Garry Laverne Keene

In 1969 I began sailing for a living on the National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration NOAA ship RAINIER. I had found a new career that I was happy doing ~ Marine Engineering. I probably had no clue it would last twenty-eight years. My first year we sailed south along the Pacific Coast, through the Panama Canal. There were stormy seas, definitely rough. The west coast is notorious for bad weather.

Twenty-eight ships, not all US, helicopters, and airplanes were included in the project. It was the first full year of operation for NOAA ship RAINIER. Then we went on to the Caribbean for a three-month project. Inports were always at Bridgetown, Barbados, and lasted seven days at a time. The trip home back through the Panama Canal was an adventure, too, as we were avoiding several tropical storms (hurricanes).

Our first U.S. city stop in nearly four months (August 1969) was San Diego where we took on more fuel and a whole bunch of personnel. This was quite the experience for a guy from a small town in the Midwest.

I was born September 16, 1942, in Aurora, IL, at Copley Hospital. I attended Plainfield schools from 1948 – 1960.

When I was a kid, Mom and Dad were both working, and we kids were pretty much on our own. In the summer we would play baseball across the street in the Village Green with an occasional trip down to Legion Lake for an afternoon of swimming. Baseball was a big thing all summer long. Later there was Little League and Pony League; I didn’t excel in either. We played all day even if there were only four guys.

In the winter I did a lot of hunting, pheasant and bunnies. That was back when you could hunt the west side of the river. I went out with Uncle Ray numerous times. He was a big hunter. That was long before Butch was interested in hunting. We would ice skate on the river and play ice hockey. Tony Wagner got very tired of sharpening our skates for us. We must have been running over rocks in the ice. Tony was the builder of model trains, locomotives, so he had all the tools in the world.

Plainfield was a good place to grow up. The school system was good then. Not every kid had to drive to school. We were never more than three blocks from school. I was a sophomore when they built the new school that was later destroyed in the tornado. My favorite teachers were Waymon Payne and John Scott because they were good teachers. They were fun to be around and understood the problems kids were having.

From 1960 – 1964 I was in the Air Force, in Basic Training at Lakeland AFB, San Antonio, TX. I was stationed at Strategic Air Command, Larson AFB, Moses Lake, Washington. My rank at discharge was E 4, Roads and Pavement Specialist.

In 1961 we had the Cuban crisis, which required everyone to work seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, accomplishing almost nothing. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963…more seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. I enjoyed a lot of good hunting around Moses Lake, ducks and geese. My friend Ray Powell and I did a lot of hunting together. I had a car, and he didn’t.

In October 1964 I began working for Fleishman’s Distillery in Plainfield. On November 14, 1964, I married Carol Wietting in Plainfield. In February 1965 (maybe late January) I was employed by Austin-Western in Aurora in the production line – later that same year I worked in the shipping department. We were living in an apartment in Joliet at 112 Nicholson St.

I briefly worked for EMD (General Motors) in LaGrange, IL, in 1966. When Brian was born June 18, 1966, we were living in a house on Fox River St., which we bought from Aunt Ollie. Then I worked at Railoc on Lockport Street in Plainfield.

By 1967 we had moved to a rented house on Rt. 30 near Renwick Road, which was owned by Tom Collins, just east of the Delta Restaurant. That year I began working for the Burlington Railroad as a Special Agent, a RR cop. It included investigation of RR break-ins, traffic accidents involving RR cars, engines, checking incoming and outgoing freight, investigating personnel before they were hired. I worked in Chicago and LaGrange. That was a really good job with good benefits, good supervisors. The downfall was they didn’t supply a company car. You used your own vehicle. There wasn’t much of a chance for promotion, and I worked at night all the time.

In the spring of 1968 I moved with Carol and Brian to Seattle. It was a long drive so Brian stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Keene. Grandma Ruth Keene and Brian flew to Seattle after we found a place to stay. That kid had control of the airplane from all accounts. Luckily it landed in Seattle.

I went to work for Northern Pacific Railway. Basically it was the same job as Burlington. This was maybe June of 1968. It was a dead end job. I went to work for ESSA, Environmental Science Service Administration (fore runner of NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) in early December 1968. We were still living in West Seattle.

Then came 1969 and my new career, marine engineering, which began on the NOAA ship RAINIER along the Pacific Coast, through the Panama Canal, into the Caribbean with various stops and projects along the way. It was the first and only time in twenty-eight years of sailing that I ever got seasick, probably because I didn’t know how it combat it. The west coast is notorious for bad weather and stormy seas. I didn’t feel sorry for the ones that were seasick afterwards.

The Panama Canal was kind of a bummer. I was working on the south to north trip, and I didn’t see much because we went through there at night. Pacific to Atlantic we stopped at Rodman Naval Base in Panama. We bought fuel and supplies there and went out for a few beers before starting the four or five hour transit. I’ve been there a whole bunch of times since then.

We had an extended stop over in Mississippi to complete ship modifications for the project, BOMEX, Barbados Oceanographic Meteorological Experiment.

1969 into 1970 was a typical NOAA winter. We were busy with ship repairs etc. 1970 found me on my first of many trips to Alaska. Early promotion made me a qualified “Watch Engineer”. There’s no calculating how many engine room watches I had over the years. Many thousands I suspect, two a day while the ship was out of Seattle.

