Life in Nicaragua

[John Wayne]

I had to prove to her my birth date, and she to me, just one year older than I she was, but on the same day a year apart......

In Fort Belvore Virginia she was born, an Army Brat.....

She had never been married, nor had any children, nor knocked up, had always lived with her older parents who spoiled her
and her older brother Larry jr., rotten.

I took her home in a taxi from Trader Jacks after the clam chowder, a kiss on the cheek good night, and a promise to meet later, she, giving me her phone number......

Believe it or not, I was a Gentleman in those days and she a Lady,.... and very gulliable, the both of us, because of our youth.....

Judy was not a Whore, nor I, a Whore Monger.....

Just two lonley young people, at the time, looking companonship......

But this is how it happended.......

I went in and out of that spit of sand of St Augsatine inlet, fishing, and making more money than I had since......

Hell one week, I had over a $3k pay check........

I had made a 10K for myself in a day down in Canaveral, but this beat all I had ever seen, it was steady big money for the days we could work....

I was paying my crew members $400.00 dollars a day to the man on the days we could work thru the winter, now remember, this was 1980.....

And bileve me I pushed it, nothing but my hat and my a$$ at risk, and the "Topsiders" I wore on my feet.....

I worked the boat on a 50/50 deal after expenses, on shares, I paid the crew.......

I got twice what they made......

If I had lost the boat on the inlet as Capt. Charley Cartwright did and swam ashore with two of his three crew, it would not have been any skin off my butt, everyone involved knew the risk......

Somebody put him on another one....

Ahhh, Charley, was nephew of Buster Cartwright.... that one eyed Cornhole that was a mate of the "He Coon" crewing on the vessel "Holly F. Murphy, a new Super Trawler in her days.....

Owner and Captian Harlin Murphy......

His twin brother Marlin, operated a bouy tender for the USCG (United States Coast Guard)

When she (the Holly F ) went down off of New Jersy, the "He Coon" was not on the boat.........

He was on his own boat... The "Little Joe" named after his youngest son, my brother "Old Joe"........

Carolina men, every one of us...... Some from NC some from SC, and a few from Georga and Florida thrown in....

Unless you have been to Sea in all her untamed Glory..... Bad weather to be sure.....

You have never had your ass in your throat and spit hair for hours, not just minutes in combat that only a few survived, and many got wasted...

I had several friends in my life that this happened to, one spent 36 months in a POW camp in North Koaria.........

I do not want to take away from those Heros, that have fought, bled and died for us in war, but I do want to make a point......

At sea in cold weather way up north, 15 minutes of hypothermio, the sea sucking your body heat till you are left floating like a bowling pin in the water, in the sub tropics 10 days.... And your ass was grass unless washed ashore....

Hell with a bunch of sharks....That is in the movies, when you die you gone sink to the bottom and rot, and the crabs and lobsters and shrimp gone eat you till you swell up like a dead hog in the sunshine.

The internal gases gone take you to the surface again , and then bust and you are on your way back to the bottom again, real tender meat this time, where the Lobsters and Crabs, and Shrimp can finish the job......

And your bones lay in Davy Jones locker, where abouts unknown to any family......

I am giving you a reality check now.........

Most do not drowned..... They die of exposure.....

Twice my boat was struck by lightning at sea, wiped out all the electronics, fire dancing all over the rigging of the boat, and left all of our ears ringing.....

I hope you understand the risk Commerical Fishermen take, the next time you order seafood on an outing.....

I had 9 friends die in one week off Florida in a rather nice January......

The Dicky Boy, the Santo Roserio, the Joyce Moore, the Cindy Lou, the Amazing Grace, and the list of boats and men goes on, some men were saved, and some not....

And Capt. Arvin Lewis from Harkers Island NC got shipwercked one time going thru the "Short Cut" in front of Canaveral........

He said as he stepped off the boat onto the life boat.... "If I had had a gun... I would have shot her"...... Talking about the boat....

Regestering at the draft board... Are you a Communist?

Hell no, Arvin Lewis is commoner than any one of us, he would do it with a dog in the street......

And Capt. Billy Beman....would take his boat offshore and take a day laying too, to sober up before going to work.....

Capt. Thomas Earl Willis, took a 5 gallon bucket of water to wash out each of his eyes on waking up......

We even had a "Chicken Head Willis" amongest us in those days, if you saw him, you would know why the name....

Some had two names, some had three.... I was "John the Baptist" in those days.......

Capt. Willy T Pitman named me that one night drinking on shore, and it stuck, because I was a bit moderate in my partying.......

Willy T had a sister, I don't know if she was younger or older than him, worked with him on the "Capt. James 2" as pilot, and cook....

Most of them when they let their hair down so to speak, let it all the way down, and had no restrictions on their conduct, espicaly if it was alcohol fueled.

And so was Capt Laurie from Ocrakoke Island NC, a firey blue eyed direct decendant from John Teach... (Black Beard).....(he would do a line (cocaine) in a heart beat, hell, can you imagine, somebody my fathers age sniffng glue?

Shakeing the corner of a "Baggy" with white powder in it in a tavern, bought with money, not smuggled unless a "Floater" came along on the sea, and young women coming to him like fish to a baited hook.....

Lookin' back it is hard to believe I had volontarly joined this crowd of modern day Pirates in the 1980's.

I had had a failed first marrage that fell apart me living on the land and poor as a churchouse mouse from it, learning a dead end trade from nothing on a squreel cage, and the He Coon told me, Son go back to sea, there ain't nothing for you here on the land, and I did....

But I saw the young woman Judy many times dateing, I met her father and mother, and because I was a yes Sir, no Mam boy from the south, encouraged me to be around with her and them too.....

I got invited to the club to share "Blackened Grouper" with them Saturday nights, "Bloody Mary" "Brunches" on Sundays, and once in a while Judy would be gone.

I was told she was on a boat delivery....

I had no idea she was in and out of rehab for a drinking problem in those days, in all honesty it was hidden from me by the family.

On the "Boss Lady" my boat, well it was, and wasn't mine, all we Captians considered the boats ours as long as we were Master of them untill removed by an owner....

We were answerable to no one but God once the lines were cast off and put to sea, even if an owner or his son were on the boat....

My mate the square head, Fast Freddie, took sicker than he was with his incestant cigarette smoking.

I even got him an oxyegen bottle and mask to help him with his emphizema and mounted it near his bunk for his bouts with breathlessness......

We all had private rooms on the boat, we called them boodiviwours.

My father the "He Coon" his mother lived with it for the last 20 years of her life....

Freddie told me, John, I need to get off the boat and go home, I hated to see him go, but it was a personal desicion he made, not I.....

Now, I needed a mate for my boat, I had two "Deck Apes" Young and strong and fast at doing what ever needed done during fishing operations and I did not want to change that part.

We made a hot team together, on a good Calico bed we could load on the boat 100,000 pounds of the shell stock in an hour and a half....

None of the rest of them could do that, perhaps in 2 or 3 hours, but none of them could do it like we three, No bragg, just fact....

Floating dump trucks, was bascily all we were....

I also did the cooking on the boat, some of the rest lived on hotdogs, sandwiches, potato chips, and cokes, I refused to do that.

It was just too easy to load up a baking pan of real food, pop it in the oven and two or three hours later eat like men should....

I needed someone I could trust at the wheel, someone that would call me if a ship got to close, and I could trust to not fall asleep, keep a low profile on the radio and not give away where I went fishing.....

I asked Judy if she wanted the job, in those days I could have cared less about equal oppernitunity for women, it was an easy job, she had experiance, and I felt she, because of her working the open sea with another Captian even though it was on pleasure craft would not get sick in a poof of wind and sea.....

Old man Edward L. Moore had told me... I don't expect you to work in a Hale Gale, but I do expect you to work a certian amount of bad weather......

Judy took the job, and was good at it..... There was no hanky panky on my boat.... Up the street...Well.....

One time though, when she first got started, we all got tickled at her.

During an unloading operation, the boys asked her to fix some sandwiches.....

And she did, cut all the crust off the bread and cut 'em in them fancy triangles and put 'em on a platter on the galley table.....

The bank robber John Groat, after taking off his oil skins and coming in the house, took one look at it and said......

"Girl, this ain't no country club".... Cracked us all up....

Continued........................

Actually we only saw each other in passing on the boat, she in one state room, I in another and working different watches....

She alone (Judy) steering the boat outbound from the sea bouy to the fishing grounds while me and my deck apes slept, and then back to the sea bouy after we had finished loading the boat, which she did sleep during that part of the operation, while we slept again on the inbound trip.

The boat was laid out with state of the art electronics, radar, C Loran with Video plotter tied to the Auto Pilot, Color Video echo sounder to see the bottom, Bridge Watch and other alarms with a bell to the head of my bunk to call me if something needed my attention....

She (the boat) would go to a way point, make her turn, to go to the next one, and so on, by herself...

I had a white coller job, my office was the bridge of the boat, and everything was done on my command.....

