, in real life, ear-splittingly loud, especially during flight ops. And smelly? Good god... She reeked of bunker fuel, JP-5 aviation gas, cigarettes (always a bad thing to have too close to the JP-5) industrial lubricants, garbage, rotting food, fouled toilets and 5000 sweaty, unwashed men who rarely changed their underwear.
   

And man, was she unsteady on her feet. You would think that 60,000 tons of steel would be unperturbed by the elements, but in anything other than a calm sea she rolled back and forth, and if we were lucky, from side to side as well in a corkscrewing motion that kept the makers of Dramamine rolling in dough.

Big, noisy, smelly... Not the kind of girl you'd care to bring home to meet the parents. She was my home for almost nine months. The older I get, the more I cherish those memories.