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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: Sorting out the ancient coots from the newbies
Anyone out there remember locker clubs? You bastards have to be moss covered, barnacle encrusted, ancient mariners.
For you new kids on the block let me tell you about your "Once upon a time, Navy". The navy of long ago wasn't that enamored with civilian clothes...for a number of very legitiment reasons. Sailors loved civvies for an equal number of seemingly legitiment reasons.
NAVY: (1) Unit pride was primarily based on uniform appearance. When you're the premier Naval Force on the planet your leadership wants to "strut its' stuff" and announce to every swinging doo-dah in Bo-Bo-hatchieLand that the United States Navy is in town...You can best do that by dumping two watch sections of ten or twelve ships swinging the hook in the Bo-Bo-hatchies Harbor on his beach in dress canvas. Whites or Blues. In wardroom parlance it is called "showing the flag" (2) They feel, and to me "rightly so" that as American bluejackets coming off our amazing naval victories in WWII (Especially in the Pacific against the Japanese) we should be proud of announcing our presence anywhere,any time in the global waters of the planet.
BLUEJACKETS SIDE: (1) All you had to do was head toward the Equator with wool blues in your side locker to understand reason number one. Armpit salt stains with a pie plate radius don't exactly improve your female desireabilty...unless you're into dating goats. (2) When you're in civvies, it's a helluvalot easier to convince some vacationing State U coed from East Jeezus, Arkansas...that you are a Harvard Graduate Student on a Fulbright Grant engaging in International Strategic Policy Sudies for the State Department....civvies make great bulls**t facilitators. "Yes Darling I can't go into it for security reasons, but I have to be at the Presidential Palace at 8AM to meet with President BamBooozle and his cabinet regarding the ongoing negotiations on the Pepsi-Cola Treaty." You can't sell that klind of horsepucky in a set of whites. Of course any gal with the intelligence of a flea would recognize that as a boatsailor with a marked absence of logged sunshine time you were as white as a cloistered nun....and the black oxfords...black socks and visable dog tag beadchain were definite Dick Tracy giveaways.
So, because having civvies aboard ship was a flogging or beheading offense...locker clubs sprung up. Renting a locker for $5 a month outside the gate allowed you a place to get a hot shower, log some time in a steam room and store some devoid of fashion taste civilian type clothes and a belt with some kind of fake rodeo buckle the size of a Packard hubcap...a jug of tax free hooch...and a ready-for-sea skin book collection. It also gave you access to strains of athletes foot brought back fromthe four corners of the earth....Bells locker club in Norfolk had athletes foot germs the size of snapping turtles....As I was to learn later in college, Bells athletes foot was a gift that kept on giving....and in a ghawdam fraternity house, you diodn't have a bunkchain to do a split toed scratch job on.
For you old stove-up, long in the tooth old fogies out there...I hope this triggered memories of long ago when we were all twenty feet tall, bulletproof...wore Dolphins and had the world by the tail. DEX |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Sorting out the ancient coots from the newbies
There's a whole series of questions on the HOLLAND CLUB ENTRY TEST based on Locker Club knowledge. One question that I remember went like this..."How many cycles does it take to drain a fifth of Hiram Walker TEN HIGH in a four man pass around?" DEX |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1937
Location: Patterson, New York | Subject: RE: Sorting out the ancient coots from the newbies
When I went in, 1967, these locker facilities were around. Depending on the duty station, you could wear civvies off base or not.
I was going to A-school in Damneck, VA and could wear civvies off base. But, when I met some old buddies assigned to surface ships in Norfolk, they had to leave the base in uniform and change on the beach.
But, when I would go home, the bus and train was half price if you traveled in uniform. So, I did.
On liberty in Scotland, you had to wear your uniform. But, in Rota, Spain you could only wear civilian clothes off base. General Franco did not want "other" military running around his country.
When I was assigned to the tender for six months in Rota, I wore civvies home every day but had to change into my uniform before muster each morning.
By the early 1970's, civilian clothes were pretty common on liberty in the US.
