Why I didn't get into drugs is kind of a different look at things.

It wasn't the usual reasons that kept me drig free. I didn't fall for the 'Marijuana, teen age killer' crap nor much of anything like that.

I wasn't afraid of addiction, bad health, missing out on a haircut, losing my (already lost) mind or any of the usual things that make people steer clear.

I just looked at all of the cool people that were into the drug scene and paid a little attention.

It always seemed that bad things were happening to them. They were always getting ripped off or ripping someone off. A couple got beaten up, some got arrested, others just went over the high side. I knew a couple of guys that overdosed and died. One guy that was a druggie got shot at a couple of times but I guess the shooter waas as high as a kite because he missed.

Yet there were some of the cool kids.

I steered clear of drugs because I simply didn't want to be one of the cool kids and get caught up in all of that crap.

It really was that simple.  

I guess I just wanted to be left alone.

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One of the things I would recommend to anyone working in a trade of any kind

is to find out which laws, state or federal that govern your career field and get familiar with them.

As a sailor the most common law enforcement body I came in contact with in my career was the Coast Guard. They enforced the federal Code of Regulations (CFRs)  pertaining to the shipping industry.

Knowing the rules and following them can keep you out of trouble. 

Occasionally you are going to come to a conflict with your employer, a customer or an outside contractor. 

Office conflicts are usually small in nature. For example someone may call you and ask you why you have not been answering your phone for the past two hours. My answer was generally "Because I was where I waas supposed to be. I was on deck."

Then he asked why my second didn't answer it and I said, "Because he was where he was supposed to be. He was asleep because he's been up all night."

Something like that generally ends it. There's not much anyone can say because you are in compliance with the rules.

I once had a dispatcher that complained to my port captain about not having the phone answered immediately 24/7. The port captain, who knew my style, told him that when we are loading and pumping we are usually on deck because that's where we are supposed to be. "You want them on deck during critical times." he said.

Another time I had a pretty good run-in with some middle management type at a customer's dock. He wanted to board us while I was topping off the last tank. The CFR clearly says I am supposed to pay undivided attention to that operation. I politely said i was topping off a tank and he shot back he didn't care what I was doing and he wanted to come aboard now. The dockman was standing close to him. I pointed at him and said in a commanding voice, "Stop pumping immediately and bloc me in!"

The dockman pushed the greeen button turning it red and walked over to the manifold and shut it. I walked over to my manifold and shut it.

Then I returned, lowered him a ladder and he came aboard demanding to know why I had shut the operation down.

"Because according to the federal code of regulations I am supposed to give my undivided attention to topping off. Undivided means undivided. I can't do two things at once. I have a copy in the office if you don't believe me. Why are you up here? What is it you want to know?" 

"When you are going to be finished," he said, somewhat sadly.

"We would be finished right now if you had not interupted us," I replied. 

"Well, finish up!" he snapped.

"As soon as you clear my deck," I replied. "You can wait in my office or go ashore. Your choice."

He went ashore, the job was finished and he came on board with the dockman. He had some dumb questions and said something about me questioning his authority.

"Mister, out here we play by the rules. You want us to play by the rules. Because if we do there are no headaches. Had I left my post and we had a spill both of our companies would go under the microscope and you can bet your boots I would have personally dragged you into it. The Coast Guard would have a field day and most likely you would have been answering a few questions in court." I said, confidently. I was confident because I knew the regulations and was in compliance with them.

His face clearly showed me he was stunned. The dockman next to him was supressing a smirk. He went ashore quietly, the dockman followed.

I reached for the phone and called my port captain and told him what happened. "I got this," he said. I went out on deck called the dockman and we finished up.

Then the dockman, the inspector who had arrived and had steered clear of things sat down and completed he paperwork.

Later my port captain told me he never got a call from him which surprised both of us. Then again, when you play by the rules you have a lot fewer problems.

The Coast Guard is the regulatory agency I dealt with and they were actually pretty good. There were times they were actually your friend even though they were feared by a lot of the guys.

The nonunion company I worked for the past 20 years was pretty good. The first company I worked for would throw an employee to the wolves to save 29 cents. They talked a good game but considered their employees to be rented arms and legs.

I had an incident where the first company I worked for wanted to throw me to the wolves. A pipe had burst and made a mess. The dock panicked and called the Coasties who arrived and in about ten minutes after their arrival declared me to have done nothing wrong and put the blame where it belonged. It was faulty maintenance by the company.

The leading petty officer, a Chief, quietly advised me to make copies of the maintenance records for my file. I did and quietly replaced the originals with the copies and took them home in case something came up.

When the company legal team arrived they took the maintenance records with them. Later when some pogue in the office tried to blame me I pointed out that I had been exhonorated on the spot by the Coast Guard and I had copies of the records to prove it. He turned ashen and I never heard about the incident again.

Actually my experience in dealing with the Coasties is the first thing I do is look at the rank. You do not want to be dealing with a new ensign or a new third class petty officer with the ink not dried yet on his promotion orders.

If an officer is a full lieutenant he's generally going to me OK. Same holds for enlisted. You can generally relax if a chief petty officer shows up and if a warrant officer arrives on scene you're good to go, assuming you have done your job and played by the rules. 

One of my favorite sea stories was a guy that got written up for installing a scupper plug improperly by a new third class petty officer.

He was given the option of paying a $450 (IIRC) fine and no criminal charge or going to court. The third class had been a jerk about it and my shipmate quietly lost his temper, formulated his battle plan and decided to go the whole mile and represent himself in court.

In court the petty officer claimed the plug had been installed improperly and my shipmate under cross examination asked him how he knew the plug was installed improperly. The Coastie said he had used the 'kick test'.

My shipmate asked to approach the bench and handed the judge his copy of the CFRs and asked him if it was current. It was.

Then he handed it to the Coastie and asked where it said anything about the 'kick test' in it. The Coastie started to stammer and stutter.

The Coastie said, "That's what we use..."

My shipmate said "You're supposed to use a flashlight."

