Destiny, meandering lazily along in control of my life, must have caused me to sit down at my word processor on Thursday morning, October 7, 1999. I had perhaps a dozen of other things to do on that morning, but none beckoned me so strongly. As I sat pondering what to write, my inner man, as he often does, commanded me to get on with it. "To begin, you must begin," he whispered in my ear. As you can see, he's very wise. So I got underway, thinking, "Let the chips fall where they may." An editor ultimately determines what I can (and what I cannot) say before anyone else reads my words, so I will have an opportunity to change or omit whatever he doesn't like.

     About a month ago, I received a handwritten letter asking for my autograph. The man making this odd request wrote that he is collecting autographs from Cecil crew members and asked if I would sign my name on three pretty little cards and send them back. I thought it strange that he knew I once served on board the Cecil and even stranger that he knows my current address. My wife and a visiting granddaughter both warned me against complying. They visualized some sort of a credit-card scam. Bugged by how the man knew what he knew, I finally wrote him a letter, without signature, and asked him. He replied that he found my name (and others) from the Cecil web-site. I had read in a Cecil newsletter about the web-site, but as a computer novice, I knew not how to go about finding it. A few days later, another granddaughter slept over, and with two clicks she had me looking at the Charlie P., floating along big as life.

     Since the same fickle finger of destiny gave me a talent for writing, I knocked off a letter to our host Ed Crowley, and I included some recollections. He came right back, asking permission to publish the letter on the web-site. But what I had written seemed too loose for my tastes, so I proposed this re- write, which is much longer than he anticipated or likely wanted. No matter; he has the last word, and he would not be the first editor to toss my whole production into the s-can.

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