Pecos asked in the latest newsletter for our memories and stories from our sub years, so I thought I would sit down and conjure up some memories from the past. There are so many great times to remember. Six months overhaul in San Fran was a highlight, being there in 1962 at the height of the beatniks and flower children. North Beach and Finochios and Chinese New Years in Chinatown were unforgettable. I’ll never forget though my closest shipmates. Cousins Steve and Gary Bates, John Maldanado, Lefty Thompson, Pete(last name escapes me) and some of your names that my 66 year old mind just can’t flush out of the cobwebs. And Bubba I’ll never forget listening to you laying in your bunk moaning and groaning after we left Yokasuka after you got the vasectomy we were told not to get, with your family jewels swollen up like baseballs.

But back to Lefty Thompson. He had the quickest straight left I have ever seen. And I have seen them close up. One night Steve and Gary Bates, Lefty and myself were bar hopping and had just come out of Lefty O’Douls in downtown Frisco and were walking up the street when a civilian came walking toward us. He demanded we get out of the way which was the wrong thing to say. He got in Lefty’s face and Lefty took one step back and like lightning the left came out and the guy was out cold on the sidewalk. A block later he was still there. In the Starlight sub bar in Yokosuka (I still have a matchbook from the Starlight) a couple of surface sailors walked in and Lefty and I shoulder to shoulder blocked their way. We told them to leave and when one stepped toward us, out came the left and blood went everywhere. One broken nose was all it took to convince them a sub bar was not the best place to be. My most vivid memory of Lefty though is still with me today. He vowed that when he got qualified nobody could throw him overboard. Four of us caught him topside one day and jumped him. I ended up with a leg. As he fought us he brought his knee up under my chin and jammed my lower front teeth into the uppers and shattered them. I went up the deck spitting pieces of teeth. I had to make up a story that I slipped going down the ladder. I went to the hospital in San Diego and had caps put on them. I’m on my third set of caps now and still don’t have false teeth. Lefty never did get thrown in. Darn it.

Well shipmates I had my reservations for my first reunion and have had to cancel. My wife had a stroke and was in the hospital for 6 weeks and now we are going through lots of rehab trying to get her limbs and speech back to somewhat usable condition. I will be there at the next one. You can count on that.

Smooth sailing everyone, Pete Cameron ICFN(SS) USS SPINAX Oct. 1960-Dec. 1963