Case dismissed.

That was a VERY rare incident. FWIW the Coasties in general don't do stupid like that hapless third class. They're very seldom chicken$hit. I wonder what happened to him after the incident. Coasties for the most part are pretty professional.

Still, the point is that if you go into a trade don't learn the tricks of the trade. Learn the trade.

Play by the rules and CYA.

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One day at the Bridgeport CT train station.

I believe I was working over on a tug because someone got sick or injured. I was supposed to get off that day and did NOT want to get off in Bridgeport. I wanted to wait the maybe 6 or 7 hours to get off in New York which is where we were headed after the discharge was finished. It would be a LOT easier and besides I had heard the horror stories of crew changing in Bridgeport.

The regular crew had a deal with their reliefs that they would not change crew in Bridgeport. Both crews were veterans that knew if they lost a day here they'd gain it back there so they'd fudge payroll a bit to keep everything in sync. No dishonesty, really. The company wasn't being cheated. It was for the convenience of the crew.

I had told the office I did NOT want to get off in Bridgeport and to tell my relief NOT to relieve me in Bridgeport and even got his phone number (pre-cell phone days) and called him and told him NOT to relieve me in Bridgeport under ANY circumstances and he could have the day's pay if he needed it instead of getting me off in Bridgeport.

Needless to say, he showed up in Bridgeport waving my ticket to Philly and acting like he did me a HUGE favor. "I got you off early!" he said.

Dumb luck had the skipper sitting next to me in the galley when he popped in and the skipper took one look at my face and saw me ready to explode and snapped, "I got this, Pic."

He turned to my relief. "Mister, I hope you like chipping and painting because you are going to be doing a lot of it. You just upset the rhythm of the entire boat."

Then he turned to me and said, "It sucks but you gotta accept the relief."

I turned to my relief. "You're an asshole." and took my ticket.

"But the office said..." he protested.

"F**K the office!" the skipper and I shot back in unison. The skipper added, "They know how we operate. They gave you his ticket and YOU took it upon YOURSELF to come charging up here instead of cooling your jets and waiting until we got to New York! Don't you dare act like you did someone a favor. You're just being greedy and trying for an extra day's pay."

Anyway, I picked up my trash, wandered up to the waiting cab and arrived at the train station only to find out I had a 3 or 4 hour wait for the next train connecting to Philly. Needless to say, I was overjoyed and elated to find myself killing time and waiting at the station.

I considered going somewhere and doing something but didn't know the lay of the land and decided to not risk getting into trouble. I didn't know the neighborhood. In short I was screwed. I had to wait there.

I instantly took my ticket out of the envelope and put it in the inside pocket of my flight jacket next to my wallet and snapped the pocket shut and partially zipped it up. Then I started to throw away the envelope but thought better of it. I put it in my back pocket to give somebody something to steal. They'd steal it and try getting reimbursed in cash for it.

I also figured that when they found no ticket in it they'd simply throw it into a trash can. I was proven correct in my assumption because it was stolen and recovered in the same trash can three times over the course of my wait there.

I hadn't been there 20 minutes when some gay dude came up to me and offered me a blowjob. I didn't want to start trouble so I tactfully said that I wish I had known he'd be there but that I had jerked off five minutes before I left the house. He walked away quietly and uninsulted. It was a non event.

Ten minutes after that some really beat up looking whore came by and offered me the same thing for ten bucks. I told her that twenty minutes earlier I had gotten taken carre of by some gay dude I had met earlier. She went away uninsulted which was fine by me. Actually I didn't care just so long as she went away.

A few minutes later some guy was outraged and was griping his wallet had been lifted. He had the people call the police and some kind of bored looking LEO came by in a few mintutes and took his report which was probably a waste of time for both of them. Still, I suppose it made the guy feel a little better. 

Like most of us, he didn't miss the cash he had lost. Now he had to go through all of the aggravation of canceling his credit cards and replacing his driver's license and so on. I felt bad for the poor guy.

I paced around bored to tears but knew I couldn't let my guard down for an instant. A pretty polished black man asked me if I knew when a certain train was due in and I told him I didn't have a clue. I suggested he ask at the counter and we had a brief chat. He told me he hated waiting for a train there and I agreed.

I asked him about going somewhere to kill time and he confirmed my suspicion about the quality of the neighborhood. I was probably marginally safer there. A nice guy and I would have offered to buy him a meal if the area was safer.

Then someone asked me if I was interested in buying any crack or pot. I told him I had already scored a couple of hours ago and was waiting to get home and grab a buzz. He counter offered and I told him I had no money left after my last purchase so he ambled off, disappointed but not upset.

Some other gay dude offered me his services and I told him I had been services less than an hour ago by a passing hooker. "Not bad for ten bucks," I said and he wandered off.

I think by this point I had gotten my pocket picked twice for the train ticket envelope and found it in the same trash can twice and had replaced it. It was in my back pocket again and I asked myself it I was in for a hat trick.

About this time another train arrived and the crowd got off and I spotted an obvious stripper, and a hot one at that. She was standing a bit aside after she got off of the train looking around for somethng.

She took one look at me and made a beeline for me and introduced herself by telling me she'd give me a blowjob for a ride to work.

Upon closer look I saw she was just entering the drug induced downhill track and figured in six month, a year tops she'd be in terrible shape and really  strung out. 

I told her my car was in the shop and she wandered off to find someone else. A few minutes later I saw her leave with the guy that tried to sell me crack.

Anyway, I checked my pocket agan, my ticket envelope was gone and I went back to the same trash can, fished it out and stuffed it back into my back pocket.

FINALLY my train showed up and I boarded only to fnd out they were fresh out of my brand of beer, one of which I desperately needed. Oh, well. Just one more reason to be madder at the imbecile that relieved me in Bridgeport and left me stuck in the damned train station.

Anyway, I don't remember the train ride home as it's kind of a blur and I recall I managed to get a nap on the train but I clearly remember arriving at the parking lot at 0015 or so. That was past midnight and you can bet I put in for that one.

