Wednesday, November 23, 2011
EQUATOR: A SIGNIFICANT CROSSING BACK THEN
Rita's latest postings concerning her vacaation in Ecuador were most interesting. Her references to the equator brought to mind my experience in crossing the equator on our minesweeper, YMS -176, IN WWII. I had written about in in our old newsletter, had forgotten about, and rediscovered a single page in my chaotic files just today which I will paraphrase below:
.....We crossed the International Dateline en route to the Admiralty Isles in the South Pacific and were initiated into "The Silent Mysteries Of the Far East" which is in the "Imperial Domain of The Golden Dragon"
We crossed 180th Meridian on September 19, 1944 at 0400
--That's 4 am to landlubbers. We were issued cards commemorating the event, and we sailed on to the equator
which we crossed on Octobber 2, 1944. That made us "Shellbacks" and we entered the "Domain of Neptunus Rex" whose clerk is Davey Jones. We, incoming Shellbacks, were initiated into "The Solemn Mysteries of the Ancient Order of the Deep" by those members of the crew who were already Shellbacks. Our initiation was tame compared with initiations on larger ships: such things as having to crawl through garbage, and suffer other indignities. Our ship was too small to do much, and we ha d very few crewmen who were already Shellbacks--they did the best they could to humiliate us. Having been initiated, it would be our turn to initiate newcomers next time but we never got a chance. We crossed the equator at 151-15 and proceeded to the Admiralties. In less than three weeks, October 20, we participated in the invasion of the Phillipines at Leyte Gulf.
.....We crossed the International Dateline en route to the Admiralty Isles in the South Pacific and were initiated into "The Silent Mysteries Of the Far East" which is in the "Imperial Domain of The Golden Dragon"
We crossed 180th Meridian on September 19, 1944 at 0400
--That's 4 am to landlubbers. We were issued cards commemorating the event, and we sailed on to the equator
which we crossed on Octobber 2, 1944. That made us "Shellbacks" and we entered the "Domain of Neptunus Rex" whose clerk is Davey Jones. We, incoming Shellbacks, were initiated into "The Solemn Mysteries of the Ancient Order of the Deep" by those members of the crew who were already Shellbacks. Our initiation was tame compared with initiations on larger ships: such things as having to crawl through garbage, and suffer other indignities. Our ship was too small to do much, and we ha d very few crewmen who were already Shellbacks--they did the best they could to humiliate us. Having been initiated, it would be our turn to initiate newcomers next time but we never got a chance. We crossed the equator at 151-15 and proceeded to the Admiralties. In less than three weeks, October 20, we participated in the invasion of the Phillipines at Leyte Gulf.
# posted by Noonski @ 2:17 PM 
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I still can't believe how young you were when all this happened. Nowadays, we treat children like infants until they're, oh, about 30!! Oops. Did I just put that on the family blog? :)
But, there is a ample sociological evidence of how childrearing practices have changed over the past few decades - not all bad, of course. Just go back and read Moe's entries about the TOTAL lack of adult supervision, and I bet most of us would prefer modern-day parenting practices.
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But, there is a ample sociological evidence of how childrearing practices have changed over the past few decades - not all bad, of course. Just go back and read Moe's entries about the TOTAL lack of adult supervision, and I bet most of us would prefer modern-day parenting practices.
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