For The Archives -- Nothing About The Bakken, Nothing About Energy -- June 19, 2023

Locator: 44979ARCH.  

Exactly fifty-six years ago, my parents and I drove from Williston, ND, to Northfield, MN. I was enrolled in a "literature / arts studies" summer course at St Olaf College, a six-week program, I believe. It was between my junior year and senior year of high school. A LAE for me.

Today, fifty-six years later, our middle granddaughter is flying out to California, to participate in a three-week flight course with the United States Air Force. This is also the summer between her junior year and senior year in high school. [We just received text message: she's in-flight having just departed DFW.]

Back in the 1800s, 1900s, and perhaps the early 2000s, the upper class Brits -- particularly the English -- had a long-standing "custom" of sending their first-born sons on a "grand tour" to study the classics in Europe: first to Paris, then Italy, then Greece. If the Brits mentioned "the grand tour," it was understood what they meant.

One wishes that the Americans had a similar custom. We probably do, but we need a catchy phrase by which to call it. 

For American high school / college-bound students. the three most important summers in their lives (up to that point):

• the summer before kindergarten -- the prologue;
• the summer between junior / senior year in high school -- the penultimate tour;
• the summer after graduation from high school -- the anticipatory grand tour -- Europe with a guide.

For college students, four summers:

• first summer: close to home (?)
  
• second summer: overseas research program with professor
• third summer: internship in major city at least 1,000 miles from home
• fourth summer: the second last grand tour -- Europe on one's own -- hook up with friends, once overseas.

A couple of years ago, our two older granddaughters signed on as the only two members of a sailing crew, sailing the Greek islands with their dad on a 36- to 38-foot sailboat. Their dad was the skipper and they, his crew. They had all had sailing experience at some level. Their dad had served fifteen years in the US Navy as a submariner, culminating at the XO on the USS Salt Lake City. 

From wiki, the highlight(s) of him on that submarine:

On 22 October 2004, Salt Lake City returned from a deployment with the USS John C. Stennis carrier strike group in the western Pacific Ocean, after surging, over a month ahead of schedule, in support of Summer Pulse '04.

Port calls during the deployment included Guam, Sasebo, Yokosuka, Singapore, and Oahu, Hawaii. [His wife, our daughter, flew to Singapore, with their six-month old daughter to join him for two weeks of shore leave.]

Salt Lake City conducted an inactivation ceremony in San Diego on 26 October 2005, then departed for a transit under the polar ice. [This was a "biggie."]

On 15 January 2006 she was decommissioned at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Over a year later, the hulk was taken under tow, arriving on 8 May 2007 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, where she will be recycled and scrapped. 

Our son-in-law re-entered the civilian world after "his" submarine was decommissioned.