Needless to say, I had to drive home all damned night and arrived after 0600 exhausted. I grabbed a jug, had a quick pull and went out like a light on the couch for ten hours. I was beat.

Aftermath.

I woke up 10 hours later in my clothes and on the couch. When I took off my pants to shower there was that damned ticket envelope in my back pocket that had been stolen three times. I considered framing it as a career souvenir. I put it on the kitchen table and I think my wife threw it out.

I later got my pound of flesh out of him when I pulled a few strings and got him stuck working both Thanksgiving AND Christmas. He had little kids, too. The best part was listening to his moaning, wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Of course I offered to work Christmas for him but what I wanted in return was a HUGE wad of cash up front that I knew he coudn't afford which added insult to injury. 

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The Waffle House* near a strip club 0200 floor show is generally pretty predictable

I suppose it is best to arrive a little before 0200 in Florida because that's about the time the strip clubs close and you get to put your breakfast order in before the 0200 mad rush. It's sometimes different in other states but you get the idea.

At about 0200 the guys start wandering in, seven eighths bombed out of their minds which is what one does in a strip club. One drinks heavily.

Shortly afterwards about half of the strippers from the club wander in. They left a bit later because they generally get an after work drink or six before they leave. It's supposed to be one but whoever's turn it is generally distracts the bartender with certain oral pleasures in the men's room and he leaves the bar untended.

That's when the strippers help themselves and plunder the bar. They  generally pour about 8 ounces of raw alcohol down their throats. Then about half of them wander into the Waffle House. The other half, the one's that want to go home alone and get a decent night's sleep wander over to the Denny's a half mile away.

The girls that go home after a Denny's breakfast are generally the girls that made good money in tips because they are hot. The dogs head over to the Waffle House*.

The strippers heading into the nearby Waffle House nearby are generally looking for a little supplemental cash by engaging in the oldest profession.  

The strippers tend to look a lot different in the lights of the restaurant because the lights in the club are carefully chosen to hide a multitude of imperfections. Bruises and needle marks dissappear only to reappear under the normal lighting of a business.

They still smell like cheap perfume and  you can see the glitter and the Official Stripper Earl Schieb Spray On Makeup. It was like that when I briefly worked in a strip club and I'm sure it hasn't changed much. The girls clothing generally ranges from jeans and a T-shirt to an occasional little tight dress that looks like they were melted down and poured into it, but mostly jeans or somethng comfortable. The one in the tight dress is usually the one with her eye on the buck and knows the drill. It's worth it to her to dress the part because someone will pay extra for that.

Business is generally conducted over breakfast and as they finish couples amble off to their nests to consumate their relationship.

Occasionally a couple of guys bicker over the Queen of the Silver Dollar and while it rarely goes on to fisticuffs, it does happen every once in a while.When things turn into combat it's more often than not a two hit tiff. One guy hits the other and the other hits the ground. I have seen knives come out before once or twice back in the day. 

Sometimes you see two or three people wander outside only to return a minute or so later. It likely means drugs and money have changed hands.

It should be carefully noted that no money changes hands here. It's too public and everyone is a little afraid of vice cops.

As the strippers leave thay are generally replaced by the B-Team, local hookers looking to pick through the leftovers. These are generally are the drug cripples looking to turn a trick to get their next fix. Many of them are washed up strippers and they are pretty ragged. The road downhill is pretty fast and hard. Generally when hard drugs kick in it takes about a year, sometimes more, sometimes less.

I once was offered a Bravo Juliet by a hot stripper that approached me at the train station in Bridgeport, CT **that was just beginning the downfall. She wanted a ride to work in exchange for her oral favors. She was still pretty hot and I knew that in about a year or so she'd be on the skids looking like hamburger. Needless to say, I refused. Still, I said to myeslf with a sarcastic mental note to self, ' That's the time to get 'em when the first hit the downhill slide!'. 

I felt bad for her. She was a real looker at the time but I knew that her good looks were fading real fast.

Oh, yeah, where were we?

Anyway the B team comes in looking for the leftovers and the pickin's are pretty slim, really. They make their deals and wander off. The remaining guys wander off full of breakfast and home to a little self stimulation. Little do they realize at the time that they are really the lucky ones.

By about 0400 there are generally about one or two guys passed out with their faces in their plates of fried eggs and maybe three or four speed freaks sitting there swilling coffee and vibrating like a paint shaker. 

The show's over. Time to leave.

Over tip the waitress. She sure earned it.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Actually I'm picking on Waffle House here but I really like the place. Generally speaking they are a pretty good place for breakfast, especially the ones in the South. 

In the word of the old 'Welcome back, Kotter' TV show, "We like him a lot and we put him on the spot..."

I just wish there was one closer to me.

*Or reasonable facsimile thereof. We're talking 24/7 places that serve breakfast 24/7. Waffle House seems to have a number of pretty good videos on Youtube of late night antics.

** Another story about being stuck in the Bridgport, CT train station where  in about 3-4 hours I was offered 4 Bravo Juliets, 2 kid sisters, one small boy, some hot merchandise and had my pocket picket three times.

One of youse guys remind me to write that sometime.

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Allegiant just got knocked down to around the bottom of my list.

This does not mean I will never fly with them again. I suppose I will if push really comes to shove. It ain't Delta, Southwest or Alaska! That's for sure.

Actually the reason I did fly with them is because they were the only nonstop flight available for me at the time. 

Anyway, the flight to Florida was pretty uneventful. I paid an extra for a carry on bag and a few other things and in return got a (semi) reasonable boarding priority. This means I got on board with room for my debris and got to fit it into the overhead easily enough. We took off and landed OK and I got off easily enough.

The ride home kinda sucked.

While boarding I realized the woman ahead of me was slow upstairs. When she turned her head I noticed it was kind of a 'putty face'.  She had a women with her coaching her and teaching her what to do. The woman sounded like an emotional basket case that could be triggered very easily and would over react to anything. I made a quick mental note that if she was next to me I would be very kind to her but very standoffish. (She sat somewhere else, much to my relief.)

