My boat was going out of refit the next day and we would go out to sea to run a few test dives to make sure she was in good shape and then the next day we would be off to the patrol areas again. None of us in that bar ever thought of our chance meeting so long ago.
I think it was after Tom's tour of shore duty in a town fairly close to his hometown that he reported to SubRon Five and to one of the boats in that squadron.
Tom and Alice, along with Lil and myself started playing golf
together on Sundays, alternating between houses for drinks and
snacks after cussing and fuming over the last long putt we
missed, or how Alice wanted to stop and get a hot dog after we
passed the halfway house.
I wonder how many of you have heard of Lanoitan Street? I know my computer didn't for it told me the word was misspelled. I know I would never have known it except Tom and his family lived there.
We sort of watched our families grow up between golf games on Sunday - Cathy, Linda, and Tom, and our Sandy and Mike.
It was some time later that Tom told me Lanoitan was just National spelled backwards - and why not? it was National City.
I could think of dozens of stories about our times on the golf courses and how we scored. Tom always kidded me about my handycap and accused me of sand bagging my scores so I would always be lower than he was. But he sand bagged me at the end. His obituary got his handicap down to a single digit, and I won't be able to get back at him until I meet him in that all holes in ones course in the big 7,000 yard course in the sky.
As a member of the San Diego Chapter Submarine Veterans of World War II, Tom was an untiring member, ready to do what needed to be done and doing it.
I remember when we built the Memorial Plaza, where the sail area of the RONCADOR now stands. We had a CB who was running a construction job at the new submarine base at Point Loma, and he prepared the grounds for us. Without him we may still have been digging by hand to get it level.
We all worked hard. I remember exactly how many shovels full of gravel, sand, and bags of cement went into a three yard cement mixer for each pour. Frank Palmer was the best provider of cold six packs from the club at the base. It kept us going.
Tom worked on the electrical circuits that would control the colored flood lights and the varying of the fountain spray. The lights were to be coordinated with the spray, each height of the spray having a mixture of color. After working all day, Tom was down at the base fighting the wiring and again on the weekend. He wanted the spray and color to work his way, not the way it wanted to work. He fought it for weeks, got the spray going his way, but could never get the color to do what he wanted it to do.
Tom was president of the San Diego chapter for three different tours. When the going got tough, and we could not get any candidates to take an office, Tom would step into the breech and take the office - not once, not twice, but three times.
Tom's retirement was what he had planned all the years he served his country. Retire and play golf. He began getting in the groove while working on his sunset cruise at SubGruSanFran in the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. They had a dandy nine hole course, tough, but with the right price. The monthly green fees were within budget.
Alice lost a husband, Linda, Cathy, and Tom, a father, and their children a grand father.
We, the Submarine Veterans of World War II lost a shipmate.
May the Good Lord escort Tom to the first tee of the Heavenly Golf Course and may Tom get a hole in one on the first par three hole.
God Bless you all.