Memorial Day Improbable Probability!

War of 1812 frigate U.S.S. Constitution at pierside in Charlestown, MA.

Last evening I had a telephone conversation with Merlin Bianco, my motorcyclist friend mentioned several times previously in this blog. Merlin is in New Hampshire tonight, still on the road with Rocio (his self-built teardrop trailer's name). We have been expecting a visit from Merlin early in June, and he had called to confirm that plan.

Merlin told me that he plans to ride over into Maine, go down the coast to Gloucester, Massachusetts, see the U.S.S. Constuition (Old Ironsides) in Boston, and then come back up here in about a week.

I mentioned that The Constitution is not in Boston, but rather in Charlestown, at the old Charlestown Naval Shipyard, where my father served in 1942 as the officer in charge of the radar repair squadron. From there, he was sent to be an instructor at the U. S. Navy's Harvard/MIT Radar School, where he taught at the time I was born at the Chelsea (MA) Naval Hospital in August of 1943.

"Then he probably taught my dad," said Merlin.  "My dad went to the MIT Radar School in the Navy in 1943, then went out to use and teach radar at a naval base in San Francisco, California."

Merlin with Rocio in 2012, at HNH

May God bless the souls of our fathers, two men who served their country in the top-secret, high-tech field of radar during World War II.

Photo taken on Memorial Day, 2015, by Robert S. McDougall