On the way home, William thought about aging.
William had seen the effects of the Navy. You had a shore age and a sea age, and your age at sea could affect your shore age. For example, a former AG, Tindale, had joined the Navy at nineteen. Four years later, he left at twenty-three, only he looked closer to forty-three. Life as a ship’s company AG — duty days, maintenance, cranking in the mess decks twice — had made him skip a few grades in the primary school of life. Now he was in college, older, wiser, haggard . . . and not without a huge drinking problem, undisputed master of the beer funnel.
Your shore age is twenty-nine. Which made his sea age . . . he thought about it. One did not simply add a number to get one’s sea age.
William parked in his driveway and looked in the rearview mirror. Adding a number didn’t cut it. You had to look in the mirror too. The changes to your face helped determine the number; they didn’t lie.
“I’d say about fifty,” he said to the face in the mirror.
The lines on that face agreed.
Other samples from Keepers of Time:
