USS MULLINNIX DD-944

Athens, Greece 1959

View of Acropolis - Nike Temple in Athens, Greece
Post marked from USS Mullinnix DD-944 on 5 October, 1959

The weather was perfect during the Mullinnix's stay in Athens. The crew, not easily impressed other than by cold beer and women, where taken by this fasinating place.

Excerpt from "The Last Gun Ship - History of USS Mullinnix DD-944"
A Historical Novel By Frank A. Wood

1959 Athens, Greece Guide Information (PDF)

1959 Athens, Greece Information (PDF)

Athens is the largest and capital city of Greece, located in the Attica periphery, and one of the oldest cities in the world, with a recorded history of at least 3,000 years. The Athens metropolitan area is the center of economic, financial, industrial, political and cultural life in Greece.

Ancient Athens was a powerful city-state. A center for the arts, learning and philosophy, home of Plato's Academy and Aristotle's Lyceum, Athens was also the birthplace of Socrates, Pericles, Sophocles and its many other prominent philosophers, writers and politicians of the ancient world. It is widely referred to as the cradle of Western Civilization and the birthplace of democracy, largely due to the impact of its cultural and political achievements during the 5th and 4th centuries BC on the rest of the then known European continent.

The heritage of the classical era is still evident in the city, portrayed through a number of ancient monuments and artworks; the most famous of all the Parthenon on the Acropolis, standing as an epic landmark of western civilization. The city also retains a vast variety of Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a small number of remaining Ottoman monuments projecting the city's long history across the centuries. Landmarks of the modern era are also present, dating back to 1830 (the establishment of the independent Greek state), and taking in the Greek Parliament (19th century) and the Athens Trilogy (Library, University, and Academy).

Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896. She sprawled across the central plain of Attica, often referred to as the Attica Basin, which is bound by Mount Aegaleo in the west, Mount Parnitha in the north, Mount Penteli in the northeast, Mount Hymettus in the east, and the Saronic Gulf in the southwest.

Located at a transition point between the Mediterranean and the Alpine climatic zones, the city enjoys a typical Mediterranean climate, with most of the precipitation occurring from mid-October to mid-April; any precipitation is sparse during summer, and falls generally in the form of showers and / or thunderstorms. Due to its location in a strong rain shadow, however, the Athenian climate is very dry compared with most of Mediterranean Europe.

Athens is home to 148 theatrical stages, more than any other European city, including the famous ancient Herodes Atticus Theater, home to the Athens Festival. In addition to a large number of multiplexes, Athens plays host to a variety of romantic, open air garden cinemas. The vibrant multi-cultural Omonia Square, located in the heart of the city, is regarded as the transportation center of Athens. It is surrounded by hotels, small shops, markets, and food outlets, and cozy bars and clubs.

The Psirri neighborhood is dotted with both mainstream and picturesque taverns, making it a hotspot for the city, and a number of live music restaurants called "rebetadika", after Rebetiko, a unique form of music that blossomed in Syros and Athens from the 1920s.

The Athens city coastline, extending from the major commercial port of Piraeus to the southernmost suburb of Varkiza for some 50 km is punctuated by a string of restaurants, cafes, vibrant music venues, bars and nightclubs. The tram has a fleet of 42 which serve 47 stations, making it easy for a sailor to get around, or lost - particularly an ouzo-saturated sailor.

He rolled over, a moan escaping his dried lips, "Ohhh..."

He leaned up quietly, gently in his rack and finished the bottle. The bourbon went down into his stomach like an old friend, in a way that made him feel warm and confident and erotically empowered at the same time. Then it spread throughout his body and deadened all his nerve endings, like someone closing his eyes with her fingers, like someone whispering in his ear that the world was a safe and good place and that one’s mistakes would be healed by the anodyne of time.

"Chief catch you with the bottle, you'll be good and fucked, Harvey," said GMG3 Harold Moon.

"The Chief is the last of my worries." The alcohol induced rampage drained like a wound from his body. His head felt as if someone had rammed a ten-penny nail into his skull. "My head's killin' me! Got any aspirin, Moon?"

"Here. And wash'em down with this," handing him a cup of mess deck coffee. "Tell me, what did you do last night?"

"Damn...it's all a little blurry," he paused. "The last thing I remember is being on the mess decks and my oatmeal cookie catching fire in the ashtray."

Rolling back onto the deck from his kneeling position with laughter, Moon said, "Harvey, I don't know what we're going to do with you. But I do know one thing, you'd better get out of the rack fast, quarters is in a few minutes."