If the pilot on watch didn't push a button when the system was activated with a key by the boats Master (Me) every 15 minutes or adjustable as the condidicons might require, the boat went into "Man Overboard" phase automaticly, which included bringing the main Engine to a stop and marking the position.........

We had that, way before the EXXON VALDEZ accident......That Captian just did not make sure all his ducks were in place before retireing to his State Room, BEFORE he even reached the Sea Bouy, which all the real Captians I have known would have never done, Ahhh, but HE had a license.....I never did till I had to in Nicaragua of all places....

Wait a minute, I had to have one in South Carolina in the late 70's.... Cost me 3 dollars if I remember right, no test required, they did'nt even care if I could read, or even see straight....

So Yes, I guess, I have been a licesened Captian for open Ocean Fishing Trawlers for well over 30 years.....

Thank you LCT, I know you were part of that electronic advantage we had of raping and plundering and destroying mother natures resources you SOB.....

She (Judy) told me straight and I respected it, John, I will marry you, but I will not live with you out of wedlock......

Actually she took a big load off of all of us on the boat, she was young and strong, would do the grocery shopping so I didn't have to, took the crews laundry up and dropped it off for a wash dry and fold at the laundrymat that offered that service, and was a big help in the galley other than just piloting the boat.

I never took on a green horn at full share, and so when our next settlement was coming up I asked the rest of the crew....

How do you feel about her performance? Full Share, or half Share?

It was unanimious, she was to be paid Full share.....

She even put a potted Ivy plant hanging from the galley cieling over the table....

All of us started doteing over that plant....

I cannot count the times during a poof of wind and sea, that plant, dirt and all, left the pot and wound up on the table or on deck with the boat jumping up and down.

Any one of us would rush to its rescue like a man overboard....

Put it back in the pot, and give it a little drinking water to settle the dirt back in among the roots......

The plant never died, and Judy never knew how many times we picked that poor thing up off the deck like a drunkin' longshoreman...

When we were working loading the boat with shell stock on the open sea, she was sleeping.....

Some of those cornholes working in the fleet, if they made 1k for the week would send 200 dollars home to their famlies if they had one, and piss the rest of the money.

That place (St. Augustine) in all honesty was full up with young women, most all in those days available, (unmarried) and these pirates went wild on it, and had the money to pay for parties and what not, and tell what ever lies they wanted, to get them bras and panties off, hell, one liar would back up another.....

On land with a pocket full of money they were all Captians......

They (the girls) were not whores per se, but wanted nice gifts and to be shown a good time, most any time.....

They were collage girls away from home and were not looking to settle down for the most part, but to finish and education Moma and Daddy were footing the bill for, and have fun, with their new found freedom of being in an adult world so they thought....

Who ever thought of putting a Girls Collage in a sea port town, however small the sea port, should have had their head examined.....

When I met her, Judy had finished her education years prior, and was still living at home on the yacth doing odd jobs as they came along with the delivery and retrival runs of the yachts and Sail boats....

She had majored in one of them liberal arts things, or it could have been home economics for all I knew, she told me, but it went in one ear and out the other.....

Her parents had purchased up in Jaxonville a Sir Speedy printing franchise for Larry jr. and Judy to operate, in effect, to give them a job....

Sometimes all we worked was two or three days for the week due to incliment weather, and break downs of the boats, it was pretty rough work on the trawlers, for the men and the boats.

Other than the money I needed for personal things I jambed mine in the bank, I drove no new Caddilac, or Linclon like some of the other Captians, just a 19 tore all to pieces Chevroet pick up truck with a camper on the back of it.

I have had some of those knuckleheads during a day or two of bad weather at the dock come to me, noses bloody from sniffing cocaine, "John the Baptist", can you lend me 100 dollars, I need some cigarettes".....

Yea, Right, you stupid asshole, My money is in the bank, and I am not stupid, I know about what you been making, go look somewhere else......

Judy and I decided to get married, and her parents and mine, were happy with the dicision, we had taken trips to NC and Va in my camper to meet my folks and all was prepaired for there in St. Augustine........

We had a big church wedding in the local Presbyterian church, we had gone car shopping, I gave her a new car as a wedding present....

She conservitavly chose a nice Toyota, air conditioning, cruse control, radial tires and a pretty paint job.....

I went to the bank got the money and paid for it one shot, no loan, I got it cheaper that way, money talks and BS walks.......

It was easy in those day's for old man Edward L to get a relief Capt. to take my place for a short while for the boat, all I had to do was talk over with him any plans I had if I needed some time off.

We took 2 weeks staying in motels/hotels, travling in her new car without any destination preplanned, eating out, shareing carrifs of white wine (Her favorite) over fancy dinners in the evenings, and enjoying each others company in private.......

When we got back to St, Augustine and went to pay her parents a visit before going back on the boat.....

Abaord their Yacht, she brought out a long box.....

Now I want to give you a wedding present she said, you and my father have talked guns till I was bored to tears, and I had to wait on this for a long time.....

It was a brand new Heckler and Koch rolling bolt action simi auto .308 assult rifle, 7.62mm NATO.....

I nearly $hit.....

I had wanted one of those to carry to sea with me, and they were scarce as hens teeth.....

We went back on the "Boss Lady" business as uasal, each to our own state rooms, and no hanky panky on the boat, up the street, well....that was different.....

Later we took some time off and piled in the camper and went to NC to visit the He Coon for a spel, ate deer meat that she thought was beef, and on up to Va. where my mother lived....

My youngest brother Buddy, (15) didn't want to go to school.......

So I took him on the boat with us to teach him a lesson........

I know he might say my time frames are a bit off am perhaps they are, but the Song remains the same......

Here is Buddy, on the "Boss Lady" with the ivy plant in the galley, and on the deck of the "Lou Marie"....

We changed boats in those days....

[John Wayne]

Ok Here it is on the Boss Lady....

[rivardco]

What are the women like in physical appearance? Costa Rica had a good amount of European immigration that positively complimented the ticas. I am with the understanding that other Central American countries are much more aboriginal - Indian native. True of False

[John Wayne]

In all honesty there is a mix here, my wife is Miskito and Chinese.....

Some of them prettyer than a speckled puppy and others butt ugly, dark skin, to light skin, and very Independent because most of the men here are not worth a crap.....

Many have families but dont marry just for that reason, why support a bum?

And then there are good men here too, that you could trust your life with.....

But I understand it is about a 3 to 1 ratio of women to men.....

And I get hit on all the time, some young woman just wanting a good lookking Gringo Baby, not me but a child....

I have to be strong, some of them are as they say on GT, are Drop Dead Lookers.....

I am a married man now with young children, and wish to set an example for them......

But before, when I was single, could have my pick of the litter.....

I picked one, kinda young, and we had our trials but still together......

[John Wayne]

We took the "Boss Lady" back to Canaveral and worked in and out of there for a good spel, during that time....

Judy's father wanted to take his yatch up the inter coastal waterway to Savana Ga.....

I think the reason he invited us was because he lacked the confidance to do it alone with his guests, and to put it lightly they were "Somebody".....

In life it is not so much what you know, but WHO you know.......

In those days his boat was only moved from the Club to the dry dock twice a year for a haul out and bottom painting.....

And he hired somebody to move it then....

Oh, he kept that thing "Pristine"....

Ran the generator regularly and the twin 6-71 Dietroit Diesel main engines.....

It was a fine pleasure craft..... A Grand Banks Trawler Yachat.....

He was retired and involved just about all his time on the "Bright Work" and the mohagany woodwork, and what not maintenence of the vessel.....

And in the evenings talked with other members of the club in the resturant during happy hour, about polishing compounds, bottom paint, and other nautical things over a few drinks before food was served....

His wife Laverne, had become a bit of a lush over the years, and didn't care about anything but her little curcle of friends at the club, and Bloody Mary brunches....

Larry Sr. and Laverne had been life time mates, he a Lt. Coronel US Army retired, and a JAG attorney at the Pentigon before retirement....

Lavrene worked there too, being a currier for Secret, and Top Secret doccuments between the different offices....

She was a sweet lady, but got wasted every night, and yet, not obnoxious in her charictor, she was a very laid back lady.....

So it was with Judy, her only daughter, the fruit did not fall far from the tree, but I did not see it comeing at the time.....

Larry Sr. could get all fired up talking about court marshals and cases he represented before the courts as a trial lawyer which most he won, few losses.....

But back to things Nautical......

Oh, we had a wonderful time on that trip up the inter coastal from St. Augustine to Savannna, I ran the boat, all the rest of them waited on me hand and foot and did all those yachty things that they do.....

From bird watching, to asking questions about the navigational charts, and bouys and stakes we were passing, to trollng for fish......

We anchored up in remote places and had happy hours on the back deck, FDR would have been at home on that trip.....

The women in the crowd continuely fixed food, we men helped ourselves to the well stocked bar, as well did the ladies......

My consumpsion in those day's was extreamly moderate....

They were in no rush to get to Savana, we timed it well for the event there, got there two days ahead of the event.......

