A few caveats...

#1 This probably doesn't qualify as a Sea Story, but it does involve a Sailor on leave (i.e. yours truly), so I'm shoehorning it in.

#2 This story won't make a lot of sense to you if you've never read anything by Robert Heinlein.

#3 I'm aware that Virginia Heinlein, passed away in 2003.  But Mrs. Heinlein was alive when I wrote this several years ago, and I've left the story as-is.

In June of 1983, I returned from my first tour of duty in Japan.  (U.S. Navy.)  I had thirty days of leave (vacation to you civilian types) accumulated, and a long list of friends that I wanted to visit, spread out from East Coast to West.  I bought a 45 day Greyhound Ameripass, enabling me to ride any bus, anywhere, anytime.  Having flown in to San Francisco, I decided to ride straight to the East Coast and gradually work my way back to the West Coast in time to start Navy electronics training.  I was twenty-three years old at the time, and the thought of several weeks worth of bus rides held no particular fear for me.

One night, on the bus from Norfolk, Virginia (first visit) to Pekin, Illinois (second visit), an old gentleman sat down next to me.  It was dark on the bus, except for a few of those tiny reading lamps that some of you may remember.  But, what I could see of the man's face reminded me instantly of the old master, Robert A. Heinlein.  His voice had a quiet dignity about it, and just the barest hint of a Southern accent.  And, the longer I spoke to the man, the more convinced I became that he was Mr. Heinlein.  Many of the opinions that he expressed could have been cut whole-cloth from ‘Stranger In A Strange Land,’ or ‘Time Enough For Love,’ or ‘I Will Fear No Evil.’

My curiosity was killing me, so I steered the conversation around to books, and then to Science Fiction.  It turned out that the old gentleman knew far more about the works of Robert A. Heinlein than I did, and I considered myself to be a fairly rabid fan.  Eventually, I came right out and asked the man his name.  He just winked at me and laughed.  He got off the bus a few stops later, and I never saw him again.

On ninety-nine days out of a hundred, I am enough of a realist to know that there is no possible way that the gentleman in question was Robert Heinlein.  But, every once in a while, I entertain the idea that maybe... just maybe... I had the tremendous fortune to spend two hours on a Greyhound bus with the Dean of Science Fiction.

BTW, if one of you fine folk should happen to know the whereabouts of Robert Heinlein in June of 1983, I would appreciate it if you kept it to yourself.  I have most studiously avoided writing to Virginia Heinlein about this.  She might not take the time to answer such an off-beat letter.  But there's always the chance that she might.  And I would be forced to mourn the loss of a treasured memory - the night that I just might have ridden Greyhound with the Dean.