Updated 9/10/19
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Just For Fun...Page 3
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This page is all about you, the alumni of the Hurricane Class of 1964. Help us preserve your memories on these pages by sending your unique stories to:
Mary O'Neill at [email protected] |
Get ready, here are more...including 2019 Updates
It appears that one of your dedicated Organizers, whose name shall not be mentioned, has intimated that some stories appear to take on new life and extra details as the years go by. Not having been there, yours truly can only dutifully place a Truth Meter on these FUN pages.--Mary O. |
Additional Tales - 2019
We are once again accepting stories of your wild exploits. For instance, check out the stories from Jose, preceded by Gene McDonald's tasteful historical tidbits. Then read Vince Barra's application for female applicants to Maritime back in the day! (Right after Jose's exploits) Ah, how times have changed. Yogi's daughters think he was insensitive to women...what do you think? (Click on any image to enlarge)
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What was the exact date of your graduation 55 years ago?
Thanks, Gene Sweeney. And thanks to Bob Schwieger for giving you a good reason to add this to your calendar: So you can start drinking before breakfast! |
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From Gene McDonald
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Poster of the S.S. Savannah
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On May 22nd, 2019, Savannah celebrated the 200th anniversary of the start of the steam age in Trans Atlantic merchant vessels. On May 22,1819, the S.S. Savannah left her home port and sailed to Liverpool under steam. ( I feel this is the "Birthday of the Black Gang") She spent a couple of months in northern Europe trying to drum up business but was unsuccessful and returned to the US where her boilers were removed and she resumed her trade along the east coast. It would be another two decades before steam-powered merchant vessels would regularly ply the Atlantic sea lanes.
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The S.S. Savannah
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The N.S. Savannah
Just about 50 years later another innovative vessel named N.S.Savannah tried to promote a new way to power merchant ships. Like its predecessor the N.S. Savannah was a financial failure and never did open the sea lanes to nuclear powered merchant vessels - too bad!. The N.S. Savannah ended up in Baltimore and is about to be scrapped. The S.S. Savannah foundered off of Long Island in 1821 and was scrapped. Bringing this back to the Class of '64, two of my roommates, George Manz and Jim Levey, were engineers on the N.S.Savannah (neither were Nuc's!). Although George has passed, Jim can certainly revel us with details of their time on this ship.
Another note from the Savannah homey.
Excuse the hometown pride. The Port of Savannah (Georgia Ports Authority) is the 4th largest port in the US and may be the most efficient based on turnaround time. The CEO of the Ports Authority is Griff Lynch, a 1988 graduate of Ft. Schulyer and has a goodly number of graduates working for him.
http://gaports.com/media/blog/artmid/2912/articleid/79/from-griff-lynch-georgia-ports-authority
From Jose Femenia
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It was 1962, the summer of our 2nd Class cruise. We were going to Málaga, Spain and I wanted to get a special liberty to spend a few days with my family at our ancestral village, Almudaina. Prior to departing Fort Schuyler, I had submitted the special lib request including a letter from my mother to Capt. Olivet. When we arrive in Málaga, my uncle and a few cousins were on the pier waiting for me after an all night drive and I get word that my special lib was denied. After a day of reacquainting with my uncle and cousins and a good meal, they had to leave to drive back to Almudaina. |
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A bodega in Spain
I was totally pissed and, on my way back to the ship I stopped at a bodega and proceeded to finish off a bottle of red wine. Fortunately, a few of our shipmates saw me in less than tip-top shape and with a significant amount of red wine on my whites. They brought me back to the ship, past the quarter deck and back to my room on B deck. My roommates, Bob DiNapoli, Tom Ferrese and Vinny Pellegrino. During the night, one of them checked on me and thought I was not doing well (actually they thought I was dead) so they called Doc Golden. He told them I was OK and just needed to sleep it off.
 drunker than a...
