Speaking of surviving; Who would think that a group of ASW students would discover Sunset Cliffs and claim it as a great place for drinking parties? Maybe the idea came up at our lunch time “Hearts” or “Spades” game. Every school day we hurried over to the mess for lunch, inhaled the food and scurried back to the dorm for a card game. Probably many of our escapades began as a thought during one of our card games. The Sunset Cliffs idea took flight and we began to make that our default (we didn’t know that was what it was called in 1970) night-time party spot. Hearing the waves crash against the rocks below, feeling the ocean breeze in your face and smelling the salt water are all thrilling experiences. Falling off the rock at night in a drunken stupor is not a thrilling experience. Fortunately, none of us managed the last action.
One night on our way to Sunset Cliffs we stopped at the local beer outlet to pick up a six-pack to accompany the stash of booze locked in the trunk of the car. Returning to the car we were surrounded by flashing red lights and all the shore patrol in the world descended on us. We were shoved into a shore patrol paddy wagon and whisked off to the shore patrol headquarters and jail. Our six-pack was confiscated and the seven of us were thrown into a holding cell. That is how it happened that seven sober sailors (sounds like an oxymoron) started a night to remember in the Shore Patrol Club (so named by the seven of us). We also dubbed ourselves for all time ‘The San Diego Seven’.
There was no shortage of entertainment during our stay at the Shore Patrol Club. We were checked in early in the evening and the holding cell soon began to fill with all manner of night life. The Jackson Five were singing and dancing in one corner and on the other side of the cell Laurel and Hardy were doing a stand-up/fall down routine. One of the San Diego Seven played ‘I Spy’ to secretively dump his illegal drugs into the seat-less commode while another late entrant entertained the room with a constant string of completely unintelligible babble. He might have landed a job as the announcer on the New York Subway system.
Sometime in the middle of the night we were moved to cell ‘0’ where a middle weight boxing match broke out between two other members of cell ’0’. Harvey Snegauski and I moved to break up the fight. “Harv” was the oldest guy in our group at 26 years old. “Harv’s” roommate at ASW School was J.J. Vonesack, the youngest member of the class at age eightteen. When “Harv” celebrated his twenty-sixth birthday J. J. presented him with a cane. Yeah, in the Navy you are an old man at twenty-six years old. “Harv” reacted a bit more slowly than I did as we moved to stop the fight. I had a firm bear hug from behind on my guy but “Harv’s” guy had time to throw a hay maker and clock my guy in the jaw. “Harv” got his guy in a bear hug after the punch but his guy already had a broken hand. My guy was too drunk to notice what happened.
One weekend we drove up to Los Angeles to spend a day at Disneyland. (At Casey’s Corner) In those days admission to the park was in the form of a little book of tickets. I remember the tickets for Autopia were ten cents. We stayed overnight in a hotel.
True to my 70’s form I do not remember much about that.
The San Diego Padre’s played baseball out at Jack Murphy Stadium and we managed a few trips to sit in the stands and cheer for whoever they were playing. The Padres were in their second season in MLB and were really a bad baseball team. Nate Colbert who I believe is still the Padres’ all-time home run leader was the one good player on the team. The Padres were easy to cheer against. At least one game an usher had to stand near us because Padre fans were throwing stuff in our direction.
Jack Murphy Stadium was cool because it could be reconfigured for baseball and football. Some of the lower seating was moved to accommodate the different shape of the two sports.
Several of us traveled out to Jack Murphy for Chargers games in their first year in the NFL. The AFL and NFL had merged in the 1969 off-season to form a new look league with San Diego playing in the West Division with the Oakland Raiders, Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs. We caught a Monday Nite football game against the Green Bay Packers October 12. Monday Nite games were tough on the West Coast because the games started during rush hour. We had bummed a ride from the base barber who got us within sight of the stadium when the freeway became a long parking lot. Thanking the barber, we took off across the desert until we arrived at the stadium. Our seats where well up in the end zone and the Chargers lost by two points. As was my tradition in the early 70’s I do not remember how we got back to the dorm.
We almost didn’t attend the game against the Chicago Bears the next Sunday Oct 18. Our class graduated that week and choose to hold our graduation party in Mexicali about a two-hour drive through the desert from ASW School. And we were considered some of the smarter sailors.
Arriving in Mexicali we sat down for dinner together before splitting into small groups with a designated time to meet for the return to San Diego. Three of us (I think, J.J., ‘Harv” and me.) enjoyed ourselves so much we missed the rendezvous. We decided sleep was the most important need, so we crashed for the night. The next morning, we really didn’t have a plan and few resources. All we had were some tickets for the Chargers and Bears two rows behind the home team bench. The prospect of using those tickets seemed bleak as we discussed our options sitting on the top step of the stairs at our hotel two hours away from ‘home’. While we were discussing our situation, another sailor leaving his room heard our plight and volunteered that he was heading back to San Diego. For gas money he would take us with him. So, we got a ride and returned in time for kick-off at Jack Murphy Stadium. The Chargers won but we saw, up close, Dick Butkus demolish Marty Domres the Charger quarterback. After that hit I’m thinking Marty was wishing John Hadl (the starting QB) hadn’t been hurt for the game. Domres was pretty wobbly and maybe wasn’t sure of his name but he managed to survive. We also had survived once again.
See you next time.