Off to Challst'n...

Crikey! Just when I was about to get to the really greasy details of my naval stint, the doohickey those nice American Idol people implanted in my forehead starts to throb. It seems a shrinking army of off-key songbirds are warbling in the City of Challst'n and my lenslinging assistance is needed. Will I suffer the brooding stares of a countless Chris Daughtry wannabes? Will I camera-dance with castoffs as they curse the lineage of the testy Brit who just crushed their dreams? Will I tire of the whole charade after twenty minutes? Yes to all three! But, will I blog?

Mayhaps.

Tension on Deck

I once thought time passed by slowest in my hometown of Saulston, North Carolina. Let me tell you, the hands of time shoot you a big middle figure when you’re twenty years old and indentured out to sea. That’s what it felt like out there. A year earlier I was cruising the bars of Greenville, pretending to be a college student and enjoying more female attention than I’d once even thought possible. Now I spent my hours strapped to a radar screen, an ornery floor buffer or a stack of dirty baking pans. Sure I was building character, but as I moped about the pitching deck of the USS Mount Whitney, my sweat-soaked 'mess-crankin' t-shirt drying in the briny breeze, it was hard not to feel a little sorry for myself. So I did. Certain my high school buddies were clinking beer bottles with buxom co-eds back home, I drank cherry-colored bug juice ten miles off the coast of Cuba. Luckily, there was no war going on. 'Cept the one in my head.

I’d joined on a lark. Out of money, out of a job, out of luck, I’d burned up any good will my parents had to offer through a stunning series of stupid moves. I’ll spare you the ugly details, but lets just say at 19 years old, I felt like a complete wash-up. Too dumb to go to school, but far smarter than the crowd I regularly partied with, I excelled at not excelling. One night a roommate named Don and I knocked back a half gallon of Rum and hatched a feeble plan. Both ourlives had run adrift. College seemed utterly out of reach, working some dead end job felt pointless. Merriment was our only goal - usually the illegal kind. While we were more than happy to chase that score wherever it took us, Don and I both knew we weren’t living right. Downing the ancient sailor's grog, my roommate who couldn’t get out of bed before noon most days laid out his plans for Naval glory.

Seems Don’s Dad had been in ’The Nav’. Or his grandfather, I can’t recall. All I do know is, as the Bacardi vanished, the idea of allowing some faceless entity to sweep me away seemed like the very height of logic. Even when I awoke the next, my head throbbing with residual drink, marching down to the recruiter’s office and saying ’take me away’ seemed like a very sensible idea. So we did. Or should I say, I. Don was there at the beginning - right by my side as we strolled in front of a daydreaming Petty Officer and proclaimed ourselves freebies of the week. Once the P.O. stopped doing back-flips, he scheduled us for an immediate ASVAB. That’s the military entrance exam, a kind of assessment to determine whether you’re leadership material or soggy cannon fodder. I must have scored well, for the recruiters honed in on me like long-lost sailors on one last morsel of hardtack. Six weeks later, I shipped out - while Don scored an eight ball with some new roomies, impressing them with stories of a thwarted Naval career.

Boot camp was surreal. While not exactly Seal Training, it was the toughest thing I ever did physically. Less rigorous were the constant head-games our Company Commanders used to strike dread in the hearts of hapless recruits. Hey, I’m no military strategist, but even I knew when to shut the hell up and do as told. Others’ inability to do so both made me feel both better about my own prospects and deeply worried about my country’s future. Soon a superior noticed my burgeoning competence and anointed me ‘squad leader’. Immediately I found myself in charge of six guys, three toilet stalls and a boatload of crisply folded wash-cloths. Aye Aye Sir, this just may be the life for me. My confidence was really swelling when about halfway through boot camp, an instructor started talking about what life would be like aboard a ship. Aboard a ship? They still do that? I remember looking around the hushed barracks to see if anyone else was shocked at such a notion. They weren’t, but for reasons I can't fully explain, I was blown away. A ship?

(To Eventually Be Continued...)

The Rogue Samaritan

When last we checked in with Dick Carney, the Pitt County man was leading his 'Cajun Country Convoy' through the wake of Hurricane Katrina . Since then, the consummate handyman has found new ways to channel his own brand of crusty compassion. Whether whipping his Presbyterian pals into a do-gooder's frenzy, outfitting a disaster relief van or launching his own blog, this 'Old Goat' rarely chills. Recently, his campaign to bring air conditioning to a heat-stricken animal shelter caught the eyes of the scribes at his local paper - who no doubt know a good character when they spot one. Yes, Dick Carney's many things. 'Saint' ain't one of 'em. But this clever carpenter and born storyteller's desire to help others is so deeply ingrained in his DNA, he bleeds good will. That, and Texas Pete. Anyway, as an expatriate of his native Greenville, I can't help but crow about this rogue Samaritan - even if I wasn't his prodigal son. (Photo by Greg Eanes)

Epics of Deprivation

Here's hoping producer Mario Garcia, photographer Bruce Bernstein and soundman Curt Bernstein soon find their way back to the states. On assignment in Greenland, the NBC crew- along with correspondent Anne Thompson - were already to jet home when an Air Greenland strike rendered them marooned. Thursday night reporter Thompson managed to board a flight home (funny how that works), but her crew's still killing time in Kangerlussuaq - where they're no doubt trying to buy a few vowels. Me, I'd sink my nose in whatever paperback I could find and soak up the network pay. With that in mind, here are eight books I'd insist on re-reading, were I trapped on an ice floe...