Everyone wearing shorts and "Topsiders", and happy to be in the hands of two professionals, Judy and myself.....

I do not remember how many were aboard the boat, there must have been 8 or 10.....

Hell I had fun with 'em twin screws, (twin engines) you could parallel dock that boat just working the Marine Gears with the engines at an idle without having to have a spring line to do the job, unless you had a strong breeze against you.....

One thing I can do is dock a boat, when you have done it a million times you soon learn, but in lashing a single screw trawler to the dock you need a cracker jack of a deck ape to get you a forward or aft leading midship spring line, as per your orders, on the dock depending on the conditions, to keep you from looking like an idiot.....

And my father in law Larry Sr. was just beaming with pride, that his pride and joy, the boat, (and for the life of me right now, I cannot remember her name) performed flawlessly......

We got to see Savana walking about and what not, I had never been there, just in passsing a copule of times on the inter coastal with the "He Coon" and many times off shore.....

The event, was a get together by US Army big wigs, retired and active duty brass and their families, who did or used to work in the Pentagon with my Father and Mother in law....

Judy and I made the rounds with her parents.....

General so-n-so, or Coronel so-n-so, this is my daughter Judy and her husband John.....

Shaking hands, John, it is so nice to meet you, and you Judy...

Holding a hand about so..... Judy, I remember you from this size......

I met so many, I could have met Olliever North there, I honestly don't remember....

But I do remember Swartzcoff.....(SP)....Don't remember what his rank was at the time, but that name stuck out like a sore thumb....

Nobody was in uniform, nor did they salute and click their heels, but my inlaws when I was introduced did tell me name and the rank of who I was meeting.....

The food was fantastic....Now I ask you, why in the hell a would a man or woman judge the quality of a party by its food?

That is how it is friends, and Mil.... can back me up on that.....

I was not a pig, I was 28 years old, weighted about 170 soaking wet, and could eat a horse, and always took stairs two at a time....
.................................................. .................................................. ......

Some of their guests got off the boat there in Savanna and others took their place for the trip back to St Augustine.....

All the steering was done on the flying bridge above the cabin, it was nicely shaded and one widow of General so-n-so came up and started useing the binoculars there for bird watching with my mother in law.....

I have to tell the truth here.....

Soon they were cackling back and forth like a couple of hens, had their marsh bird book out identifing them and passing the binoculars back and forth and flipping pages in the book for a positive ID and reading about the species they had spoted.....

The men had them a penny anty poker game going on on the stern, and as always a drink or two to go with it.......

A couple of the other ladies, my wife included came up and joined in on the bird watching as we were just easeing along the inter coastal thru the marshes in no hurry, just idleing along.......

And would't you know it, they spoted one they could not identify.....

Oh, they passed around the binoculars, and flipped thru the pages of the book, and still could not identify the bird.....

So they asked an expert....Me......

Now I know as much about birds and bird watching as I do about building a rocket ship........

They gave me the binoculars and all of them pointed out the bird where he was......

I zoomed in on it, gave them a brief discription of what I saw.......

Yes, yes, yes, all of them, excited to know what species of bird it was they had spoted.......

Why it came to me I have no idea....

I took down the binoculars, handed them back the Generals Widow and said.....

"That is a Mileamo bird", and went back to steeriing the boat, as if I had seen a million of them.......

They uuud and they ahhhed.... Looked at it some more, flipped thru the pages of the book again, but there was nothing in the book to support my claim....

Hey, they all looked..... at the bird, and the book.....

Finaly the widow said, that is such a strange name, Why, do they call it a Mileamo bird?

I asked her, you really want to know?

Oh yes, tell me.......

Well that bird is a real oddity of nature I said......

I had all of their attention at this point....

Well, that bird lives and feeds in the marshes on small crabs, grass shrimp, and other tiny marine life.......

I swear at this point I had all of their attention......

It only lays one egg for the year in the late spring, mates for life with a male of it's species and builds a nest out in the mud and sits on it for the hacthling to break out of its shell for 42 days, the male and the female taking turns siting on the egg....

Yes, yes, yes, all of them, excited wanting to hear the rest of what I knew about the bird....

But why do they call it a Mileamo bird? asked the widow......

So I told her, the truth be known, that bird gets it's name from one of its odd habits.....

Boy I had them girls now..... Worked 'em up into a frenzy over that bird......

They were all saying, what is it, what is it?......

When that bird is frightened or sceared, it stickes it's head deeply in the mud, and whistles out of its rectum, and you can hear it for a Mile or More......

That woman peed herself right there laughing, had to go down below and clean up......

That was a big joke that evening with everyone, anchored up in a remote spot for happy hour on the stern, I had got them girls good.....

All that I met on that trip were regular people.....

The trip back to St. Augustine was fun and uneventful, we tied the boat back up in her berth at the club, had a nice dinner in the resturant, and Judy and I went on back to Canaveral and to work on the Boss Lady.....

All good things must come to an end, and the calico scoloping of the shell stock was winding down and the beds of them needed to be left alone to naturaly rejvniate.....

Old man Edward L. wanted the Boss Lady to go up into the North Atlantic to pull steel dredges for the Sea Scloops.....

I did not want to take her to do that.....

I had been up there, and wanted no part of the cold, so I told him, get you another man......

Which he did and I relinquiched my comand of the vessel.....

Homer Smith, offered me one of his 4 boats, the Lou Marie, she was only 94 feet from anchor to stern and about 100 horse power less than the Boss Lady and of wood construction.... But well kept.....

The Lou Marie was named after his ex partner's wife, and his wife....

The Frieda Marie was named after his youngest daughter....

The Anna Marie after his oldest daughter.....

The My Joy was sister ship to the Boss Lady......

Now Homer was a NC Charictor.....I asked him one time, What you going to to name your next boat?

Without batting an eye he replied.... The Homer Marie......

And I only had to take her to NC to go Shrimping...... I had been there and done that several seasons and knew the area well, hell I was from there.....

Judy, my wife, myself and my youngest brother left out of Canaveral with her, ( the vessel Lou Marie) put her right in the middle of the Gulf Stream and went to the north....

We entered Beaufort NC in under 50 hours, boy did we fly to the North in the Stream, off of SC and GA..... the weather channel would not come in on the VHF we were so far offshore.....Alone.....

I put her on a course from the seabouy at Canaveral right straight to Frying Pan Sholas off of Cape Fear.....

She had been built some 20 years earlier by James T Gillikin on Harkers Island NC..... Generations of wooden boat builders.....

One time old man Landry from somewhere on the Gulf of Mexico coast that built wooden boats told Jimmy, James T's son......

I build the Cadillac of Shrimp boats....

Jimmy told him, hey thats nice, but we build the "Work Horse" of trawlers.....

And they were famious, nobody put such a beautiful flaired bow on a boat and could shove her into a sea with her main engine, and they not pound, jump up and down like hell, and you had to hang on, but never pounded, even when her stern slipped out of the sea the wheel (Propelar) never cavitated and the engine raced to be pulled back down by its govoner.....

We rigged out the Lou Marie pulling 4 "Ricky Harvey" 4 seam nets, two on each side with three cables to the side going to spreader doors and a sled in the center....

50 foot nets on the outside and 45 foot nets on the inside..... You have to know what you are doing here....

Working the Pamlico Sound.....

In NC no Sunday hunting or fishing, we could not set out till dark Sunday's to start our work week....

I had learned from Capt Kenny Land years before, when the water is muddy only work in the day time....

When the water is clear, only work in the night time, save your fuel son, and rest....

The rest of Homers boats beat me every week by one or two, sometimes three, 100 pound boxes of shrimp.....

Not bad really talking about 18 or 20 boxes for the week of nice big 21/25 and 16/20 to the pound White shrimp, but those 2 or 3 boxes were a piece of money to the boat owner.......

We were making nice paydays..... Just the three of us, my youngest brother, my wife and myself, working the boat......

Homer came to me one time on a Saturday after we had all unloaded....

John the Baptist he said, my other three boats are beating you every week, you have never come out on top of them one single time any week we have been doing this, you have the same size rigs and power.... what is wrong?

Boy, I felt like $hit, what he was saying was true, was it because I was working my wife and younger brother on the boat and not pushing hard enough I asked myself?

Homer look I said, what you are saying is completely true, if you want to put another man on your boat, I understand, I can always find another boat to work.....

No John, you are doing Ok, but I want to see you beat them Salter Pathers just one time, boy are they laughing about beating you every week behind your back, just try a little harder would you...

Man, oh man, I'll tell you, I was feeling down about this conversation....

I was ready to walk off his boat.... I was shamed, I was doing the best I knew how I had learned from the He Coon and others I had learned from......

I was feeling like a whipped dog, I called my wife and brother into the galley and told them of the conversation, we voted to go and look another boat...

About that time Tony Frost came in the galley, he was Homers son in law married to Anna the older daughter, and kept the books for the outfit......

John, did Homer just chew you out?

Yes I said, and we were just getting started to pack our $hit and get......

