Crossing the Line Preparations

Saturday we will be doing the “Crossing the Line” ceremony as we cross the equator. It is an ancient tradition, that has been tamed somewhat and not a crazy as it used to be. Who know it may be crazy! I am a polliwog. Should be interesting! We have been working on our polliwog shirts for this initiation for a couple of days now. We got help from the Jim who does all the sewing on the ship – he is a mariner and not a Navy guy. He introduced us to the Boson who let us use his really interesting and old die cut machine to cut out words to put on our shirts. We got to go in the bow of the ship and see all the cool storage areas with parts, ropes and tools of every kind. Jim cut out us a polliwog transforming into a “Shellback” (those who have already crossed the line before). Kaye, another OR nurse, and I spent the afternoon sewing our transforming polliwogs onto our shirts and visiting with all the young OR corpsmen that we will be working with. They are a bunch of young kids who are all very nice.
All the departments had to prepare a skit or dance to perform for the shellbacks on top of the flight deck. The NGO wogs did a skit with the Enlisted wogs. At first it was long with a couple scenes, but once we got upstairs we realized that the shellbacks were booing everyone off the stage before they got going so we pared it down to our Sponge Bob Square Pants dance. Yes I can do the Sponge Bob Square Pants dance. I think I was at least 20 years older than anyone else dancing. I still got it – well kinda - anyhow every show needs someone on the back row!