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GREENSBORO — When Clarice Presnell Johnson’s dad talked to her about World War II, he was always drunk.

He’d go on about his time in the Navy and his tours on six ships before slipping into nostalgia about friends and friendships, good times and bad, and a sailor’s constant dance between duty and death.

Then he’d cry.

Clarice always wanted to hear more about the war from her dad, about living on a destroyer for months and about ferrying President Franklin D. Roosevelt to the other side of the Atlantic for a meeting along the Black Sea.

But she never did .

When she was 5 , her dad and mom separated. They never divorced. But they lived apart, within minutes of each other, in Asheboro — mom Maxine with her parents, dad Charlie by himself.

Clarice was, as she likes to say today, a “Daddy’s girl.’’ They both loved travel, Duke University, Elvis Presley movies and creasy greens , slow-cooked in fatback on a wood-burning stove.

As she grew older, Clarice wanted to hear something beyond the sketchy details she knew of her dad: Asheboro native, son of blacksmith, a carpenter’s mate on the USS Ellyson.

That never happened.

Charlie died in July 1990 , 11 years after Clarice’s mom.

Charlie was done in by cancer. He was 76. Clarice paid for her dad’s funeral and buried him at Asheboro’s Oak Lawn Cemetery — along with her longing to know more about the war and its influence on her dad.

Or so she thought.

Around Thanksgiving, you can expect some sort of homecoming. It often happens at some spot where friends, family and strangers congregate, and familiarity and serendipity become as seamless as a well-crafted song.

But for Clarice, her homecoming happened in September on her birthday. She had just turned 55. She had read Go Triad, the News & Record’s entertainment weekly, about a reception for an artist in downtown Greensboro.

His name? Leigh Rodenbough. He’s 85, an artist whose work is beautiful. But it was the 14-word phrase in the story that really caught Clarice’s attention: “A casual artist since childhood who served in the Navy during World War II.”

Clarice thought, “Could Leigh have known my dad?”

After a birthday dinner, Clarice dragged her husband, Terry, and her 27-year-old son, Aaron, to Ambleside Gallery to meet Leigh and ask the question. She found him sitting behind a table, surrounded by a milling crowd.

“My dad was in World War II,’’ Clarice told Leigh. “In the Navy. On the Ellyson.’’

“I was on the Ellyson,’’ Leigh replied. “Where are you from?’’

“Asheboro,’’ Clarice answered.

Even though his legs ached from hours of standing, Leigh shot up.

“Charlie Presnell!’’ he yelled. “You’re Charlie Presnell’s daughter? Oh, my, me and your dad were good friends!’’

The mystery of Charlie’s war-time experiences began to unravel nearly 20 years after his death.

She heard about her dad, the sailor; her dad, the partyer; her dad, the craftsman; her dad, the friend.

Charlie had made a mahogany footlocker for Leigh so he could ship home a Samurai sword and a Japanese naval helmet from their travels through the Sea of Japan on the Ellyson, a ship that sailors called the Elly Mae.

After the war, Charlie worked as a carpenter and painter in Asheboro. Leigh went on to law school and became a practicing attorney for more than a half-century in and around Greensboro.

And they never saw each other, not since their time together in 1943 aboard the Elly Mae.

But every time Leigh passed by Asheboro, he always thought the same thing. Or so he told Clarice: “Damn,’’ he thought. “I oughtta see Charlie.’’

Leigh always regretted that he didn’t.

And now, on a Friday night in September in a small gallery just beyond the railroad tracks of South Elm, he got to hear about the rest of Charlie’s life.

It came from his daughter. On her birthday.

“It was like old-home week,’’ Leigh says. “She looks like him. And his grandson, Aaron? He really looks like him, too. And it is really something.

“I mean, we had 350 people (on the Ellyson), and you know, by this time, you wouldn’t think you’d have a connection with any of them. At all.’’

Since then, Clarice and Leigh have visited often.

Clarice took Leigh out to eat for Veterans Day, and she plans to take him to some of the prettiest parts of Randolph County so he can take pictures and possibly paint her and her dad’s hometown .

But really, for Charlie’s daughter and Charlie’s good friend, it seems like only the beginning.

“I’ve cried a lot,’’ Clarice says. “It’s just in the scheme of things. Think of the thousands of men in the Navy. What are the odds? It’s divine providence — a total God thing — and it’s the coolest story.

“I remember the other day, Leigh said, 'I think your dad is in heaven, looking down on you smiling,’ and I said, 'I think you’re right,’ ” she says.

“Really, I don’t know the full purpose of all this yet, but I think it’s more than just a war story.

“I really do.’’

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com