Well I just chewed Homers A$$ out, You by keeping your expenses down and operating this boat on a cost effective basis, have beat them others by a long shot with profits for us......

Please John, don't go any where, Homer understands now, we are not in the shrimp business, we are in the money business, it is the bottom line that counts....

I hadn't realized it, but it was so, the others were burning twice the fuel, tearing up gear, buying a world of supplies from Barbours Marine supply more than I did....

They didn't know the Sound like I did, where the hangs were and how to work around them....

I had turned out to be the top man in that fleet...

Hahahaha, he who laugh's last?....... We stayed.....

About a week or so after that my brother Buddy got us all tickled.....

Homer and Ralph his brother, both ships carpenters, were replaceing a cap rail on my boat.....

Buddy told me, hey I am going to do such and such up the street, can I get anything?

Yea, I told him, go by Barbours Marine Supply, and get a box of gloves, we were about out of the gloves we used for culling up the shrimp.....

I didn't care, he was on his own time, but a few hours later he showed up.

Homer and Ralph were still working on the cap rail and I was doing something or other on the back deck.....

Now Buddy was all red eyed, stoned to $hit..... and I ain't talking about drinkin' beer here.....

I asked him, did you get the gloves?

Ahhhh giggle, giggle, giggle, Ahhh.... What gloves?

I got to tell the truth here....

I replyed, God dam baseball gloves, what kind of Fu*king gloves you think we use on this boat anyway?

Homer and Ralph got so tickled with this exchange they had to stop work for a minute.....

So now it changes as we did to the Lou Marie, and then on to the ONA.......

Continued......

[John Wayne]

Judy in them days was a functional Alcoholic, I never knew it, I didn't pay attention, and was studying our business, we were Contractors, nothing more at that time, operating some one elses boat on a percentage...

I would find bottles of Vodka, stashed here and there, and never thought anything of it, long as no one around me got falling down or bligerent drunk, and did their job, I could have not given a $hit.....

Hell my father, the He Coon, would drink beer from 10 AM till he went to bed at 8PM (with the chickens) at night, and work like a Mule......

Start his days at 4.30 AM with coffee and a huge breakfast....

Judy had her mothers traits, she was a passive partaker of the evil sperits, I guess anyone could bulldoze over her, which I found out later, she did not know how to say no to anyone, and mean it.....

We worked the Lou Marie thru that summer, changed nets and Flounder fished thru that fall offshore of NC in and out of Okracoke inlet on the day's could be worked, and I knew it would be getting bitter humid cold in January and February....

We landed sometimes 10k to 20k pounds of the flat fish on a trip, Judy did most of the steering after I got us on a run of fish, and Buddy and I were the deck apes...

I was ready to go back south again, way before Christmas....

But Homer wanted his boat to go North and follow the fish, and I wanted none of it, I was as far North as I wanted to go, been there, done that......

So I relinquished command of the Lou Marie, and we went back to Canaveral......

For years Judy and I had been trying to have a child, but it just seemed like it was not to be.....

I went to Canaveral Seafood and put in a job application for a boat, they had 17 at the time.....

And 300 employees working at their processing plant.....

Capt. Edgar Griffis owner of it, had several nice resturants in the area, a ship yard with a floating drydock, a big trucking outfit, and was President of I think it was SouthEast bank, some 35 business' he owned including a fuel dock....

He had done well for his self from being a crabber in the Indian River in his origins, he was my fathers age, no formal educaton, like myself, not even High School.....

He was just a Brevard County rednek, born and raised there before the rocket place started.....

Judy and I had rented an efficiency apartment somewhere near, and before I got back, they were calling to tell me to go to the main office on Merrit Island for an interview with Capt. Ed at a certian time....

When I got there, Harold Shaw from SC was there also for an interview for a similar job.....

We were called into his office and he did not beat around the bush at all.....

You see this VHF and other radios here, all kinds of electronic equipment, and a double barreled shotgun standing up in the corner behind him, (my kind of man, I knew right there we were going to get along) there is nothing, he said, that goes on that I don't know about in Canaveral.....

I know you both have worked for my competition and have earned reputations for yourselves....

I know you both by your voice and you are Carolina Men, whom I respect very much as fishermen, me being one myself.....

You want one of my boats, here is the deal......

I will give you 35% of the shell stock price of any Calicos you land to my plant, whatever bycatch is yours, you pay your crew and your grub....

I will put everything else, I don't care what you need, I will put it, you do not have to worry about the fuel, I am not going to put personal things but what ever the boat needs you have an open check book with my people.......

If you can agree to this, we will continue this interview, if not, get out of here.....

Boy he laid it out....... And it was not a bad deal.....

We both accepted......But then again we knew in advance how he shared....

Look he said, some people think, holding out his hands, I have balls this big, but I didn't get where I am at by being a pussy, or picking sorry people to work for me.....

I have bought two boats over in Tampa and need two men to run them.......

Go get them and bring them around and I will pay you, but not your crew, to rig them out and then you can go fishing with them......

All my Captians get a VIP card to take their family to any one of my resturants one time a week, anything on the menu but booze, that you pay for yourself......

Go see Jook, my right hand man, to make arraignments about receiving the boats and whatever you need to bring them around to this side......

End of meeting.....

Judy took us all over there to the Salmon Shrimp headquarters in Tampa to pick up the two Tupperware Tubs (fibreglass boats)

85 feet from the anchor to the stern with K19 CUMMINS engines in them, US Built but used in South America for the first five years....

The "Tornado", and The "Gulf Tide" were their names......

Now Harold was a superstitious cornhole, didn't want a boat named after bad weather....(what a dummy).....

So he took the Gulf Tide... I, the Tornado.....

We crossed the Tampa Bay and put them in the Gulf of Mexico, when we got to Key West, Harold had never been there so I led the way thru and we put them in the Gulf Stream on the other side and hauled A$$ for Canaveral.

North bound it is always faster to get way out there in it....

Wouldn't you know it, I had to go and butt heads with the man who was running his shipyard repair facility for the boats when we got to Canaveral......

My boat had a bent boom and it needed to be cut out and replaced, and I told Ed Long the manager that and to have me a welder to the boat in an hour......

I mounted a 5 ton "Fat Boy" block at the top of the mast, took the weight of the boom up with a 1 1/2 inch Sampson braided nylon whip line and was taking the stay cables loose to lower it down with the wench...... Hey that is the way we do things home....

Ed Long came out there freaked out, No, no, no, we don't do things that way here, stop, stop right now.....

I all most told him to go piss up a Gum Stump...... but I bit my tongue.... I was the new boy on the block so to speak...

Ed Long was US Navy retired, now in life there are three ways of doing things, the right way, the wrong way, and of course, THE Navy way.....

What should have taken only a week to ten days was nearly eight weeks at Ed Longs pace.....

Capt. Ed was paying me a grocery check to work on rigging out his boat for Calico fishing.

I was one happy man when we thru the lines off of that "Bone Yard" of a repair facility to go fishing.....

And was even happier, when Judy soon after, told me she was pregnant....... We had been trying for so long....

I did not want to take her on the boat any more, we went and put a piece of money (about half the price of the house) down on a modest house in Port St. John about half way between Canaveral and Tittusville, 3 BR and 2 baths with a fenced in back yard that had a swing set in it already....

A little shopping center about 6 blocks away with a Winn Dixie and an Ace Hardware there.....

We went an outfitted the house, all paid for.....two bedroom sets, the nursery, living room set, kitchen and dining room stuff and a lawn mower....

WTF we had the money, living on the fishing boat because it was required, and just weekends or bad weather, for a get away, perhaps pissing 200 dollars on hotels and restaurants, sometimes not even that when we had to work 24/7 on the boat....

The fishing was scrapy at the time and we were working on bad bottom to get to untouched places.

I brought home two big pieces of "Slab Rock" I had caught 30 miles in front of Canaveral, for a rock garden in the front yard and placed a 1200 pound anchor from the old sailing ships I had caught off of Hatteras with the old wooden single tree rotted off......

We fixed that place up waiting for our child.....

I was in and out of Canaveral every day shell stocking, sometimes home for one hour sometimes for 3 hours, sometimes none and Judy would meet me at the dock for a little while during an unloading operation, and I had to put the boat right back to sea......

She had totally quit the vodka, we only shared a carriff of white wine occasionally.

Contined........

[John Wayne]

The He Coon (my father) had died in May of the previous year at 59 years old, it was1985, while I was running the Tornado, and I had a hell of a time dealing with it, even though he was my father, we were best friends, hunted and fished together from when I could walk...

To this day His and Miskito Alan's funeral is all I have ever attended, but refused to look in the coffins, I want to remember them as they were, not in a box....

I can still see them both as they were in life in my mind, and am glad I made that choice....

And then in September of of 86, this came along in my life to give me a new outlook....

Looking back it wasn't much of a Shipyard, it had the name Brevard Shipyard and was incorporated.....

Just a repair facility for Canaveral Seafood's boats was all it was.