I was first introduced to fishing in 1970 – salmon and halibut. Alaska, what better place to fish! And the RAINIER had a really big freezer so a lot of fish came south.

This time period would have been my first experience with current technology in hydrography and electronic position control. We went to Nome and ventured into Russian territorial waters, where we were not supposed to be. When the skipper found out were we were, he bee lined back to where we were supposed to be.

I married BethAnn Barclay in 1974. A large contingent from Illinois came out for that event. I was still climbing the ladder of success. 1974 found me holding a U.S. Coast Guard Marine Engineer license for Third Assistant Engineer. More money with more work, everything and anything dealing with internal combustion engines, refrigeration, generators for electricity, boilers for heating, fresh water evaporators (making fresh water), hydraulics ~ super important because everything was done with hydraulics.

Somewhere in here I spent time at Law’s School of Marine Engineering in Oakland, ElectroMotiveDivision of General Motors Repair and Maintenance School in LaGrange, Woodward Governor Repair School in Fort Collins, Fire Fighting and Damage Control School, Hydraulic Systems repair, various classes on AC and DC electricity and electric motors, several courses on Marine Refrigeration, another school on EMD motors in Seattle and lots of management schools.

By 1979 I was the Second Engineer on RAINIER. I met Thelma during one of Ship RAINIER’S trips to Hawaii. She was working onboard as a cartographic technician. As a “Watch Engineer” I worked crazy hours, and that also left hours during the day that were premium hours in Hawaii. Oh yes, we did the tourist and sight-seeing that is built into any trip to Hawaii, and during the hours we were on the ship we managed to consume what seemed to be many gallons of coffee. We shared a lot of common interests. Golf was not one of them although we did enjoy the “Parasailing” in Kona.

Thelma and I became very close friends with a lady born and raised on the “Big Island. “Auntie Bubbles (nickname from the World War II era when she worked in a laundry) introduced us to many of the native traditions and basically kept us out of trouble, while offering us the true Hawaiian nightlife.

Over time Thelma became my unofficial but efficient business manager. She dealt with all business matters during the many months I was away from home on the NOAA ships RAINIER, FAIRWEATHER or McARTHUR from 1980 through 1996 when I retired. I have to admit I never did fall into the group that was doing latch-hook on the ship nor did I fully understand the technical side of Thelma’s work.

In 1981 I was shipped to FAIRWEATHER as First Engineer. I didn’t want the job but had no choice. That was a bad year because I didn’t like the chief engineer, the skipper, the ship, or where it was going.

Brian’s second trip to Alaska happened during this year, and I did find a week of

vacation. I think this was the year Brian broke a thumb riding Motocross. I got off the ship via floatplane, land plane from King Salmon to Kodiak, jet to Kenai and then to Homer, where I met Brian when I finally got there. As the crow flies it was only about 200 miles, but it required about twenty hours.

Homer at that time was about 2,500 people, located on the Kenai Peninsula about 250 miles SE of Anchorage. Commercial fishing was probably the biggest employer in Homer. It’s the home of the Salty Dog Saloon, which started life as a one-room schoolhouse, sawdust floor, low ceiling, free peanuts, with about fifty more people than they had room for. I met John and Cheryl Edwards, whom I am still friends with.

In the 1980’s I was always assigned to the RAINIER. We probably saved four or five fishing boats from sinking. We fished a helicopter out of the water after its engine failed. All of those years were hydrography, the mapping of the seafloor and the water depths above it. A nautical chart will show you seamounts, water depths, rock formations, tidal currents, tide ranges. It’s surprising how much of the US coastline has never been surveyed. The RAINIER is almost exclusively Alaska. RAINIER is one of three ships doing hydrography on the west coast. The FAIRWEATHER is a sister ship to the RAINIER. The other is the new McARTHUR.

In 1988 the McARTHUR was involved with a study to determine whether there was a decrease of the dolphin population in and around tuna in the eastern tropical Pacific. The international tuna fishing association did this study because tuna swim below schools of dolphin, which means dolphins get caught in the tuna nets, and there is a very high dolphin death rate. If there’s a big increase in dolphin death, there has to be a change in the manner of tuna fishing. The first change made was to the nets, which allowed dolphins to escape. This was an ongoing study in its eighth year when I left. We traveled from Seattle to San Diego to Helo, HA, to Equador, sometimes into Peru, into Costa Rico, to Panama on that study. It was always thirty days at a time between ports.

In October I left the McARTHUR and actually retired April 3, 1996. I bought my truck, and Thelma and I drove to Alaska in July 1996, where I had my stage debut at Diamond Tooth Gertie’s in the Yukon Territory. I was pretty well lit on beer and don’t remember much of it. Two days later, 400 miles away, a woman said, “I saw you at Diamond Tooth Gertie’s.”

In 2005 I bought a 1997 Trophy 1802 18’ fishing boat. Fishing is a favorite pastime, mainly saltwater fishing in Puget Sound and the Straits of Juan de Fuca from Snow Creek Resort at Neah Bay, WA.

I also make semiannual trips to Illinois to visit the family.

BIB

Keene, Garry. November 2007, May 2008, August 2012.