The following morning, as the junior Machinist Rate, I shaped-up with the
First, Nick Dyevich. He took one look at me and told me to hide in the engine room and find a place to sleep. I ended up sleeping the morning away on the top of one of the auxiliary condensers. It must have been very uncomfortable, but it was better than being awake and trying to function. Thank God for great shipmates and Nick Dyevich. |
not comfortable at all for sleeping!
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More from Jose Femenia
For our 1st Class cruise, the four of us, Bob, Tom, Vinny and me, had Room C-8. C-8 was a great room, it had a bathtub, a great place to store a cooler with food. Vinny’s mom was a great cook. Prior to departing Fort Schuyler, Vinny’s mom made a large batch of spaghetti sauce and meatballs which we stored in our cooler. A few times per day we added fresh ice to the cooler. During inspections, we carried the cooler down the ladder-well to lower number 2 hold. As the Machinist Rate I had the key to a store room in lower 2 hold, a great place for our cooler during inspections.
For the first Sunday at sea we had planned a spaghetti dinner with a few other shipmates from down the passageway. We had a hotplate which in addition to blowing fuses, was able to boil water for cooking the spaghetti. We also had the Texas Maritime Cadets aboard and two of them were our favorites, so we “asked” them to wear their whites and be our waiters. It was a great way to break bread with shipmates at the start of our last cruise. As a point of information, I enjoyed our 1st Class cruise so much I signed on 18 more TSES cruises. We also had enough of sauce left over for another C-8 Sunday feast.
A Fond Farewell to Hotplate.
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Unfortunately, we were also using the hotplate to make popcorn and when you make popcorn the smell permeates the ship, depending on the ship’s internal draft. One night, the draft was such that Col. Seery smelt the popping corn kernels and followed the smell to C-8 and we were caught with the hotplate. I was room captain, so I took the hit.
In additions to my demerits, I had to, under Capt. Olivet’s direction, throw the hot plate off the bridge wing. After that event, Vinny used a sheet of paper to make up a poster that had an up-popped kernel of corn on the top of the sheet with a written message that said, “Col Seery, This may happen to you”. The message was followed by a popped corn kernel. Col. Seery was not very happy with the poster that was taped to his door. |
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Tales from 2014
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Scaaary teacher!
Everyone hold on for a second, I have addendums to the Dr. Degani story: As John explained, Dr Degani would begin each class by saying "Todaaa, I vud like to talk to Mr. XXX", whereupon that cadet would nervously stand and prepare to be verbally interrogated over the material (homework) assigned during the prior class.
I remember the day when Walt's name was called, followed by Dr Degani's instructions to me (I was sitting next to Walt).
"Mr Richter ( pause ), would you please help Mr Schwartz up."
Walt had blacked out for a few seconds and tottered when trying to stand up.
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I smirked ( a definite no no), and after several questions to Walt, Dr Degani told him to be seated and said " Now I vud like to talk to Mr. Richter." You have to understand that Dr Degani mostly called on only one cadet per class, and as the semester played out, those cadets that had been called could relax for the rest of the semester, but those yet to be called, knew the odds were getting higher and higher regarding their turn for "inTERRORgation" day. If you were smart, you prepared for each class. I over prepared. When Dr Degani called on me, I stood up confidently, and smiled. He fired off several questions, all of which I very confidently fielded. He had me solve a differential equation using a technique known as Maclaurin series, thanked me, and told me to be seated. |
I was done/SAFE for the rest of the semester, or so I thought. Nobody had ever been called on twice -- until the next class, when I nearly fainted as he said "Today I vud like to speak vith Mr. Richter." Thankfully, I had prepared for the class, and was able to display same with my responses. After only a few questions, he said that I could sit down, and he called on someone else. Believe it or not, that canny professor, called on me a third time the following week. He was testing me ( OK, I was a bit cocky back in the day ) and sending a message, you are never safe, best "be prepared." Thank goodness I had been a BOY SCOUT earlier in life and learned to take their motto to heart :-) |
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I had an alarm clock in that ten-man room. It went ding.......ding ding.....ding.....ding ding....for a while and then went crazy with a steady stream of loud dings. The boys hated that alarm. On graduation day the five of us who made it through those wonderful four years (and they were wonderful) gathered on the fantail, set the alarm, and when it achieved orgasm I hurled it into the East River where it rests in peace to this day. |
