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

Page 30 text:

Duplicating our success of the previous year, we again tied up to an empty dock upon returning from Europe. But the word soon got around that the Cape Cod Casanovas were back from the hinterlands, and a goodly number of parents, as well as several lovlies were on hand to greet their boys when liberty finally went. With the possible exception of the duty section, everyone appeared happy. Once the semester started, we were again deluged with the subjcts — so many that several of the boys had to take off their shoes just to count the number. We found that the Naval Science Department still had a Gunnery course, and we still had to take it. The engineers had a really rough schedule, while the deckies had to play You Bet Your Weekend. Hurley — Rule 16. We also soon discovered that we had instructors of our own, as several of us were seen to wander out of the starboard shaft alley as if in a hypnotic trance, after a session with Prof. Doucet. The Baseball squad was a good reason to be really proud of our school, as they went out and brought us back a championship for the first half- season. A rowing squad made a brief but glorious appearance, when the engineers showed everyone that they, too, could heave those oars. Through the eiforts of Mr. Connors the intra-mural golf program was well rounded out.

Page 29 text:

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.

Page 31 text:

And so after waiting two years that fateful day arrived. We were upper jobs. That glorious title, with all it implies. We were given a weeks rest so that we would be more readily able to assume our proper roles. Oh, what a sorry bedraggled bunch of youngies! Did we ever look that bad? Well we ' ll straighten them out quick enough — Hey you! Straighten up! Square those corners! Stop chewing gum! Say! do you want to go home this weekend? This was it now we were on the top of the heap. Full of ambition and all eager to see how readily we would straighten the place out. We had our work cut out for us too. The upper jobs graduating had made a mess out of underclass discipline and left bad feelings between both the officers and midshipmen. Bob Shephard, our Battalion Commander, single handedly, for he got not an overly amount of help, pretty well straightened things out for us though and life settled down to a semblance of normalcy again. We got the first good news of the semester then too, all upper jobs were to get long weekends every week and Mr. Wikander replaced Mr. Hodgson. Being upper jobs can be a lot of work at times, all those long afternoon maintenance periods, but we managed to liven things up a bit here and there and the boys found a substitute for Joe ' s. So all in all the first weeks passed by very quickly. The Ring Dance came along in November. It was quite a party. We had