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Great Sage of the Sea
Posts: 602
Location: Visalia, Ca. | Subject: RE: Messcooking
dex armstrong - 2007-06-28 6:04 PM
Flap, I was a diesel boat sailor...I knew less than nothing about nooks. I talk about nooks with the same level of sensitivity, knowledge and understanding I have for conducting symphony orchestras, performing organ transplants and driving in NASCAR races....Forgive me and allow me to jump up and down and pee-pee against the tide. It's what old men are supposed to get to do. DEX
Dex, I can only speak for myself, but for this usta-glow-in-the-dark retired bubblehead, whose qual boat had a Guppy hull, teak decks, bow planes, and TWO Screws, when I read you starting to go off about nukes, I just set my coffee cup down so I don't spill it on myself while I'm laughin'... I recognize the "smile when you say that, podner.." in your tales, and take no offense.
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Master and Commander
Posts: 2254
Location: Foothills of the Ozarks | Subject: RE: Messcooking
Finally a post I can relate to. My first boat was USS Cero SS 225. Unfortunately for me by the time I got there it was relegated to being a Reserve Boat in Detroit. But, the active duty crew were all WWII and early 1950's smoke boat qualified bluejackets that took us young kids and instilled the history and tradition that still plays an integral part of my life. I did my messcooking aboard Skipjack in 1964. 56 days in the scullery before I saw the light of day and got to serve chow and clean tables for the remaining days (all 4 of them). I got so's I could recognize who's who by their hands as they put coffee cups though the little "cubby hole" that separated me from the refined gentlemen? on the other side. The greasy guys were always the Enginemen (yep we had real live Enginemen on Skipjack; we even had a real live Fairbanks Diesel that worked and would fill the boat with smoke when we snorkeled). We also had some "old coots" who wore those little "War Patrol" Pins and carried themselves with great dignity. Somehow, us peachfuzz on the chin types just knew when these guys told you something it was exactly what you were supposed to know at that very moment. Dex is right; messcooking was a great way to learn the crew and demonstrate that every job on the boat is worthy of being done right; the first time.
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Explanation for Nuclear Qualified Personnel
Hey, need to set the record straight. I HAVE NO BLOODY IDEA WHAT SSN MESSCOOKING IS LIKE. I've been on two nuclear submarines in my life, thanks to John Wynn. My impression from a tourist's...make that ignorant tourist's, position was,"Jeezus whadda monster". I discovered that the reason they name them for major cities is that the damn things are the size of Chicago. Everything on the pint size contraptions I rode was in a fore to aft line, like a cigar tube, except for the Conn, which was a wart size compartment above the control room that watchstanders who were crammed in there had to Crisco their asses to turn around in. On the monster nukes that I went through like a line of kindergarteners going to the library holding hands, they had crews bunking suburbs, recreational spaces, shopping malls, theaters, skating rinks, playing fields and several homes on the range. It was against the law to be non-rated and the peacoats were Dacron polyester and nobody ever heard of a flat hat, clothes stops, ratty hand-me-down foulweather gear or watching sea print films on a screen the size of a Motel Six hand towel,with animals moving fore and aft interupting the line of projection. Nobody smoked...WOW, there were no overflowing butt kits...no showers loaded with spuds...no cases of canned goods carpeting the passageway three deep. The heads smelled like powder rooms in Buckingham Palace and not like a public toilet in a Pakistani train station. The galley was spotless stainless steel and big enough to hold a high school prom in, instead of the size of something you'd find in an early RV. The cooks never heard of a tee-shirt armpit salt stain the diameter of a trashcan lid. Blanket theft was a lost and forgotten art. The messdeck was the size of an International House of Pancakes and nobody had to worry about chasing plates, bowls and coffee cups in a state five sea. I witnessed lads eating a meal...They were civil, conducted themselves in a manner everyone's mother would have approved of. It didn't remotely resemble feeding time at the zoo or tigers devouring the carcass of a group kill...Language was subdued and temperate. Nobody called a fellow member of ship's company a "good-fer-nothing snipe sonuvabitch" or a "loafing ass torpedoman". No one informed the cook that his culinary efforts "would gag a self respecting skunk." I was impressed...I realized that I had