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Remember Captain Olivet? Silly question. One day our 3rd class year I was sleeping in my upper rack on D-deck as I remember. I think Joe Diodati was also in the room sleeping. In walks Olivet. He immediately saw Joe but did not see me since he was very short. All I could see from my bunk was the top of his hat, and I thought I was going to get away with my infraction by not being seen. Wrong. |
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Here’s a bar story from Copenhagen: As I remember, there was a Heineken brewery tour in the afternoon that was very good and some of us got very loaded. Tom Matthews and I went from the brewery tour to a bar for some more. On the way to the bar we passed two beautiful blonds in sun dresses. I remember distinctly their armpit hair, but that’s another story. Anyway, we drank for quite some time in this bar and went to the bathroom several times. Very unique men’s room; one peed against a wall which had a drain at the bottom. The next day Tom and I went back to the same bar (creatures of habit). Well the first time we went to the men’s room we discovered that the night before we had been peeing against the wrong wall.
Another peeing story: In Ville-Franche I was confused by the foot pads at the bottom of a urinal in a bar’s men’s room; the foot pads leaned the wrong way. When I placed my feet on the pads I kept falling back. It took me a while to figure out that the pads were to help you when you backed into the all-purpose thing to do you know what.
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Southampton was our first port. The English seemed to me to have very small mouths. I attributed that to the fact that the food in England left a lot to be desired and the portions were very small. Consequently, one’s mouth does not need to be large (Darwinism). Four of us went out to eat at a restaurant that was in a house; it had only a few tables. We all ordered the same thing: steak, potatoes and peas. It was okay. When the waitress asked if we wanted something else we said “Yes, bring us another order of steak, potatoes and peas.” Americans eat more than the English.
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Do you remember the “hepatitis heros” in Naples?
Nick Esposito never passed up an opportunity to get some rest. Whenever we had a free period he would head for a couch. Needless to say he paid a price for this. I can’t count how many hot foots Nick had over the four years at the Fort.
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Oslo, a beautiful city with beautiful girls. I only heard about this story. Supposedly, after we were there a few days a cartoon appeared in the local paper. The first frame showed cadets asking some girls if they spoke English. In the next frame the girls answered “Not much.” The cadets in the next frame said “How much?” the implication being that the girls were prostitutes. Needless to say, things went very cold after that.
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Then there was the story about some ladies of the 24/7 getting upset in Genoa and using lipstick to color some of our white uniforms. No first hand knowledge for this snippet. |
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I will never forget being in economics class on Friday, November 22, when we got the word of President Kennedy’s assassination. On Sunday several of us drove to Washington, D.C., to stand at attention on Pennsylvania Avenue as his body went from the White House to the Capitol to lie in state. We drove back the same afternoon.
I enjoyed my four years at the Fort. The academics were good, the teachers were great, the price was right, and I learned a lot about life. Very much looking forward to our 50th. |
From Jim Levey
AH, SOME OF THE SENSELESS THINGS MUGS HAD TO ENDURE!
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Norm Wenegal had Nick Esposito and others (I personally observed Nick),collecting Entropy with a coffee can in the engine room. MUGS were also asked to trace the handrail cooling system in the engine room. I willingly complied with that request.
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Because I owned a car, I had the honor of doing the weekly pizza run. After returning one snowy evening, I found that my parking spot had been appropriated by someone else. Since there were no other spots available, the natural thing to do was to leave it in the lot. I moved it the following day and had no other thought of a problem. |
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Well, a few days later I was brought to mast. There was no defense for the illegal parking, but I tried. I said that my car was stuck because of the snow, but John Doran asked me to turn around and look at the blackboard that had been set up at mast. On the board was a sketch of my car blocking another parked car. Mr. Doran informed me that the blocked car was his and that I would be awarded 15 demerits. End of story.
