THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 11, 1996 TAG: 9610100165
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: OVER EASY
SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg
LENGTH: 82 lines
A week ago last Sunday, Bill and I left Newport News for a cruise to Bermuda.
Last Sunday we returned, leaving in our wake a convenience store clerk who discovered she'd become a celebrity without knowing it, a long line of customers who may still be waiting to be served and a ship's captain scratching his head over how the lady wearing a Pungo stoplight ball cap got onto his bridge while the ship was leaving the dock.
``You do manage to create chaos wherever you go,'' Bill sighed as we lugged six suitcases (two more than the number we took with us) and three pieces of hand luggage (also two more than the number we took with us) back into the house.
The celebrity incident started when I came across an interesting paragraph in a Bermuda guidebook.
The author suggested that if you visited the Royal Naval Dockyard you should stop in at its marina convenience store. The soft drinks there were ice cold, the atmosphere friendly and the clerk exceedingly knowledgeable about the history of the yard, Ron Charles, author of Open Road Publishing's Bermuda Guide, explained.
``Linda Wilson seems to know more about the dockyard than anyone else I have met in Bermuda,'' he wrote.
Since our ship was docking at the heavily fortified base, which the Royal Navy had occupied for nearly 150 years before abandoning it in 1951, I decided to look Linda up.
The next day, after we docked, Bill and I strolled over to the marina for a Coke. ``Are you Linda?'' I asked. ``Sure am,'' she answered. ``The Linda I read about in the guidebook?'' I continued.
``What guidebook?'' she asked, perplexed.
From there on in, things got a little complicated. She knew nothing about the book, couldn't even guess which of her many customers the author might have been. We walked back to the ship to get our copy to show her.
By the time we got back, store regulars - including Linda's daughter - were lined up to find out how Linda had suddenly become famous. Bill snapped pictures as she read about herself, her eyes wide, her chuckle warm and deep.
In the meantime, more customers arrived, more lines formed. Linda autographed my guidebook and Bill took more pictures. Finally, 15 minutes before closing time, we left her and her daughter to serve the waiting customers.
Three days later, as we left port, I managed to create a somewhat more serious bit of confusion.
Bill, the incurable seafarer, led me to the flying bridge at the very top of the ship so we could get a better view of the complicated process of getting thousands of tons of ship away from the dock and out to the open ocean.
``Better put something on your head,'' he had told me before I left the cabin, ``the sun's pretty strong up there.'' I grabbed the nearest hat, the one with the Pungo stoplight on it.
An hour later Bill left to go below while I stayed topside to get some final pictures of Bermuda. Coming down the ladder a few minutes later, I reached for the closest door, opened it and found myself face to face with a young man standing over a chart table.
Behind him three other men, all with a lot of gold on their shoulders, stared at me with open mouths. One was the ship's captain, one was his No. 2 man - the staff captain - and the third was the harbor pilot.
At least that's who I think they were. While I was still trying to figure it all out, the nice-looking young man at the chart table took my arm and politely, but firmly, escorted me back outside. He did not loosen his grip until I was safely inside the correct doorway.
Finally it dawned on me that I had wandered onto the ship's bridge, and at the worst possible time. To put this in perspective, my gaffe was roughly the equivalent of letting yourself into the cockpit of a 737 rolling down the runway toward takeoff.
When I confessed to Bill what I had done, he just shook his head. On my personal faux pas scale this one stood about midway between the time I dumped a full glass of wine on a two-star admiral and the occasion when I mistook the secretary of the Navy for the maitre d' at an officers' club.
Oh, and one final note. At breakfast on deck the next morning the young officer who had escorted me from the bridge stopped by our table with a question.
``Please, ma'am,'' he said, ``may I ask where is this Pungo and why is its stoplight important?'' At least I could answer that one. If he'd asked why I was on the bridge the day before, I don't think I could have come up with an answer for him. by CNB