Of Sea Stories and Fairy Tales

Lee was pissed. Eighteen-year-old Lee Harrison Stewart, slip sliding on the smooth red bark, climbed into his favorite madrone tree, settling into his regular tree fork that was worn smooth by uncounted hours of sitting and daydreaming. Scratches, a 4-year old multicolored cat, clawed her way up the trunk and settled down in Lee’s lap to be petted, and purred in response. He glowered as he looked down on two parts of Puget Sound near Bremerton, watching a sleek gray destroyer leave Bremerton Naval Shipyard until it was out of sight. His eyes were slits narrowed in anger. Lee knew what he must do even though it meant giving up a cherished dream that two years of education at Olympic Junior College would have given him: a shot at attending the U.S. Navy Officer’s Candidate School at Newport, Rhode Island. Lee also knew his mother would be in a towering rage to find he was out of OJC. I’ll just have to bite the bullet and enlist. Lee felt in his cord’s front pocket and rubbed the Mercury Head dime. I’m down to my last dime and no jobs in sight. Chief Halleran will help me out, I’m sure of that. Lord knows I’ve taken enough of those preliminary tests to qualify for Navy Electronics Technician School. Those advanced courses at OJC in Trig, Physics, and Radio Electricity helped out, too. I’ll go see him bright and early tomorrow morning. I won’t tell Mom until after I’m all signed up and ready to go. Bremerton was still in the grips of widespread unemployment following the end of World War Two. The Bremerton Navy Shipyard had laid off most of its workers following the Japanese surrender in September 1945. It was bad enough that jobs and money were scarce as hen’s teeth. No full time jobs were available. Lee had been able to find a few very short-term jobs for a few dollars each: He held two small part-time jobs at twenty-five cents per hour. His Bremerton Sun paper route in East Park had fallen apart as all the Yard workers left for home, many without paying their monthly bill for the paper. The money he made didn’t even pay his bus fare back and forth to OJC. He walked the four miles just about the last week of every month. Lee had run up a bill at Olympic Junior College that family funds could not handle, and more to the point, neither could he. This morning, OJC Admissions Office turned away his Winter schedule registration because he owed so much. His first semester grades would be held in abeyance until the debt was paid in full. Lee had no idea where he could raise $138.17, plus additional money for the Winter Schedule registration, Student Body Card, books, and lab fees.