All of them with Red hair and green eyes like JR himself. All the Aunts were trained swimmers (both sides), and a few were champions at different levels. One even being an Olympic Champion herself. He said he sent his mom a letter asking for pictures of his family. His two uncles were professional body builders and wrestlers. When he mentioned their Wrestling name’s we all started to believe his story even more. The brothers came on the scene at a time wrestling was losing its flare, they came on as Irish brothers, believed in honesty, Integrity and would beat it into anyone that challenged them. They were a hit, and long-time tag team champs that also used the Tag Team song as there entrance.
“Whoomp! (There It Is)”
As the days went by, JR got more comfortable telling his story, men from other divisions would join us to listen. The first question from everyone was. what was his sister like? He was hesitant to share, but told us they were very close, and they did everything together growing up. This of course brought him cat calls and ribbing for days. At times our Chief would join before telling us to get our asses to work. Sometimes he would just have a seat on a chair one of the deck hands got for him. A few times we would see the officers watching us from the bridge, we would laugh because they couldn’t fraternize with us. Except our Ensign. We think he was sent down to listen so he could relay the story to the officer’s mess.
As the months drew on our time together was broken up to do real work. There was a war going on for peats sake. Then we would be sent out of our patrol area for an unknown time frame, which was used to get us much needed liberty. Also supplies and mail, if there was any. So, we all got together finally, and JR had really loosened up, he was enjoying telling his family story. We didn’t get mail during this port visit.
“So, JR” says seaman Jones, “you say you and your sister are Identical twins? What is she doing while we are out here enjoying this beautiful Pacific Ocean Cruise?” Jones was great at making light of any situation, plus I think he was really into learning about JR’s sister, of course Jones was a redhead. Jones never said a bad word about JR’s Sister.
JR: “Joanny is in college, she is studying kinesiology, which is the study of movement. She wishes to train swimmers, so they can further their swimming dreams.” “I really don’t understand it myself, but she is very dedicated to her studies and doesn’t date, sorry Jones” Jones just smiled, and said” We’ll see” Bringing us all to a good laugh. But Jones was a lot like JR, very athletic and never drank, never messed around on port visits, (well just once). He was also doing college courses on board.
JR continued, “She and I did all the same classes in High School, stayed after to do our work outs, last 3 to 4 hours a day. Get home and do homework. We just didn’t spend time with others, we had goals and we were going to get them finished.” Jones “What kind of goal did you have that you gave up so you can be a glorious Navy Deck Ape” I think JR liked Jones, we enjoyed his questions also. “I studied the human body, I learned everything I could to become healthy like my uncles, built my body to be strong but flexible.”
Time had come to get to our duties.