Someone asked me why I have not yet retired and here's what I posted on Nextdoor:
I could have retired 8 years ago but I am having so much fun keeping a certain youngster from getting ahead by not retiring. I just got a waiver so I can stay until I am 75. To say he's upset is hardly the way to describe it.
Do you have any idea how much dieting and exercising it takes to stay in shape to pass the Coast Guard physical? On top of that I still have to drink and smoke like the rest of them to show I'm one of the boys and still in shape!
Then again, I have a lot going for me. All the girls at all the strip joints know me and pour my drinks with iced tea instead of bourbon so I don't get a DUI carting them back to the boat.
I do still enjoy seeing them wonder how the Old Man could manage to cart them all back to the boat the next morning when they are all hung over.
One of the joys of being old is I am wise enough to know I can't outrun them. On the other hand it is a joy to still be able to out think them.
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Needless to say somone said something about it and took it as fact and hilarity ensued.
This isn't the first time my sarcasm went undetected.
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Another time someone posted that he heard sailors were real party animals.
Yeah, I replied, we are.
When I get off the boat my buddy meets me and we split a bottle of Jack, a case of beer, six joints, three or four Qaaludes, five or six tooeys, a coupla reds, five or six magic mushrooms, a couple of hits of acid, eight or nine uppers, an 8-ball of coke and maybe a couple of snorts of junk. We also sniff a pint of ether. Anymore than that and I need a designated driver.
Some wide-eyed golly-gosh-wowee replied he knew someone that could get me into rehab and I told him rehab is for quitters.
Apparently it never occurred to him that the list I admitted to using would be enough to kill an entire herd of elephants stone dead.
It's never occurred to a lot of people that for practically my entire merchie career that the industry has been under a zero tolerance policy and we are routinely tested for drugs and alcohol. Any activity involving drugs and alcohol would be detected in rather short order and the guilty parties would most likely lose their licenses.
But by God, sailors are party animals!
Seems everyone and their cousin know somebody that had a friend have him tell them that they met a guy who's college room mate's uncle said sailors are a bunch of drunken party animals.
I can't help but get sarcastic every so often.
This article stated that they used to be. https://www.quora.com/ sr
ReplyDeleteI thought this would open. I will try another way. sr
ReplyDeleteYou’re right that you can’t substitute alcohol for drinking water when the latter is unavailable; that’ll just dehydrate you even worse. Less concentrated beverages like beer might keep you alive, but the traditional shipboard tipple of rum wouldn’t.
ReplyDeleteThe main purpose of alcoholic beverages served on ship was not to make up for the lack of drinking water, but to make up for the general grottiness of shipboard life. sr
This was also taken from another article. One of the great seaman-historians, Alan John Villiers (1903–1982), who used to sail grain ships (real sailing vessels) round the horn, from South Australia to England, said that the sailors’ love of strong liquor had much to do with the prevalence of salt rations. It often seemed that only alcohol could “cut” that briny taste on the tongue. Even in Villiers’ day, it was unlikely that a crew would see fresh food for weeks. For sailors of an earlier era, the situation would have been even worse. Alcohol served a lot of purposes in the Age of Sail: it was (arguably) healthier than the water available; a way to bond the crew; a way for captains to reward their men for especially hard work; a way to punish the men (by withholding the ration); and a means of ensuring security. Drunk men fall asleep. Drunk men also have a hard time plotting a mutiny, and have little hope of actually carrying one out.On the other hand, sailors had an attitude that we see in modern day soldiers, too: sure, go get wasted, but you better be sober and ready when you’re back on ship. sr
ReplyDeleteIN this day and age you had better blow a 0.00 before returning to the vessel.
DeleteCoward
ReplyDelete