I live in the present moment and do what is needed in my apartment, but that doesn’t take up much time, so I fill the rest of my day either watching movies or reliving my past.
I’ve had some wonderful times living with Joyce and I couldn’t ask for anything more.
The next best time was being in the navy and working on the flight deck of the USS Kitty Hawk. Sailors on other ships called her “The shitty Kitty,” but they were dead wrong. We never missed getting to our assignments on time every time, something no other ship in the fleet could say. Our sister ship the USS Constellation should have been called the “USS Constipation,” because she was frequently late arriving to relieve us on rotation in and out of the war zone every 30 days off the coast of Vietnam.
One time in particular, the Constellation missed an entire rotation, leaving us out on the line for 65 days. That may not seem like a long time, but 12 hours a day of hard work 7 days a week for 65 days straight was tense. It didn’t take much for tempers to flare up and fights break out. It got so bad, I quit talking to anyone.
The guy who slept on the slab above mine was a total alcoholic. I never knew that before because he always seemed normal until his liquor supply ran out, then he turned into a maniac.
Normally when we were in port, he would make trips ashore and smuggle his alcohol back to the ship so he had enough to last through the 30 day period on the line.
