Photo:  Marge Winski

Copyright © 2004 by Paul T. Cook

ISBN: 0-533-14540-6

Published by Vantage Press, Inc.

419 Park Ave., South

New York, NY  10016

Montauk Fishing Village is but a memory today, but for the villagers, it meant a way of life that will never be forgotten.  One of those villagers, Paul T. Cook, traveled the world in two distinguished capacities, in both the U.S. Navy and the world of business, but the life lessons learned in Montauk have stayed with him.  In his memoir, From Montauk To . . ., Cook writes with great feeling of growing up in the then-remote and "quaint" Montauk, rising from seaman in the Navy, and serving as both a project manager in Europe and the Near and Middle East.

Although Montauk Fishing Village ended with World War II, as the Navy took over the land for military purposes, the town comes to life again in this story of one native son.

Many experiences during Paul Cook's navy career are detailed, as well as those during his second career which include ten years living and working in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Greece and Egypt, and six years in Germany. His week long camel trek with Bedouins in the mountainous desert of Sinai was one of his most  exhilarating adventures with moments bordering on  despair from sand storm and minimal water, yet having the  feeling of existing in a Holy Wilderness.

EXCERPTS - From Montauk To . . .

Page 12

Mom could recognize the fishing boats already on the horizon as they returned from sea. As they approached the fish docks, either I or one of my brothers would be tasked to go pick up fish for supper. Mom would say "Here  comes Tom [Joyce]", or "Here comes Lyle [Tuthill]", and "go to the dock and get a cod or a mess of mackerel or a few flounders for supper and don't take all day, your father will be home soon."

Page 18

We, as children, learned to do without certain things and be satisfied with the possibilities offered by virtue  of the sea at our doorstep. Hand-me-downs were as way of life. There was a Mrs. Leroy Satterlee, wife of Doctor Satterlee, who lived in Montauk near the Golf Course, just around the corner from  Harry Bruno's home. Mrs. Satterlee knew dad well naturally as did most everyone in Montauk. She realized  that we did not have much, in the material sense, so each year some weeks before Christmas she would visit our house in the Fishing Village. Mrs. Satterlee owned the "Old Barn Book Shop" in East Hampton. She sold all kinds of things besides books, including rather expensive gift items, some of which were toys. By the end of summer season she had always accumulated a number of items that had been broken or damaged a bit. These items she brought to the house, because she knew that these fancy looking and colorful gifts, despite some damage, brought a great amount of joy to us. Often what she brought was, in fact, my Christmas.

Page 21

When I cut off the tip of my left thumb with an ax, when chopping lead weights from fish nets, the subject of a doctor never entered into the situation. Only after I had received Mom's traditional verbal lashing, in this instance about why I should not play with an ax, was some attention given to my thumb, as the blood was all the while spurting out into the flood of tears already on the floor. The eventual household "doctoring" consisted of wrapping a large wad of toilet paper around the thumb with instructions to "hold it tight until the bleeding stops."

Page 70

Another big event of my senior year (high school) was the senior play, a stage production of Best Foot Forward in the Guild Hall East Hampton, October 12, 1945. I was cast as the manager of the movie star.  It must be said that I had just hours before come from playing football in a game against Sag harbor. During the game while carrying the ball I was tackled in such a way that my face went on the ground precisely on the thirty yard line, lines marked with lime. My eyes began to burn and it became difficult to see through the continuously flowing tears. In one instance during the performance  I was to go to the "movie star" but I could not see her. Then I heard one of the cast in a loud whisper, "Paul over to the left!"  I managed to turn as directed and saw only a blurred figure, but as luck would have it, it was my actress. That was my "best foot forward".

Page 125

One morning in July 1957 I was walking near the Newport (Rhode Island) base chapel just before attending Sunday mass. It happened that President Eisenhower, whose summer home was there at Newport, was strolling in the same area.  I demonstrated my knowledge of military etiquette with a sharp salute and "Good Morning, Mr. President!"  He responded, "Good Morning, Sir!" along with his salute.  I was very impressed by his very friendly and  caring response to my expected military greeting as I had just been commissioned Ensign in the U.S. Navy.

Page 133

In a Radar Super Constellation aircraft over the North Atlantic. . . I informed my CIC crew of ten men to "buckle up tight"  as I judged this storm to involve extra severe turbulence. No sooner said than the aircraft shook violently and a giant blue ball of St. Elmo's fire rolled from the cockpit, inside the aircraft, all the way back to the tail section. We had entered a snow storm and had also been hit by lightning, which not only severely damaged the nose radome but also burned up all the coils and other sensitive front end electronic parts in all radar, navigation and long range communications equipment. Only the UHF transceivers (short range) were usable and the automatic direction finders were malfunctioning.

Page 139

We did in fact successfully chart the pressure ridges and leads in the ice pack from our Radar Super Constellation aircraft in support of the first winter exploration of a submarine , the U.S.S. Skate, at the North Pole. A series of long and tiring flights requiring the utmost concentration but also at very low altitudes for extended periods over the ice pack. A very interesting thing we did was to "fly around the world in nine minutes".

Page 140

While crossing the Atlantic with destination of Lages, Azores Islands,  the navigator gave the pilot a new heading of 'zero four five degrees'. After about 45 minutes on this new heading there was nothing showing on the radar scope. I  asked the navigator why he had changed the heading and he said we were too far south. Then the pilot called me in CIC and asked what I had for a position. I told him my jump plot showed us within 50 miles of the Azores at the time we changed heading. Commander Rowlands said to me, "Paul, give me a heading to where you believe Lajes to be located. If we continue in our present direction we'll never make it to any land." I gave a new heading of 180 degrees, due south of present position. After thirty minutes at the very bottom of my radar scope there appeared five tiny blips of land return. We relied on this to be the five islands of the Azores, continued southward, and avoided ditching at sea.

