Still Making Waves at 92

At 92, Jim Paulk has lived enough lives for several people — Naval Academy graduate, submarine engineering officer, 26-year Procter & Gamble executive, marine conservationist, and published author. In this Ship’s Log, he traces a path that started in Depression-era Brunswick, Georgia, where a teenager who loved hunting, fishing, and golf set his sights on Annapolis — and got in only after two years of trying, with a phone call that came while he was mid-round at a golf tournament.

From submarines that ran silent on battery power to a five-month campaign that banned destructive gillnets across California, Jim tells stories most people have never heard. He explains how a ragtag committee of retirees “created the perception of success,” flew the state dark-to-dark to win a ballot initiative, and helped launch a white-seabass restoration program still running today. Along the way he shares the love story behind nearly six decades with his late wife, Pat, and how a chance Cracker Barrel encounter with The Platters became a chapter in one of his books.

The episode closes with Two Truths & A Lie, where Jim reveals that the most cinematic claim of all — three days on the moon with Apollo 16 — was the lie. The truth behind it is even better: that’s astronaut Charlie Duke’s story, which Jim wrote for his book of 81 Naval Academy stories, interviewing Duke alongside his own granddaughter.