Capt. Ed had leased from the Canaveral Port athority for 99 years, next to the US Coast Guard station, about 800 feet long, a dock with a floating dry dock that he brought in, that would pick his boats up out of the water on the north dock of the inner turning bason....

Wouldn't you know it, at the same time I started the job, my child said it was time to arrive, so man o man, I had some hussling to do to take care of both my wife having a baby and getting the Shipyard back on track, believe me I put in a lot of hours.....

More than working the boat fishing, the boat was an easy job compaired to what I had put myself into....

Judy had a hard time with the baby, if I remember right, it was 18 hours of labor, and finaly they had to do a C section on her.

In her younger days Judy had been involved in a alcohol induced car accident, broke her pelvis and could not naturally have the child.

Dorothy and Judy came out of it just fine, I was one happy man, but busy turning around Brevard Shipyard.......

Larry Sr. and Laverne, Judy's parents, came down from St. Augustine, stayed in the spare bedroom, and were a BIG help to us at the time......

Judy was not a big tittied woman, and soon after, the child was put on formula because of her lack of abeaility to produce enough milk for our daughters growth, but she did try.....

Back to the Shipyard, hereafter fefered to as the Yard......

All it was was, was three prefab buildings on slabs of concrete, a floating dry dock and a Pettybone four wheeled crane that would handle about 5 tons, located about 3/4 mile west of NASA's launch pad, maybe a hair more but not much....

I called a meeting of the 20 some people that worked there.......

Now I have worked around Mechanics, Fishermen, Drukin Long shoremen, and dock workers all my life.....

Boy's, I said, Capt. Ed in all his infinate stupid wisdom has put me over here as your manager, I know all of you already......

He has given me the right to fire anyone of you, or replace the whole God Dam lot of you......

He wants his boats fishing, not laid to this dock......

Now I don't think any one of you right now has the fault, I have seen what is going on here for the last many months......

You have lacked good leadership, I intend to change that.....

Now if you want to keep your jobs, you are going to have to work with me, not against me, am I clear?

How many of you here are certifyed Diesel mechanics?

That is what I thought, not a one.......

We will restrict ourselves to B and C grade repairs on engines, all the class A things for now, Ring Power and Coastal Power (the local Caterpillar and Dietroit Diesel dealerships) will do under my supervsion.

There is just too much wench work and welding work, pulleys and belts and sprocket and chain work among other things for us to be worried about....

I will look at each job myself, appraise it, and leave it to you, after you are finished, I will inspect it for quality in workmanship.....

Quality is what I want, I will not bother you over time, unless I see you are Fukcing around, I know it takes longer to work on a boat than it does a bulldozer, but I want it to work well when you finish with it.....

Am I clear on everything?....

Yes they all said......

I replaced nobody, just gave them praise over good work, and chewed their asses if they messed up, in private....

It was a good group of young, and middle aged men, some of them older than I.

We in the South affectionatly refer to each other as "Boys" when addressing a group of two or more, and is a BIG compliment, if you are one of the "boy's" you are in the "Click"..........

And the Nick names that were there before I started, here are some of them......

Donkey Dick Andy, I never saw, and could give a $hit, but was good at replaceing towing blocks, rigging blocks, and the overhauling of them...

Half Baked Mike..... A lite skinned mulatto of African and Europen desent, that knew whenches better than any one of them, he was a local....

Rebel... A redheaded man from Pennsylvania that could swap out starters, altenerators, PTO's (power take off) clutches and marine transmissions, purdy dam quick when he wanted too....

I heard dat.... A coal black Gechie from SC that could weld a chicken turd to a tobacco stick and it stay put.......

Fat Back....Ahhh Fat Back, a St.Augustine boy, he did electrical work, was kinda stout and I would catch him cooking up some seafood bycatch, as in cob shrimp or lobsters, in the galleys of the boats sometimes when he was "Testing" the electric ovens and generator sets on some of the boats... I got invited when I caught him....

That Fukcin' Otto..... Now this was a charictor, an olive complected Eyetallian long hair from NJ, smoked his weed, Hell all the younger ones smoked weed, and had a two beer and hamburger lunch up to the the "Sailors Choise" resturant, and ran the floating dry dock, and was good at it, full of energy he was, all I had to do was leave him alone, and give him some encouragement, he knew what to do and did it well....

Blame,....Blaine was his name, a local boy who lived with his widowed father, had been to Bolivia with him, worked on a ranch there, absolutely loved his doublebarreled shotgun, Bulldog, 4 wheel drive Ford pickup, and his air boat......

Took me one time Gatorin' I don't think it was zackly legal, but who am I to ask questions?, we did later eat that fishy tasting gator tail that was almost like chicken.......

Pelirecan..... a Preuto Rican that did electronic work on the radios ETC... got that name for going up the booms and masts without a safety harness to work on the antennas and wiring of said, when I left him to his own resources.....

They were a DAM good group of Boys' they just needed to be turned loose on jobs, prioritize what needed done, get out of their way, and quality check, nothing more.....

Not hold them back as the other manager had done with petty bull $hit trying to micro manage things he knew nothing about.....

[John Wayne]

Originally Posted by John Wayne

Judy in them days was a functional Alcoholic, I never knew it, I didn't pay attention, and was studying our business, we were Contractors, nothing more at that time, operating some one elses boat on a percentage...

I would find bottles of Vodka, stashed here and there, and never thought anything of it, long as no one around me got falling down or bligerent drunk, and did their job, I could have not given a $hit.....

Hell my father, the He Coon, would drink beer from 10 AM till he went to bed at 8PM (with the chickens) at night, and work like a Mule......

Start his days at 4.30 AM with coffee and a huge breakfast....

Judy had her mothers traits, she was a passive partaker of the evil sperits, I guess anyone could bulldoze over her, which I found out later, she did not know how to say no to anyone, and mean it.....

We worked the Lou Marie thru that summer, changed nets and Flounder fished thru that fall offshore of NC in and out of Okracoke inlet on the day's could be worked, and I knew it would be getting bitter humid cold in January and February....

We landed sometimes 10k to 20k pounds of the flat fish on a trip, Judy did most of the steering after I got us on a run of fish, and Buddy and I were the deck apes...

I was ready to go back south again, way before Christmas....

But Homer wanted his boat to go North and follow the fish, and I wanted none of it, I was as far North as I wanted to go, been there, done that......

So I relinquished command of the Lou Marie, and we went back to Canaveral......

For years Judy and I had been trying to have a child, but it just seemed like it was not to be.....

I went to Canaveral Seafood and put in a job application for a boat, they had 17 at the time.....

And 300 employees working at their processing plant.....

Capt. Edgar Griffis owner of it, had several nice resturants in the area, a ship yard with a floating drydock, a big trucking outfit, and was President of I think it was SouthEast bank, some 35 business' he owned including a fuel dock....

He had done well for his self from being a crabber in the Indian River in his origins, he was my fathers age, no formal educaton, like myself, not even High School.....

He was just a Brevard County rednek, born and raised there before the rocket place started.....

Judy and I had rented an efficiency apartment somewhere near, and before I got back, they were calling to tell me to go to the main office on Merrit Island for an interview with Capt. Ed at a certian time....

When I got there, Harold Shaw from SC was there also for an interview for a similar job.....

We were called into his office and he did not beat around the bush at all.....

You see this VHF and other radios here, all kinds of electronic equipment, and a double barreled shotgun standing up in the corner behind him, (my kind of man, I knew right there we were going to get along) there is nothing, he said, that goes on that I don't know about in Canaveral.....

I know you both have worked for my competition and have earned reputations for yourselves....

I know you both by your voice and you are Carolina Men, whom I respect very much as fishermen, me being one myself.....

You want one of my boats, here is the deal......

I will give you 35% of the shell stock price of any Calicos you land to my plant, whatever bycatch is yours, you pay your crew and your grub....

I will put everything else, I don't care what you need, I will put it, you do not have to worry about the fuel, I am not going to put personal things but what ever the boat needs you have an open check book with my people.......

If you can agree to this, we will continue this interview, if not, get out of here.....

Boy he laid it out....... And it was not a bad deal.....

We both accepted......But then again we knew in advance how he shared....

Look he said, some people think, holding out his hands, I have balls this big, but I didn't get where I am at by being a pussy, or picking sorry people to work for me.....

I have bought two boats over in Tampa and need two men to run them.......

Go get them and bring them around and I will pay you, but not your crew, to rig them out and then you can go fishing with them......

All my Captians get a VIP card to take their family to any one of my resturants one time a week, anything on the menu but booze, that you pay for yourself......

Go see Jook, my right hand man, to make arraignments about receiving the boats and whatever you need to bring them around to this side......

End of meeting.....

Judy took us all over there to the Salmon Shrimp headquarters in Tampa to pick up the two Tupperware Tubs (fibreglass boats)

85 feet from the anchor to the stern with K19 CUMMINS engines in them, US Built but used in South America for the first five years....

The "Tornado", and The "Gulf Tide" were their names......

Now Harold was a superstitious cornhole, didn't want a boat named after bad weather....(what a dummy).....