Page 170

With my method  of progressing ( the modernization of several missile frigates during five years at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard) I was able to predict for authorities (Bureau of Naval Ships) the ships completion dates with an accuracy within two to three weeks. This was valuable for those concerned for lots of reason such as adding shifts (or not), when to transfer sailors to man the ships, when the ships could join the fleet, and cost control. During  this Philadelphia assignment  I authored a book OSPIPS (On Site Physical Inspection Progressing System). It describes how one man can go through a entire ship each day during overhaul-modernization looking at specific key items to develop a simple graph of curves to determine the completion date of a ship.

Page 188

In February 1977 I was selected for transfer to Tehran, Iran as the General Dynamics In-country Manager on a project for the Imperial Iranian Navy, to prepare and implement a study on the naval ordnance facilities in Iran.   Two years later, in the midst of a revolution and death threats, we had to make a quick departure. Most of our personal belongings (and bank account) had to be left behind.

Page 195

The first major indication of revolt in Iran was the burning of a theater in Abadan in which several hundred Iranians died. As the months went by into 1978, demonstrations, shootings and burning became more commonplace. The anti-Shah people regularly shut down the main power stations so that the entire city of Tehran was totally blacked out. Elevators in apartment buildings were made inoperable and we had to walk up and down nine flights of dark  stairs not knowing whom we would meet along the way.

Page 206

In Saudi as the GenDyn Corporate Marketing Representative, after several stays at the Khurais Marriott I began to see a kind of pattern in the development of Saudi Arabia, as I approached the hotel. It was another extension of a city out into the desert and evidence of changing into a new age out of the sand. There was this beautiful new hotel structure sitting in the desert sands, modern high-tension electric power lines hovering over this desert, huge dust clouds churning up from speeding cars on unfinished roads, sheep grazing on something not visible, and wrecked cars along the way. To express my thoughts on this development I wrote a poem, accompanied by a sketch.

Page 210

A Hyatt sign is located on the road at the point of turn-off to the hotel on the west side , towards the (Red) Sea. The only other active hotel is the one called "the Middle East" located in the center of the town (Yanbu, Saudi Arabia). Anyone preferring to relive a Peter Lorre - Sidney Greenstreet movie might choose to stay in this hotel, where the clerk was slouched and dozing on a lobby bench. When approached, he lazily brushed away some flies which came in through the open door, along with the heat of the noonday sun. I made this hotel visit as part of my survey of the area (during Ramadan). But now came thoughts to inquire about lunch, in a place of local color, as I reflected on some earlier films I remembered cafe scenes involving Middle East waterfront intrigue, with  Peter and Sidney in white suits and Panama hats. On the clerk's third swipe at the persistent flies, he muttered something in Arabic. I was informed by my Yemenese driver's translation that "this is prayer time, and the best place to eat, in any case, is at the Hyatt, not here!"

Pages 216-228

I picked up the responsibilities (as a Corporate Marketing Manager-Egypt) by the first of 1981 and was always faithfully supported by our Consultant, retired EAF Maj. Gen. Salah Menawi and a great staff of individuals recommended by him.

As the senior representative for General Dynamics, during six years, I believed it was appropriate for me to get involved in public service, as was the case for delegates from other major American companies. Several of us formed an organizing committee for the purpose of establishing an American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt. It was so established in 1982 and it became the first AmCham in the Middle East. I was elected the first executive vice president and remained on the board in various capacities until my departure from Egypt at the end of 1986.

Page 260

I believe that the person who thinks out the  problem situation in the desert mountains (Egypt's Sinai Desert) would be more realistic and true to himself in a decision, whereas the seaman comes to a decision as result of fear, with a promise to his maker. The desert provides the positive environment for thoughts, discussion, and decisions relative to personal relationships in particular. More often than not, I believe, a decision or promise of a personal nature made under the stress of potential disaster is weak of foundation and destined in many instances to be short-lived or with broken promise. This is an example, in  brief, of the many thought processes that I had gone through during this camel trek.

Page 315

We stand in awe, inspired at the sight of the world's great cathedrals because of their massive and magnificent structures and the genius of their architects, the domes, the spires and sculptures all beautifully dignifying their individual existence as houses of worship for their intended believers. Yet there exists, in and of this world, special places likened to these famous architectural wonders, that are in themselves houses of worship, but enveloped by invisible walls and roofless save for the sky above, such as in Egypt's Sinai. As I recall the lurching and swaying approach on camel into the desert mountains of Sinai, there was eventually visible a profusion of brilliant colors on the sloping mountainsides. There were no stained-glass windows. Instead, nature had painted the mountains as if her light had been refracted and dispersed all the colors of the spectrum permanently into their sides. There was a deafening awareness of silence except for the pad-like hooves plodding through the wadi. We had just entered one of those special places, albeit without a door, we knew that we were inside a cathedral of greatest dimensions and the shining sun was the light of all candles for eternity.

After a week of almost monastic life in this barren but nevertheless beautiful and peaceful area it was clear that one could absorb more of life's meaning and have more of the mysteries of life unraveled than from hundreds of sermons from the pulpits.