Harvey Blackman was the unlikeliest sailor you had ever seen. He was small, thin, pale, wore glasses, and had studied foreign languages at some small college up in the northeast. His dad and uncle both had been killed in the Korean war, which made him a very angry small, pale, thin guy who wore glasses. He had a heart condition that had kept him out of the army until he kicked up such a stink, that his Congressman had gotten him clearance to join the Navy.

"10/4. Help me up, will ya?" The smell of whiskey and cigarettes was deep in his lungs.

He tried standing which was a mistake. His eyes clenched tight and he allowed his head to sink back as delicately as an eggshell on the rack frame, furiously trying to remember the night before. He was conscious of thirst, of a throbbing and relentless headache. He wondered if he had his clothes on. What the hell had happened last night? With whom? Where? How had he made it back? Where’d he gotten a fuckin' oatmeal cookie? Only questions. No answers, only a jack hammer inside his head.

Moon finally got him up, leaning him against the racks. The fog drained from Harvey's brain like blood from a fresh knife wound.

He was in Athens - had to be, that is where the Mux is, or was. There was a time he didn't drink. He could still sort of remember it. A time when the sun still came up in the mornings. The birds still sang. Little children played in the park. Then he'd met...Andrea. Andrea? She was a bourbon fanatic. She had to be coaxed from bed with double shots and inspired to keep going with semi-hourly installments. He thought he could cure her. Now he was just as bad. Yes, the sun still comes up, the birds still sing and children still play in the park. But now, all those things just pissed him off.

He remembered tall palms, their trunks curved landward by long struggle with the sea wind, shading the entrance. Then, the smell of fish rising powerfully from wooden planks covered with sparking rows of mackerel, snapper and king fish. Lobster and tiger prawns wrestled in crowded wooden buckets of sea water. Where was it exactly? He remembered trying to order dinner for the two of them but his mouth was having difficulty forming some of the words. Words like specificity, British Constitution, passive-aggressive disorder, and loquacious - words difficult to pronounce when drunk.

Andrea? That was her name wasn't it? The streets had been teeming with the last round of sailors looking for more booze and a girl. The street was lit with smoky gold light - streets filled with shadows. He bumped into one of the shadows - a local heading home. He had damn near knocked the guy to the ground. In not the best of language the man said, "Son of a beech. What bad shit is now happening?" Must of learned the art of cussing from a book, not a sailor.

Where'd he met Andrea? Bar after bar lined the street and behind each was a stable of girls who would do almost anything for $10. There were big holes in the walls caused by a low ratio of cement to sand, during construction. Rusting rebar exposed to the elements. Most buildings had been abandoned by the original tenants long ago, having been replaced with a thriving community for squatters, whores, and cheats. There were the inevitable card players sitting around, squatting until their asses touched the backs of their ankles, women bent over cooking pots, radios hooked up somehow to the public lighting, men carefully downing cups of local whiskey, sweltering in the evening heat; dogs with serious diseases, kids and washing.

Andrea? The street was like a worm of neon. He'd ended up in a small club, so late it was early. The Cock? The Cock & Bull? The Dog and Cock? Three Horses' Dick? Some kind of animal - had to be. Is that were Andrea worked?

Drinking the local bourbon took time. You literally had to wait for the dust to settle and you could only drink it down to a certain point. Any further and you were chewing bourbon. The shots were small and his lips and thirst were big. After early ouzo with the rest of a long day ahead, a well-made Greek bourbon couldn't be beat. Could it? Did Andrea make it?

He remembered a tall fuchsia bush flourishing to the right of the entrance, its petals littering the ground like specks of blood. An entrance of a cobbled street. The knocker was a highly polished brass fish, every scale gleaming from daily ware. He remembered his back against a cool stone wall, staring at the ceiling. The ceiling had more bullet holes than a Navy practice drone at a qualifying range. He remembered laughing at that. He attempted a small smirk now, but his temples were in danger of cracking under the slightest muscle movement.

Andrea? It was a small village pub, low ceiling'd and dark. There were just a couple of tables, a bench along one wall, and the bar itself on the right side of the room with a few stools along it. He'd sat down and nodded to two old gents who were nursing pints that looked like they'd been pulled when the place opened. Neither said hello, but one of them pointed his pipe at him. "Now what kind of uniform is that?" Thinking this could get ugly in a heartbeat, he’d started to respond...and...that's right, Andrea appeared. Or, stepped in to break up the pending argument. Andrea.

