Chris Smith: Ex-Two Rock Coast Guard chief is off for cookies, jewels elsewhere

Sunny and solemn but also fairly funny was the military ritual at the Coast Guard’s Two Rock training station that bid farewell to commanding officer Chuck Fosse.

After thanking Capt. Fosse for his three years preparing Coast Guard trainees for the critical and evermore complex challenge of safeguarding the nation’s security, Coast Guard Rear Admiral David Throop revealed to Friday’s change-of-command ceremony some of Fosse’s personal secrets.

One is a cookie habit so serious that the long, lean Fosse thinks it’s OK to have one or two before dessert. Admiral Throop also disclosed that just now Fosse is especially beholden to his wife, Karen, and their daughters, Lauren and Ella, because the truck that will carry all their possessions to the nation’s capital arrived a day early and the captain couldn’t be home to help with the move.

The admiral assured Karen Fosse that there will be jewelry stores near their new digs in D.C. Throop had the departing captain holding his head as he advised the Fosse girls, “And there are pet stores.”

Chuck Fosse is succeeded at the training center by Capt. Paul Flynn, who previously skippered the cutter Vigorous on the East Coast and served in the White House.

Fosse will become the USCG’s new chief of enlisted personnel management. Running down his major accomplishments at the station, he noted that his role in the construction of its new wastewater treatment facility led to him being named on a plaque that’s mounted on it.

Said the former station commander, “It’s pretty cool to have your name on a sewage plant.”

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ABOUT THAT QUILT: Nan Waters of Sebastopol thought it was a mistake when Memorial Hospital invited her to come pick up the quilt the hospital believed had belonged to her husband, George Breck, when he died last spring in the intensive-care unit

Waters knew of no quilt. She suspected it had been on the bed of another patient. Rather than have Memorial volunteers toss it out, she picked it up, intending to find its rightful owner or his or her family.

But Waters has heard, from more than one registered nurse at Memorial, that some of the critical-care nurses call themselves the Piece-Makers and they create quilts to offer to terminal patients.

So it seems the quilt Waters picked up from the hospital had indeed been given to her George shortly before he died. She plans now never to part with it.

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THE ACT, ON STAGE: Some of us went cold to SRJC the other night for the Summer Repertory Theatre performance of “The Little Dog Laughed.”

I was vaguely aware that the play involved an actor whose agent tries to keep him in the closet for the good of his career.

It evidently surprised quite a few there in Newman Auditorium when, in a hotel-room scene, two actors stripped to their Fruit of the Looms, then one went even farther and the second kneeled and began to simulate ...

Right then, the Hollywood agent walked in, triggering a hasty cover-up. Those of us who returned after intermission to see the conclusion of a delightfully clever and well-produced if startlingly explicit play couldn’t help but notice that a good many of the audience had bailed, leaving empty seats.

Perhaps as a caution, SRT should present the tickets in plain paper wrappers.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.