Category: <span>Ron Charest</span>

Published May 27, 2025 by

There And Back Again to Peru

A Sunset Selfie on the Tambopata River

Estimated reading time: 51 minutes

Winnie and I recently returned from two-weeks of cross-country adventures in Peru. During our trip we took a boat ride around marine sanctuary islands; rode a dune buggy in sand dunes; flew over hard desert to view the lines of Nazca; spent three nights in a jungle lodge keeping our snacks locked away safe from monkeys; hiked a portion of the Inca trail between Cuzco and Machu Picchu; and toured a number of Incan archeological sites. We also drove over an 18,000-foot mountain pass; viewed Lake Titicaca; got altitude sickness; and (briefly) lost my luggage to a Peruvian airline. It was quite the trip.

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Family Stories Ron Charest

Inca Trail Peru vacation

Published July 12, 2024 by

Moving To Charlotte

Moving Away From Virginia
Moving Away

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

We’ve moved. Over the past several months Winnie and I have made the complex transition from living in Northern Virginia to living in Charlotte, North Carolina. This transition involved buying a house, selling our house, moving our extensive collection of household goods, and reorganizing my ongoing professional life. Not to mention shifting all our necessary professional support services we developed during the eighteen years we lived in Virginia.

But we now live in Charlotte. In the great scheme of life adventures that’s happened to Winnie and me, this was just another speed bump.

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Family Stories Ron Charest

Charlotte Moving Out North Carolina

Published December 31, 2023 by

The Monsters Living Among Us

Dealing with monsters among us. Photo by Luis Quintero: https://www.pexels.com/photo/silhouette-of-a-person-1799904/
Dealing With Monsters Among Us

Estimated reading time: 19 minutes

Between my former Navy career and present consulting career I’ve met, worked with, even lived with, a lot of different people. New people constantly cycle into my world, then cycle back out due to forces and decisions not under my control.

On the positive, I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting people whom I never would have known through social activities. On the negative, I’ve been forced to deal with some truly horrible people.

More than horrible, I’ve been thrown into dealing with actual monsters living among us. People who from the outside seemed like normally decent human beings, but scratching their skin revealed a creature totally devoid of soul. One of these monsters was a seemingly decent family-man with a wife and three lovely daughters. Dealing with him threw me into one of the ugliest situations I’ve ever been involved in.

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In the Navy Ron Charest

Family Navy Story

Published July 8, 2023 by

My Submariner’s View on Loss of The Oceangate Submersible

The OCeanGate Submersible "Cyclops I." Predecessor to the "Titan" Lost on June 18, 2023. Attribution: Isabeljohnson25 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44018722
The OCeanGate Submersible “Cyclops I.” Predecessor to the “Titan” Lost on June 18, 2023

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

This is my commentary as a former US Navy submarine sailor, and former member of the Navy’s deep submergence community, on last month’s event when five people died on a rickety submersible while diving to the wreck of Titanic. 

I qualified in submarines on the nuclear fast attack submarine USS Scamp (SSN 588) all the way back in 1976. Although my qualification board was forty-seven years ago, I retain membership in the highly exclusive community of submarine veterans.

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Ron Charest Rons Archives

Deep Submersible OceanGate submarines

Published March 28, 2022 by

This Old House

This Old House
Our Second House Restoration Project

Estimated reading time: 58 minutes

In 2008 Winnie and I purchased a second house as investment property. We had settled into our new community of Woodbridge, Virginia, and purchased a home to live in the year prior.

Through a friend, Winnie learned of a house for sale “at a good price.” This turned out to be true. The house, a 1954-vintage masonry-construction house was for sale at an amazingly low price – because it was a total fixer-upper.

So we bought it. This is our old house home improvement story.

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Ron Charest

home improvement renovation

Published January 3, 2018 by

Dad’s Yosegaki Hinomaru

Armand Charest in 2000
Armand Charest in 2000

My dad, Armand Gabriel Charest, was a US Army veteran of World War II. I knew this growing up as he would talk a lot about his Army adventures. We even attended a reunion of his 41st Division in 1971. He always expressed pride in being a soldier and pride in his role during WWII. But there were things about his army service I didn’t know until he wrote his memoirs in 2002. 

Then there were some things about his Army service I didn’t know until after he passed, which left questions for which I’ll probably never have answers.

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Ron Charest

Armand Charest Hiroshima japan World War II Yosegaki Hinomaru

Published October 29, 2014 by

A Forty-Year High School Reunion

Pine Bush High School
Pine Bush High School

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

I had the distinct experience of attending my forty-year high school class reunion several weeks ago. It was the first reunion I’ve been to, and it brought up a flood of memories and feelings I haven’t dealt with since graduation.

I grew up in Farmingdale, Long Island, New York, attending schools in the Farmingdale school district from Kindergarten until end of my high school sophomore year. In 1972 we moved from Farmingdale to the “upstate” Hudson Valley region of New York. I graduated from Pine Bush High School in June of 1974.

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Ron Charest

farmingdale High School Reunion new york pine bush

Published August 28, 2014 by

Days of Hurricane Ivan

Hurricane Ivan on 13 Sept 2004
Hurricane Ivan on 13 Sept 2004

I’ve written extensively about the life-changing event that was Hurricane Katrina. However, I haven’t written about another hurricane which had almost as much of an impact. That would be Ivan, which made landfall on the US Gulf Coast early on the morning of September 16, 2004, one year prior to Katrina. Although my home and the community of Gautier, Mississippi, was not directly impacted Ivan had deeply personal consequences.

As the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Ivan’s landfall approaches I’ve decided it’s time to share my story.

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Ron Charest

Alabama Brewton florida gautier Hurricane Georges Hurricane Ivan mississippi mississippi gulf coast orange beach Red Cross

Published April 3, 2014 by

A Visit to a Chinese Doctor

Ron Charest

Chinese Health Herb Pharmacist Herbal Medicine Herbologist Herbology

The HammerEric Wilkens with a young milk calf. About 1976
Published December 26, 2010 by

The Hammer

On Loosing A Hammer and Standing Up to People

Chapter 1

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a hammer that I lost over 35 years ago.  Rather, I’ve been thinking about losing that hammer and how I lost it.  It involves my maternal grandfather, a school play, and a high school teacher whom I still consider to be one of the most inept teachers I suffered through during my entire public school career.

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Ron Charest

farmingdale hammer high school long island new york pine bush