United States Coast Guard Academy - Tide Rips Yearbook (New London, CT)

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Tliat will lie all lOr lliis iiioMiiii . riillc- iiien. There goo llial liii;:lr call. Koi-inalioii for rowing. How (In I (li( ' .- loi ' llli (Ifliaclc. cim- sidering that I lia )- oiil Iweiilv ht ' coiiiU In lit- three huiidrfd yards away, and here 1 am in mi skivvies? Tliat ' s simple. ' I ' Ik-n just tell yon llial a Swali always lias time. lio are tliev? (iiiess. That ' s right. ell. here we go lowing. li am I going row- ing? W ill 1 he assigned lo a surf slalion ' Donl 1 helie e in llu future of the Diesel engine? o. thats not the answer. Ini going lowing heeaiise everyone in this oiittit since llo|dc catoii has gone rowing in the morning. Lay in the boat. Out oars.- ' Standhy to give way. Give way, together. hy is the man ahead of me feathering his blade through the water? hv am 1 grimacing as though I were nu)ving the boat under my own power alone? It ' s because the Swal)s arc the only ones ])utting their hacks into it. Sonic day we are going to mutiny and see if they can |)iill the boat back to its slip. I sincerely doidit thai they can do it. even with the incenti e of | iittiiig us on the rej)orl when we gel there. .N- One niiniilv fill umtnl mount I.iuindrs in ronm lIKi

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■ Shdixf (Hit (trie man llo.Mt JiioLOHTS From Aukom) . . . ()li, to l)e in New Jersey, now tliat Fall is liere. Squalid P. Transom, savant exlraonlinaiy. llic man voted most likely to succeed l»y my jiiaduating; class hack in East Orange. What am I doing now? hat is my (daim to fame now, six whole months after 1 ventured out into the cruel world for the first time? I am a swah. So help me, Jehovah, a swah. hat is a swah? Well, hefore I entered this institution and my entire kn owledge of sea- fining lifi ' came from movies and hooks. 1 ihoiif ht il was a lliiii;: that seaman swung on topside lo clean the decks. Now. at this late date, 1 finil llial it ' s sometiiiug an uppei ' classuuin swings arounil to (lean his deck, al least figura- ti ely so. For those who arenl in the know, a swah is a lOiirlli dassnuin al llie I niled Slates (]oast (iiiar l Academv. In four ( ll more long, tedious year.s he will hecome an officer in the I nitcd States Coast Guard. As a niendiei- of the afore- mentioned fourth class I not to he confused with the fourth estate) may I take this op|)ortunity to state that any resenihlance helwcen us and officers is ptu ' ely coincidental. I. el me ;:i e )uii an insii;ht on one of n Ivpiial da s. I gi ' l ii[ in the nuirniiig. That ' s all liglil. Some of my hest friends get up in the morning. Here, one gets up at reveille. That ' s all right, some of my worst enemies get up at reveille. get up a half hour before reveille. Why? Am I an eager beaver who likes to run around the lake in Central Park hefore breakfast? No! I go around and close all the windows. ho left the windows open? Do they like fresh air? No. ou should hear them complain when formation is outside. Thev just leave their windows open so that 1 have lo gi ' l up a halfdioiir before reveille and (dose ihe darned things. Heveille. .S Nabs out. [ rilles. What docs this nu-an? This is a jund)le of words garliled bv an upper( lassmaii I of course) meaning that 1 should rab a S|irin lield WA rifle and do a little physical drill willi il. Is it good for me? Of course iiol. ju-l look al ibe bad shape I ' m in. Is it punislnnent for something done wrong? No; to be perfectly frank we ' re too tired to do anything wrong. by are we doing it? (Up and shoulders, gentlemen. Let ' s put a lillle more sna|) into il.t We ' re doing il because they ' ve always done il. Il leaches the class lo heave around lo :etlier. I ' rankK. I don ' t get it.

