MUs of all eras

I can't stress it enough or too ofter: the NMA is for all MUs, whether active duty, former one-hitchers or retired.

And we are of a variety of eras. Here, Ron Wilder is catching up on the news with Cecil Strange. I'd like to point out that MUCM Strange retired in 1968. You're welcome to guess when he enlisted...

Enter and sign in, please.

It's Day One of the 2017 NMA reunion and MUs are pouring in to the Holiday Inn. And sometimes they even remember to register.

And awaaaay we go.

In eight minutes, the 2017 reunion of the Navy Musicians will be in progress.

Make all preparations for getting underway. Set the special sea & anchor detail. Single up all lines fore & aft. Muster the band on the fantail.

Anchors aweigh!

Good morning, sunshine.

Ah, a new day.

Fresh challenges, blossoming opportunities. And when your reunion coordinator springs into this new day with unbridled optimism and vigor, you know good things are coming..

Pre-reunion jam session.

Here's a four-year-old photo of the lounge with no one in it. I have no photos of tonight's jam session. I was too busy playing walking bass lines to run around with a camera.

Trumpeter Don Junker was a good sport and played piano while I played bass. The two of us are really hoping more bassists and pianists will be here tomorrow. As of this moment, I'm in carpal tunnel pain. Don, I assume, is in bed.





Attention all former and present Navy pianists and bassists:


Shipmate Frank wants you.

Before the jam session starts...

We're winding up this busy pre-reunion day, getting ready for the pre-reunion night. Members have been pouring in all day and will continue to arrive even while we're having a pre-reunion jam session. Mike Vax says his plane gets in at midnight and he hopes we'll still be at it. We'll see. Taps seems come a little earlier in the evening than it used to.

And quite a day it has been. The lobby and registration room have been overflowing with MUs checking in, meeting each other and getting a head start on the story-telling. This pre-reunion day always presents me with the challenge of finding new angles, new ideas, new stories to tell in new ways.

And what I wand up with every year is photos of MUs and beer.
.

I could publish a coffee-table sized book of
photographs of Wilbur Smith in bars.