(Five-inch naval rifle on the port side of ex-USS Olympia, facing BB-62 ex-USS New Jersey. Photo Socotra.) I was standing with Captain Harry Burkhadt in the starboard coal bunker of the Protected Cruiser ex-USS Olympia. I looked at my watch. The train back to Washington was going to leave at four; it was clear I […]

(Stokers. Official Navy Picture)   Captain Harry is completely at home in Olympia’s engine room. It is his, after all. If there is a spirit in this magnificent ship, he is the epitome of the life-force.   He has been in her hull, cleaning and polishing, since he was a teenager when he began working […]

(Walnut and Brass-bound steam trunk. Photo Socotra) “See, people think that the ship is built around the engine, the way they do now. Wasn’t true then. The Union Iron Works in San Francisco built the two engines, assembled and tested them ashore and then disassembled them and constructed them again here in the ship. Every […]

(Captain Harry and the paneling on Officer’s Row. Photo Socotra.)   “You know what these are,” he said, fingering a brass ring mounted at the top of each panel. I nodded, though I had no clue and was frankly overwhelmed by the highly polished wooden deck beneath my feet, and the notion that this had […]

(ex-USS New Jersey, one of four Iowa-class Battlewagons BB-62 at her resting place. Photo Socotra).   We walked past the entrance to the indoor Seaport Museum to take in the vista of bedraggled Camden across the Delaware River. There, the Iowa-Class battlewagon ex-USS New Jersey (BB-62)  looms like a long gray mountain across the slate […]

(Classic Olympia Beer label, circa 1914. Legacy Copyright SABMiller Corp.)   I remember the slogan for Olympia-brand beer, from the Great Pacific Northwest. Maybe you do, too. “It’s the water!” they proudly proclaimed in the days when there were three television channels and life made a certain non-ironic sense.   I haven’t seen any Oly […]

The two projects have been hanging over my head for weeks now. I have to generate a special 25th Anniversary issue of the Quarterly for the Professional Association, and then the regular Fall-Winter issue. They can take weekends of work, and I was running out of time. I am bound by the commitment to get […]

(Split blackened artichokes. Photo Socotra).   Ingredients:   One package Harris Teeters Pierogies stuffed with chedder and jalpanos (twelve, approximately)   One large Castroville, California, artichoke.   Hellman’s Original Mayonaisse, fresh creamery butter, sea salt and crushed black pepper to taste.   One steak, marinated in Jack Daniels Garlic and Herb sauce 24 hours (unless […]

(Peter Finch is mad as hell in this frame from the 1976 film “Network.” Photo fair use from Wikipedia. Copyright MGM/Turner Entertainment) A lot of people of apparently running on the Mad as Hell platform this season, echoing the classic line of Paddy Chayefsky’s washed up television anchor Howard Beale:   “I’m mad as hell, […]

(The ritual of the 2010 Big Pink closing ceremony, Big Pink’s 2010 season. Left to right, Chad, Jiggs, Vic, Joe, Jeremy, Mrs. Hitler, Manda, Sarah-with-H, Mardy-2. Choreography Mary Margaret. Photo Manduley)   My sister Anook called and caught me by the pool. Well, it would be hard to catch me anywhere else on the last […]