Before there was Dorien Grey, there was Roger Margason, who had led a long and rather interesting life before Dorien ever emerged, full-grown and fully developed, from Roger's mind. Dorien, being non-corporeal, can be and is anything he wants to be, including all those things Roger has always wanted to be and never was.

Dorien, like Oscar Wilde's fictional character from whom he took his name, is ageless; Roger, regrettably, is not--a fact he deeply resents.

Long before Dorien emerged and became a writer, Roger already considered himself one. and when he entered the United States Navy as a Naval Aviation Cadet in August of 1954 (yes, children, there was a 1954) he had already been writing for years. This blog will follow Roger's adventures as a NavCad, including the rigors of learning to fly, then as a regular sailor on an 8 month deployment to the Mediterranean aboard the now-scrapped aircraft carrier U.S.S. Ticonderoga (CVA-14). It was an interesting time, and we hope you'll join (and stay with) Roger as we travel back through time to a world of long ago.

So please meet 20 year old Roger Margason, who even then was conscious that he was writing to you.

Let's start at the beginning:

August 9, 1954

Having, in my sophomore year at Northern Illinois State Teachers College, studied with no little interest the Diary of Samuel Pepys (pronounced "Peeps" though I’ll never know why) and similar works, I have decided to write my own, somewhat modernized, journal. I differ from Mr. Pepys in many ways; one being that I am writing this journal, or diary, with the object of its eventual publication in mind.

I am, at the start of this modest work, twenty years old; the date is August 9th, 1954. On August 13, 1954, I shall, I hope, enter the United States Navy for 4 years, wherein I hope to become a pilot.

I plan to make this journal as revealing and honest as possible (it is far easier to make confessions to one’s future than to one’s present), and the reader must bear with my frequent ramblings. I intend to present, not to my own day, but to some future age, a complete picture of myself, my life, and my world. To the future this journal is hopefully dedicated.