I remember the time

 we had a Russian ship pull into Kodiak for some reason or another. It turned into a pretty good party if I recall.

I believe that this was before the Berlin Wall was torn down but I may be wrong.

Still, I remember that there was a political officer of some sort that was wandering through the bars watching and listening to the guys off of his ship. He was a real wet blanket because when he walked in the Russian sailors got pretty quiet pretty fast.

Along came a certain somebody that befriended the guy and somehow managed to get a couple of drinks into him and relax him enough to drop his guard. That seemed to be all it took. I don't know what he did to the guy but he passed out and was left on the dock at the end of the Russian ship's  gangway. That's when things in the bars began to cook.

Work of the political officer being taken out of the equation really got things cooking. Word went through the Russian sailors ashore like wildfire. Let the party begin!

I like the retelling of the tale because as it got retold time and again I believe the story grew to where they took the passed out officer somewhere and tattooed the Stars and Stripes on his chest.

Then again maybe they DID tattoo the bastard! I don't know. I always hoped they did.

Still, I remember I had nothing special to do that day and enjoyed having a couple with a bunch of Rooski sailors. It was a lot of fun.

If I recall the Russians started running out of money quickly as they didn't get paid nearly as much as we did. That didn't slow things down much. The fishing fleet was in and they were flush and had plenty of cash to blow on a good party.

The truth is that I'd bet that the fishermen of the Kodiak fleet did more for grass roots international relations in a day than anyone in Foggy Bottom could in months. I'm sure the Russian sailors had a blast.

I kind of liked those guys. They were all right as far as I could see. Then again sailors are all cut from the same cloth.

Now that I think about it we'd all be a whole lot better off if we were more careful aout who we let run our countries. Generally it's governments that start all this crap in the first place.

Maybe we ought to elect drunken sailors to public office. At least when drunken sailors run out of money they stop spending it.






To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY