over the weekend my grandfather, dave, turned 80. it was great being able to talk to him. I am grateful that he, as the last remaining grandparent for my sis and I, is still here. he had a defibrillator put in his chest (like dick cheney) some 6 years ago. it has saved his life more than once. (" it feels like a lightnin' bolt through your ass!") . If it weren't for that contraption he wouldn't be here, which is something I had to wrestle around in my head for a while: a medical contraption, surgically placed, that kicks in and shocks your heart back into beating at the first notice of a heart failure. (is he bending the rules of fate? is he altering where his soul lands in his next life?). either way, he is still happy and active. he plays golf and still shoots below his age. really.
he was in the navy for 30 years and I have heard a couple of his stories, and I basically knew the timeline of when he served and where he spent most of his time, but with the current situation I think he felt closer to those old days and he talked for a while about what he did and where he went. I sat with pen in hand, utterly fascinated with his stories and tried to jot down the names of the ships where he spent time - whether it was in africa, panama, or in pearl harbor ( he wasn't there then, he was transferred out of pearl harbor just a couple of months before it took place. )
one of the stories he told was about a drunken captain navigating the ship through a leftover WW2 minefield. they hit an acoustic mine, and dave was thrown a few yards and banged up pretty good.
another tale centered around plotting out airfields in china by plane while a heat seeking missle accidentally fell into a field without detonating.
afterwards I grabbed the paper where i took notes and hopped online to trace these ships. it was very easy to find. this ship is the one that went through the minefield, and this one, the philadelphia, was where they ran top secret missions into china.