Mac was a little late getting to Willow- but there was a reason. He was getting suited up for a portrait. He drove over from The Madison and parked his champagne Jag in the garage under the restaurant, and arrived just about the same time as I did, shortly after five.

John-with-an-H and Old Jim were holding down the apex of the Amen Corner, and there were a couple nice ladies from the Office of Naval Intelligence at the end of the short end of the bar, near the window, and Jasper and Liz-with-an-S were holding down the business end of the enterprise.

“Sorry,” said Mac. “I got hung up on that video that is going around, the one with the B-29s on Guam. It was exactly as I remember it.”

“I thought you might like it. The story that went with the images was a complete fabrication, though.” Liz-S brought the Happy Hour White down to the corner and topped off the glasses of ONI Ladies. “You look fantastic,” I said. He really did- he radiated energy as he scanned the list of bottled beer at the end of the wine menu.

“Do you have Anchor Steam?” he asked Liz-S. She shook her head, her chestnut ponytail dancing across his slim neck.

“If you like that, you might try a Bell’s,” she said. “It is nice and hoppy. It comes from Kalamazoo, Michigan.”

I glanced at Jim and we launched into song- you know the one. Mac laughed.

“I actually have four gals in Kalamazoo.”

“Your daughter and her kids?” I asked.

Mac nodded. “Yep. That B-29 newsreel was something else, no kidding. Did you see Iron-pants Curtis LeMay with that big stogie? Not a word about his asking Navy to provide targeting for his bombers. But the images of those 600-plane raids leaving the island were spectacular.”

Mac was dressed to the nines in a charcoal suit with bold tie and crisp blue shirt, which was part of the scheme. As part of the big kerfluffel over replacing the laptop, I had found a bunch of files on an older computer. One of them was the Admiral’s bio, which we updated, just to have something in place for the obit, should things come to that.

I have been very attuned to the number of things that need to be done quickly, in time of need, and this was as good a thing to have “on the spike,” just in case.

I wrote and asked him which picture he would like to have with the article. I have a sideline drafting obituaries for the Quarterly, so I wanted to know which image he preferred. “I like the one they took after Chester Nimitz pinned the Bronze Star on my chest,” he said. “But we probably should have a presentable one of me today.”

“I brought the camera,” I said, waving the little Canon. “Let me get that out of the way before we start having fun.”

I moved over to the other side of Jim, next to the ONI ladies. I have told you Mac is a Babe Magnet, and snapped away. Laura took the camera from me, and started snapping random shots along the bar. Liz-S delivered another Bud for Jim and a Bell’s for Mac. They both smiled in anticipation. “How was the Dining In?” asked Mac. “I was not quite up to it, but I feel great. I even bought a six-pack of Anchor Steam for the apartment.”

“Did you drink it?” I asked.

“No, but I did go back to work at the hospital. First time in more than a year I have felt up to volunteering.”

“That is fantastic news,” I said. “My weekend started out with the Dining-In.”

“How did it go?”

“It was great,” I said. “A super turnout. It is good to have the tradition back.”

“I think you got the date of the first one wrong in your account of it Saturday.”

“I did the math on a napkin, and came up with 1955,” I said. “I could easily have got it wrong,” I said. “This is just a first rough draft of history, after all.”

Mac nodded. “Rufus Taylor was the Director of Naval Intelligence for the first one,” he said. “I came back East from my assignment at First Fleet in San Diego to attend.”

“Wait, Rufus was the first Intelligence Officer appointed Director, right?”

Mac nodded. “Yep. That is why he decided to do something to celebrate the fact that the inmates were finally running the asylum. They held it at The Gun Factory.”

“Is that what you called the Washington Navy Yard?”

“Yep. They had always manufactured cannons there, since before the days of Admiral Dahlgren. But it was official, after World War Two, right up until 1964.”

“The gun factory. Cool name,” said Jim.

“They made all the 16-inch naval rifles for the Iowa-Class battewagons,” said Mac, and then we wandered off on a long discussion of the bigger guns on the Imperial Japanese super battlewagons of theYamato-class.

“There were two of them,” said Mac. “Yamato, of course, and Musashi. They were the largest and most powerful battleships ever built, packing an eighteen-inch main battery- well, actually a little bigger than that. The IJN used the metric system.”

“There were two gigantic shells that framed the entrance to the Service Squadron at Makalapa Crater,” I said. “I always assumed they were from one of our ships, but someone told me they were from the ammunition intended for Yamato.”

“Might be true,” said Mac. “I was involved in sinking both of those suckers.”

“Got a pen?” I asked, reaching for a napkin from the stack in front of me. “I think there could be a story here.”

Mac just smiled. It is great to have him back in battery.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com