Ice Blink It was from Greenland that Sir John Franklin set out in search of the Northwest Passage, launching two state of the art wooden vessels packed with the lastest Nineteenth Century gizmos. When both heavily-laden ships vanished, countless rescue attempts folllowed and more men died for naught. Fourteen years later, searchers found a mountain of discarded supplies and two skeletal corpses, along with other clues so vague and tantalizing, you'll never go near another worn-out Shackleton yarn again.

Selkirk's Island Remember Robinson Crusoe? Neither do I really, but I'm well versed on the real life O.C. (Original Castaway) thanks to Diana Souhami's epic of solitary endurance. Alexander Selkirk signed up with a famous pirate for a life of riches and plunder, but when things went South the addled Captain pulled up to a tiny island in the middle of nowhere and booted his Scotch ass out. Four years followed. Peaks climbed. Horizons stared at. Goats violated. Read it anyway.

Safe Return Doubtful As much as I dig reading about the 1960's space race, I'm equally in awe of another astronaut of his time: the Polar Explorer. Armed with hubris and often little else, many a mustachio'd windbag trekked to subzero spots for Queen, Country and perhaps a beef jerky endorsement or two. Penned by a celebrated maritime historian, this book neatly encapsulates the Age of Exploration and provides context to all that prideful deprivation. You'll never view inceberg mirages and sweat-soaked fur the same way again.

Wreck of the Medusa This French frigate was 40 miles off the coast of Senegal when it slammed into a sandbar. Urged off-board by a panicking Captain, 150 landlubbing souls climbed onto a raft so threadbare it supported some and swallowed others. For twelve days 'the death raft' drifted, time enough for all semblance of sanity to vanish. Mutiny, slaughter, cannibalism - it occured time and time again before French sailors spotted the raft, and brought aboard the fifteen surviving hollow-eyed zombies.

Into the Wild One wonders how the insode of the old school bus will look in the upcoming film version of Jon Krakauer's real-life fable of misguided wanderlust. In the book, privileged kid Chris McCandless burns trhe dollars in his wallet and decamped to the vast woods surrounding Mount McKinley. Four months later, moose hunters found him aboard an old school bus half-buried in a bog, his remains long-dead from apparent starvation. Krakauer launched his career with this materpiece. Here's hoping the film won't muck it all up.

The Custom of the Sea Sunk by what only can be called a 'freak wave', the yacht Mignonette dropped to the bottom in May of 1884. The crew of four cast off in a leaky dinghy, one thousand miles away from the closest shore. Little food and no shelter from the sun wracked their systems and baked their brains. Nineteen days into the ordeal, the Captain decided something had to be done, so he sunk a blade into the cabin boy's jugular and carved up his body to feed the rest. Five days later they were rescued. Oopsie!

The Coldest March Of all the ill-fated polar expeditions, that of Robert Falcon Scott's rings most tragic. Having raced his rival to the South Pole, Scott arrived to discover he'd come in second; the Norweigan Roald Amundsen having already secured his name in the history books. Beleaguered but not broken, Scott and hs men turned around, only to die on the return journey. Vexing and perplexing, the death of this English hero is a textbook example of early 20th Century stiff upper lip.

Big Dead Place One hundred years later, the South Pole is no longer just some fabled spot in the snow. It's a high-tech headquarters for scientific missions, one awash in hopeless bureaucracy and - according to this ice-melting tell-all - rampant debauchery. Written by an antarctic garbageman with a penchant for the unhinged, Big Dead Place shines a dying flashlight on the mirth and madness at McMurdo Station. After reading this book, you'll scratch Antarctica off your must-see list forever. Hey, I hear Greenland's nice...

The Wryest of Lifers

Those seeking fresh perspective on Hurricane Katrina would do well to peruse the views of a Louisiana lenslinger by the name of Turd Polisher. It was two Septembers ago this veteran photog sat down and pounded out an unflinching account of the agony and inaction that then gripped his beloved Gulf Coast. Rick Portier, had found his voice. Since then he’s used that toxic tongue and a lifer’s eye to excoriate the many gas-bags and gang-bangers he puts on the news every night. Sounds familiar, really. At once taken with and tormented by a job that never stops, the Polisher seeks healing by soaking nightly in the written word. The resulting posts seethe with street-cred eloquence that‘s impossible to fake, wether he’s weighing in on the audacity of housecats, or simply riffing on his charismatic kid. Give him a visit and you’ll be glad you did as I am every time I go to his site, which is damn near daily. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Just because Portier and I are both southern photog bloggers on the edge, we got a little mutual admiration society goin’ on here. Mayhaps. But if one can’t link to the things he likes, than what’s the use of referring to one’s self in third person anyway. Hmm? Am I right? Hello? Is this thing on?