This actually didn't bother me too much. She had to get somewhere, too.

Just before takeoff someone from the airline came on and questioned the guy sitting next to me that was carrying some kind of oxygen unit and the airline person questioned him about it. They left and returned with some guy that asked him more questons and when it was said and done he was told he could not fly for some reason or another. I overheard something about his unit not having enough oxygen or some damned thing.

Fine. He had to get off. He was center seat, I was aisle. 

Apparently (former) Sp/5 Piccolo did not snap too fast enough so the guy told me I had to get up. (Well, no $hit) Why should I pop to? I didn't see any officer insignia on his collar and no stripes of E-6 or above on his sleeve, either.

I snapped, "I'm not stupid" and took my time getting up because my old bones had gotten too comfortable and let the poor old guy get out. He told his wife to stay on the plane.

 

He got up and left with the airline person. 

The part that irked me the most is that if there was something wrong it should heve been settled long before he boarded and not at the last minute where it would create a delay. 

He was a nice guy and if I thought it would have done any good I would have spoken up but I was wise enough to know it was a losing deal, likely for both of us.

His wife was a delightful woman that told me about meeting her husband at a dance when he was in 8th grade and she was in 10th and how his parents had to sign for him to marry her when he was 17. 

It was a wonderful high school sweetheart story and they had been together for over 50 years. She was good company and I kept an eye out for her when we landed to make sure she got off the plane OK and knew where to go to pick up her luggage.

Apparently her husband was going to go home, fire up the family car and meet her there. It's  about 16 hours driving time according to Google.

When we were aloft I overheard what sounded like a drama queen chick say, "He hit me in the face. I want an officer." I thought nothing about it. I did take a look at the guy next to her and he certainly didn't look like the kind of guy that would smack someone for no good reason. When I heard her something registered to me. It sounded kind of hinky to me but not having been an actual witness to any kind of assault the tone of her voice left me wondering what really happened. There was a whiny I want my own way spoiled brat tone in it.

I shined it on and turned back to the old woman next to me and entertained her with the story of having to have my beer bought for me by a 19 year old kid with a bogus ID. 

Fine. The airplane landed and we got to the gate that was out in Outer Slobovia somewhere, meaning I had a long walk. We made the taxi to the gate and we were all ordered to stay seated. 

Of course everyone was on their feet eager to get off and it took quite a few minutes to get reseated. A lot of people were unwilling to sit down because they are stupid and don't understand that the fastest way off the airplane is to sit down and shut up. Then they can get up after whatever the problem is and get on with their business. They are going nowhere until that happens. Once we were seated five or six cops representing more than one agency came aboard. headed straight to the drama queen's aisle and carted the guy off. 

He said little and made no scene at all much to his credit and left quietly with the officers. My guess is the pilot had called ahead for the lawmen to meet the plane upon landing.

Then we were permitted to debark.

When I got to the gate I hung out a bit to see that my seatmate was OK and to show her where to go to pick up her luggage. Apparently it was too far for her to walk so she got a wheelchair. That made sense because we were a long haul from the luggage carousel and she didn't look like a high school athelete anymore.

There I saw the girl giving a drama filled story to some police officer that made me question the legitimacy of the incident. I got a bad feeling about that one. From what little I saw it looked like the guy was getting the shaft over nothing. 

I did notice the officers didn't ask for any witnesses so when it is all said and done my best guess is it will wind up as a "he said, she said" and go nowhere other than putting a dent in the poor slob's wallet for a lawyer. Without any evidence he'll walk after his wallet gets plundered by the legal beagles. 

I actually can't blame the airline for this. With the current legal system and the believe everyone policy most likely is the policy now everywhere is 'Don't get in the middle of anything. Let the police settle it' which makes sense these days and in this political clime.

Still, I wonder. The first thing that came to mind when I saw the little drama queen talking to the cop is that the poor guy that got carted off had somehow led her to believe he had voted for Donald Trump so she decided to frame him in retaliation. To me she looked the type.

On the other hand the guy didn't look like a Trumper. Then again, what does a Trump supporter look like?

I don't know why that came to mind but it's not as far fetched as it sounds. It would not surprise me in the least in this day and age.

***************************

Five or six cops? Sounds useless to me because if the guy had decided to make a fight of it the police could have only brought one officer to bear on the guy because their only approach to the guy was in the aisle. 

I suppose they would have tried to force him way back into the tiny galley and rat-packed him there but what do I know. What I do know is it would have been a real mess if he had decided to resist.

*************************************

In the FWIW department if the guy was being falsly accused and it was a case of filing a false report then the chick should be charged. 

There seems to be a lot of SWATing and other things of this nature going around these days and it is not going to stop until it starts to get costly for the perps. Jail time instead of some small lame fine is tha answer.

88888888888888888888888888

Once I got home the calls started asking me if I got home OK which is a pain in the a$$ because I just wanted to get some sleep. Much to the wife's credit, she didn't call because I had texted her when I was in the driveway after I got home.

I suppose I should have just shot out a blanket text to my entire family instead of just my wife.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I'm cringing because there's a chance I might have to fly Spirit in a couple of months. From what I have heard, sometimes the show there is even better than the 0300 floor show at a Waffle House that's next to a strip joint!

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I am PISSED OFF because I can't figure out how to TIP MY DRIVER

F**k UBER!

I can't tip my driver electronically or if I actually can UBER has made it so damned diffucult an old man like me can't figure it out.

I guess it's all about Uber and they seem to have forgotten who made them.

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As I get a bit older and realize the body is slowly givng out I wish

I had taken the blog on the road to Afghanistan or maybe Iraq to write about the troops.

NOT the career guys, but the young lieutenants paying off a ROTC scholarship or the skinny kid down the street that was delivering your paper a few years earlier and was trying to get a GI bill to go to school with.

Basically O-2 and below and E-5 and below.

I did seriously consider it to the extent of where I discussed it and got the go ahead from my employer with notice.

