So far as Greenville and the immediate Delta country was concerned, Wednesday was Navy Day. The dedication of the new Naval Reserve Training Center went over in fine style, and later, at the Country Club, we mixed and mingled with more gold braid than we have seen since the closing days of World War I. Furthermore, for the third time in our life, we shook hands and made conversation with an Admiral.
We have always contended that a career man in Uncle Sam's Navy is both personable and worthwhile. He gets around, to all parts of the country and the world, and takes note of the things he sees. He takes advantage of such advantages and is usually a very interesting person to talk to.
So, Susan Crosby presented us to Admiral Robert Ward Hayler, and we visited with him for a few minutes while the square dance was in progress. He told us that he was in command of the Sixth Naval District, with headquarters at Charleston, South Carolina. He spoke of the beautiful gardens in Charleston, and was interested when we told him that a lot of mother's people came from the Waxhaw Settlements which are Just a bit north of the dividing line between the Carolinas.
Admiral Hayler was also interested in learning that Admiral Wat Tyler Cluverius had once addressed the gathering of Phi Delta Theta in Greenville and that Admiral Thomas Pickett Magruder had once lived here.
There used to be a saying that we wouldn't have a Navy if we didn't have a middle west. Admiral Hayler runs true to form, and like Ernie King, Ray Spruance and Greenville's own Ralph Haxton and Virgil Rule, he hails from the middle west.
Going back to Tuesday's paper, we learn that the Hayler service record is really a sage of the Pacific War. We read of three Navy Crosses, and a regular constellation filled with Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stars. No doubt this Navy fighting man can still see the Kamikazes crashing, every time he closes his eyes, for that Pacific War was bitter, in all its phases. Yet he sat in the club room and chatted in very frlendly fashion with Old Stuff, about the latter's long gone kinfolks in the Waxhaws.
Admiral Hayler's aide, Lieut. Commander Kenney, was a square-dancer for the book. He knew that old "gar-hole" number, Allemande Left, frontwards and backwards, and he taught us two new figures und pleasing variation to the Texas Star. His first name is Sheldon, for some of his father's people who lived in Vermont. And we are sure that Governor George L. Sheldon, of Greenville and Clinton, once had some kinfolks here on a visit from 'that same old granite state.
Lieut. Commander Nunan and Cora, his wife, danced several sets with us and enjoyed themselves immensely. The fact that they did this gave us more solid, lasting satisfaction than anything that's happened in many a day.
Lieut. Commander and Mrs. John Hoss identified themselves as the parents of six-year-old Nina, who preceded us in the dentist's chair quite recently, We understand, that Lt. Com. Ross made an excellent talk to the Naval Unit and, like Admiral Hayler, impressed the apprentice seamen with their importance to the Navy's fine traditions.
Greenville has often played host to the Navy. Gunboats, such as the Nashville, Wasp, and Concord have dropped anchor here in years gone by as they made goodwill cruises up the river. And, in later years, came the submarines.
Fifty-one years ago, this winter, the Nashville stopped here. The C. 0. was named Maynard, and he came from East Tennessee. (Twelve years his kinsman of the same name, a country doctor, would dose us with calomel and quinine at Mooresburg Springs.) Thomas Pickett Magruder was either a lieutenant or an ensign on the Nashville when it stopped here. If memory serves us correctly, that tittle ship fired the first American shot in the Spanish-American War, and Ensign Magruder was jumped several times for his heroism.
And now we scuttle the Navy, for the time being, to welcome Ann Marie Suares into this world. It's an uneasy world too, but when we think of the way that John and Marie Suares have identified themselves with its betterment, we realize that little Ann Marie is off to a good start.
-BC.
