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Bottle returns

On my way to the Enterprise early in the week, I had a delightful surprise. I ran into Champ Branch.

If you don’t know Champ, you’ve missed one of the best treats My Home Town has to offer.

Champ (And don’t ask me his real name. For all I know, Champ is his real name … or maybe his confirmation name) is a Saranac Lake native and pretty much a lifelong resident. By my estimate — and I’m shocked to realize it – he’s 80 or 81. He was a great athlete in his youth and still gets around fine, and thus my surprise at his true age. His fitness is, I’m sure, a tribute to healthy living.

But beyond merely being in good shape, Champ has a grasp of local history and lore that’s encyclopedic. He’s that rarest and most precious town resource – a local archivist. Of course lots of people remember the past clearly, but sadly a lot of their recollections, while vivid, are at the very least embellished, and at the worst, wholly fabricated. Champ, however, is batting 1000 when it comes to Old Home Week. Beyond that, he’s a helluva nice guy and a fine storyteller. It’s a rare and wonderful combination.

Anyhow, we were standing across from the post office shootin’ the breeze, when he said something about his time in the service.

“The service?” I said. “Which service?”

“The Navy,” he said.

I followed up with my usual interrogation, getting him to flesh out the details. Turned out, he went in right after high school, in 1954. He was stationed at Anacostia, Maryland, just outside D.C., assigned to a Navy air base. He was a parachute rigger, and while attached to a Navy air wing, he didn’t get to fly as his duty. He did, however, fly on a milk run once a month so he kept getting his flight pay, which was no small deal. It was $60 a month, almost as much as his base pay.

We kept chatting about this and that and, as had to happen, he came up with a sea story.

Note: All stories in the Navy are sea stories…even the ones that take place a thousand miles inland.

Chain

His tale was learning about the chain of command — or in this case, the lack of it.

One of the first things drilled into our heads in boot camp was the chain of command. Before I went in the Navy, I’d never even heard the term. That changed within days. We were told what it was, who in Great Lakes was on it, and then just to make sure we weren’t slacking, we had to memorize it and be able to puke it back to any instructor there who asked us to. And woe betide the poor boot who only got most of the chain right.

One importance of knowing the chain of command is knowing your place in it, which for us was easy: In boot camp and for all of our one-hitch Navy career, our place was lower than whale poop. The other importance is knowing who, specifically, was above you and in what order. Yeah, sure, everybody was above you, but some people were above almost everyone else, and one person (the Chief of Naval Operations) was above everyone else.

The practical reason for knowing the chain of command was if you had a problem and wanted to settle it, you had a clear path to follow. And, according to Navy regs, you had to follow it — there were no shortcuts in the chain of command. The order of the chain of command was a sacred cow. At least that was the official line. In reality, the chain of command was a bunch of sacred bull. Shortcuts could be had, as could ignoring the sucker altogether. Champ’s sea story is a perfect example.

Breaking the chains

He was fresh out of boot camp, and just before that, fresh out of Saranac Lake. In short, although he looked like a sailor, dressed like a sailor, and worked like a sailor, in reality he was just a kid from the sticks, still (as the old folks used to say) wet behind the ears.

He liked his job at Anacostia, but there was one thing he absolutely hated: Every weekend he was on duty. This meant on Friday and Saturday nights he had to stand watches. Watches consisted of putting on a white guard belt, and wandering around an assigned area for two hours, looking out for who knows what. Fires? Propane leaks? Russian spies? Since it was a Navy base and everything was constantly monitored and maintained, the chance of sudden fires or explosions was probably the same as infiltration by Russian spies.

No matter, there was Seaman Branch strolling about at all hours of his weekend nights, bored out of his skull and at times fatigued out of it as well. Watches were two hours, except for one on shore duty, which was 1000 – 0200 hours. When you caught this one, you were not only wiped out during the watch, but a good part of the next day as well, since for all practical purposes you lost a night’s sleep.

At first, Champ accepted it as just part of Navy life, but after weekend upon weekend of having watches and not having liberty, he was fed up. Unfortunately, because he was a newbie, he had no idea how to change it, or even if it could be changed. Certainly, there was nothing he’d been told in boot camp that prepared him for such an eventuality. Luckily, a friendly First Class Petty Officer gave him the solution to his problem.

Champ was complaining to the First Class about being stuck on base every weekend with watch duty and never getting liberty.

“You just need to deal with Chief Prentiss,” the First Class said.

“Chief Prentiss?” Champ said. “I don’t know any Chief Prentiss. Who is he?”

“He’s the guy in charge of the watch bill.”

“So how do I deal with him?” said Champ.

“Simple,” said the First Class. “You go into his office, introduce yourself, and then leave.”

Champ mulled over this for a bit. Then he said, “He’ll take me off the weekend watches if I just introduce myself to him and then leave?”

“Yep,” said the First Class. “Provided you also leave a pint of whiskey on his desk.”

Champ mulled some more.

“You mean, if I give him a pint of whiskey, I’ll have liberty every weekend?”

The First Class nodded.

“But isn’t that bribery?” said Champ.

The First Class shrugged.

“Uh … any special kind of whiskey?” said Champ.

“Well,” said the First Class, “for a man of his sophistication, I’d say the cheaper, the better. A buck-fifty pint might even be too rich for his tastes.”

“Anything else I should do?” asked Champ.

“Yeah. Be subtle.”

“How?”

“Keep the bottle in a paper bag?”

Champ may have been young, naive and unfamiliar with the intricacies of Naval life, but he was a fast learner. He immediately went on the weekly Pints for Prentiss Plan … and stayed on it. And he never had a weekend watch again.

Oh, how times change!

I’ve no doubt that in today’s Navy this would be considered not just bribery, but an abuse of power worthy of a court martial, at least.

Back then, in contrast, it was just a sensible solution, maybe even a healthy one – the old Navy equivalent of “An apple a day …”

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