One way you can tell this ship is pointed away from war and toward home is that day-to-day life onboard has started to oh-so-slightly resemble life onboard a cruise ship. Last Friday we had a Bingo night and we got to drink cold O’Doul’s, otherwise known as “near-beer”. The next day we had a movie night and more O’Doul’s. With that much near-beer flowing, I was having near-fun.
Also, our Sundays are back to being Sundays. One day out of every week we have a “holiday routine” during which reveille is one-hour later than usual and we try to shorten the schedule to the maximum extent possible, holding over what work that can wait until the next week. That’s also the day we have church services and a bigger “brunch” meal in place of lunch. Back when we were in the Middle East, we had our holiday routine on Saturdays in order to conform with the workweek of the higher headquarters ashore in Bahrain because the weekend in Bahrain (and much of the Middle East) is Friday and Saturday – Sunday is a normal workday. So Sunday has been my Monday for the last five months. But now that we’re out of the Middle East, our holiday routine and church are back to Sunday. That’s just one more way of feeling like we’re moving away from deployment and closer to the real world.
Two days ago was also a very special and frivolous day as we dipped down to zero-degrees latitude. There is an old ceremony called “Crossing the Line” that the U.S. Navy borrowed from the British Royal Navy hundreds of years ago. It’s a kind-of Saturnalia at sea that’s held whenever a naval ship crosses the Equator. During the ceremony the Captain relinquishes command of the ship to King Neptune, and the sailors onboard who have never crossed the line before – Slimy Pollywogs – are subjected to a cleansing ritual at the hands of the sailors who have, the Trusty Shellbacks. Once the cleansing is complete, the former Wogs rejoice in their new status as Shellbacks and all hands lay belowdecks for a taco lunch. (I’m not sure if that last bit is part of the ceremony in every ship, but it should be. That taco hit the spot after a long morning of vigorous cleansing.) I won’t say much about the ceremony itself, but I will say that one of my favorite parts of the day was seeing how creative some of the Shellbacks got with their costumes. Prior to the ceremony, we Wogs awaiting judgment had been encouraged to decorate T-shirts to augment the Pollywog Uniform. On the front of my shirt I wrote “Judge Wog” and drew the scales of justice. On the back of my shirt, in a reference to both my job as a legal advisor and my penchant for bawdy humor, I wrote “Now THAT’S Crossing the Line!” The ceremony was a blast and I’m glad I got to do it. Becoming a Shellback had been on my “bucket list” for years.
Yesterday we had another farewell ceremony, this time for two department heads who will be transferring soon. Once again I served as M.C. Instead of a stand-up-comedy format, this one was more of a game-show format where we divided the group in to two teams to play a modified version of “Apples to Apples” using prompts I wrote to make the teams guess things about the people who are departing. It was a lot of fun because everyone got to participate and the jokes came spontaneously from the gameplay itself instead of from a rehearsed routine.
These days, the conversation on everybody’s lips is what we’re going to do during our upcoming port calls. People are making plans, booking hotel rooms, and signing up for tours. Unlike the working ports visits we had in the Middle East, the primary agenda-item in these ports will be to go out in town and have as much fun as we can without destroying the place or assaulting any host-nation citizens. I can’t wait.
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