Massachusetts Maritime Academy - Muster Yearbook (Buzzards Bay, MA)

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1. 1 Gulch. We felt pretty good for about a week, sporting our deep tans to the family, but it was just too good to last. The upper jobs commenced a final big push, along with a few skirmishes from the second jobs, and again we pulled our heads in to weather the storm. But we were just getting sick of being pushed around, and the day of reckoning was in the not-to-distant future. We planned a few retaliations of our own. Along about the middle of July we turned the valve. There was a lot of moaning and groaning on both sides, but we held firm, and soon vic tory was ours. Cigarette sales in the class went down 50% . Labor Day and graduation, leaves, exams, and new youngies arrived much sooner than thought possible, and the next thing we knew we were second classmen. Now we were custodians of the watch-clock and the coifee pot. Both went through the hardships of being used by unseasoned hands, as the watch-clock gave up three times in as many weeks, and the coffee pot continually bubbled over — but not with enthusiasm. Introduction to Naval Ordnance and Gunnery the schedule said, but it should have been more like Complete Course on How to Stay Up Late and NOT have a Good Time. All in all, Owen ' s Kadet Korp managed to survive

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Somehow the main body of us did manage to survive our first semester as College Freshmen. After all we did have a lot of laughs, especially from the football rallies, which gave us a chance to let off steam without paying for it later. Several members of the class performed so well that they were called back for encores throughout their entire three years at school. AT last final exams rolled around, and right after the first of the year we set off for Boston and drydock. All we have memories of while there are bitter cold days, the Telephone Building, and watch IPs extra long duty — they still can ' t figure out why they kept having power failures on the gravity life-boats. We were held up almost a full month in the shipyard, because the Coast Guard had us put new life boats — (the bathtubs) — on the ship to meet the safety requirements. There was also much work done in the engine room. On the twenty-eighth of February, heading into a bliz- zard, we pointed our bow South, and started at last on our Youngie Cruise. Unfortunately we found the Cape Cod College of Nautical Knowledge exactly as we had left it. The same was found to be true about Buzzards

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in fairly good shape, although Fleet and his battree ' lighnment had us stopped for awhile. The upper class seemed to have forgotten that we were now second jobs, as they concentrated all their energies on ti-ying to keep us in line, to the point of letting the youngies run wild. They realized their mistake only after it was a little, to late — -MUCH too late. But fall passed along, a little more pleasantly this year. Doc Quinlan and Bill Kelly again made a big hit in the football rallies, and the team responded to the school ' s support with one of their best seasons in years. The Ring Dance as usual was the big social event of the year, as Ted Braznicki will tell you, and a fine dance after the Maine game brought us out of that gunnery gloom for a few pleasant hours. We all managed to slide by our final exams, and soon we were off to dry- dock. Here we lost Old Bru , perhaps our most famous character. They say if all the people he owed something to gathered on one side of the vessel it would surely roll over, but, true or false, he was still a good friend and was missed by all. Much to our surprise the faithful Chun was ready to leave on schedule, and at the start of February we were off for Europe.