She'd been sitting at the corner table. Alone? He'd stubbed his cigarette half out in an ashtray, the blue smoke rising lazily up a thin strand poking under the lamp, dulling the light in the room. He remembered thinking, "Who wants to be in the most beautiful country in the world, feeling shitty?"

The scent of sex and sour liquor and tobacco assaulted the scenes. Yes, this was their kind of place. A place were a sailor...Andrea?

Stubbornly refusing to crumble to the ground despite the neglect of its inhabitants, the paint was chipped, the floor boards wobbled dangerously and rats as big as possums inhabited the space between the back wall and toilets. He'd had to take a leak. The toilet looked like someone had thrown in a grenade and flushed. Back at his table. Andrea sitting at his table?

The fish he ordered was sold by the kilo - big mistake. House wine? As he recalled it wasn't bad - his stomach had had a different opinion. She'd ordered spinach pie and a Greek salad with eggplant, yogurt dip and all the other standards. He remembered choking back dry heaves so she wouldn't see. The bar smelled of stale beer and urine. Beer bottles and broken glasses dotted the planked floor, filthy from the sand blown through the broken walls, and faded by time.

What had they done next? He had the sense she was studying him with care, the way a new lover might, or a detective. He'd stared at her with no depth perception. The blue of her eyes was deeper around the edges like the color was falling from her pupils back into the white ocean. But what did she look like? Would he recognize her on the street today, tomorrow?

His head felt like an overripe melon. Andrea's face? Her black hair seemed lacquered to her head. He remembered her walking to the bar. He'd realized something she didn't - she was thick. Moon light - shining through the half-opened window. The moon was large that night - so was she. Andrea - big? He remembered thinking, "What's the difference between easy and sleazy? Mostly the make-up, he fig"urd."

He'd wanted to remind her who and whose she now was. But could it possibly be more than that he wondered. Could it? She was only a common whore. But why then, did he find himself returning to her bar no matter where he started. Always ending at her place. Sadness increasing each night disproportionably to the happy-searching alcohol consumption.

Andrea big? What'd her face look like? When a man is young, an older woman presents some charm, but as one ages themselves there is little magic to be found in one's seniors, and less and less to learn from them. After a time, even their increasing efforts cannot compensate for the creeping ravages they all struggle to avoid. Andrea old? Old and fat? Surely not? He’d admired the perfect split pear of her derriere.

She was a short, somewhat stocky, dark-haired woman, pushing forty, or so he thought, with an exaggerated prettiness that gave her an almost doll-like appearance. Why couldn't he remember her face? Focus man, focus. You can't blame her for what her momma gave her. She had skin that was a lustrous ivory with a rose tone and the smooth silky skin of a baby, and the rounded shape of a full-moon. What’s all this shit about full moons?

He'd felt the way you should when you're with a woman. Each time you see her, you should be both comfortable and excited. She was the first person in her family to make it to forty with all her teeth. Damn. What'd he done? Wide brow and heavy Greek features. Focus on the face. Oh, how his head hurt!

Wham! Her face hit him like of one of Moon's radish-burbs. As clear as a crisp morning in the middle of the Atlantic on a calm day. She was bull-necked and stout-armed and had a spatula face, flat as mess deck trays. Her head was huge. She’d probably got regular calls from the traveling circus.

His eyes were more red than blue. He was trying to ignore the jackhammer in his head.

Andrea old, fat, AND ugly? She had a body of an unemployed plumber, short but wide, with a weight-lifter's chest and thick legs. Her face looked as if it had been used as sandpaper and soaked in bourbon, pocked so badly she looked like a pineapple.

"Harvey?"

"Uh, what?"

"Come on, quarters! What's wrong with you? You looked like you’d check out, but good."

"Moon. Do me a favor, will ya?" asked Harvey.

"Sure."

“The next time I walk within a mile of a place that sells bourbon or even look at a bourbon ad in a magazine, or mutter the word, just kick the holly liv'in shit out me, will ya?"

Laughing uncontrollably, "Sure thing. Anything for my bud," said Moon.

_______________

With the water shimmering in the moonlight like a fantastic mirror, Harvey cursing the nighttime orb with passion, and his buddy Moon laughing uncontrollably, Mullinnix steamed in the company of USS Boston CAG-1, USS Stormes DD-780, and USS Cone DD-866, conducting a search for a missing aviator in the early morning hours of 22 October.

To be continued...

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