I have been to Cheatham on 3 different ships that I recall. Two of the ships I
joined at Cheatham. In the foreground you can see a white ship this is more
than likely the USNS ZEUS a built for the purpose cable layer that replaced the
USNS AEOLUS and USNS NEPTUNE . In 1981 I joined the USNS AEOLUS at Cheatham. I
was broke when I joined it. They sent us to the ship without enough advance per
diem . Thankfully the guy that was joining the ship as carpenter helped me out
until the ship came in. They had flown us from Oakland to Norfolk to join the
ship on a Monday morning and it did not arrive until Thursday of that week. I
had the joy of driving one of the rental vans out to the ship when it did
arrive. The advantage of having been at Cheatham was not shopping , no this was
another place that you had to take time off during the day to accomplish any
thing like that. However Bush Gardens at Williamsburg was within just about 7
miles . It was not quite so grown up back then nor was it 8 years later when I
joined the USNS MIZAR T-AGOR11 but when we came through there on a tour of
Yorktown in 2007 it seemed as though we were in the middle of a gold rush it had
built up so much. When I joined MIZAR I could not believe my eyes. I thought I
was coming to a fishing boat, I had never been on such a small vessel in my
life. MIZAR was a ship that I had to serve as a Wiper on in order to get
promoted back to electrician. I had taken what was available to get my foot back
in the door. One eyed Bob was the 1st Engineer and Tommy Thompson was the Chief
Engineer .