So he took the Gulf Tide... I, the Tornado.....

We crossed the Tampa Bay and put them in the Gulf of Mexico, when we got to Key West, Harold had never been there so I led the way thru and we put them in the Gulf Stream on the other side and hauled A$$ for Canaveral.

North bound it is always faster to get way out there in it....

Wouldn't you know it, I had to go and butt heads with the man who was running his shipyard repair facility for the boats when we got to Canaveral......

My boat had a bent boom and it needed to be cut out and replaced, and I told Ed Long the manager that and to have me a welder to the boat in an hour......

I mounted a 5 ton "Fat Boy" block at the top of the mast, took the weight of the boom up with a 1 1/2 inch Sampson braided nylon whip line and was taking the stay cables loose to lower it down with the wench...... Hey that is the way we do things home....

Ed Long came out there freaked out, No, no, no, we don't do things that way here, stop, stop right now.....

I all most told him to go piss up a Gum Stump...... but I bit my tongue.... I was the new boy on the block so to speak...

Ed Long was US Navy retired, now in life there are three ways of doing things, the right way, the wrong way, and of course, THE Navy way.....

What should have taken only a week to ten days was nearly eight weeks at Ed Longs pace.....

Capt. Ed was paying me a grocery check to work on rigging out his boat for Calico fishing.

I was one happy man when we thru the lines off of that "Bone Yard" of a repair facility to go fishing.....

And was even happier, when Judy soon after, told me she was pregnant....... We had been trying for so long....

I did not want to take her on the boat any more, we went and put a piece of money (about half the price of the house) down on a modest house in Port St. John about half way between Canaveral and Tittusville, 3 BR and 2 baths with a fenced in back yard that had a swing set in it already....

A little shopping center about 6 blocks away with a Winn Dixie and an Ace Hardware there.....

We went an outfitted the house, all paid for.....two bedroom sets, the nursery, living room set, kitchen and dining room stuff and a lawn mower....

WTF we had the money, living on the fishing boat because it was required, and just weekends or bad weather, for a get away, perhaps pissing 200 dollars on hotels and restaurants, sometimes not even that when we had to work 24/7 on the boat....

The fishing was scrapy at the time and we were working on bad bottom to get to untouched places.

I brought home two big pieces of "Slab Rock" I had caught 30 miles in front of Canaveral, for a rock garden in the front yard and placed a 1200 pound anchor from the old sailing ships I had caught off of Hatteras with the old wooden single tree rotted off......

We fixed that place up waiting for our child.....

I was in and out of Canaveral every day shell stocking, sometimes home for one hour sometimes for 3 hours, sometimes none and Judy would meet me at the dock for a little while during an unloading operation, and I had to put the boat right back to sea......

She had totally quit the vodka, we only shared a carriff of white wine occasionally.

Contined........

Sorry I left this one out........I think...


I, and a few others was really being pushed to supply the plant with shell stock of Calicos because of a lot of Capt. Eds boats were tied up at the Shipyard under repairs.......

No two or three hours home, two hours to unload and turned right back around, 18 to 20 hours dock to dock trips.....

15 minutes late on a schedule, 100 dollar fine to the Capt., three times and you got replaced....

The fleet Capt. would ask, can you make a certian schedule, and it had to be done unless the boat quit on you....

On a routine oil and filter change my boat was grounded for not having an air filter replacement handy.......

That pissed me right off, I never even worked a boat that Had a Dietriot Diesel marine engine in it that even had one, just a silencer that would not allow big things to enter in the engine, Screen wire over the intake basacily, and that was it......

I raised hell on the radio........

That day 4 of Capt. Ed's boats left the dock, 2 completed the trip and two returned to the dock for mechanical failures.....

15 of us were grounded for mostly BS by Ed Long.....

Capt. Ed called a meeting to his resturant over looking the inner turning basin of Port Canaveral in the Captians Quarters of it, a private room for special parties......

I am sorry if this offends anyone, but I have to tell it like it was, and how it was said......

All of us were present, the Captians of the fishing boats, and Ed Long and his assistant from the Shipyard.......

Capt. Ed was livid..... Boy's I am here to tell you, I got mine, I have a 20 year old wife and a young son, I can quit all this **** and go lay on the beach in Barbados and have drinks delivered to me by some skimpy clad Island girl for the rest of my life.....

But right now you have yours to make......

There ain't no Calico scloops coming in my plant and I want to know why?

I have 19 God Dam boats and only two made a trip yesterday, giving Ed Long and his asistant the evil eye..........

Well they both had their yellow legal note pads and started in on a spieal about how we were messing up, and tearing up the boats, more than a team of mechanics could keep going....

Capt. Ed said, Mr Long, I have heard enough, Thank you very much, you and your assastiant please leave this room and go on back to the shipyard to what you were doing, I want to talk to my boat Captians....

Uuuu Boy were we going to get chewed to $hit, some even perhaps let go.....

It is one thing to relinquish command of your boat volontariarley, but to get let go........

That will follow you the rest of your days as a waterman, put you right back to being a Deck Ape, because that is what we all evolved from anyway.........

After the thick oak doors closed when Ed Long and his right hand man left the Captians Quarters, there was a silence.....

Capt. Ed looked us all right in the eye, Boys I am taking these fancy wing tip shoes off right now and putting on my white fishin' boots....

I am one of you, and I want to know the God Dam truth, and I ain't talking about no Rat $hit, I need to know what is going on, so I can fix the problem.....

How many of you here are Carolinamen raise your hand...

More than half did, and Georga boys and North Florida boys?

The rest raised their hands.......

I have hand picked everyone of you, I know you know the work, it ain't as if I got a bunch of greenhorns runnin' my boats.

Look he said, are ya'll rawhiding my boats so that a team of mechanics can't keep them fixed or what?

Slience in the room, one or two were guilty of it, majority of us not, the boats were supposed to take it, they were built for heavy seas and work.......

I got the ball rolling, Capt. Ed I said, my boat is tied up to the dock right now because of a chicken $hit air filter not available......

These are work boats, not yatchs and for an Air filter, that you know good and well it is nothing but to put a piece of screen wire over the intake and let it go to work, and then get the proper replacement....

Mr. Long and his right hand man sit in their airconditioned office shuffling papers, not one single time that I know of, go down into an engine room, or a Lazzerett to check up on their mechanics, not on mine anyway, and this has led to failures and lost time working for the boats.....

All of your boats need a visual experianced inspection at least once a week for potential mechanical failures from bow to stern, and they have not been getting it....

When I said this, the rest of them started telling about their problems with the quality, or the lack thereof of repairs, and the speed at which it had been accomplished in the Shipyard.......

Capt. Ed said OK boys, I can see I have to make some changes, end of meeting......

As we were filing out of the Captians Room, Capt Ed called me to the side.

John, it sounds like you know what you are talking about.

Yes Sir, I do, I was service manager for 7 rental stores in eastern NC with 6 mechanics under me for 2 years.....

I then went on to learn Diesel Engine work up to 1000 HP for 3 years.......

I am Certified in 3200 and 3400 series Catipillar engines, 855 CID Cummins engines, and also 53, 71, and 92 series Dietriot Engines, all phases of repairs......

And I decided to go back fishing to what I was raised to by my father....

What, he says, I didn't know that......

It's all right there on my job application, with references, you were looking for a boat Capt and I filled the need....

John, I am going to call you at home later.....

About an hour later we all heard it thru the grape vine that Capt. Ed had sent Ed Long and his asstant a letter saying that their services were no longer needed at Brevard Shipyard and to go by the main office for their liquidation.....

Capt. Ed did not call me.....

He took the time to come to my home personaly that evening...

Judy, my wife, was about to bust with the baby in her belly, that little bun in the oven was just about done.....

By this time we knew it was going to be a girl, and so had outfitted the nuresury....

We had already decided on her name.... Dorothy Laverne...... A Gift from God.....

Capt. Ed and I sat in our living room and talked.

John, he said, I checked out your references and qualifacations, and you are I think, to valuable to me, to be running one of my boats.

But Capt. Ed I said, I am making good money running one of your boats.

John look, I will pay you 1k a week to start, and if you can turn Brevard Shipyard around and put my boats back to working as they should, your pay will jump to 1.5k, and you can be home every night.......

I will give you an open check book, do anything you want, fire everyone over there and replace them if you want, but I want my boats fishing.....

And so with a handshake, I relinquesed command of the Tornado, and became Manager of Brevard Shipyard......

[John Wayne]

The He Coon (my father) had died in May of the previous year at 59 years old, it was1985, while I was running the Tornado, and I had a hell of a time dealing with it, even though he was my father, we were best friends, hunted and fished together from when I could walk...

To this day His and Miskito Alan's funeral is all I have ever attended, but refused to look in the coffins, I want to remember them as they were, not in a box....

I can still see them both as they were in life in my mind, and am glad I made that choice....

And then in September of of 86, this came along in my life to give me a new outlook....

Looking back it wasn't much of a Shipyard, it had the name Brevard Shipyard and was incorporated.....

