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Text Box: You’ve heard the old adage “Ask and ye shall receive” (ok, maybe I’ve changed it a bit), well that saying certainly holds true with my Whetstone shipmates. Last issue I asked for stories from the times the crew members served on the ship. I got a wonderful response! Many of the stories were from times spent in a storm.
As I read these stories I realized I got off pretty lucky. I can only remember a couple of times that I felt like we were really in a storm, and once in particular in ‘62’ or ‘63’. As I read these stories I remembered a few of my own stories.
I hope this will do the same for you. If you read this newsletter and remember something that happened to you, we would all love to hear about it!
I’m easy to contact. The two E-Mail addresses that are in the mast head work. My mailing address is:26 Yucca Dr, La Luz, NM 88337 and if I don’t get so excited that I can’t read my own writing I can take a call (505)437-9872 and try to write it all down.
You may notice the front page of this newsletter looks very similar to last issue. As I said then, I’d like to expand the known history of our ship. I received a call from Jim Brown (YN-1) who was on the pre-commissioning detail and is a plank owner. He verified the information we have and added some information like trips and incidents. The changes he gave me are in bold and italics. He also has donated some photos and memorabilia to the organization. Some of these you will see here. Jim mentioned that as far as he could remember, the 5 inch gun was never fired while he was on-board. He left the ship on July 4, 1947.
About the time I was ready to send the newsletter off to Kay for printing, I got a letter from Richard Huneven, another plank owner! As the cost of each newsletter goes up with each page, I’m going to extend the 1946-1948 era into the next one.
Many thanks to the crew for the kind words about the newsletter. Special thanks go out to Bill Coakley, Jim Brown, Everett Ward, Tom Lucas, Richard Huneven (story next issue) and Kim Sylvester. With guys like you, all I have to do is assemble the newsletter.
Another big thanks to Marion and Kay Goble. When I get most (some) of the articles arraigned in the newsletter, I send it to Marion and Kay. They fill in the deceased, membership, financial and ‘recently located shipmate’ lists. They insert the ‘Chaplin’s Corner’ then pack the whole thing up and get it to the printer. When it comes back, guess who adds the address stickers and puts it in the mail? Yep, it’s Kay and Marion.
As you can see, the newsletter is a community effort. And with the response I’ve had, the effort is pretty easy at my end.
Thank you, and smooth sailing.
John

The Rolling Stone Online Newsletter