once long ago, ridden the modern day equivalent of a submersible buccaneer barge, loaded with sweatsoaked barbarians, to whom messcooking was considered a professional achievement...an art. I had ridden an antiquated contraption that closely resembled a deep sea diving septic tank. As I toured these Carribean Cruise Lines submersible replicaas, I was overcome with damn near terminal jealosy...envy of a luxury level I had never known. To think that while I was stewing in a pool of flashpad sweat, offering prayers to the Goddess of the Main Induction to end the heat produced by engineroom idiots distilling sea water...There were men somewhere roaming God's oceans beyond my pressure hull...drinking Mai-Tais, watching Cinemascope movies on drive-in size movie screens and being served Orville Redenbacher treats by guys with second class crows in rates I never heard of. They were riding up to date craft that smelled like the inside of a showroom Buick, without a retread Gunnersmate in the crew. They had navigational gear that could pintpoint their position within the tolerance of a Munchkin pubic hair while we had to kick hell out of our LORAN to find out if we had sailed over the edge of the earth. Those fellows wore the same Dolphins I did...at least I think they did. Later we were told that Rickover gave out Dolphins smelted from metal made from molten moon rocks, but I knew that submarine sailors tend to exaggerate...that is, all those worthless boatsailors but me. I got lost on the USS TOLEDO somewhere between the mezzanine library and the polo field. I wandered into the wardroom where they had leather chairs custom fit to the specifications of officers butts, that actually had little swivvel connections that attached them to the wardroom table. I asked how rough the storms got when they were running seven or eight miles deep and was told that "locking on" was part of the "rig for surface" when using an 87 degree up angle at 75 knots...that sounded reasonable to me. I had watched VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA a couple of times so I was pretty much up on modern submarine operational procedure and was fairly conversant with 87 degree up angles from having lost the bubble when manning the stern planes on a Tench Boat....once or twice. There are a few areas of Nuke-ology and Basic Boomer Diving Practical Factors that I'm a little hazy on...recently learned about vertical tube shooters and garbage disposal where the residue of the evening meal is converted into DeBeers quality gems to be sold on EBay by SubLant...They didn't tell smokeboat sailors about that stuff, because we drank a lot of beer and slept with barmaids and they feared that a lot of stuff would get out. We had to get all our top-secret information from the Chinese button crushers who ran the pierhead laundry wagon...straight guage deployment itineraries and Orion wardroom rumors. We served in a different Navy...not that we were better or worse, simply different. The Nook-Navy was very serious, professional and strove hard to be a no-nonsence group of highly dedicated naval personnel....We just tried to make it back to the boat walking upright, wearing a jumper and trou devoid of regurgitated Beer Nuts and Slim Jims and without hauling something the Corpsman couldn't cure. DEX |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Messcooking
Forgot to add....A lot of what I write is slightly laced with pure unadulterated horse manure...not a whole lot, but some. A recent e-mail correspondent who served aboard proton powered submersible craft, intimated that to be a nuclear mariner of the deep, one had to be of superior intellect and forged in advanced degree level study. Then he implied that to ride diesel boats you could have the intellect of a Hostess Twinkie. And he had to use his superior intellect to figure that out? I hope he didn't devote a lot of time in research....any barmaid in Lovey's Krazy Kat couldda told him that. DEX |
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Senior Crew
Posts: 102
| Subject: RE: Messcooking
Runner485 - 2007-06-27 10:55 AM Bill Linne - 2007-06-23 1:53 PMNEVER MESS COOKED.  Did my entire first upkeep Mess Cooking. In Guam, no less! Hot as hell, and all the trash and garbage had to be hauled topside, up and over the friggin tender, then about 500' to the dumpsters (seemed like half a mile! ) Needless to say, I was glad when that was over. I did not mind washing dishes, setting tables, or serving meals. The rest of it drew a tremendous vacuum!Bill 
We'll compare ID's on the ship Joe, and oldest buys the first round, okay?
Bill
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Old Salt
Posts: 419
Location: Anchorage, Alaska | Subject: RE: Messcooking
"stewing in a pool of flashpad sweat"
Thanks for that one, DEX. Priceless.
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Messcooking
