Bob Swan was one of my mentors as a kid. He was one of the WW2 guys that raised me. Just another one of the giants I casually walked on the shoulders of as a kid.
He was a Navy veteran and was always proud to say that his Marines got shore safely from the attack transport that he was assigned to. At Okinawa he was a first class petty officer and proud to say he was a helmsman. He once said the longest day of his life was the 80+ hour turn he took at the helm dodging kamikazes.
Near the end of the war he had passed the test for Chief Petty Officer and a shortly before discharge was pinned.
Like many of the WW2 guys he had a deadpan sense of humor and often wore a sweatshirt with a picture of Buster Keaton on it. Underneath Buster it simply said 'smile'.
One time he was with a couple of pack of Cub Scouts visiting Old Ironsides. He explained the proper way to board a Naval vessel and clad in his old Chief's cap led the pack up.
When he got to the top he crisply saluted the flag, saluted the officer of the deck who returned his salute and requested permission to come aboard.
When permission was granted he walked past the officer of the deck and stood next to the Chief of the Boat (COB) and both stood there admiring the masterpiece Bob had created.
Every single Cub Scout came aboard in single file and followed his example leaving the poor ensign at the top of the gangway returning every Cub Scout salute. The ensign returned every single one of them.
Mother earned his name a few years later on a winter Boy Scout camping trip that I went on.
The day was cold and weather predictions said single digits It was going to be a real cold one. The scout leaders suggested we pack it in but as to be expected we wanted to tough it out.
Four dubious men looked at each other and went into a brief pow wow. They emerged and agreed with us with caveats. Gear was carefully inspected, tentmate reassignments were made placing experienced campers with the inexperienced and careful instructions issued to all of us.
I was fairly senior at the time and had a history of being a winter camper. One of the leaders confessed to me that he thought this was a very risky undertaking.
Two kids opted to go home. They had summer sleeping bags and nobody ever said anything bad about them.
We dug in and then turned in. As we drifted off to sleep we were unaware of the vigil that was taking place outside our tents.
Inside the tents some of the youngsters had put one sleeping inside the other and shoehorned them both into it for warmth.
The men had set up a 2 on 2 off watch for the evening and one man was on constant patrol walking past tents and listening for any sign of a kid shivering and obviously cold. Years later I found out that none of these men had gotten a minute's sleep that night. I also found out that Bob had been pretty fanatical about keeping an eye on us.
I woke up pretty early that morning and as a patrol leader and crawled out of my bag and headed outside quickly. I went straight over to the fire pit. It had been set up before we turned in and was ready.
Bob saw me and approached as I dumped a bean can full of gasoline on the preset tipi shaper woodpile. I struck a match an tossed it in and enjoyed the resulting 'whoosh' as the fire instantly lit. He stepped back quickly.
"Jesus! How much gas did you use?" He asked.
"I dunno. Coupla quarts," I deadpanned. "Why? How much are you supposed to use?"
He laughed and saw the empty bean can. "How'd you make out?"
"Finest kind," I said, "I'm OK. You know I sleep on the porch*"
"Yeah, you do. Frankly I'm a little worried about that skinny Mallory kid. He doesn't have any meat on his bones to keep him warm," he said.
Other people were stirring and starting to crawl out of tents. Some of them were sent to the parked station wagon and had their hands, feet and faces checked for frostbite. No cases reported. Most kids started shivering when they left their tents and headed to the fires.
Soon things started to happen. Guys were starting to cook breakfast and get things together. Cans were being thawed out on the fire after punching a hole in the lid to keep them from exploding although in the next patrol's fire I heard what sounded to be a can of beans go off. I was pleasantly surprised to see how many kids had tossed their canteens in their sleeping bags to keep them from freezing.
By now things were slowly warming up a bit. The thermometer now read 'pretty close to tolerable'.
I recall whoever was cooking made a little of this, little of that stew of some sort. It had all sorts of stuff in it and I suppose if I remembered and posted the ingredients people would get nauseous. Still, it was warm, nutritious and there was a lot of it. It was a real battery charger.
Sixty years later as I write this I could swear I caught a taste of eye of newt but I could be mistaken. Whatever it was it hit the spot.
I know it contained semi-burned hamburger, Chef Boy Are Dee spaghetti and lasagna, green beans, B&M beans and God knows what else.
Bob escorted another kid to the station wagon for a face, hand and foot inspection and one of the men laughed and said, "Looks like we're going to have to start calling you 'Mother Swan'!".
That was all it took! The dam burst. He almost instantly became Mother Swan and to his face! At first he grumbled a bit but accepted it. He realized it was our way of showing some respect because it had gone through the troop that the men had spent a long, sleepless night looking out for our safety.
The WW2 generation knew how to turn boys into men. It was simple. They treated us like men. Plain and simple. The set expectations and expected us to live up to them.
As we were packing up we were called to assembly and Bob spoke to us telling us how proud he was of us. Then be exhaled audibly and chuckled. "I suppose you guys earned the right to call me 'Mother', he said. "But only you guys."
Later at the next troop meeting someone addressed him as 'Mother' and was put in his place. "It's MISTER Swan to you. You weren't there."
Some time thereafter one of the younger guys saw Bob downtown and greeted him, calling him 'Mother'. His parents were appalled and ordered him to apologize.
Bob told the parents "He earned the right to address me that way. I'm proud of him and you should be, too." I think the parents were stunned.
Later on in life the 35 or so of us continued to call him that. I know I did as later on I did while on leave from the Army when I ran into him.
The last time I saw Mother Swan was when I was in my early 50s. He was in his mid to late 70s. I was in the old neighborhood and drove past his house on the way to the beach. I saw him sitting on his porch, stopped and shouted "Hey! Mother Swan! How are you doing?"
His face lit up and I ran over to the porch and was sat there and chatted. He said he had not been called "Mother Swan' in years. We spent about a half-hour together and he said that Scouting was one of his favorite memories.
A couple of years later I got a call telling me he had passed.
Over the years I think he was pretty proud of being called "Mother Swan." He was an old sailor until the day he died and looking back on it 'Mother Swan' was something every Old School sailor wants. It was a left handed macho nickname.
*At that stage of my life at home I slept on the side porch year round. It was by choice. As a youngster I loved sleeping in the fresh air. I did this pretty much from junior high all the way through high school.
To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this:
http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY