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1486
| Subject: RE: Sorting out the ancient coots from the newbies
You and were at DamNeck around the same era. We wore civvies coming and going from the base. Unfortunatley, it seemed like the Summer crowd in Va beach didn't much like us sailors. That was close to the hayday of Navy in the Tidewater and the close cut hairdos kind of made like a red flag for the women and hippies. We might as well have been in uniform. You jogged my memory about the bus fares. I forgot about travelling in uniform and getting a discount. The bus fare when I was in A school (1964) to New York was $10 round trip. You couldn't beat that with a stick. When I got to NYC it was a straight run across the street to the Blarney Stone for a nightcap and a sandwich. The geezers there would see my uniform and booze, oops nightcap, was paid for by these gents. Wearing the dress canvas around Manhatten back then could be a good thing both for the hospitality and casting for the evening entertainment. However, I would rarely if ever wear whites in the city. The subways and cabs would pretty much make you look like a homeless waif in short order. But once I earned my fish and wore them around the city things took a definite turn for the better. I wanted to stay young forever back then. |
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Holland Club
Posts: 101
Location: Brentwood, CA | Subject: RE: Sorting out the ancient coots from the newbies
In the late 40's I had a locker in the YMCA on State Street or just off it in New London. Later after being based in Pearl Harbor, the boat was transfered back to NL and they had a locker club on the base.
George |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Sorting out the ancient coots from the newbies
Thanks to both of you. I was hoping that this post would stir up some old memories. Ray Stone aka Olgoat still has his Bell's locker club card. Anyone remember parking yourself in the steam room while one of those tiny oriental seemstresses repiped your dress blues? You couldn't help loving those diminutive oriental ladies...they were always smiling and seemed to actually be happy to see you come through the door.
Back in the late 50's and early 60's the locker clubs were an important part of a single bluejacket's life. They gave you a place to keep a couple of jugs (bottles), to stash stuff to take to sea...a couple of paperbacks...stash some bucks so you wouldn't be completrely busted if you came in late Friday when the disbursing office on Mother Onion (USS ORION (AS-18)) was closed to Monday....I kept $100 tucked in the pocket of my high school letter jacket...Stupid? Sure, but I was eighteen and not worldly wise....It became in handy on a number of occasions....so did the bottles J&B Scotch...the box of Trojan plain ends....the asperin tin of juke box quarters...my local address book...and an old rusty Carlings Black Lable beer church key.
When I cleared the Recieving Station and emptied my locker at the locker club...When I removed a pair of loafers in the bottom of my locker there was a dead and mummified mouse in the toe of one of my loafers....don't know why I remember that.
Locker clubs were an important part of my sub duty experience...I always smile when I remember them. DEX
Edited by dex armstrong 2010-09-05 4:02 PM
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Mess cooking
Posts: 21
Location: Lac Labelle, MI | Subject: RE: Sorting out the ancient coots from the newbies
1960-62 in San Diego, we had lockers at the YMCA on Broadway, where we kept our civies and tried to wash off the diesel smell.
When we went to WESPAC we were allowed to bring our civies with us and wear them off the boat.
Rock AGSS-274 |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: Don Winslow of the Navy...WOW
In the 1940s there was a series of movie serials featuring Don Wislow of the Navy...and there were funny books (what today they call comic books) containing stories about Don Winslow of the Navy and his derring-do. I was a devoted follower of both Don Winslow and of course Jack Armstrong who I thought might be related to me, because of the shared last name...I sure hoped it would be so.
There was a children's shoe store in Chattanooga called The Jouvenile Bootery. They sold Red Goose Shoes and gave out free Don Winslow funny books AND had one of those shoe store floroscopes where a kid could stick his feet in a slot at the bottom and look in a viewing port at the top and see the bones in his wiggling toes...Before Nintendo and all of the rest of these sophisicated video games...seeing your toe bones wiggle was one helluva big deal. After watching a couple of Saturday Matinee shoot-em-ups at the local "Two Stick" (Two Stick, Southern kids' designation for a theater where you had to take two sticks...one to hold your seat up and the other to beat off the rats.) You see we dumbass kids had no idea that we were flirting with toe cancer and we are now surprised that at some point in our lifes journey our toes didn't turn black and fall off....But for most of us those Don Winslow of the Navy funny books taught us to read.