I looked at the financial costs and figured it was barely doable if I could scrape by and live on short rations etc.

What actually made me bag it was the privates, corporals and Sp/4s that said they would love to see me but it would drive the officers stark staring bonkers trying to figure out who the hell I was. Was I some kind of spy looking at what they were doing to report them to higher ups? What if I posted a picture and there was trash inside the perimeter?

The guys told me what would probably happen is a bunch of idiots looking out for their careers would likely be having them paint rocks white and lay out neat little paths and the usual stupid crap they do to try and impress the higher ups.

I'm going to digress a little bit here but Norman Schwartzkoff said in an interview that he would have loved to visit the guys but knew commanders would do stuff like that.

Of course back in the day the platoon Piccolo served in would have quietly stolen some white paint and done that just to watch the officers at Battalion $hit themselves because they heard what Schwartzkoff said, too.

It would have the BnCO frothing at the mouth ordering someone to "Bury those rocks! Get them out of sight!!"

Anyway it's kind of sad but the reason I didn't go is because I didn't want to create a hardship for the very people I wanted to write about.

Writing this makes me feel like an 'Almost joined'.

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No. It's my mother in law. She's 12 years younger than I am.

is what I told some nosy guy that asked me if my kid sister was my wife when we were shopping together.

I watched him do some mental math to try and figure out how old my wife would be.

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ANother adventure is SUBURBIA

A dog walker came by and the dog stopped at the corner of my lot. I was in the driveway. I had seen them several times before from out the window and much to the credit of the dog owner she was a cleaner-upper. I respected that.

Anyway, the dog stopped and started the walkaround in preparation to do his business and the woman quickly told me not to worry because she'd clean up afterwards, She had the obligatory plastic bag in hand.

I walked over and said, "I think I'll join him," and unbuckled my belt.

Horrified she snapped "I'm not going to clean up after you."

I rebuckled my belt, and gave her 'the look' that I save for gala festive occasions like this. The look says 'You've been had' and was treated to a mild blush and I walked back to my pickup.

Keep 'em guessing.

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Comments regarding Florida

and the land of chrome, glass, tile floors and lanais.

Which is what I see here in homes. 

It's nice and makes for comfortable living but there is somewhat of a sterility to it that makes me miss a couple of well worn kitchen tables and distressed wood floors I've sat at and walked on in New England.

One was at my oldest friends and it was a genuine antique they got somewhere and instead of putting it on a pedastal somewhere they used it every single day. The floor in their home was wide pine boards that had been there for a couple of centuries. The floor, while well worn was clean and properly taken care of. I have wonderful memories of that home, which had been built in ghe 1700s.

One time I commented I could picture a colonial family sitting by a black and white TV watching the news and looking at George Washington on his beautiful white horse that was really light grey but looked white on the old TV sets of the day. My friend smirked and his wife looked confused for a second and then quickly figured it was juat another one of my 'Far Side' comments.

Sometimes when I returned to the old neighborhood between adventures I would drop by with little notice and my friends would alway ask why I didn't call ahead a few days so we could do something together.

I told them that I was more than content either sitting with them at their kitchen table or enjoying them watching a fire with them in their den.

(In Florida visiting my sisters I made it clear that they didn't have to find places to take me. I just wanted to spend time wth them and just hang out.)  

The kitchen table that I was thinking of when I started this post was another table I loved to sit at once.

An old classmate was raking leaves when I drove by so I stopped and we started talking. After a few minutes he said, "Hell, let's go inside."

He sat me down at an immaculate but very well worn kitchen table that was far from the chrome and glass sterility I saw in Florida. It was a wonderful piece of furniture that spoke to me of lives lived. I just knew a couple of generations of kids had done their homework there and there were a couple of scratches left by various science fair projects and other family activities. The table gave off vibrations of warmth and of countless meals eaten off of it along with being one of the centers of family activities.

My classmate had made his career as a contractor running machinery and I'd bet that early on in his career he had kept the books at it after the evening meal, as had his father because he had moved into the place he grew up in after his parents had passed.

Hopefully I'll run into him again and get to go into his wonderul kitchen for another cup of coffee.

One thing I have to give Florida credit for is the lanai. It's actually a Hawaiian for a screened in porch or veranda and the term has taken root here. They are outside and are a wonderful place to take meals and just hang out in, free from insects which I have been told populate the area at various seasonal times.

Breakfast (my favorite meal of the day) is a joy to eat out on a lanai as the day begins. 

(Needless to say, the BEST breakfasts are at a Waffle House next to the strip joint at 0300 because of the free floor show but I digress.)

Maybe more later.

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The Knights of Colombus are planning....

Bingo or some thing or another on Nextdoor.

Needless to say, I just had to ask what the Days of Columbus are doing these days.

Much confusion, of course.

Kind of like when women are ccarrying on about the new baby and I ask them what they are going to do with the old one.

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Dogs, dogs, dogs!

which both my sisters and nephew have. My nephew also has cats.

When I go and visit them I wind up sleeping with a dog and at my nephew's, it's a dog and a cat.

This ain't bad, really because I tend to sleep better when sharing my bed with an animal or six.

My nephew is talking about getting a goat but I'll probably draw the line at that.

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Running amok in Florida

which is cool because it's warm here and colder than hell back in Pitt.

The rental car is something that belongs on Star Trek. I needed a coach to help me get the damned thing started. It has all sorts of stuff that I don't know how to use and really have no use for.

It does have a better GPS than the Suzie Garmen on the dash of my pickup. It also has a pretty good head's up display which is a good thing. 

The head's up also coordinaes with the GPS which is also a pretty good deal.

Still, it's too complex for me.

I've been flying by the seat of my pants and run manual transmissions for too long that I have to be on my toes when I start up because I tend to automatically feel for the clutch pedal that is not there when I start. Once I am rolling I am good to go.

The doors lock automatically and if I leave the key fob inside to step out I'm screwed. 

Quick fix.

There's a piece of 550 cord in my pack so I cut a piece off and now wear the key fob around my neck.

