Art at sea

Behold the art and creativity on the doors (hatches) and floor of the USS Abraham Lincoln

Onthe floor of the fo'c'stle between two matmoth anchor chains at the bow

The welding shop--where they can make anythiing, and do.

The brig

Doors to officers' quarters

Doors through which you do not pass.

This was the door to my quarters, since the airwing was gone,

Tiger cruise, part 2

This is the second part of the story I wrote about my trip aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which appeared in Edmond Life and Leisure.

Clark and Lt. Cmdr. Steve Curry at the end of the cruise in Everett, Washington.

The Navy public affairs office on board--of which Lt. Cmdr. Curry is now in charge--readily makes all these facts, and much more, available to the public, as does the ship’s website. It, and the Tiger cruise, is the ultimate in public relations as the Navy does its best to take care of its crew.

His department only hints at the size of this ship. He has about 15 officers and enlisted in his command. It puts out tabloid, full color “Penny Press,” (Just named the best newspaper in the Navy) a daily newsletter, a twice-a-month TV show called “The Boat Show,” and much more, including photography, Facebook http://www.facebook.com/USSLincoln, webpage    http://navysite.de/cvn/cvn72.html and PR ashore. I got to meet these journalists and see them work. Their attitude and professionalism is contagious, as it is all over the ship.

With the airwing gone, I learned the mood of the ship is different, because, well, they wouldn’t say it, but the pilots and rest of the airwing tends to be on a bit of an ego trip.

You catch that when you listen to a Chief describe the nuclear department on board. The two reactors are absolutely safe. You get more radiation from a day on the beach than from them. That was the only place on board we were not allowed, and doors to that area are guarded.

“The Nukes” as they call themselves, are the largest department on ship—from 300 to 400 people operating the reactors, that produce steam from heated water to run the four 75,000-shaft-horsepower steam turbines that power the ship’s engines and electricity.  As the Chief said in his lecture to us on a tour: “The flight deck is just a canopy to keep the reactors dry and in the shade.” 

Size dominates again. We went aft to “Shaft Alley” 20 feet below the waterline to see the rapidly revolving shafts coming out of the turbines that drive the four five-bladed 20-foot diameter 45.5 ton screws powering the ship up to more than 30 knots.  The steam comes from the reactors heating water—400,000 gallons a day are scooped up by the ship and desalinated for use.

The Nukes spend most of their time below decks—“We don’t tan very well,” the Chief joked.

Part of the day's laundry

There are more such stories…a complete welding shop that can make anything; “Precinct 72”—the brig and its crew run by the law enforcement officer know as “The Sheriff”; the laundry that cleans 5,500 pounds of laundry every day; the barbers giving 250 haircuts a day.

In the fo’c’sle, a bosun’s mate, with an anchor tattooed on his arm, tells of the two 1,082-foot long anchor chains, die cast in 90-foot lengths, and each chain link weighing 385pounds. 

Sailor created art of the logo, on the floor of the bridge.

Pride shows in an untold story aboard is the art I found on hatches, doors and decks, done by sailors. The Lincoln’s logo, designed by a sailor, is the 1972 Lincoln Head Penny (for CVN 72), with the carrier coming right at you, and the slogan “Shall Not Perish.” Officers have the Lincoln Head on their name tags. Statues and symbols of Lincoln abound on the ship, including the Gettysburg Address.

Sick bay is full of stories, staffed by about 40 people, including a surgeon and four other MDs, a psychiatrist and a physical therapist. There are also dentists. Most common operations aboard, according to the SMO (Senior Medical Officer) who gave us a tour, are vasectomies and circumcisions, although they’ve had appendectomies and more. Most common injuries have to do with injured hands and feet from the hatches and other obstructions. They also deal with a lot of skin and respiratory problems

“This isn’t a cruise ship,” he said.

