If you’re not superstitious, that’s fine and dandy, but most Navy men have a
bit of superstition of one type or the other within their mind at one time or the
other# I retnember one time I was on a transport headed for Hawaii and we were
about an hour out of Frisco when I noticed this Boatswain’s Mate frantically
throwing pennies overboardi Being .a Seaman at the time I was amazed to see all
that money (those pennifeS Seerfied likd dldlldrS ) being thrown overboard# I asked
the 3osn why and he told me that it Wak bad ludk for a sailor to leave a port with
pennies aboard his ship or person# He went1 on to tell me a story about having a
ship sink on him because one of his seamen kept a big jar of pennies in his locker.
I don’t know if his story was true or not - whether he was joshing me or not I
don’t know but I still haven’t really broken loose of the habit of throwing pennies
away when I debark on a trip#
I remembered these things when I was given the following information by a kind
Muskie reader who is not superstitious, yet. It seems that DILLS, EOS who is a
operator of Heavy Equipment got stuck in a -snow drift on 28 December near Ship's
Department totem TIKI. DILL'S irritation at being stuck prompted him to commence
throwing snowballs at.TIKI. MOCDY, SF1 saw what was happening and hastened to.
the site to warn DILLS that TIKI's wrath would cause havoc with personnel of his
section. DILL's promptly laughed it off and continued to throw the snowballs.^OK
MOCDY, told him solemnly; "You wait, TIKI's wrath will bring upon you and your
crew a snowstorm, much, much worse than this one."* DILLS passed it off and later
after the crew had been up into the wee hours cleaning up from the snow he felt
that no wooden Totem could make matters any worse.
TIKI waited, he contemplated his action and decided to call up his friends, the
Williwaw's for a council. As they whispered through the night of January 11th, a
declaration of war was declared against the CB who had dared to defy TIKI.A storm
of great magnitude then descended on Adak on 12 January and the crews were busy
for many, many hours.
ALEXANDER, Patty Officer in Charge of Heavy Equipment promptly called for a
court hearing on DILLS when the mop-up was completed.
GIL3Y, ECC, Chief in Charge of Operations in the Public Works Department was
designated as Judge and a jury consisting of the Heavy Equipment Crew proceeded to
hear the case against DILLS. He was found guilty and sentenced.
At 1100 on 15 January, in the presence of many Public Works personnel and the
crew of the Ship*s Division of the Operations Department DILLS was awarded 1 2
lashes across the posterior with an old fashioned razor strap on the bare * ground
where TIKI stands. I say bare ground because fair' weather has prevailed for the
past few days since that date and as this is being written a beautiful day of sun
and soft winds has ended. TIKI, the totem of the Ship*s Department stands majest
ically on these sunny days, and if you look long enough, perhaps you will see a
smile on his lips0 Superstition, fantasy, hog-wash, maybe so, but you will’ never
see Muskie throwing snowballs at TIKI again or DILLS either, perhaps.
MILLER, BM1, Skipper of one of the station YTB*s says if his Ship*s Bell sounds
odd in the rain, it*s because its ringing wet.'
I remember when I sent in my first manuscript to a Publishing House in the east,
I put the usual "The characters in this story are purely fictional and bear no
resemblance to any person living or dead.” . Three weeks later it caught up with
me and on it a penciled notation read; "That*s what*s wrong with it."
So, keep smilin*
1Ole Muskie _