I'm starting to get comfortable with it now but I am going to have to be on my toes for another few days until I get used to the damned thing.

Whatever.

It is a comfortable cruiser, though.

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It looks like pretty soon a majority of the states will allow permitless carry of a handgun

when permitless carry gets the OK in Florida.

Interesting.

One of the things I judge a gevernment by is how much they trust its citizens. Of a government dosen't trust citizens to be armed it makes me wonder if they should be trusted at all.

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Happy St. Patrick's Day

And that is all I have to say about that.

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More general things about the industry I just left.

Generally speaking the chain of command went from tug or barge captain to port captain/port engineer. Port captains were pretty much equal to port engineers. Port Captains were administrative, port engineers were responsible for the mechanicals. A Port captain/engineer team would be responsible for several vessels.

I can think of only one real jerk I had to deal with as a port captain and he was a Lulu. When I changed companies after a decade he stayed put and I didn't have to deal with his ignorance and stupidity any more. Thank God! I did make a fool out of him once when he pulled a 'Captain Queeg' and practically tore up the fleet trying to find a missing sledge hammer.

I had witnessed some poor deckhand lose one over the side and a couple of days at the company pier later saw the same deckhand pick one up off the dock that some mechanic had left behind. He took it back to the tug and I watched him spray a quick coat of paint on it and put it back in the holder on the towing winch.

Later on the mechanic went looking for it, didn't find it and simply reported it missing. The port captain in question went nuts hunting for it. He went from boat to boat asking people and making stupid threats. 

When he got to me I managed to settle him down by telling him I'd keep my eyes and ears open and let him know. "Word will go through the fleet and I'll hear about it and let you know," I said.

My plan was to just let it go away and die. I knew something else would come along and overshadow it soon.

That afternoon I told my barge captain about it and told him I had half a mind to write the Honolulu Police Department and ask where Charlie Chan is so he can come and solve this little mystery.

He laughed and said ''You should''. So I did.

I wrote a long letter describing the mystery of the missing sledge hammer and asked for contact information for Charlie Chan so we could hire him to come and solve the Big Mystery. I made a couple of copies of the letter, saved them and threw the original in the mail. I actually didn't expect an answer. 

When I go home there was a letter waiting for me.

Now the best I can make out as to what happened when the HPD got the letter is that some sergeant that was pissed off at a couple of jaded robbery detectives ordered them to answer it because it sure didn't sound like the answer had come from the public relations department.

The letter said that the HPD had been looking for him since 1956 for back child support after he ran off with a Rio de Janeiro showgirl and skipped out on his wife and 14 kids!

I made copies of this letter, too.

When I went back to work I pinned both letters to the port captain's bulletin board and reported back aboard my boat. Needless to say, the port captain was after me and tried a couple times to hang me because he was now the laughingstock of the entire fleet when word got around of what I had done.

Fortunately one of my admirers got me out from under him shortly after when they reorganized a few things and I had little contact with him afterwards. I never did leave his radar, though and later on when the company reorganized and sold a lot of its equipment off he found himself out of a job and I found myself working somewhere else.

I don't believe he ever returned to the industry because his reputation preceeded him.

As for the sledge hammer? I later complimented the kid for having enough sense to slap a coat of paint on it and, of course, he feigned innocence. Still, I knew I had made a friend that would look out for me.

Some time later I switched companies and it became night and day. It was like going from IBM to a Mom and Pop operation. What a joy the change turned out to be!

I remember asking the CEO once to have supply stop sending us Chinese wrenches because they broke too easily and that got fixed fast. I told him quality was like buying oats. Good, fresh oats cost some money while oats that have been through the horse come a lot cheaper. 

For the first 10 or 15 years I worked there everyone was approachable. Still, up to my last day it never got as bad as the first place I had worked. What happened is that it just got to be too big for my tastes.

When I arrived inside a short period of time I knew everybody, their wive's names and how many kids thay had. When I retired I knew a handful of the old sweats and there were a lot of nameless faces running around. 

Basic day to day leadership wasn't too bad in the new company and we did enjoy a lot of communication from top to bottom for the first decade or so but eventually as we grew it turned into another large company and lost a lot of its 'small town' flavor. Even so, it never got to become too impersonal.

Still, by being one of the 'old hands' I still had the ear of a lot of people that had been there for years. It was also a two way street. Once every so often I'd get a call from someone asking me something like how to do something. It's be along the lines of, "Hey! How do you Old School guys secure the anchor?" or "Hey! Can you run over to the such and such (an old barge with obsolete rigging) and show the guys how to re-rig it?

I very, very seldom called my friends upstairs but one or two times I did I got results. I can only think off the top of my head of having done this twice. A new (short lived) port engineer came aboard and started throwing his weight around. When he started the 'I was a Marine and..." crap I knew I had to deal with it. 

Looking him square in the eye I made a phone call. I spoke my piece and said, "Here. Talk to him," and handed him the phone and watched him deflate.  After he stuttered and stammered a bit he returned my phone and skulked off. 

Later i was telling my relief about the new port engineer and my relief wanted to know his name which I didn't remember because I was too annoyed by him. It might have been Anthony or something. Anyway, I said to my relief, "It's Antonio Banderas or some damned thing, I forgot it."

It stuck and that's what we referred to him as the short time he worked there.

The person I had called was someone further up the chain that had been on board recently and complimented the condition of our equipment. 

One time a port captain mentioned a problem that the company had no simple mechanism to fix and I simply said, "I got this but it's gonna cost me out of pocket, maybe $75. You can reimburse me with a couple of hours of overtime."

I quietly fixed it and found an extra full day's pay in my check.

I ran a lot of my career on goodwill and back channel favors which paid good dividends and always tried to solve my own problems without dragging the office into things. 

Actually even though now and then the office would come out with something annoying, we'd generally get basic support. They were, for the most part, not stupid and they wanted us to be successful and did what they could to help us. I always figured that they were told to do things by the customers and were just passing things down. Later that was usually confirmed. 

