Your comments about horny sailors are a stitch! Yes, times have changed in one respect: we didn't accumulate stashes of porn - those might be found during locker inspections. But that was ok. Us gals preferred fresh meat. Which was easy to get at Keflavik Naval Air Station when I was there in '75 and '76. Five thousand servicemen, mainly Navy and Air Force. Five hundred of us Navy women. Male sailors normally assume they can get a gal's attention by rubbing two quarters together. At Keflavik, we made the lads crawl on their bellies.

The Bellingham yards were well known for turning out 'sweepers. They were an obvious choice, what with the ships being built of wood to avoid setting off mines with magnetic triggers, and the ready access to wood in the Pacific Northwest.

Access to timber was why shipyards were established during the 18th century in a town in Maine I got to know: Bath, eight miles east of Brunswick Naval Air Station, where I was posted from '76 to '78. The shipfitters were a tough bunch. Nonetheless, the work took its toll. After a couple decades of hammering hulls, the muscles in their hands were so damaged from the repetitive motions that they couldn't grip the handles on their beer mugs. Fortunately, Bath Iron Works didn't lay 'em off back then. It assigned them to the tool crib, or some other less taxing job in the yard. I wonder if your grandfather had such physical demands placed on him while working in the Bellingham yard.