Just a repair facility for Canaveral Seafood's boats was all it was.

Capt. Ed had leased from the Canaveral Port athority for 99 years, next to the US Coast Guard station, about 800 feet long, a dock with a floating dry dock that he brought in, that would pick his boats up out of the water on the north dock of the inner turning bason....

Wouldn't you know it, at the same time I started the job, my child said it was time to arrive, so man o man, I had some hussling to do to take care of both my wife having a baby and getting the Shipyard back on track, believe me I put in a lot of hours.....

More than working the boat fishing, the boat was an easy job compaired to what I had put myself into....

Judy had a hard time with the baby, if I remember right, it was 18 hours of labor, and finaly they had to do a C section on her.

In her younger days Judy had been involved in a alcohol induced car accident, broke her pelvis and could not naturally have the child.

Dorothy and Judy came out of it just fine, I was one happy man, but busy turning around Brevard Shipyard.......

Larry Sr. and Laverne, Judy's parents, came down from St. Augustine, stayed in the spare bedroom, and were a BIG help to us at the time......

Judy was not a big tittied woman, and soon after, the child was put on formula because of her lack of abeaility to produce enough milk for our daughters growth, but she did try.....

Back to the Shipyard, hereafter fefered to as the Yard......

All it was was, was three prefab buildings on slabs of concrete, a floating dry dock and a Pettybone four wheeled crane that would handle about 5 tons, located about 3/4 mile west of NASA's launch pad, maybe a hair more but not much....

I called a meeting of the 20 some people that worked there.......

Now I have worked around Mechanics, Fishermen, Drukin Long shoremen, and dock workers all my life.....

Boy's, I said, Capt. Ed in all his infinate stupid wisdom has put me over here as your manager, I know all of you already......

He has given me the right to fire anyone of you, or replace the whole God Dam lot of you......

He wants his boats fishing, not laid to this dock......

Now I don't think any one of you right now has the fault, I have seen what is going on here for the last many months......

You have lacked good leadership, I intend to change that.....

Now if you want to keep your jobs, you are going to have to work with me, not against me, am I clear?

How many of you here are certifyed Diesel mechanics?

That is what I thought, not a one.......

We will restrict ourselves to B and C grade repairs on engines, all the class A things for now, Ring Power and Coastal Power (the local Caterpillar and Dietroit Diesel dealerships) will do under my supervsion.

There is just too much wench work and welding work, pulleys and belts and sprocket and chain work among other things for us to be worried about....

I will look at each job myself, appraise it, and leave it to you, after you are finished, I will inspect it for quality in workmanship.....

Quality is what I want, I will not bother you over time, unless I see you are Fukcing around, I know it takes longer to work on a boat than it does a bulldozer, but I want it to work well when you finish with it.....

Am I clear on everything?....

Yes they all said......

I replaced nobody, just gave them praise over good work, and chewed their asses if they messed up, in private....

It was a good group of young, and middle aged men, some of them older than I.

We in the South affectionatly refer to each other as "Boys" when addressing a group of two or more, and is a BIG compliment, if you are one of the "boy's" you are in the "Click"..........

And the Nick names that were there before I started, here are some of them......

Donkey Dick Andy, I never saw, and could give a $hit, but was good at replaceing towing blocks, rigging blocks, and the overhauling of them...

Half Baked Mike..... A lite skinned mulatto of African and Europen desent, that knew whenches better than any one of them, he was a local....

Rebel... A redheaded man from Pennsylvania that could swap out starters, altenerators, PTO's (power take off) clutches and marine transmissions, purdy dam quick when he wanted too....

I heard dat.... A coal black Gechie from SC that could weld a chicken turd to a tobacco stick and it stay put.......

Fat Back....Ahhh Fat Back, a St.Augustine boy, he did electrical work, was kinda stout and I would catch him cooking up some seafood bycatch, as in cob shrimp or lobsters, in the galleys of the boats sometimes when he was "Testing" the electric ovens and generator sets on some of the boats... I got invited when I caught him....

That Fukcin' Otto..... Now this was a charictor, an olive complected Eyetallian long hair from NJ, smoked his weed, Hell all the younger ones smoked weed, and had a two beer and hamburger lunch up to the the "Sailors Choise" resturant, and ran the floating dry dock, and was good at it, full of energy he was, all I had to do was leave him alone, and give him some encouragement, he knew what to do and did it well....

Blame,....Blaine was his name, a local boy who lived with his widowed father, had been to Bolivia with him, worked on a ranch there, absolutely loved his doublebarreled shotgun, Bulldog, 4 wheel drive Ford pickup, and his air boat......

Took me one time Gatorin' I don't think it was zackly legal, but who am I to ask questions?, we did later eat that fishy tasteing gator tail that was almost like chicken.......

Pelirecan..... a Preuto Rican that did electronic work on the radios ETC... got that name for going up the booms and masts without a safety harness to work on the anteneas and wireing of said, when I left him to his own resources.....

They were a DAM good group of Boys' they just needed to be turned loose on jobs, prioritize what needed done, get out of their way, and quality check, nothing more.....

Not hold them back as the other manager had done with petty bull $hit trying to micro manage things he knew nothing about.....
.................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................

Needless to say we wern't long in turning the yard around and putting Capt. Ed's boats back to work......

He was shickled tittless, and so were I and the boy's..... We all got raises.......I told Capt. Ed I would not accept one without the boys in the yard too..

Dorothy grew like a weed, but had a hard time getting her to eat real food when them teeth started coming out.......

Boy did I love Char Broiled rib eyes over the coals, not a lot of steak, but when you have a bunch of stuff to go with it, potatoes with sour cream and chives, big 'ole salad with graded chedder cheese on it and real bacon bits, and galons of sweet Iced tea.....

Uuuu Weee, when you shoved yourself away from the table, it was the table that moved.......

When I did get her to eating a bit off my plate in her high chair, some of her first words were.....More Take (steak) Daddy...

I have to gather myself a bit now, this story is hard to write....

Ok I have taken a break, back to it....

We, Judy and Dorothy and I would go to the Indian river, and grub up clams for a chowder along the shore, Judy would stay in the shade and Dorothy and I would go out to her neck in the water and find the clams, she was not afraid of nothing with me.....

Took to the water like a duckling......

I would root out the clams and she would take the shell stock to the shore and come running back for more....

One time I purposly backed off to where it was over her head, and when she went down with her eyes open, I grabbed her, she just laughed and giggled, and we went back to clammin'......

She could not swim in those days, but I had taught her to lay on her back, relax and float, you can do that in salt water by keeping your lungs full of air.

A quick exhale and a deep inhale, will keep your head above water......

When we got home, I would ask, hey guy's, what we gone fix today? the Red (Manhatten) or the White, (New England) clam chowder....

If there was a toss up, which there uassaly was, Judy liked the Red, and Dorothy liked the White, I would just fix both while Judy grilled some chickens or something......

A bottle of white wine, between Judy and myself, and some Alleygator Aid for Dorothy, and we were all happy campers.....

One thing sticks out in my mind here, as Dorothy and I were shucking the clams one time, she told me.....

Daddy, if you ever need me, call me, and I will come to you.... I don't know what her little mind was thinking at the time.....

That has come to my thoughts a million times over the years....

I managed the Yard for something over two years, and was home just about every night, once in a while we had an emergency with one of the boats but not often....

The Shell pile, as we called it......

10 miles or more wide and 60 miles or more long north and south...... In front of Canaveral, Calicos had died of old age there for centuries, starting 20 miles from the beach, and out to the drop off of the Continintal shelf into the Gulf Stream......

It was an eddy of sorts, the Gulf Stream North bound to the east, and a South bound "Counter Current" inshore to the west.....

Rich in micro neutriants because of the Revolving currents there, and you could always get on to something, if you looked around a little bit......

The boats were not doing anything in the line of production, nobody was breaking off any big limbs, they were working, but all the really good Captains had moved on to other things because it was scrappy fishing.......

Capt. Ed was having another kaniption fit.... Low production.....

He called another meeting, and of course I was invited.....

Again Capt. Ed was livid, he had a habit of flying off the handle when things didn't go Capt. Ed's way......

Hell one time he called over the phone to the shucking/processing plant to talk to his oldest son Ricky who was manager there.

Nobody was in the office, a dock worker heard the phone and answered it.........

I want to talk to Ricky he said, Ok just a minute, said the dock worker, I will get him, and pushed the Hold button......

Hell flew into Capt. Ed.... He got into his pickup truck and drove over to the plant.......

Went into the chicken $hit of a dockside office, snached up the phone right there in front of God and everybody and smached it......

My Name is Capt.Ed he said, ....NOBODY puts me on hold........

Back to the meeting....

Boy's he said, they ain't no Calicos coming into the plant enough to feed a sick cat.

Little info break here.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_calico_scallop

Cape Canaveral, Florida has been reported as the center of abundance in the range of calico scallops, and may be a source of supply larvae to areas north of Florida by transport in Gulf Stream currents (Roe et al. 1971). Scallop grounds offshore of Cape Canaveral are among the World's largest, extending from St. Augustine south to Stuart, Florida. Vast scallop beds occur within this area, some measuring over 2,600 feet in length, and 8,600 feet in width (Allen and Costello 1972).

