When good ol’ fashioned sailors get together, it doesn't take long for the sea stories to reduce to who did what to how many girls while drink’n so many bottles of some substitute for turpentine to remember that gal with the mole on her ass and that tranny with a five dollar foot long between its legs… You remember… who couldn’t remember that kind’a crap!!!
Yep… big titties, fast women, 99’ bottles of beer on the wall, and even more dames than you got fingers for short time no shit in 72’ hour liberty ports are what your typical sea tales end up all about...
At some juncture, the bullshit gets outt’a hand… and it’s on! The major ‘So there I was’ and ‘You ain’t gonna believe this shit’ kind’a stuff comes out of the wood work!!!
Don’t get me wrong… I’ve told some tales of grandeur and I’ve had some great memories in my day… you spend all your days learning how to be a ‘crackerjack’… the pride, the vernacular identity, camaraderie… liv’n like a pirate ‘two hundred years too late’… then the gaudamned Navy turns all politically correct and you wonder… ‘Who gives a damn anymore…
But somewhere along the line… something or someone can surprise you… sometimes it’s just the little things. Back on the ‘Mighty Momsen’ I was privileged to serve with a fellow Chief named Javier Perez…
Javier was one of them kind’a fellas who epitomized the ol’ adage “Say what you mean… mean what you say” kind of thing… He was a hard work’n honest to God’ kind’a fellow.
On the way down the East Coast to Panama City, Florida for our big Commissioning Ceremony we took a detour to the good ol’ Naval Base in Norfolk, Virginia… gotta tell you, after all my years in the Navy that one overnight stay was the only time I ever visited the so called biggest naval base in the world… but I regress…
While the mighty Momsen was import over night Javier took me to a local Mexican Cantina for some good grub and a few Tecate beers. As we were seated I took notice to a beautiful mural on the wall of an Aztec Warrior perched over a lovely woman on what looked to be a bed of flowers…
“Javi, that looks like a Mexican makeover of Romeo & Juliet!”
“Well, in a sense it sort’a is.”
Javier then proceeded to explain the finer side of Mexican culture and Aztec Mythology…
“They say the mountains were once a princess and a prince who were deeply in love with one another. The prince was a brave warrior but the princess’ father insisted he engage in battle with their enemy and come back with the head of their king! As the princess lie in wait for her beloved prince, a messenger came back with false reports the prince had died in battle. There the princess lay succumbed by her despair and died of a broken heart. When the prince returned to find his beloved had died, he was grief stricken to the point he took her body to the mountains to lay beside her and breathe his last breath so they could be together for eternity. They remain still today as Iztacchuatl and Popocatpetl overlooking the valley of Mexico City. Occasionally Popactpetl will bellow ash to remind those watching… he still lies watching over his beloved Iztcchuatl!!!”
Now a know a lot about sea stories and good ol’ fashioned bullshit but that ain’t no gaudamned horse manure that Javier was feeding me… he knew a little something about what he was tell’n me and I still hold a great appreciation for that story…
It just goes to show you what you can learn from somebody if you open your eyes and ears and listen up to what they’ve got to tell you!!!
In the short time I knew Javier he showed me how to dish up a good Salsa and a few other things too… I’m sure if I hung around long enough he would’a revealed the proper way to down a Tequila Popper or had I been single the appropriate way to sequester a fine young Mexican Maiden… always found’m to be damned pretty & hell’a sassy…
I have no idea where he was earlier in my career, only that it’s a damn shame we rode different ships at different times… Holy Shit Conniptions if I’d met him earlier in my ‘Crackerjack’ days, one-tenth of the stuff in my epic stories of bullshit might not of happened… maybe it’s fortunate I hadn’t or you might not be reading this silly crap right now!!!
So as I take a drink tonight, I say to you Javier…
“Salud and Gracias to my good friend!”
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