“It’s A New Year But We Were Young Once”

"Reveille... Reveille... Heave out and trice up. Smoking lamp is lit in all authorized smoking areas.”

That’s the first sound you here in the morning underway when it’s time to get the hell up if you weren't already on watch. I can’t believe 2018 is already upon us. I can still vividly remember waking up at 0500 hours,

“Drop your Cocks and grab your socks, it’s time to get to work!”

I remember thinking during those first days what an awful & dreadful mistake I'd made! How could have I possibly be looking forward to this shit?!? Boy have the times changed!!!

If anyone had told me in 1987 I would look back someday and use terms like "The best years of my life," I’d tell the son-of-a-bitch he needed to see a gaudamn shrink or wack them over the melon with a double sized dogging wrench! Time numbs the memories of frigid miserable nights in chilly wet guard shacks try’n to keep your feet warm next to the ancient space heater unshaven and read’n the carvings widdled in the warped plywood just to keep your gauddamned eyelids peeled back. Or standing the never ending job of aft lookout on a dark ass night in frozen cold rain biding time for that hot cup of coffee on the mess decks after some other poor miserable sap relieved your sorry ass.

Nope, when I look back I can still savor the aroma of ships at sea, third world sewer pits and dirty shithole bars with young iniquitous barmaids,

“Hey you sailor buy me drink? I love you long time no shit! You need horny girlfriend?”

Who could possibly forget the taste of cheap pitchers o’ beer in foreign ports and the camaraderie of good ol’ shipmates from the past! Yes, we were young and dumb and full of sexual angst! Those were the glory days of the past. Hell, I remember that ol' Boss song.... back in high school. One night me and Rob Foster had a discussion about that very song while booz’n it up in our teen years!

Oh, so many memories and stories to tell I don’t have enough time to tell’m all in one sitting. With the slyness of a fox, the genius of an idiot, the stories of a troubadour, the veracity of a bullshitt’n rascal and passions of a Casanova, life has been good to me so far! I think Joe Walsh once whistled a tune to that beat years ago…

I got enough wiley names to overload Noah’s Ark. Crazy animals like Smithee, The Hoz, Marlboro man, Shawn the six foot cockatoo, Skippy, Schlup meister, Dave Macleveen, Wintersteen, Buck ‘Gusto’ Gust, Ricoh ‘Suave’ Hilton, Stevo the Aussie, Jay-Walther, Mike ‘Lawless’, ‘The Sauceman’ Saucier, Jose ‘Yo Quiero Taco Bell’ Rayos, Double “A” Ron, Jay ‘Drunk Ass’ Snyder, Arnold Palmer '9 hole' Niendorf, and if I left your sorry ass name out there’s just too gaudamn many to scribble down over a twenty-two year span!! You guys are all forever implanted into the mnemonic pictures of this ol’ salts crusty ass mind!

The misdeeds of our nautical youth gone wild included booz’n, carousing, chasing naughty girls, moon’n shore patrol, gett’n caught with our pants down, sex on the beach in Waikiki (Hert should remember that one), stinking like a brewery at morning muster, the long lines at medical after PI, and so drunk you end up puk’n in yer boots kinda fun! How the hell did we make it out alive I wonder! I think I left a pair of my skivvies in some shanty lil’ whore house overseas! How many hangovers did we celebrate to the hair of the dog? How many times did we say to ourselves,

“Holy Shit! I’m gonna get in big trouble for this crap!”

What about the bloody marry breakfast club thanks to NC1 or pull’n a certain shipmate out of his rack drunk ass naked and into the shower to get him to work the next day? Or deal’n with the redneck loggers, angry natives and transvestites that made our lives hell on certain occasions! Those will be in future stories to tell! Hang’n out with fellas like these was always a joy. There never seemed to be a dull moment. If we weren’t chasing tale we were always into some mischievous bit o’ trouble.

One of the greatest things about growing up in this ol’ canoe club is run’n into some ol crusty shipmate and reminisc’n about ol’ times! Who remembers Doc pass’n out prophylactics at the brow just before liberty? Those damn things were thicker than the tire tread on a gaudamn freight truck! How many scallywags can ever say they ran down the crooked path of Lombard Street, San Francisco in the dead of night butt naked fueled on a fifth of JD & a pack of Marlboros, pushed over a row of choppers outside a biker bar while yer buddies pulled your scrawny drunk ass to safety! Yep, been there done that!! That's a no shitter……..!!!

Then one day you meet a gal who couldn’t resist the temptation when her cousin told her to stay away cause you're a sailor with a girl at every port!!

Well, it’s 2018 …I’m married with four kids, a respectable job, and a life full of ridiculous sea tales that’ll make your head spin! If I was sitt’n next to myself on an ol’ bar stool listen’n to all my bullshit I wouldn’t believe it either, but all me hardy shipmates were there & they can surely attest to these triumphs & testimonies of an ol’ salt!! We were young and our hearts were an open book…another ol’ song! And our minds and souls are still an epic tale of outlandish memories and beautiful scantily laced women…..oh, the webs we wove!!!