What would your yearbook say if it could talk?
Found and Recovered
The yearbooks that started this site came from a deep dive in the Navy section of my local used book dealer. This book dealer isn't any little old dusty shop, Chamblin Bookmine was founded in 1976 and now encompasses 60,000 square feet of space in Jacksonville, Florida.
Above: The first three that started it all. The Anchor, Company 55-477; Keel, Company 1957-41; Rudder, Company 1979-109.
These first 3 books were recovered from the Chamblin's Bookmine located at 4551 Roosevelt Boulevard, Jacksonville, Florida.
What a journey these books must have seen!
Tucked inside the Rudder yearbook was the following typed face poem...
THE LOOK AHEAD
.....
I am done with the years that were: I am quits:
I am done with the dead and the old.
They are mines worked out: I delved in their pits:
I have saved their grain and gold.
Now I turn to the future for wine and bread:
I have bidden the past adieu.
I laugh and lift hands to the years ahead:
"Come on: I am ready for you!"
.....
The fight for justice fills the world.
The flag of faith is never furled.
The sons of Satan throw their weight,
God's sons are also at the gate.
If God's flag falters in the gale,
If soldiers of the common good
Lose in the cry for brotherhood,
Go down to dust and shadow, still
The battle is worth while -- the fight
Is one more flame against the night,
And they who nobly fail will find
The peace of the heroic mind,
Will taste life's sacred joy, the joy
Earth cannot give nor earth destroy.
These things I see as the cloud clears
Here at the height of eighty years.
-- Edwin Markham
Written on his 80th birthday
Where has your yearbook gone: duty stations, vacations, adventures?