(VADM Rex Rectanus, Left. Virginia Martin, Middle. Some guy from the Writer’s Section, Right).
If you are lucky, you may recall when the grandparents came for a visit in a pleasant old sedan for a happy family weekend. Today’s adventure from the Writer’s Section features something along those lines, if those grandparents were actually just distinguished old friends who had arrived at the foot of the driveway not in an automobile but a vast gray-painted Navy cruiser bristling with armament.
We threatened to inundate you yesterday with meaningless memories from another place in another time. We got lost in that time and place- we called it the “Snake Ranch-” when suddenly something else happened. We won’t bother you with what tripped it off, except it was an incoming note from the beauty who stamped her unique personality and extraordinary presence on me at the age of “ten” in front of Olsen’s Market in Birmingham, Michigan. That moment occurred during the memorable period of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and her beauty and talk of atomic annihilation were so memorable they have followed me since, sometimes nearer and sometimes more distant.
Her note sparked one of those elliptical coincidental moments because the Old Salts gang had been talking about that 1962 crisis that nearly blew our world apart. In looking at Russian artifacts here at Refuge Farm because of that string we wound up searching the files for context and data another manuscript popped up. We mentioned it briefly yesterday as one of the bookends to the great historic transition from “paper” things to “digital” ones, but we had completely forgotten this one. That led to the afternoon pouring over nearly fifty installments of what appeared to be a part biography of a great Sailor that collided with an enduring mystery about the fate of another.
We realized why it had not been completed when we got to the end of the existing files. There was a mystery that had been “closed” with an official story that may actually conceal another and deeper puzzle. Some of those involved are still alive, though, and we have an obligation to run the traps with them before going further with that tale, fascinating though it is. So, here is a quick peek behind the regular production run at the Writer’s Section on this National Cheeseburger Day:
1. We are awaiting final edit on the text to “Last Cruise of the Cold War.” One of the best pals from the Willow Decade has it in hand and has promised to deliver it in a week or so, depending on whether she can get her handsome young son to take a nap.
2. The discovery yesterday of the biography of Vice Admiral Rex Rectanus, first officer of the Restricted Line to make three stars in the US Navy, launched a round of mild hysteria. There had been a significant amount of work- nearly a decade long- conducting interviews with Mac Showers that resulted in a fun book we called “Cocktails With the Admiral.” One of the many stories that surprised us was the casual mention one afternoon at Willow that he had not been Director of Naval Intelligence.
That was surprising in our time, because the only reason for selection to Flag rank in our time was to serve in that billet. Naturally the matter led to more discussion about why and how that happened, which brought VADM Rectanus into the mix, along with a discussion about the Zumwalt Revolution when as CNO Bud re-shaped the Old Navy after his return from duty in Vietnam.
That matter led to a fascinating series of interviews and a friendship that lasted as long as Rex and his companion the elegant Virginia Martin were alive. The relationship with Jinny became vibrant as she was one of the most beautiful women we have had the pleasure to know, besides the one in front of Olen’s Market. From that single sentence you can see there was a swirl of stories involved. Both Rex and Jinny survived their first spouses, both of whom, it should be noted, were loving and respected people.
Jinny’s husband Barney Martin had been chief of the Naval Investigative Service, predecessor organization to the “NCIS” of television fame. Due to her beauty and wit, he loved her so intently that he defied mortality with its power. In his will, he included a provision that their lovely home in California would be wrenched away from her and pass to his brother in the event of her re-marriage.
After Rex became a widower, he met Jinny. Their initial friendship blossomed into companionship and love, but they could not marry without losing the magnificent home Jinny had styled and built with Barney. As a consequence of Barney’s will, they lived a certain ambiguity and split their living time between Rex’s home in Florida and Jinny’s in coastal California, alway precisely scheduled for compliance with the wishes of the dead.
There was no bad blood between Mac and Rex despite the fact that Bud Zumwalt insisted Mac retire so that Rex, his intelligence Chief in Vietnam, could serve as his DNI. In fact, Rex joined Mac and the Writer’s Section for extensive and far ranging conversations about how the Navy we served derived from the one they created.
Today, Cheeseburgers notwithstanding, we were going to run a letter typed on 15 May 1980 to give you a feel for what 29-year-olds thought about military coups in progress in the Republic of Korea. It is sort of fun reading, but you won’t be subjected to it this morning. It is, as you have ascertained, another product of a project file long neglected.
We swear the Writer’s Section will get to all of it in time. But for the nonce, imagine that an enormous warship- maybe the USS Macon (CA-132) has arrived at the foot of your driveway and dropped the anchor with a gigantic crash to the pavement. Then a group of only slightly faux but elegant grandparents have waved from the top of the accommodation ladder and indicated they were going to disembark with an escort party and spend a pleasant Sunday with you…
Jinny Martin Front Door.png
(Rex’s companion Jinny Martin in front of the house she designed with her husband- the only husband his will permitted- in the hills above the ocean in California).
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