It’s a warship. You know that as you go up and down steep “ladders” between watertight hatches between decks. The only elevators on board are four for lifting aircraft from the cavernous hangar deck to the flight deck and freight elevators for loading food and more between decks. Bright red fire lockers and equipment are everywhere—remember bombs and jet fuel are stored everywhere. Every room has EEBDs—Emergency Evacuation Breathing Devices).

The hangar deck stretches more than 600 feet long and 200 feet wide three stories below the flight deck. By the time you’ve walked from quarters to the mess area, or to your mustering and duty station, you’ll probably cover at least a mile a day, including climbing the ladders.

Still, there is fitness equipment everywhere. And the admiral aboard, still certified to fly, conducts sessions like “Jump rope for jocks.”

The Lincoln is part of a strike group that includes frigates, destroyers, a missile cruiser and a nuclear sub. It has 10 “sisters” similarly equipped around the world—including the USS Ronald Reagan that was dispatched to Japan.

Pride and people. There’s the  lone round table with a white table cloth set up in the mess area. The chair is empty. An empty plate with a slice of lemon and silverware awaits.  There is a vase with a red ribbon and a single rose.  The glass is turned upside down because the guest won’t arrive.  Everything is symbolic. Beside it is the black POW/MIA logo.

Witnessing the ship coming into home port after being gone six months stays with you emotionally forever. Lining the pier are hundreds of family members, with signs of names and welcoming and hearts for loved ones. The crew, manning the rails around the entire four-and-a-half acre flight deck, stands at attention in their dress blues.

Then as the ship, aided by tug boats dwarfed by its size,  gingerly eases backs toward the pier, the rear mooring line is shot ashore. The crowd cheers and a band plays, “Anchors Away.”

Here comes the crowd, mothers and children pushing baby carriages to await the sailors ready to disembark. It takes an hour to secure the ship, but the first off are the “first dads.” On the Lincoln there were about 30 of them, going down to the pier to see their new children for the first time.

In the 30-minute navigation briefing in the wardroom the night before, the Captain told his officers of the successful trip, but cautioned them to end the voyage of the 97,500-ton warship without a mistake.

“Don’t goon it up and bump the pier,” he said.
The USS Abe Lincoln didn’t bump the pier.

***

·        The best writing on carriers is by Steve Twomey of The Philadelphia Inquirer, “How super are our super carriers?” won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 about the USS America, the predecessor of the Nimitz carriers. I use it teaching feature writing. For your reading pleasure, check:

·        bit.ly/twomey

·        I asked only one question I couldn’t get an answer for, yet. How many Okies on board?

April 9, 1865

The flag still flies at Fort Sumpter, South Carolina

When Iris bloom in the dooryard

One of the iris from my Dad’s grave popped into full bloom in our doorway this morning, a beautiful purple blue.

I dug a few roots up several years ago in Fairlawn Cemetery at Comanche, Oklahoma, one early spring.

Every year they come up, around the blackened, jagged remains of an old oak tree stump.

When Dad was buried there, almost 40 years ago, the tree was alive. It

twisted upward in a half spiral, its weathered bark curving over his grave.

Dad would have loved the tree. The artist would have taken his pencils and sketched it on one of his pads. Like him, the tree had character.

The irises were there then, although I didn't notice them much because of the freshness of the grave, and the shape of the tree.

Several years ago though, the tree died, and rotted. I'm not sure when it

came down, but I suspect one of those southern Oklahoma windstorms snapped it off at the base.

I go back to the cemetery at the north edge of the poor little red dirt

Oklahoma town a couple of times a year, driving up the gravel, listening to

it crunch under my tires, and get out and walk toward the grave.

I used to be able to find the grave because of the tree, and now I look for

the stump and irises.

Four graves in a row, north to south.

Dad's grave, looking north. It's wet because I planted flowers and cleaned the stone.

The northernmost, a four-foot white marble pillar, tilting a little, was my

great-grandfather--Batte Peterson Clark:.

