Foxtrot Charlie, when I got to Midway, I had the rare distinction of actually changing my Navy job rating from radioman to journalist, so I threw myself into it producing a lithographed "newspaper," or newsletter, several times a week covering both the non-classified activities of the Naval Station and a lot of community activities like basketball and little league, but also some sea rescues and wildlife stories. I eventually won the Navy Achievement Medal for my efforts. I did enjoy the beach, just for a swim, and the crew at the communications group -- newspaper, TV, and radio -- did rent the deep sea fishing boat for a great expedition for tuna and wahoo. Then our Warrant Officer's wife, who was of Japanese descent, fixed it as the first sashimi I'd ever had, right out of the ocean. Magnificent. My hours were long, so I'd walk at night out on the breakwater and encounter sea turtles and seals splashing alongside me as I walked. I got to go out and board a banana boat that had come into Midway as safe harbor when the hull folded in a storm. The mostly British crew was a salty bunch, and they were visited by guys in suits from Lloyds of London who were appraising the damage for insurance purposes. It was pretty cool, and we had bananas to eat beyond belief for weeks to come. The albatross were fascinating to observe, nesting, sitting on and hatching eggs, and chicks slowly developing and learning to fly in several stages. Stupidly called Gooney birds, they are the lords of the sky with a six-foot plus wingspan. It was a thrill walking out among their nests, solo, surrounded by tens of thousands of sentient creatures of a different species, like being on another planet. It seemed to make the psychedelic drugs of the era seem like a pitiful substitute, a real and permanent transcendent experience, mind-blowing indeed. I'm still there, in one sense.
