Don't Look Down

The Bacon compound on 90 and 92 Howland Avenue Adams Massachusetts, October 2019.

My father’s mother and father lived in the big house, and we lived in the small house to the left. The first time I experienced fear of heights was when my father decided that he would put a slate roof on Frank & Hattie’s house. The big house. I went up into the attic, and then up through the partially torn-out roof, and knew right away that I did not like heights, and departed.

The comedian George Carlin said that he is not afraid of heights. He said he is afraid of falling from heights.

Not having any idea what I would do after high school, like my father I signed on with the Navy Seabees. They were called Seabees because they were the construction battalion for the Navy during World War II and Vietnam. Get it? C.B.’s

I wanted to operate bulldozers like John Wayne in the movie “The Fighting Seabees.” We build, we fight. We wore Marines uniforms overseas. To this day, the Marines love the Seabees. On a walking tour through Sicily, I found myself one night at dinner sitting across from a female retired Army Colonel. She didn’t have a lot to say. She was stoic. She sat up very straight. I didn’t know how get her to open up. She had been stationed everywhere. I finally asked her if she'd had any contact with the Navy Seabees. She blossomed, smiled, and said, “I love the @$#&* Seabees.”

Eventually an Electrical Construction school opened up in California for three months during the winter. California for the winter sounded good. The last phase of electrical school turned out to be pole climbing. In pole climbing school, when rookie Seabee climbers first strap on their gaffs, at least half put them on inside out. Try not to gaff into a knot hole. Your next step will be interesting to say the least. 

It was the first time that I heard of the country called Vietnam. I did not have a choice. To pass school, I needed to become a pole climber or flunk. A telephone pole, really a power pole, is 32 feet. Some are as tall as 90 feet. When I completed school, Dad was really proud that I had conquered my fear of heights. With gaffs nonetheless strapped to the insides of my legs. Spurs and tree climbing spikes. Specifically Buckingham steel climbers. 

That is me gaffed in on the forward pole with Elmer Berkee sitting on the crossbars. That was 1964. How do I remember that and so clearly? The second pole down is a red-haired real sailor from the fleet, who shipped over to the Seabees. He called every one Mate. He probably was from Ohio. I don’t know who his partner on the power pole is. But I can picture his face. Just like runners, pole climbers have different styles.

Up to that point I had not done much that pleased him. That was my fault.

Eventually orders come and I am stationed at the Naval Air Station in South Weymouth Massachusetts. I work out of the Public Works electrical shop. We change fluorescent light bulbs, install duplex receptacles, and maintain the emergency generator and all the taxiway and runway lights. One runway was called 826. The second one was 17/35. I forget the other one. Occasionally we have work to do at the two ammunition dumps in Hingham, Wompatuck and Bare Cove.

One day at 0800 muster, Chief Harley Taylor tells my section leader, Urbati, to take three sailors and go to Bare Cove and change the light on top of the rusty 80-year-old water tower. It is like the joke: How many Polacks does it take to change a light bulb? Two to turn the ladder, and one to install the lightbulb.” Urbati takes me aside and says, “I don’t need to take three men to the Hingham Ammunition Dump to change a lightbulb. It’s Friday. Why don’t you take an early liberty and go visit your girlfriend in Adams.”

Oh I forgot to tell you, we also took care of the lights on the blimp hanger, which was 148 feet high. 

I got really good at giving tours to new Seabees, or anyone if they dared. Taylor gave me half a day off every time I climbed the inside stairs to reach the top and the magnificent view. Even sailors that didn’t like me had to admire my new-found courage at age twenty.

Look how little the orange and white water tower looks, compared to being on top of Hangar One!

Monday 0800 muster. The first thing out of the chief’s mouth is, “Did Bacon climb, or did he chicken out?” Urbati said, “He climbed.”

Time goes by. Muster 0800. Urbati gets orders to Ethiopia of all places. He is gone. I have advanced in rank. The light on the rusty tower goes out again. Taylor says we need to fix it before a small plane crashes into it. "Bacon, take three men and go over to Bare Cove.”

I do not know how tall that water tower was, but it was high.  

It looked like this.

There were no safety belts. You are free climbing on your own. 

The last twenty feet leans out before the roof peaks. A rusty ladder is welded to the floor of the roof. There are no hand rails. I remember the climbers rule: Never look down, and don’t stay on top ogling the view. You might freeze up, and then you are basically screwed. Oh, and then there is the red shouldered hawk who might dive bomb you, a clear objection to you being in his air space.

Mission accomplished. We drank beer on the way back to the base. There were no medals issued. But I should have received one.

I’m almost 75 now, and Sandy will not let me go on our 30-foot roof to clean the gutters. It is a good thing.

- Bacon R. F. 10-93-63 United States Navy Seabee CEW 2