I was six years old and my parents took me and my sister Diana to the Fun Zone.  We loaded onto a small tender boat and went out the jetty with about 20 other people on a very tippy little boat and it was pretty rough with big swells.  I’m told it was 1964 and the aircraft carrier USS Bennington and a submarine were anchored offshore for Navy Day. The carrier was absolutely enormous to my six year old eyes and got bigger and bigger as we approached.  The tender went around the bow and I remember the anchor lines seemed bigger than me.  One of the scariest memories of my young life was being snatched out of my dad’s hands by a crewman on a rickety wooden ladder on the port side of the carrier at the bottom of a swell and then the tender and my parents disappeared from my sight as I held on to the ladder for dear life.  I was already nauseous and my legs hardly worked enough to make it up the ladder onto the deck.  I could not figure out why they had no railings and was terrified of the wind carrying me into the ocean off the side.  We toured the ship and I was in awe. I couldn’t believe the sailors really wore those white outfits like Popeye.  I was not thrilled about going down that ladder and getting tossed back on the tender but I guess I did because I’m here today.  I think I blocked out the memory of the return trip through the whitecaps. Very vivid memory and I often wonder why the Navy has never done it again.  I’d love to take my kids!

Author Gina Sammis grew up in NB and graduated from NHHS in 1976