Yarns from an Old Salt: Essays, Anecdotes and Short Stories, #1

Jack M D Owen – Thumbnail Bio

British writer Jack Owen served in the Royal Navy as a boy. Then wised up. He evolved into a local newspaper reporter and feed stop-press snippets to national media in England.

Part of that beat ranged from Broadmoor Institute for the Criminally Insane to Sandhurst Military Academy. Difficult to separate, sometimes. Then he spent half a century covering, and uncovering, crime and society in the Palm Beaches as a staff writer and freelance journalist. He also became an antiquarian book dealer where he found time to write two books about the rich little community of Palm Beach.

His ‘Palm Beach Scandals – An Intimate Guide’ debuted on ‘The Joan River’s Show’. He has several other books, mostly maritime, in print and pad format. This, a sample collection of essays, anecdotes and short stories, spreads a smorgasbord of snippets culled from his experiences.

More than one episode reflects his early years attending multiple schools. Some of those departures were caused by the Blitz, others by self-inflicted academic bombs. In that era Capt. W.E. Johns and his fictional RAF fighter pilot James ‘Biggles’ Bigglesworth, and C. S. Forester’s sailing seafarer Horatio Hornblower, R. N. were ‘approved’ parental heroes to be read.

But, Richmal Crompton’s eleven year old scalawag William Brown, together with his gang of schoolboy pirates, detectives and spies, were likely contenders as mentors.

Cats, dogs, grannies and grandpas along with crooks, cops, crazies and rum rats spice the stories presented. They may not bump anyone off the ‘Top Ten’ lists, but they are definitely good for beach, airport or doctor’s waiting room reading.

They’re as entertaining and honest as fisherman’s yarns.

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C O N T E N T S

A Media 'Golden Rule'

A Memorial Day Moment

And Sparks Will Fly

Are You Old Enough to be History?

Bobby, Bullied – and Blessed

The Copy Cat Caper

Do Not Trick Your Dog

Elementary, eh!

How Long Is A Lifetime?

I had a nightmare last night...

No Pleasing Some People

Not All Heroes Are Veterans

The Perfect Pair

Pigments and Profits

Poor No More

Rum Goings On Aboard HMS Murphy

Stories to Scare the Knickers off your Grandma

Stranger Things Happen At Sea

That Moment

That’s Not Cricket

Ups and Downs

When Nothing In The World Is Real

When The Fireworks Finally Came

While You're Being Served

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A Media 'Golden Rule'

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A folder with wedding photographs and a sheaf of lined notepaper with thick handwritten notes rendered by a blunt pencil were dumped in a wire basket next to the upright Royal desk typewriter.

Get started with these, the new boy was told. Give me skinny and deep cut-lines and knock the notes into English.

Nobody in the newsroom said anything, but there was a discernible snicker from beyond the piled high stack of newspapers obscuring the retiree assigned to writing obituaries. Henry's first moments of the first day on his first real job since getting out of the service, was butt clenching.

The copy editor swished away through half a dozen desks crammed into the long narrow room overlooking an alley with a backdoor to the real-world. Officially, escape was not possible without having to pass through the editor's office, advertising and circulation and the foyer of mismatched lounge and straight-backed chairs for visitors awaiting appointments.

No security guard stood on duty, in those days. The stocky, fierce, secretary-cum-circulation dragon, the appropriately named Miss Thistle, was enough. Her jutting undercut Churchillian jaw, and sharp green eyes behind  wire-rimmed glasses, could cow a burly laborer complaining about the cost of a classified advertisement; to His Honor the Mayor demanding to meet with the editor about the latest editorial printed in the weekly 'Gazette'.

It was too early to assess the hierarchical pecking order but job assignment labels had little to do with reality.

The Office Manager, a lanky, rollicking, Display Ad Manager; whose hubby's hobby was rogering any nubile hound-riding new member of the Young Conservatives, while she was bestowing her favors on sellers of fast cars, restaurateurs and salesmen, was pleasantly airy and absent most daylight hours. The sub-editor nominally corralled raw copy from the scribes in the back room to red-ink, cut and paste into deathless prose, while dreamily composing poetry for his little group of wine sippers. He punctuated the muse by dipping and sniffing snuff to recycle into a white linen handkerchief in periodic loud sneezes and captured – mostly – clouds of detritus.