Never thought I would actually meet him.....Tell me, how did he teach that dog to send Morse Code? And was Madam Rochefort as evil as she was in the movies? She sure as hell scared the devil out of me....and how did Winslow know when he carved that message on that coconut, that it would end up on the beach where Professor Dermont lived? Don it's great to meet you...wish my childhood pal Sammy Northington had lived long enough to find out that you were real....He was a non believer....He also thought Joe DiMaggio was just someone in a Joe DiMaggio suit like Santa Claus. Thanks again DEX
Edited by dex armstrong 2010-09-05 6:06 PM
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1486
| Subject: RE: Don Winslow of the Navy...WOW
I was a young fan of Don Winslow. However, they confused this youngster when all of a sudden I was watching Don Winslow of the Coast Guard. I was upset they took my hero and put him in the shallow water Navy. They used to show both of the serials between matinee movies on Saturday. Later they were on TV. |
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Mess cooking
Posts: 21
Location: Lac Labelle, MI | Subject: RE: Sorting out the ancient coots from the newbies
When I was released from active duty, all my buddies started calling me "Don Winslow, USN Retired" The name stuck with me and I used it when I didn't want anyone to know my real name , my Alias.
Rock AGSS-274 |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1263
Location: Va.Beach,Va. | Subject: RE: Sorting out the ancient coots from the newbies
"Anyone out there remember locker clubs? You bastards have to be moss covered, barnacle encrusted, ancient mariners"-DEX
Yeah,I remember. You old Dam Neck types Must remember Davy Jones's locker club,a dark,wet,moldy basement joint on 17th
street,around the corner from the Trailways bus station.We used to make weekend trips to Granby street(Bell's Naval tailors,The Big O,etc) and purchase gaudy,overpriced,out of style clothing,on credit (remember"You can owe the Big O"?), bring it back to the beach and hang it in the old rusty
war surplus lockers at Davy Jones's.
We did all this because we E-2s and E-3s in the barracks were not allowed to keep civilian clothes in our lockers.This rule was strictly enforced by the barracks master at arms,BM1Hardass who held random locker inspections and awarded demerits for each item of civialian attire(gear adrift) found.These demerits resulted in loss of our liberty cards (you younguns probably never saw one of those) for an unspecified preiod of time,depending on the number of offensive items found.
The last "Grey Ghost" back to Dam Neck left the Trailways station at midnight. Wo unto the poor ,dumb bluejacket who stretched his liberty too late and didn't allow enough time to stop by Davy's and "shift colors" before boarding the bus.
If you made that mistake you were forced to sneak back to the barracks in your civilian clothes and turn in your liberty card without getting caught.Now you were in deep kim chi because you were stuck with enough "contraband" Clothing in your locker
to piss off "Mother Hardass" and result in loss of a week's liberty.
Additionally,You better have a backup set of dress canvass in order to pass inspection to retrieve your liberty card,take the bus to town,and pick your moldy,stinky set of blues from Davy's "swamp"and rush them to the cleaners.
After I left A-school,they built a new barracks,did away with liberty cards,and relaxed the rules for civilian clothes.
The next time I saw Dam Neck,as an MTSN(ss),Davy's was gone,the old bus station was shut down, BM1 Hardass had retired to a farm in East Bumf#@k ,Arkansas,and I had my own car.
Ahh-the "good old days"!
Edited by MAD DOG 2010-09-06 10:13 AM
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Sorting out the ancient coots from the newbies
Mad Dog....Boy did you excavate some long ago memories....Liberty Cards...I have mine encased in a shadow box with my dogtags, sub school ring, ID bracelet, foul weather jackets patches and photo of Sue (who just died) that I poked in a slit between vent lines and a bunch of electric cables that looked like a python gang-bang....The athlete foots June Bug size germs from Bell's Locker Club eventually grew large enough to eat the leg off a hippopotamus...."Thanks for the memories.' With apologies to Bob Hope. Thanks very much,...DEX |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1937
Location: Patterson, New York | Subject: RE: Sorting out the ancient coots from the newbies
Hey Mad dog,
I reported to Damneck A School on Friday afternoon the day after Thanksgiving 1967 as per my orders.
It was 4:30PM and after the duty CPO signed me in and gave me a bunk number and mess pass, he said "We'll see you at muster 8AM Monday".
Being just out of boot camp, I asked what I was supposed to do for the weekend; Chief said don't go too far and just be back Monday.
I stayed on base to avoid screwing up. |
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Old Salt
Posts: 419
Location: Anchorage, Alaska | Subject: RE: Sorting out the ancient coots from the newbies
I had a locker at Bell's when I was in RM A school in Norfolk '63-'64. Can't find my card though. |
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Sorting out the ancient coots from the newbies
