Voyages

About the Book

This memoir, based on official documents, personal journals, letters, and diaries — and the author's memories — traces a life from childhood in the port city of Baltimore to old age and retirement. The bitterness of a large family during the depression years, as well as their coping with adversity, through the suicide of the father and its aftermath, including the author's expulsion from high school at sixteen which led to his shipping out in the war time merchant marine.

The war years at sea followed by five peaceful years sailed the world's commercial maritime trade are detailed as the author rises from deck hand to licensed officer, and navigator on round-the-world cargo-passenger voyages.

At the beginning of the Korean war in 1950 the author's career shifts from commercial to military, He volunteers for active duty in the Navy, serves. in several ships , including combat duty aboard the destroyer USS Maddox (DD731) operating off the Korean coast and often inside enemy harbors. Following the end of hostilities in Korea, the author seeks to return to the peace time merchant service. But shipping berths were unavailable or nonexistent. So the author makes a necessary transition to another life.

He talks his way into a probationary enrollment as a freshman at UCLA. He is now twenty-nine and will spend the next forty five years in the academic world, achieving success as a scholar and college professor and setting down roots, marrying, and having three children. But life is neither dull or unrewarding.

The last section of the narrative covers the highlights of his years as an editor at a prestigious west coast think tank, his teaching positions, travels, and his several retirements.

About the Author