When Navy fliers are in training, they sleep in barracks. When they are in barracks, they act like they are real military personnel and have some of the fliers act as duty officers. Their duty included one man at a time staying awake in the barracks and manning the desk, which included a phone and an intercom with a loudspeaker to call reveille (wake-up, for those of you not familiar with the military) for the rest of the fliers.
One night, Hughie was the night duty officer. When it was some time before reveille, Hughie got on the loudspeaker and whispered, "30 minutes until reveille."
A few of the guys stirred and complained.
A little later, Hughie got on the intercom again, and whispered a little louder, "20 minutes until reveille."
This time, more of the guys stirred and more complained, louder.
A short time later, you guessed it, Hughie got on the intercom and said even louder, "Reveille in 10 minutes."
Now, lots of guys were pretty upset and let Hughie know it.
None of this stopped Hughie. He would not be dissuaded. He thought he was hilarious. So at the right time, he called reveille and his flier buddies were not happy with him at all.
After all, who wants to be warned that wake up time is coming soon.
Crazy Hughie!
Alton, Hughie's dad, worked in the Kern County, CA oil fields during WW2. It was quite a drive from the oil fields to Fresno where Alton's family lived. There were lots of times when Friday came around that Alton did not have the money to get gas to get home for the weekend.
So many times, others who worked with him would give him money or give him gas AND they would also provide food for he and Lucille and the kids, including Hughie Don.
If you don't know, much of the things we call necessities were rationed during WW2 like food and gas.
In the middle of a world war, people were kind to the Sheffield's. Thank you.
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Stories #3 and #4 will follow soon. FYI