B.P. Clark

April 11, 1855

July 26, 1916

Next is a flat stone, my great grandmother:

Mary U. Watts Clark

1848-1923

Then there's granddad's flat stone:

Erle T. Clark

Jan. 14, 1890

Dec. 4, 1963

Then, Dad's gravestone, only about two to three miles north of where he was born:

Terrence M. Clark

Jan. 21, 1914

Dec. 14, 1973

"His Spirit Lives In His Paintings"

There is a space, room for one more grave.

Then there is the stump and the irises. Some of which now burst into bloom every year in our dooryard.

I can stand there, and walk between the graves and stump, and talk, and memories bloom again.

Just like the irises every spring,

Power pointless

I hope this isn’t pointless and powerless.

“I hate powerpoint,” a colleague said recently in a national meeting, while a speaker fumbled for some techie to make “Powerpoint” work on the computer screen.

In the meantime, the audience figited, lost interest, and most of all, lost the point.

Powerpoint is a computer program that is supposed to help speakers, to help education by superorganizing presentations with cute graphics, point by point slides on a big screen everyone can see.

But most of the time it does far more harm than anything else. First of all, most people who use it have no idea of readability factors breaking every typographic rule, and slides are cluttered with stupid graphics and colors and gimmicks sliding across the screen that look terrific but can’t be read. Secondly, the speakers feel compelled to read, word for word, everything on the screen, which is as exciting as a English teacher reading out of a textbook. Then, most times, the program won’t adapt to the new computer, and techies take over, trying to make it work, since nobody bothered to test it ahead of time. Then if it does come up, it probably has obscure computer codes showing and little boxes for the cursor to click. Then it may be off center or poorly lighted. And  in the dark room, students go to sleep or text away, bored out of their skulls. Technology doesn’t make a teacher…that’s the point.

The audience meanwhile, suffers. We’re experts at this in academia, but this ineptitude and insult to education and communication is also invading churches, chambers of commerce and schools.

We are at the mercy of the technocrats. Neil Postman in Technopoly says techies are the priests who can run the machine but have no expertise in the message, in the content. But since it’s the fad to use it, the teacher is shackled. I’ve seen a witty, and very good speaker—a vice-president at UCO speaking to the entire faculty--reduced to slavery to the system and incomprehensibility because the Powerpoint didn’t work right, and then couldn’t be read since the equivalent of the entire Constitution was on screen in 6-point type.

Technology the tool controls us, rather than the other way around.

Powerpoint is used to stifle greatness and impose structure. It is needed by poor teachers, but they can’t use it, and it brings great teachers down to their level.

How would it work in the “real” world? If these were major advertising agencies vying for a multimillion-dollar account, Powerpoint would lose the sale. Nothing matches good posters and visuals controlled by a prepared speaker with passion.

That’s what power point does—rob a speaker of passion.

One shudders to think what Powerpoint would have done to Socrates, or Jesus and the Sermon on the Mount, or the Declaration of Independence, or Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, FDR’s radio chats, or Churchill’s “blood sweat and tears,” Ike with the troops on D-Day, Bastogne’s “Nuts,” or Ghandi, or Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” or Art Linkletter or Robin Williams’ humor. Or Billy Graham’s sermons.

“”Blessed are the….”and Jesus pauses and waits for the techie to change the slide…and the wrong one comes up…”Pharisees who strain at a gnat.” Can you see this? We might all be speaking German if Churchill had to wait for Powerpoint to work before he could put the English to sleep with another boring presentation.

Today, we live in a world of no oratory or passion and Powerpoint will make sure that continues, a crutch of mediocrity.

At a meeting in India, one speaker  got laughs when he said, “Here’s my Powerpoint.  I have a point, and you have the power.”

The US military in the Mideast is crippled by Powerpoint, and the story made the front page of the NY Times this past year. Two power points a day paralyzes the officers and us. No wonder we’re not winning.

Nor teaching.

What we have is a comedy of the pointless and a powerless fad.

I don’t want to be pointy-headed and point fingers with these pointed remarks however.

So, wait till I get this on a power point presentation, and you can go to sleep.

What’s the point?

Is it pointless?

Is it powerless?

Get the point?