Your Sentinel, Father's Day, Dad, Grandpa and Joyce's Father

The Sentinel All the news that's fit to print and some that's not.
Dad I'm putting the picture here today in honor of father's day. My dad was a character, a complex man with so many layers he was difficult to understand. He was a teamster, a democrat that was more conservative than a republican. He could be and was often sarcastic and annoying, yet at other times a kind soul. He loaned money to everyone in the family and many times never got it back. Yet when I needed bus fare to get to high school, he always made me beg to get it. He grew up poor on the streets selling sausages to support his mother, yet come Christmas he was Santa to everyone and no one did it better.	Grandpa My grandpa was my mentor, my teacher of everything good. I was the first-born and he loved me. He always had time to speak with me and because he got home from work at 2:30 every day, we went fishing nearly every day in the summertime. Grandpa was generous and kind and I wish that would have worn off on me more than it has. I became half dad and half grandpa. Now later in life I like to think I am becoming more grandpa than dad. Grandpa never cursed, was well read and most of all kind.	Joyce's Father The picture above is Joyce's mother and father on their wedding day, Christmas 1944. Joyce's dad was a navy man's navy man. He was a plank owner (first crew on a ship) on the USS Brownson. He and the crew were the only crew ever to serve on the Brownson, a navy destroyer. He was on the first cruise of the ship. He chased German submarines in the Caribbean and then went to Alaska to run the Japanese out of the Aleutian islands. From there they went to the south pacific. He became a shell-back (sailor that goes through the initiation into Davy Jones and Neptune's realm of the deep) after crossing over the equator. The ship did shore bombardment in the assaults on pacific islands and provided screening for bigger ships. On Christmas day the ship was providing air cover for the landing ships on New Brattain when Japanese bombers from Rabaul island flew in to attack the fleet. The ship was trying to protect the transports when a Japanese Betty bomber managed to sneak in and drop a 500 pound bomb right over the engine room, killing near everyone inside there. He was one of about 108 crew members that survived in shark infested waters out of near 300. The Brownson was sunk in less than a year in service as were many others.