One thing I noticed fairly early on is the guys ruin things for themselves. 

At the first place where I worked when the company had to put someone up in a hotel for whatever reason they put put them in a fairly nice place. 

Needless to say, some jerk tore up one of the rooms and after that incident they put us up in an inexpensive basic motel afterwards. Actually I blame the vandal less than I blame the office. The guy got to keep his job. Had they fired him and kept putting us up in decent places that would have made things a lot nicer.

The other thing that comes to mind is the company used to take us out for a really good meal annually. It was in one of the nicest places in town.

The last time they did that a couple of clowns started smoking in the men's room because it was cold out and that pretty much ended that. AS USUAL the guys had ruined that one for themselves.

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Yesterday an old friend and coworker asked me if I was going to write that book

which left us both in stitches.

About the time I turned 65 one of the guys asked me why I didn't retire.

"Because the office made me an offer I can't refuse after they heard i was going to write aa book exposing the entire industry," I replied. "I got a pretty good raise and they saaid that I could work as long as I wanted and when I could no longer work they'd pension me at 3/4 pay for life so long as I don't write it."

"Really?" he asked.

"Absolutely," I replied and knew that line of crap would go through the fleet like a dose of salts. It did and got back to me a couple of times and needless to say I said it was true even though a couple of guys asked their various supervisors who said it wasn't true.

Anyway, he reminded me of it and we shared a laugh.

Then he grew serious and told me I ought to write a book about my career.

While most of it has been fairly stable and (somewhat) professional it has had its moments.

I'm thinking it over but probably won't hecause I don't want to lose my 3/4 pay pension. ;)

 

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Flying on a budget airline to Florida

where they give you only a free 'personal item' for free luggage is a snap.

The Official Personal Item Size of budget airlines is 14x18x8 inches and one can easily pack 5 sets of undershorts, 5 T-shirts, two pairs of cargo shorts, a can of deodorant, a bar of soap, a pair of flip flops and a Banana Republic safari coat into it. That's all you need. 

Visiting family is easy. It's not like Donald Trump has invited me to go to Mar a Largo for a couple of weeks and I have to cart all sorts of fancy clothes with me. 

A lot of people get all worked up over going someplace and because I am visiting family it's a lead pipe cinch I am not going to be carted off to fancy restaurants. Both my sisters still work and it's likely I'll be doing some of the cooking. So-called 'fine dining' is a joke, anyway. 

I do want to go to a Waffle House, though. Preferably late, just after the bars close so I can be enjoy the floor show but I digress.

Bars are another place you probably won't find me, either. Nope.

I'll be just fine in Florida with what I can cram into a personal item.

Update: I packed and had room for all of the above including a long sleeved shirt with a collar into my 'personal item' and still have room to spare.

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When my wife looked at the airline baggage policy she said that my carry-on was going to be expensive. I reolied, "Don't worry. I got this."

Apparently she forgot I was headed to Florida and her eyes got wide and she said, "You can't board the plane wearing all the clothes you're taking! You'll look like Ralphie's little brother in hs snowsuit!"

That made me want to get on the airplane wearing 4 pairs of pants, 6 sets of underwear and six shirts, flip flops in my back pockets just to watch the resulting conniption fit but she's not going with me so I won't. 

Oh yeah. T-shirts.

I'm still living small and most of mine are kinda grubby so I figred I buy a half dozen new ones for the trip from Walmart. They always have a pile of them in different colors for about $5 each. 

When I got there they were not the usual cotton so I left and wondered what to do. I didn't want to root around the storage place.

On the way home I passed a Goodwill and on a whim pulled in and hit the jackpot with a bunch that were new with tags for $3 each. Done deal.

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Why doesn't the company retire you? someone asked me.

Because to told them that when I retire I'm going to write a book and expose the entire industry I shot back. They said I could work here for as long as I want if I promised not to write it. In fact, if I get crippled up they said they'd pension me at 3/4s pay so long as I don't write it.

"Really?" he asked.

"Really." I replied

And within five minutes yet one more wild rumor tore through the fleet like $hit through a goose.

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One time I stole a line from the Marines.

Years ago I was training a guy that had a limited education.

He was fine with the mechanics end of things but was slow on the paperwork end of it. He said he might just as well give up.

I replied he WAS going to learn this and that "I will not give up on you long after you have given up on yourself!"

A couple of hours later he said to me, "You mean that this oil gets bigger when it gets warmer and smaller when it gets colder?"

"YES!" I shot back.

"And it is all based on what it would be if it was 60 degrees?"

"YES!"

"And we are trying to figure out how much oil is on board if it was 60 degrees?"

"YES!"

"This stuff is 88 degrees so we're trying to find out how much it would shrink if we cooled it to 60 degrees?"

"YES!"

I had told him that several times but it apperently had not sunk in but maybe I described it in a way that was hard for him to understand.

Then we went through s couple of imaginary loads and he started picking things up. It was kind of slow at first and later I made the problems harder and harder to solve. He learned.

Later he asked me why I didn't give up on him. "Because you are worth it," I replied.

I imagine he's still out there. He knows who he is. 

Some time later he left the company over family issues and took a job as a shoreside tankerman down south somewhere.

 

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Maybe after all it is a good thing I retired.

While the industry hasn't gone down the tubes completely yet it is well on the way.

The Old School rule of what happens on the boat stays on the boat seems to be slowly slipping away as the world changes. It seems like there is an increasing number of sissified girly men entering the trade. Some of the new generation think the office is there to settle beefs that have been settled on the boat for generations.

As it stands now I enjoyed the company of the tiny handful of women I sailed with because they were competent, capable and played by the rules. In fact I miss two of them. Both of them played by the written and unwritten rules. They were far better company than some of the new girly men I've met recently.

Neither of these two tried playing the 'be one of the boys' game because that never works. They were simply women doing a job that was traditionally a man's job and they performed well.

One of them took to knitting Afghans in her waiting times. I was quite entertained once when I walked into the wheelhouse while she was knitting and told her we were going to leave in fifteen minutes.

