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Footloose and fun-lovin' and allegedly dead...

Wandering father of Emma, former C.O. of Jack Waller, often promoted and often demoted officer in the U.S. Navy, and definitely dead resident of Poco Cabesa. At least, we think he is.

Cap'n Roy, despite his many positions of authority, was a man who never quite grew up. Brilliant but erratic, he graduated from the Naval Academy and went directly to the Korean "police action" in 1951.

Roy's proud father
Roy's father at son's Academy graduation.
 
U.S.S. Philippine Sea
(Above) CV-47 U.S.S. Philippine Sea, upon which Cap'n Roy served.
He spent three years off the Korean peninsula sending Corsairs off of carriers and staying in harm's way. Outspoken about tactics and strategy, real promotions consistently passed him by. But the men on the flight-deck worshipped his name.
 

Kicked upstairs to Navy operations HQ in Tokyo, he vainly campaigned for the quick introduction of jets and greater coordination between Air Force and Navy planning. All this made him about as welcome as a nonbeliever at a Baptists' convention in Tulsa.

Navy planes preparing to take-off for targets along the 38th Parallel.
 
A damp ending.
Cap'n Roy was aboard the carrier that fished out Virgil "Gus" Grissom.

So they shoved him off to the nuclear Navy and once again he thrived. The rush and effort to bring the super-carriers to life appealed to his sense of adventure and challenge. To get the job done they could expand upon the rules and push the envelope.

But, like always, success brought new oversight and Cap'n Roy found himself writing reports instead of specifications. Not one to keep his own counsel, he soon irritated people above him who are best left unirritated.

Due to these circumstances, his superiors generously granted him early retirement and he went home. Or thought he went home.

 

Unfortunately, Emma's mom threw him out of her life shortly thereafter, much to his relief. It seems they both discovered the mistake that was their marriage whenever they were together for more than two weeks.

By this time, daughter Emma was awash in post-adolescence and thoroughly resented her absent father. He would find no solace in her attitude.

 
Watch it, pilgrim.
Young Cap'n Roy at jujitsu championships, 1951.

Adrift, Cap'n Roy sort of bobbed around the oceans of life until he washed ashore on Poco Cabesa. The atmosphere of hopeless possibilities appealed to his pugnacious side. The price of rum delighted his thirst.

Still full of dreams and big plans, Cap'n Roy sweet-talked (he thought) Her Majesty Gertrude into leasing him a stretch of beach on the edge of Medillo Grande. There he planned to build the kind of resort that would attract the world's rich and famous.

 

Typically, dreams and reality committed murder-suicide in Cap'n Roy's world and what he wound up with were a simple collection of shacks by the water, a bleeding ulcer, and a distressingly distended liver.

When Jack arrived, aging Roy took heart and his dreams expanded once again, but his and Jack's dreams far outpaced their ability to pay. They eventually took to soothing their entrepreneurial spirits with some of the island's distilled spirits.

 
Cap'n Roy was very grateful.
Her Majesty Gert built Cap'n Roy this house inside her palace grounds.

While Cap'n Roy is, indeed, legally dead, there is some debate on the island as to just how dead he really is, since many island residents claim to have seen his ghost wandering the island with a Waring blender under one arm and a bag of ice and a bottle of rum under the other.

Of course, that fits the description of a lot of folks on Poco Cabesa after dark.

 

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The trouble isn't that there are too many fools, but that the lightning isn't distributed right.
-- Mr. Twain
 
 
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