re: Picture of the day the USS Kidd came home to BR

Back when BR was actually a real community.

Our 8th grade end of year party was on the Samuel Clemens.

I didn't get to see the Kidd arrive but I was at one of the first reenactments they did. They had a fully-automatic anti aircraft machine gun down on the river bank shooting up at old planes flying over. All while The kidd was firing her big guns.

That. Was. Amazing to a kid or anyone there that day. Doubt they do this shite now much less let 8 yr old kids stand 100 feet away on the levee behind the gunner.

Man! Remember when that bridge in the background was the ‘new’ bridge and we didn’t have those other bridges that keep long haul truck drivers and national traffic from clogging up roads straight through downtown?

...oh wait, that’s still the new bridge.

Why are the vehicles on the bridge spread apart from each other ?

Looks like it would be real easy to get washed overboard in heavy seas.

I forgot about this story.

Back in the early 1990's, my cousin had this Japanese foreign exchange student staying with them. They drove over to BR one day, so we all go downtown. We are up at the top of the Capitol, and he sees the Kidd.

"Oh! American warship!" I tell him, yes, it's the U.S.S. Kidd. "What war was it in?" World War II I tell him. He gets quiet for a couple of seconds, then asks "Was it in the Pacific?" I said yes, and you dirty Japs even crashed a kamikaze into her.

He wasn't offended because people were not big, giant pussies back then. Not even those yellow bastards.

Spent the night on the Kidd in about 2008. I was a chaperone for my sons Boy Scout Troop when they got to spend a day and night on the ship.

Pretty cool.

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Not giving tours, no. But, working on the Kidd, yes. I polished every piece of brass on that ship in 1997 for 32 hours one week to fulfill my obligation to the community... Where did I get the idea to do it? When I was booked in 1996, I shared a cell with a dude who had committed a murder a few months ago and he worked for a few years on the Kidd in maintenance. He got mixed up in drugs and will ever see the light of day again (LINK ). He told me that he used to supervise community service guys as part of his job and gave me his contact there. He was a super nice kid and it just shows you some of the dark paths that drugs can lead you down. I even remember at that point him taking full responsibility for it and even said that he would probably get the death penalty, which he did, but it was reduced to life a few years later.

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I remember that piece of shite. Jeezus christ.