She stuffed the Afghan into a big plastic bag, went over to the sound powered, spin the crank and picked up the receiver. "Fire 'em up, Chief."she said to the engineer and went from knitting an Afghan to running a tugboat. The incongruity of it was rather amusing to me. 

I counseled both of these women a time or two that had a  'how do I handle this' question and later they returned the favor by supporting me when something questionable came up later on.

The quieter of the two, completely out of character, stormed in on a higher up that was giving me some pre-tour 'apply anywhere' crap and snapped, "Leave him alone! He's the only one in the entire fleet that had the decency to send my mother money to bail me out of jail!"

He was so stunned to hear that he walked off with his jaw dropped to his knees. I stared at her wide-eyed and we both laughed. I was pretty proud of her and think that maybe some of my advice had contributed to it because I told her once, 'keep 'em guessing'. She sure belted one out of the park that morning!

It seemed that all of the few women I worked with seemed to share two things in common. One, they were waterdogs and loved being on the water. The other is that they seemed to have a strong male influence early on in their lives. One used to go to work with her father on a tug and another was close to her father who was a military pilot of some sort.

I digress.

Anyway around the end of my career I ran into a couple of snitch types that forgot the rules of whatever goes on in the boat stays there. I handily dealt with that by feeding them disinformation which wound up leaving them with self-inflicted wounds. 

Then there was California Joe who was 100% completely woke and tried to advertise his various stupid causes. He came complete with an Antifa hoodie, the usual assortment of facial piercings and tats and an attitude to match. I told him to ditch the shirt if he came over to help us tie up. I explained that we wore no political identifiers in front of customers and he replied that I couldn't tell him what to do.

I agreed that I had no authority whatsoever to tell him what to do. I also pointed out that if he didn't do what he was told I was going to lead him over to the rail by the nose ring I had pinched between my thumb and index finger while we discussed the matter and throw him over the side.

The shirt got turned inside-out.

My next dealing with him a few days later  turned out to be a Jack Nicholson trying to keep his temper moment. 

Back to 'The Rules'. 

After a load three people have to calclated exactly how much cargo has been loaded. Generally the three are the person that loaded it, the dock representative and an outside inspector. The outside inspector is a third impartial person hired by the customer. (conflict of interest, anyone?) There's  a lot of numbers involved and distractions are not welcome at all.

During inclement weather, by tacit agreement, the deckhands are permitted to stand inside the galley/office entrance landing with the agreement they keep totally quiet and speak only when spoken to. This is actually a simple courtesy. A courtesy can be revoked at any time for any reason.

The dock rep and inspector were seated, I was headed to my desk and then bull in a china shop California Joe and an oncoming deckhand entered and stood in the landing and California Joe started talking about his transgender girlfriend. The other deckhand was kind of stunned because he knew the rules. He looked at California Joe and stammered, "But she's not even a real women!"

"What's a real woman?" replied California Joe.

I glanced at the inspector, a slight Asian man that was probably an immigrant and saw he was turning slightly red faced. I came unglued and was just about ready to roar ''Take it outside!"

Instead for some reason I kept my temper and went into a Jack Nicholson getting ready to fly off the handle mode and went up to the pair. "A real woman has two t*ts and a c**t and I don't care if they are Original OEM from the factory, originals, Chinese aftermarket knock-off bolt-on or spin-ons or even Army surplus. Furthermore I don't care where they came from. They could have come from God, Amazon, K-Mart, Walmart, the Salvation Army Thrift Store or even be army surplus that they bought from the Old Grouch's Surplus store in Clyde, North Carolina. I don't care. Now CLEAR MY GALLEY or I will drag you two outside and throw the pair of you over the side! MOVE!"

They fled like and they were being chased by the Devil himself. California Joe muttered something about it being raining out. Still in Nicholson mode, I explained to him he would get a lot wetter if he went over the side as he scrambled through the hatch, the pair of them tripping over each other.

I turned to my guests and still in Nicholson mode, but with the aplomb of an upper class Brit that had accidentally crashed a workingman's party said ''I didn't mean to offend. I simply had to take the trash out."

The dock rep, a woman in her early to mid 50s that had taken the job when she had been widowed years ago in order to raise a couple of kids. She'd been there for years and seen it all. She simply said, "No offense taken. I understand completely." She was sort of surpressing a smirk.

''Did I miss anything?" I asked her. I realized she knew how the game was played. She looked thoughtful for a few seconds.

"No, I believe you got it all, and quite colorfully, too, I might add, she replied, cheerfully and I knew it would never get back to the office from her.

Then I reverted back to being Piccolo and said, "Now maybe we can get some work done." and headed to my small desk.

I was just getting seated when the dock rep asked me, "Does that Army-Navy store really sell woman's replacement parts? Some of mine are getting kind of old and worn out and I wouldn't mind going into the shop for a rebuild."

That brought the house down. The Asian turned beet red and started laughing out loud.

"They probably do. They sell practically everything else," I answered and we turned to and crunched the numbers. They came out pretty close to perfect and shortly after we sailed.

For quite some time I never did figure out why my conniption fit didn't hit Rumor Control and get back to me. A few months later I figured it out. I figured the woman had heard worse in her near 20 years on the docks and had shined it on. The Asian inspector was probably too embarrassed to repeat it.

The other deckhand had been too embarrassed to say anything to anyone about it. As for Joe California, I figured he'd run his mouth until I realized he was terrified of being thrown over the side. After that he gave me a wide berth which was fine my me.

Aftermath.

We came to the dock a month or so later and the woman caught our lines. When she saw it was me she said she had bought something from the Old Grouch's surplus store.

"So what is it?" I asked, dryly. "You found replacement body parts, perhaps? New in wrapper?"

The deckhand later asked me what that conversation was all about and I told him to mind his own business.

"No," she  laughed. "I bought a toolbag for my oldest son. His old one was worn out and they said they had some gently used ones for sale. When it arrived it was brand new."

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