Jim Walters(3/4/04 3:27 pm)
Cherry Pies
I served as a Radioman aboard Atakapa from roughly 1965 to 1968. Fond memories. We were underway, and they woke me up for a mid-watch. You had to pass by the galley enroute to the ladderway up to the shack. A beautiful smell coming out of the galley, and the door was open. Our cook was baking cherry pies. He was pulling several of them out of the oven, and setting them on top of the oven to cool. I went on up and relieved the RM watchstander (Dahlstrom RM1 or Wasylyk RM2). Made sure everything was "in sync" and opened the top half of the dutch-door for ventilation. We'd been riding fairly smoothly until they completed the watch change on the bridge. It might have been a course change, or simply a new helm's man, but we began bucking a bit. Within a minute or so of the change, the cook came barreling up the ladder, past the shack, and on up to the bridge. He was steamed, and loud words were being exchanged with the OOD and bridge crew. Curiosity got the best of me, and I locked up and checked out the galley. Sure enough, all those beautiful cherry pies were upended and scattered on the deck in the galley. We got no desert that day. Jim Walters
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