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My wife, Mary, was a TWA Flight Attendant for thirty-one years and since she speaks Portuguese, often worked as the interpreter on flights to Lisbon. Delighted to hear that I had been to Lisbon on my cruises, she was anxious to visit some of the places I frequented on those trips.
On one trip with her to Lisbon, we planned to spend the day in Estoril and Cascais and since the train station is at the Customs Plaza, close to where the TSES IV docked, I took her to the Texas Bar. She had heard about it numerous times from me and looked forward to having an afternoon 'bebida' on this hot summer day. As luck would have it, the doors were open and the Senhora, (with some tenure, I might add), standing outside invited us in. Needless to say the low stools did not go unnoticed, but there were questions afterwards regarding the dinghy behind and above the bar. |
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From Rick Kisling
A truck driver's view of Maritime College
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As MUGS we found out which way the crap flows in more ways than one. The Throgs Neck Bridge opened Jan. 11, 1961, 4 months after we arrived. A small portion of the bridge passes directly over the Fort. We lived on the ship and had to pass under the bridge at least twice a day to get to class and get our meals at the Fort. We found out very quickly to double time under the bridge because when they plowed the bridge of snow, slush and ice it went over the side and landed on our heads if we just happened to be passing underneath. After our MUG year a fence was installed on the bridge to mitigate this from happening. |
Reminiscences from Jack O'Neill
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One night while working as a relief engineer on a Farrell Lines ship, I heard someone singing and playing a banjo as I was leaving dinner. Since the voice sounded familiar, I sought him out and was happy to find Vinny Cox providing the entertainment. We had a good time reconnecting and talking about our lives since leaving Maritime.
Another night while working as a relief engineer on a Sea-Land ship, I checked out the license rack and found out that Paul Wallo was the Second Assistant Engineer. I met him at dinner and as above had some good laughs reminiscing. |
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During our second class cruise, TSES IV called at Genoa, Italy, from where we made a three day trip to Rome. In Rome I was rooming with Paul Wallo.
As things happen, I got a case of food poisoning on our first day there. Later that first night, there was a party going on that caused complaints from other hotel guests. Our chaperone was the ship’s chaplain, Father Gerahty. He was informed of the party and took the elevator to investigate. When the door opened he found Wallo and a number of others in the hall, most in nothing more than their skivvies. He asked Wallo why he wasn’t in his room and was told that I had a companion in the room and had locked him out. Unfortunately the only companion I had was the toilet bowl. In any case, Father Gerahty didn’t speak to me for the remainder of the cruise. |
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I remember returning home ( Hatch 2) after a day of classes, avoiding upper class-men, and studying at the Fort, to see 40 or so of my classmates all excited, numerous conversations going on simultaneously, some guys cheering, and all were forming a circle around someone's rack. I was at the back of the pack and asked a classmate "What the heck was going on?" The reply was mostly unintelligible, but sounded like "XX (name withheld to prevent litigation) was going to light a FAAARRT." It made no sense to me. As the crowd quieted down, I climbed up to the 2nd level of racks, got as high a vantage point as I dared, and could see one of my classmates ( name withheld to prevent a violation of the "Privacy Act") in skivvies, lying on his back with his legs up and pulled back (sort of like the position a woman would assume for a gynecological exam). |
From Steve Richter
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Then I could see another classmate holding a cigarette lighter and bringing it within a few inches of classmate #1's skivvies. Classmate #1 said "Get ready", ( I could see from his facial expression that he was under pressure) and classmate #2 flicked (lit) his lighter. All of sudden there was the sound of flatulence and a flame 6 to 8 inches long emanated from classmate #1's skivvies. The hatch broke out in cheers and applause.
I had never heard of, until that moment, of such technique and mastery (by college undergraduates) regarding the study of humans producing methane gas and using the gas to further scientific knowledge. I learned many things during the course of 4 years at The Fort -- the most memorable were outside the publicized syllabus.