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Chow. If there is one tiling J like. it s food. Eggs, sunny side up; pancakes, golden brown, coffee, hot and aromatic. Scats. Wliat ' s this 1 sec before me? Figs, grits and toast. I don ' t get it. 1 lioneslly don ' t. Wonder if we can appeal to UINRRA for aid to the sick and starving. After all I ' m a growing boy. Let ' s sec. put the serving sj)oons in all the plate : pour the coilee; pass all the extra deserts to I be bead of ibe table (figs, lei tbcm have tlic dirl olil figs I ; and — Good morning, ,Mr. Tool, Sir. (iood morning, Mr. Sack, Sir. Good — . Tlial ' s over with: now to cat. But no. Ir. Tool, ui)pcrclassman, wants to know all ajjout the sex life of an Australian anteater. Docs Mr. Tool intend to go to Australia some ilay? Has Mr. Tool a burning desire to be a zoologist? Mo. W by does Mr. Tool, pray tell, want to know all about the sex life of an Aus- tralian anteater? Because Mr. Sack wants Mr. Tool to ask me a question. Mr. Sack, you see, is a first classman, whereas Mr. Tool is only a second classman. This puts Mr. Tool in the famous position of Pierre. Now, why does Mr. Tool want Mr. Sack to ask Swabs cpicstions? Mr. Sack really doesn ' t know. ben be was a Swal(. ui perclassmen asked him questions. For generations, upperclassmcn have been asking Swabs questions. It must be a good thing. Back in the barracks. I ' m bucket orderly. Strangely enough this phase of my activities makes sense. Everybody has a waste pajjcr bucket in bis room. Everybody, or at least al- most everybody, throws stuff in the bucket. The trash room, where the buckets are emptied, is in the iiilgcs. To obviate the need for an occu- pant of each room taking bis room ' s bucket to the tra.-b room and emptying it. one man from each wing empties the buckets from the entire wing. I am firmly convinced ibal ilu ' powers that be will someday realize llial ibis does make sense, and change llie enlire s slem of orderlies. Inspection. This is a killer. Everyday I wash myself, brush my teetii. comb my luiir, clean roy fingernails, and search in vain for some stray sj)rouling hairs to shave. My slio«-s sparkle like a new l -niinleil penny, ly luiiform is changed every time it e en looks like its going to wrinkle. So every day ( lw -nly- ' ighl. Iwenly-ninc. thirty, or thirty-one as the ase nia ltd an u])pcr- classman comes arouml and looks al you, hop- ing desperateh ibal | irbap a Imllnii may have fallen olf when riuuiiiig lo furrualioii or perha] s vour shoes were scuffed in the rush. An even greater holocaust, incidentally, is the Saturday morning inspection. I have been given to understand that even the upperclass- mcn have been annoyed by this menace. This latter 1 refuse to believe, but I mention it in passing. An ungodly device called the Johnson bar, something closely allied with the holystone, is wielded over the deck in an attempt to make it shine. But, you say, the decks in the upper- class rooms shine. Yes, but they use electric waxers. W by don ' t Swabs use electric waxers? Do they gain muscles or valuable experience by throwing the confounded thing around? Once again tlie answer is: No. They reason thus: from time immemorial upperclassmen have used waxers and Swabs have used Johnson bars. So be it. There sees to be a fallacy in their argu- ment, in that electric waxers haven ' t been on the market since time immemorial, and neither have the Johnson bars for that matter. This argument, however, they ignore. Evening. Ten minutes till taps, in fact. SVt ABS (HT. Just how an upperclassman would fill the void in his life if be weren ' t allowed to say that, I really don ' t know. Praise Allah, gentlemen. For the uninitiated, this means getting down on one ' s knees in front of a book, raising one ' s hands skyward, and moving the body from the trunk up forward and down- ward. At the same time one yells, Praise Allah for heat or For rain or For AC , as the case may be. There has never been a case on record, so far as I have been able to ascertain, in wbicli this pleading has done any good. In the first place, the Swabs don ' t care even a wee bit if ibe uj)per(lassmen flunk their seamo finals, in fact it would fill their little hearts with joy. In the second place, the plea probably goes un- answered because it is not given I)y the ])erson who wants his wishes granted. by don ' t the upperclassmen get down and praise Allah them- selves? Is it because they don ' t believe in the whole thing; because they consider it a colossal fraud? No, they are niueb too gullible for that. Why, prithee, don ' t they ask for themselves? The answer is beginning to become obvious. Turn lo j)age 16 of this text. bom do you see there? Swabs. Conclusion: Swabs always praise Allah. Lets do forty-nine i)usb-ups, gentlemen. One should always be able to do as many ])usli-ups as the class he is in. The question which immedi- ately arises in my mind is whether the class of H) were Superiuen or Charles Aliases (before.)