What was your underway must have?

I was that guy on the boat, the one always reading something. Bible browsing, men’s adventure novel, or 3M manuals, I covered all the bases while underway.

Reading books helped me escape for minutes or hours.  Drifting off to sleep with visions of dragons in your head or even scary clowns was better than pondering oil temps and midrats.

What else was good to have on long runs?

Playing cards takes my #2 must have on the boat. Long runs found us playing endless spades and pinochle tournaments. (okay, maybe on fast attacks we weren’t bright enough for cribbage)  Bonus time with cards is you rarely played alone, though I just have spread the cards for solitaire hundreds of times.

Any creative outlets?

Writing took up a noticeable portion of my off time. It seemed I started more stories, and journals than a guy should admit to. There were poems, diary entries, and rants at people and God. (He gets His own post some day soon.)

Many shipmates were artists of sorts. I was amazed at drawings and sketches more than once. Art for me at the time was doodles during training.

What else?

Board games? Magazines? Collections? And what sort of books? Mens adventure? Love stories? How to guides? And not to be left out, how about you closet musicians?

Midrats. It’s like Taco Bell’s Fourth Meal except Midrats existed first and didn’t come in a sack.

What are your memories of Midrats?

Midrats is that meal at Midnight on the boat. It’s breakfast for the guys and gals just getting up to go on the mid-watch and dinner for 3rd watch folks. Midrats is notorious for not being a full blown meal and often more like an overgrown late night snack.

Beans and weenies has to have been my favorite midrats meal. Sure there was the random eggs being cooked, or left overs. Heck, sometimes we even had a sandwich bar.(read lazy cooks)

Nice thing about beans and weenies is it was simple. Throw it in a bowl, toss in some catsup and a drop of mustard. Add a slice of bread on the side. Bam. Meal time.

What was your favorite midrats meal? Were you a cook by chance and if so, what was your favorite meal to serve for the late nights?

Going subsurface Navy makes on think you’ll not have those long gaps between port calls. Boy was I a fool. Our shortest underway periods were as short as a couple of day, up or down the coast, but woah, the longest was too long.

Few things were quite as exciting as pulling into port, any port. Heck, I was happy enough to pull into port for a few hours to load stores. That few hours of daylight was worth the heavy lifting.

My longest underway was about 89 or 90 consecutive days. On a sub you begin to think they outside world is full of ominous clouds and action music. (um, one too many movies?)

What about you? Months? Weeks? Just a few hours with your spouse? Do a quick tour of the bay with your son?