The Chief - 1970

I was reading something online today that reminded me of someone I knew long ago.

I have very fond memories of The Chief although I can't remember his name at the moment. It was over fifty years ago that I interacted with this particular Chief Petty Officer. He was an old black guy from New Orleans who had spent well over twenty years in the Navy and was close to retirement. I was his gofer for about three months from October through December 1970. I helped him around his office, ran errands and did typing for him.

I worked for him in a little administrative office on the Great Lakes Naval Training Center base. I had finished my training and was waiting for orders. I somehow got stuck in a limbo and the Navy had to give me a job while waiting for the paperwork which somehow took a very long time... several months.

I was assigned to the Ship Propulsion Training Program and The Machinist Mate A School at Great Lakes after completing basic training in San Diego. I had enlisted into the Navy's Nuclear Power Program which entailed two years of training before going to sea in a nuclear submarine. I had about six months of schooling at Great Lakes before I would be sent to the Nuclear Power School and the Submarine School in New London, Conn. I had a six year enlistment commitment. 

My training was interrupted in July of 1970 when my father suddenly died from a ruptured aneurysm. The death of my father six months into my Navy enlistment was traumatic and had a very strong impact on me. I was home on a two emergency leave for my father's funeral and then I was back at Great Lakes to carry on as if nothing had happened. I didn't do very well in my training program and poorly at the school. The Navy had offered to give me a family hardship discharge but Mom wanted me to stay in and I did. However, I resigned from the Nuclear Power Program and it's intense training school. I finished the MM A school in September but was no longer in my original cohort. Everyone in my class got their orders except me. I had to wait.

Fortunately they had in my records that I knew how to type. I was given an administrative job working for the Chief in his office while waiting for orders. At the time they expected me to be on my way to the fleet within a couple of weeks. I would be there with the Chief for three months and probably would have been there even longer if I didn't make several written requests for orders. I wanted to go to sea and really didn't want to spend the winter at Great Lakes.

But I did like the Chief and he liked having me around. I learned a lot from him. He was a real jazz fan and played a lot of music for me in his office. He knew I played the tenor saxophone. He liked that I was a white boy from Philadelphia into soul music because most of the white guys he interacted with throughout most of his career have been rural Southern country music loving bubbas. 

He also taught me a lot about food and in particular about hot food. He loved his chili and gumbo and constantly bragged about the food of his New Orleans. One of my little jobs for him was to go over to the mess hall and bring back a bowl of chili for him and myself. He had a drawer full of sauce jars to doctor the chili. He loved his hot sauces. This was where I learned to like hot food. He would sometimes have me get him soul food when the cooks at the mess hall had it on the menus. This was the first time I had chitlins' too which he also added his different sauces. We would sit there in his office eating the hot spicy food and listening to some great jazz.

He is probably long gone now and I wish I could remember his name. I can see him in my mind like it was yesterday. I can hear his voice. I can taste his hot sauce.