The newsroom was temporarily rudderless. The most recent Chief Reporter had jumped ship, literally, to become communications director on one of the Cunard liners, cobbling together lecturers, comedians, authors and artists to entertain passengers who survived mal de mer, and were 'Day' people compared to the 'Night Owls' who danced to the beat of a different drum.

Henry sorted pictures with (left to right) identification names penciled on the back, to the appropriate notes: bride, groom, place, date, in-laws, hometowns, occupation, honeymoon, and so forth. There seemed to be an excess of tulle, hand-wrought lace, family jewels (not, as one bawdy sports-writer commented, the groom's contribution) and novel items included in the 'something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue'. 

During the course of the morning most members of the newsroom, 'happened' to pass by to look over his shoulder, and tell their horror story of their first day on the job.

We had to kill one of the best wedding stories, Chauncey chortled. In his checked suit, white sideburns, bowtie and clownish red nose, he could have been the set-change act, in front of house as a comedian, in a music hall. His liquid lunches at the 'Drake and Hounds' local bar were legendary. Claimed he never bought his own brew. Dined on that one for a month – off-the-record of course, old boy.

Henry was hooked.

What happened?

The tempo of typing in the office fell to muffled when Chauncey launched off on a well traveled course.

It was perfect wedding – eventually. What was not officially recorded in the registry, and you can bet, entered in either family's Bible, was the shocking episode of the page boy and the bride's wedding ring. One of the 'something golds'. The curl of Chauncey’s lips waggled his cigarette without dislodging the length of growing ash length.

Typewriters were clattering, without words being produced on buff-colored newsprint copy-paper, to maintain the sound charade of activity broadcast from the newsroom to the rest of the offices. 

The best man's son was an inquisitive little nipper who went exploring in his dad's rented top hat and tails, while his old man and the groom celebrated bachelor’s last night, somewhere in the city.  His mom and the other flower-girls were lowering the plimsoll-line on several broached bottles of plonk at home, while keeping a weather ear alert to any bedded youngsters yowling.

The ash, which had captivated Henry's eyes while he listened to the tale, drooped.

Chauncey sighed dramatically. All eyes were on him and his cigarette.

It was quiet outside the drawing room where the gals were giggling and gulping. Too quiet, the more matronly mothers decided. One discretely retreated for a quick look-see. Next thing, there's a horrific scream – following by a full-fledged guffaw you only read about in the comic papers. Chauncey smirked.

That tiny tadpole son of the best man found the bride's wedding ring in a box, in a pocket of the tail of his dad’s rented tux. It being the nature of inquisitive boys, he then stuck his little tallywhacker into the bride's gold wedding ring. By then, all typing had ceased. The cigarette ash was merely a blurry point of reference through teary eyes.

The coup de grace came with Charlie's coughed wheezy final utterance.

It was a squeeze but it fit. But nature being what it is, it swelled and would not go down! He bellowed, sending a cloud of ash over the desk, typewriter and piled papers.

Just then the newsroom door swung open and the wiry, baby-faced editor with a Lancashire accent and wisp of a ginger mustache, glowered at the rollicking work force.

That's it lads. Get back pounding that lovely copy out. Chauncey, take a walk. Let's see if we can get some work done here. The clicking of rollers receiving new copy paper followed by clacking of keys coincided with the boss's instructions.

Harry swiped his coat sleeve across his running eyes. He was gulping air and glowing red-face with embarrassment and the effort to suppress hiccuping laughter.

Let me see. The editor's hand snatched the piled pages of copy paper, scanning, flipping and marking with his red pencil as he read. Yep, okay, right, good, oohh, yeah. Oh no...

He paused, sifted paper with photographs, married names in copy and with cut-lines. Oh, yes. Poor girl. The strap to her lace bonnet does cut into her chins, his pencil scrubbed the offending description under a layer of red. But never forget the golden, rule in our news room.

Never put your pecker in a wedding ring, an anonymous stage whisper instructed.

NO. Roared the lightweight editor. "When