Here I am Great Lakes, Illinois, on liberty from MM-A school. In those days, I loved the EM club dances on Wednesdays and on weekends, and cursed the days that my duty days fell on dance days. After the dance, it was a hike out to "The Strip" for coffee with acquaintances. I still remember my favorite dance partners of those days. Gloria Boden, June Darling, Vicky Taylor, and Donna Hopper were all Hospital Corps school students from the other side of the base. I was really young and innocent in those days, and I never got up the nerve to ask any one out on a date other than to go to a movie together. Of course, we MM school students were known to the waves as m&m's - for melt in your mouth. We were "sailors", and in those days, the reputation had to be maintained. (But I was far too innocent. - I probably set the cause back years.)
I vaguely remember doing well in MM-A school. Hand tools, steam systems, evaporators, pumps, turbines, diesel engines, and even refrigeration and air conditioning. All the things a good Machinist Mate should know. It was after MM-A school that I served aboard the USS Norris (DDE-859).
(The middle is under construction.)