NOTE: No humans or animals were hurt during this scientific experiment :-)
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From Rick Kisling
"In September, 1961, as we all reported to the Fort, we got our "Fart Sacks" (mattress covers) at the Armory. They contained all the jeans, shirts, linens, and supplies we were
going to need to "further our education". Remember, we are the "Hurricane Class" named after Hurricane Donna, who was making a good effort to blow us to kingdom come. As we approached the ship, which was our dorm, with the sacks over our shoulders, it looked like a building due to the unusually high tide from the hurricane. The gangplank which usually was at a 10 degree angle was now at a 50 degree up angle. There we were a bunch of landlubbers trying to muscle our Fart Sacks up this wet slippery slope, with the wind catching our "Fart Sack sails", trying to blow us into the East River. We all made it on board and found our penthouse quarters were in the lower level of the ship with no portholes and 40 to a room. We called this troop ship home for the next 3 years. Did I miss that information when I read the College Brochure?????" |
And now for some trivia about manure
Courtesy of Jack O'Neill
Manure... An interesting fact
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From Rick Kisling
"It was a practice for a First Classman to sit at each of the tables in the mess hall with the under classmen. Being an under classman myself once, I recall that it could be a good experience or a bad one.
One night, my favorite "Bird" Charlie Fessler was sitting at a table with a bunch of young guys who probably were weak in the knees wondering if it would be a good night or bad night. The dinner being served was Italian spaghetti. Charlie calmly asked for all utensils to be passed to him. When he had them all in hand, he told the group to proceed to eat.....that this was "no utensils night"! Charlie and I still see each other every couple years and I never forget to remind him of that night. When I close my eyes, I can still see those poor guys trying to slop down spaghetti with their fingers!" |
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From Jack O'Neill...
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"During the summer of 1967, TSES IV made port of call in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We had heard that Phil Lund was in town with his boat and a number of us went to the Yacht Harbor to find him. When we did find him, he was working on the boat and his then wife Cathy was in a chair working at the top of the mast. We easily convinced Phil to come with us for a drink and promised Cathy that we would not be long.
At 10 PM that night we remembered our promise to Cathy and returned Phil to the boat. Luckily their neighbor in the adjoining boat was able to let her down." |
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On December 4th, 2013, the Stephen B. Luce Library welcomed its own Joseph Williams, author of Four Years Before the Mast: A History of New York's Maritime College for a book talk and signing. Published by the Fort Schuyler Press, the book is the first comprehensive history of Maritime College. It is a narrative of the school that is peppered with anecdotes and adventures of its graduates.
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Did You Know...?
"The Empire State IV was the former Henry Gibbins. A World War II era troop transport, it notably shuttled Holocaust survivors to the United States in 1944. It served as the college's training ship from 1959-1973."
Quote by permission of author Joseph A. Williams
Photo courtesy of Cliff Dahl, Class of '63 |
Of Interest...
The two photos below were provided by Cadet Michael Arnold, VP of Suny Maritime SS United States Club, New York Maritime College. They are of the Mormactide as she is today, Training Ship Empire State VI. Also, an item of interest for you is that the Mormactide was the basis for the vessel “Oregon” in a series of novels by Clive Cusler.
http://www.moore-mccormack.com/Cargo-Liners/Mormactide.htm
http://www.moore-mccormack.com/Cargo-Liners/Mormactide.htm
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Photos and text reprinted with our thanks to Bill Vinson of Moore-McCormack.com
From Jack O'Neill
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For The Loveable Landlubbers out there:
Cadets in their first year at the College are called MUGS, a term used for new cadets from the early NY Nautical School. It stands for Midshipman Under Guidance. |
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Poor Captain Spring!
"During one of my cruises as a Watch Officer on TSES IV, I became friendly with Capt. Spring. One evening after many scotches, he told me that the class of 1964 was the most challenging class he had ever had to work with and deserved the name ‘Hurricane Class’."
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