My Pop! My Pop! what a man, my dad. You fought gangsters on the high seas sent by the god of hate..that old devil! who threw everything he had at our boys on their boats, popping up pea-shooting airplanes off wooden decks into the air..racing to be the first to spit in his Imperial Majesty’s eye. John Paul Jones – history’s greatest – never had a finer moment than these..counter-attacking a mile-thick pile of impenetrable steel, courtesy of Tokyo Rose..hurling the heat of the sun and all hell’s fury in their determined faces, circling, measuring, –in the stone’s throw of sunlit salt-cake islands of no present distinction..rough diamonds in hands of military experts were these. “DON’T SWEAR, MR. STACY..” John Paul Jones had said, in chastisement of his excitable subordinate (who) had suffered a momentary lapse of self-possession in the heat of a key moment of a close and desperate fight, heedless of the rising, comfortless ocean beneath decks awash with sailors’ blood; upon which they resolutely stood facing a vastly superior opponent, “Don’t swear..in a moment we all may be in eternity; but let us do our duty.” Similarly, human-and-saki guided missiles scored some hits, in passing eternity’s roadside billboards..no hula-girls, or Bing Crosby; nor mention of BURMA-SHAVE as they went and instantly changed the fortunes of many an able-bodied seaman that day the main fleet was busy someplace else, and my pop..my dad and his shipmates lay floating on flaming seas; and if I know my pop my pop! that man my dad he never, when tossed to the choppy waters – or elsewhere – ever said any thing to necessitate any such stern rebuke as that which John Paul Jones had spoke to that officer, in that other horrible place..as he, my pop and his brother shipmates lay floating in a flaming ocean, Aye! like oily sardines (as seen from the air) on a GLASSY SMOKING INFERNAL LIQUID&GARLIC PIZZA of unimaginable immenseness and ruined might (more than anyone can eat) waiting for help..and trusting GOD