Pacific Parallels
DATELINE GUAM – Wednesday was travel day for the Good Ship USNS Lummus as we made our monthly trek from Saipan to Guam. It is not a lengthy trip, a hundred miles as the seagull flies, give or take. It’s just enough to knock the television out for a while and keep us hopping in the communications shack swapping antenna cables so the brass don’t lose their internet connections for more than five minutes. Makes them grumpy.
Our internet system works off a satellite signal, but don’t let that fool you. It’s slower than whichever NASCAR driver I pick in the weekly pool, and like said driver, it rarely finishes. By the time I hit the refresh button for the fifteenth time, I forget what I was surfing for in the first place.
Takes forever to download porn. Or so I have heard.
Anyway, I was thinking the other day – OK, it was just now – that traveling between Guam and Saipan is kind of like going back and forth between Appomattox and Lynchburg.
When we are in Guam, we anchor by the Naval Base, which is pretty well isolated from downtown Tumon…we are talking $80 cab ride isolated. So unless one of the crew is selling off the ship’s diesel fuel on the side, it’s tough to get downtown unless you know someone who has a car, which I don’t. I need to socialize more, especially with motorists.
So I am a bit isolated, much like when I am at home on my Little Ranchette by the Creek in Appomattox. It’s quieter here, not as much to do. But it is also convenient. There is a Navy Exchange for shopping for decent goods at reasonable prices. You can get a haircut there, but be warned that, as a military base, the barbers are kind of “one cut fits all,” if you get my drift. So you generally walk out of there looking like – depending on the shape of your head – either Sgt Carter from “Gomer Pyle” or a serial killer. You decide which look is worse.
Saipan, much like Lynchburg, has a greater variety of entertainment in a closer and more convenient venue. But it can lead to sensory overkill, not to mention killer hangovers and, frankly, I am just getting too old for that. It makes me almost long for the isolation of Guam, though not as much as a trip to Wal-Mart or Lowe’s in Lynchburg makes me long for the comfort of my favorite chair, a dry martini and TiVo back at my Appomattox domicile.
Then again, a trip to Wal-Mart is enough to make long for the comforts of any place that ISN’T Wal-Mart, and that is a heavily-populated list. It includes a prostate exam office visit, music recitals, and many Third World countries.
Well, perhaps I exaggerate a little. I mean, come on. Music recitals? Egad!
The Navy tries hard, but it cannot make a caramel cappuccino as good as Baines’, the guys at Elder’s Barber Shop don’t make me look like Hannibal Lecter after a lawnmower attack and, let’s face it, a Navy base is not a good place to find a feed store, despite all the rumors you may have heard about the food.
There’s just no place like home. But maybe that is a good thing. If there were too many places like home, there’d be no reason to go back there. Then again, if every place was like home, there would be no reason to leave home in the first place.
Except maybe for when we run out of gin.
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