Dear Folks, I just had to write down my vague memories of pay day in the Navy before I forget them. When I first joined the Naval Reserves in 1953, my pay check was mailed to me. When I went on active duty at Naval Air Station Oakland in 1955 all of us went to the Disbursing Office and picked up our pay checks there. But when it came to going to Navy school in Memphis, it was a completely new ball game. At NATTC Memphis they were still going by the old Navy school of paying the troops. What that means is that prior to pay day, a list was posted on all of the bulletin boards that listed everybody's name and the amount of pay they were entitled to on pay day. With that information at hand, everyone filled out a Pay Chit stating the amount of pay they were entitled to, signing it including their service number. Come pay day, now that was really a new experience for me. There were hundreds and hundreds of students at the training center and we all had to stand in line alphabetically before the pay master or the disbursing clerk would hand over our pay in cash. That also meant that we would have to show our military ID card, show our ID tags (I think) and then sign our name on the pay record. We pocketed the money and then dashed off on liberty or to the Enlisted Men's Club. But there was one thing about the awful long alphabetical line. Some of us had stood in the line in the pouring rain for hours before and then figured out how to beat it somehow. While I and a couple of my student friends sipped on our Cokes in the base cafeteria, we kept checking our watches and then one of us would be the runner to check how far down the alphabet the pay line had progressed. When it was getting close to one our names, we abandoned our Coke and slipped into the pay line. Those who waited too long found that they had to go to the end of the line reserved for stragglers. That was a fate worse than death. It was a unique Navy experience for me but I still have some fond memories of it. Not only standing in the pay line in the pouring rain but hearing the bugle call "Pay Call!" I never heard it after I left Memphis. Somehow I missed hearing it. vee