– Stuart Jonathan Thad Schippereit 74, of Savannah, Georgia passed away April 24, 2023 at his home with family by his side. He was born March 22, 1949 in Columbus Ohio.

Editor’s Note: We are aware of the discontinuities of perspective in this daily shout at the heavens. You will note that this brief excerpt comes from Marlow, and it is only a couple years old. He has now been in his grave for a few months, and there will be no further issue from his pen. The plan had been, as it is with all Socotra contributors, to issue a ‘capstone work’ for publication should the untoward intervene in publication. We have two books he did as part of his literary voyaging, and it is past time to get them issued. We thought it might be fun to journey with Marlow to how his legacy was created and how it will endure as our pleasant planet continues to spin energetically. This one was issued after an insurrection a couple years ago. We have now had a few such events

– Vic
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The Mullet Moron Invasion of the US Capitol got Marlow thinking about workplace violence some months ago.

Just for grins, he made a short list of his brushes with it:

Union shop steward threatened me with unspecified pain due to my college-boy, Commie thoughts about negotiating employee stock ownership rights for us retail clerk union members. Damn, we’d all be jillionares by now. It would have been Kroger stock.

Neighborhood dudes threatened me and other employees with zipguns at an A&P store in the 60s.

Can’t count military war zones, since they paid us extra for our presence.

Debriefed-for-cause employee threats and come-backs to have it out.

During 25 years of delivering hot meals and bags of groceries to the hungry in poor areas he had some interesting early chats with certain gun-carrying gang block leaders. he had to convince them he was not a rat, narc, snitch or whatever the word du jour was for police informant.

A casual remark at a second job regarding the thievery at his main gig led to a secret midnight conversation with the mob “security managers” of a midwestern grocery store chain I was working at. Dudes were from central coasting — olive skinned, pinstriped suit wearing, and sporting chest holster bulges and such — so, initially it was unpleasant in the extreme. After some truth telling, they said they owed me, and I could go. Out the door I went.

Stories from my Grandpop: He was a very successful trucking company owner in 1920’s Brooklyn. The 1929 crash bank closures cost him all his money. Then, one of the mafia families came knocking on his door not for some assistance or protection money but for his trucking company. He rolled and sold as others who resisted similar requests in the borough were experiencing extremely bad outcomes.

He had two small kids and a wife.

Then after a year-or-two of government cheese, the schmucks then made nice with him (mentioning something about respect, keeping quiet, yada yada yada) by finagling him a crap dockworker job on Brooklyn’s waterfront which was totally controlled by friends of these wise guys. Later, due to his Navy service in WW I off the coast of France, Pops caught on with the Brooklyn Navy Shipyard. He went to his grave using derogatory terms for Italians and “f*cking banks.”

Meanwhile, the sons and grandsons of the original wise guys would show up at his small Brooklyn apartment and then at his Long Island village house’s back door every now and then, even into Pop’s 90s with a trunk-full of something off the back of a truck that might be of interest. Cash only after a cup of fresh coffee, some gossip, and a slice of Entenmann’s. On this last one, I kid you not — in the early 90s I talked with them, saw, selected, cooked and ate their goods. I think back when this all started the word “respect” was richer in meaning and meant a lot more than it does now.

Our house was broken into, vandalized, and ransacked when we were in the islands during my Navy days. Somehow, these morons thought it’d be a good idea to spray paint anti US Navy stuff on the house walls. Pissed me off. Complaint was filed. Island cops were pissed at what they saw. Perps caught and tried. Some threats were communicated during their trial. Cops were told. Shit really broke loose in their hood. All were convicted, jailed and later deported. Join the Navy. See the world. Deport some morons.

While on a 1970s Med deployment onboard USS Forrestal, Marlow was finally hoping to enjoy an Italian port visit after a long at sea period. We have shared the experience in space and time on that ship, once known as “First in Defense” after the namesake Cabinet Secretary. Unfortunately, Italian Communist Unions were holding their summer confab in this port city and had prepared a welcome of sorts for us with “Baby Killer” posters draping buildings and streets and Unwelcome Wagon reception committees in the bars and restaurants. This last wasn’t well received by our white hats and young hot-head JOs.

After two nights of applied correctives by their USN visitors, the local carabinieri (likely after some USG pressure) arrived and pushed the Commies outside of the sailors’ preferred areas for liberty.

Lastly, the Mark 1, Mod 0, standard issue, 1970s anti-war telephone or scrap paper delivered bomb threats.

I couldn’t figure out what they meant by “Save your money!” Then I went on my first 8 plus long deployment. It was also on that deployment when I figured out the irony of “See the world,” when I calculated one day in between cyclic ops briefs that the world was almost 71% water.

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