An anniversary, some classified documents, and winning | Life in Ludlow

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Whilst in the U.S. Navy a few decades back, I handled many classified documents and one day they made me feel much better. 

You see, I was on the USS Belmont, one of those intelligence gathering ships watching and listening to anything we could find. We were about one day out of Norfolk headed to the Mediterranean Sea on a mission to shadow the Moscva, a Russian guided missile/helicopter carrier ship. 

I was a green sailor working in a space without any windows, or portholes. After about an hour of rolling seas, my stomach decided it need not hold its contents any longer and added them to a nearby trash can. 

I decided I needed fresh air and a look at the horizon so my vision and balance could sync up. As a result, I volunteered for the “burn detail.” This duty required hauling the shredded classified documents we had created and now needed to be disposed of in “burn bags” up to the main deck incinerator. When I got there it was a beautiful day with a great view of the rolling ocean and the horizon. My innards soon got much happier. 

Thank goodness for those classified documents that needed to be burned. Trump and Biden may feel a need for similar services these days.

BJ, an old friend, and I watched the college basketball “Game of the Century” in a hotel room in State College, Pennsylvania 55 years ago last Friday. The game was between No. 1 UCLA and No. 2 University of Houston. The game was played in the Astrodome and had the largest college basketball game attendance up to then and it was the first college game televised nationally. 

Another old friend sent me a text Friday and asked if I knew where I was that day. 

I responded that I knew exactly where I was and what I was doing. I think he might have really been asking if I remembered going to his wedding which was, yep, earlier that day in State College. The University of Houston won and I suspect he and his new wife did not watch the game. 

The Bay Club in Port Ludlow practically burst at the seams last Saturday with a Port Ludlow Performing Arts, (PLPA), performance by “Take3”, a three-member band with incredible energy and talent. The group consists of three women playing a cello, violin, and piano performing takes on rock, jazz, classical, country, and more. PLPA also has an “Education Outreach” program and had arranged for “Take3” to perform for Quilcene and Chimacum middle and high school students on Friday. I can only imagine the energy they generated in the Chimacum High School auditorium. 

The PLPA concerts are almost as much fun before and at intermission because you get to socialize with local folks you may not have seen for some time. 

Tom Satterlee and I traded a couple of skiing lies and then tried to remember bars or restaurants we had frequented whilst on ski trips. The fact is that neither of us have been skiing in several years and remember not the names of those places. Frankly, my best memories of those days involve my back and joints needing less medication and physical therapy than they get now. 

Well, there was that broken collar bone nine years ago.

After losing three evening poker games in a row, I finally had a positive evening last week when I returned home with eight dollars more than when I left home, finally proving the old idiom that “even a blind pig can find an acorn.”

There did not seem to be any blind pigs in Kansas City over the weekend as the Chiefs beat the Jacksonville Jaguars in their quest for another Super Bowl victory, we hope. 

They play the Cincinnati Bengals this weekend at Kansas City. The Bengals have won the last three games against the Chiefs. 

Can the Bengals really do that four times in a row? Hey, it is more fun than the “burn bag” duty.  

Love a curmudgeon and have a great week. 

(Ned Luce is a retired IBM executive and Port Ludlow resident. And as a Navy sailor, he gave the phrase “Heave ho!” a whole new meaning. Contact Ned at ned@ptleader.com.)