Locomotion:
Scallops are one of only a few Molluscan groups that have the ability to swim actively, especially as a predator avoidance response. Argopecten gibbus, like most scallops, swims horizontally to the substratum by quickly adducting its valves to propel itself on jets of water (Donovan et al 2004). Examinations of shell morphometry in relation to swimming ability in scallops found that the relatively thinner shell and slight left convexity of the left (upper) valve generate more lift during swimming, and thus produce the long range swimming ability and speed of Argopecten gibbus, which may swim as much as 9 body lengths per second (Stanley 1970; Donovan et. al. 2004) Small scallops tend to swim more actively than larger ones.

Now back to the meeting.....

Capt. Ed said, I have put each and every one of you on a quarter of a million dollar boat, and wouldn't trust a God Damn one of you with my pick up truck, because I know you will get drunk up the street and fukc it up....

Now we going to have to get off our asses and catch some Calicos or all this is finished......

Silence in the Captains Quarters again, and noboby wanted to say anything.....

So once again 'ole John the Baptist spoke out.....

Capt. Ed, I said, these boy's can't catch what ain't there, tie your boats to the dock or send them shrimping.....

I knew something that Capt. Ed didn't, he was a crabber, and not a Calico scalloper, but I kept it to myself......

In all honesty I wanted his boats to do something else, and leave the beds alone, there was going to be another Hay Day coming up soon.......

There was a hugmonguas crop of Calicos offshore that were young and growing, and only needed some time left alone to grow, they only had 24 month life cycles.......

The webbing of the nets was big to permit the little ones, and the sand on the bottom where they were located to go out, but a few "Spats" baby calicos were showing in the piles of shell stock brought in for processing......

He didn't know that, stuck over in his office on Merritt Island......

I can't stop, he said, we will not stop, these SOB's move, (talking about the Calicos) and we have to find them, so boy's put 'em boats to sea and look, look in places you have never been before, but look......

Well, what can I say, he was both right, and wrong at the same time, and he was the boss, and I did get paid every week, and the VIP card to one of his many resturants.....

When I took over the yard the "Big Foot" a fine big steel boat that had a 3412 Cat Engine in it, the engine from it was scattered all over the yard in 10,000 pieces, we had put it all back together after the rest of the boats were fishing, and had the boat back working when that shuttle blew up.....

I stood there and watched it (the Chalenger) go all to pieces in the air soon after take off, less than a mile from the launch pad....

When they lit the fuse under them basturds it shook the ground, and called everybody's attention for miles around....

What POWER mankind had amassed there to throw 'em things up into outter space...

Watching them at night was absolutely Fantastic close up......

If I remember right it was a cold ass January morning for Canaveral, there was a scattering of ice on the deck of some of the boats, very unuasll, and the sealing rings in it somewhere didn't fit right because of the ambiante tempreture.....

Please over look any time frame errors I have, but my feet were on the ground.....

NASA leased the "Big Foot" from Capt. Ed to drag the bottom for wreakage......

The area was sealed off by the US Navy, the Calico boats could go South, or way North, but not out front......

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I got to meet Scott Carpenter the astronaut for a face to face, he and others from NASA went on the "Big Foot" to drag her nets looking for something off that shuttle, my ex crew member Herbie was on the boat as part of the crew to work the boat for them......

Look like they had a hand held electronic divice unheard of in those days in the private sector, and told the captain and crew to drag here and there looking for wreckage.....

Many of the the rocket crowd lost their jobs, homes and trappings of the good life over that accident, and things could be bought for next to nothing which was a dam shame, their batting average was way above average for successes.... Some of the most brillant minds in our country, and I met many.....

And they brought plenty salvage back on the Big Foot, one section of the dock was sealed off and the Pettybone Craine from the yard was used in a lot of cases to load the parts and pieces on trucks to be taken off somewhere......

Capt. Ed was a hot tempered SOB, and I was too, we did get in an agrument, when I quit and got fired at the same time.....

One of his boats, the "Surprize" that we all affectionately called the "Enterprize" came back to the dock and I got a call at 3AM from its Captain, with complaints of the engine miss fireing, and no power..........

I went to the yard and trouble shot the engine, all 6 cylinders had compression, took the injector nozzles from it and in my personal truck, went over to the local Cat dealership branch and waited till they opened at 7 AM......

When the manager got there we bench tested them and 2 were bad......

Got the replacements, went back to the boat and installed them, same exact missing, which pointed to the main injection pump as being the problem....

Now dispite what anyone might think, Reputable Dealerships are not going to take advantage of their customers, they want you to have a low cost of operation, so you will brag about it to others and repete your business with them....

That is the whole logic of certyfing their mechanics......

When "Rebel" got there, I told him, pull that pump and get it over to Cats injection lab, I am going for breakfast.....

Now 'ole Auge an 'ole boy from NJ that had been running the fuel dock, he had a "6 Pack" Captains license which is really nothing to brag about, now if you are talking unlimited tonnage and open ocean, that will get my attention.

Unknown to me, he wanted my job......

Only me, Lester Todd, Ricky, Capt. Ed's son, and Red Beard, had those high paying managerial jobs, out of his some 400 employees....

You know, there are some people that can only look good in the business world, by trying to make others around them look bad.....

Auge had direct contact to Capt. Ed, and used it.....

Called and told Capt. Ed about 9 AM while I was gone to breakfast, without ever even looking at the engine on the Surprize, I had ordered the main injection pump to go to the lab, and you know when them people get a hold of it, it is a 2 or 3K repair bill....

Well hell flew into Capt. Ed......

Buzzed my beeper, John, Call the office.....

When I called he jumped on my $hit with both feet, and it pissed me right off, I was about ready to make a change anyway and go back fishing....

I knew there was Calicos coming along offshore and could earn more than manageing the yard, by running a boat......

Capt. Ed said, what the hell I got to do? Come over there and Trouble Shoot those engines myself?

Every time a fuel pump goes to the lab it costs me a pile of money.....

Hey, I said, you can do that if you want to Capt Ed, tell you what, I give you my 2 weeks notice right now.......

Fukc your 2 weeks notice he said, pack your $hit and get.....

So I did, and Auge got the job that morning......

By that afternoon, Capt. Ed was calling my home, but I wasn't there......

One 'ole boy from Alabama one of Capt. Ed's Calico Captains had been after me to put together a 8V 71 Dietroit engine for him that was in 10,000 pieces, for him and his father for a long time in a small boat they had.

I went and saw him and his dad made a deal and started the next morning putting their engine back together......

When I went home for lunch, Judy told me Capt. Ed wants me to call him, John, he has been calling from yesterday..... I didn't return the call, still pissed with the man.......

I told Judy... if he calls while I am here, I am not at home..... I am working....

When he called again and was told I was working, he wanted to know where, oh I don't know Judy said, somewhere doing an engine job....

In less than 4 hours Capt. Ed had found out that Auge didn't know what he was talking about, had lied to him and gotten hired and fired in a farts spel.......

Got to be somekind of a worlds record there.....

Even lost his position at running the fuel dock....

That evening Capt. Ed came to my home and rang the doorbell....

John, can I come in and talk to you?

Sure man, come on in, take a sit on the settee, what you got on your mind?

He said, you know I hired and fired Auge yesterday for lieing to me.....

That is his problem Capt. Ed...

Capt.Ed was the age of my father, and had EARNED that tittle and the respect that goes with it even though he was only Capt. of his own crab boat in the Indian River from his origins, everyone respected it and he was a leader of men.

I think he would have kicked Sherman's A$$ had he been a Civil War General... And he would have been a General...

No it's not he said, it is my problem, and I have come here to apoligize to you, I want you back over there running my yard, all those men over there would fight for you, from them I started the investigation into the truth and then called CATERPILLAR, you were right on the money.....

Capt. Ed, I said, don't you remember, just before you fired me, I quit? I am not going back to that yard knowing what I know.....

John what are you going to do? you need to do something......

Capt. Ed, I think I am going to see Bill Lambert and see if he can't get me a boat to fish.....

Now with just those words, I had ***** Slapped Capt. Ed as hard as possable.......

Bill Lambert was never a boat Captain, but he was a leader of men...

He absolutly Hated Bill Lambert, the Calico King of that era.....

Bill was a Carolinaman, and had been partners with Homer Smith when it all got started in the late 60's, Bill and Homer started it, Capt. Ed even though it was in his backyard, was a Johnny come lately, a riverman, he didn't even know the resource was there till Bill and Homer with a group of Carolinamen found it.......

Capt. Ed and Bill would both pee in the basin and tell on each other to the EPA.....

Hired each others key people back and forth till the key workers were making crazy money....

Had lawsuits against each other for it, coming out the ears.....

If I had right now what they spent on Lawyers fighting, I wouldn't hit a lick at a snake....

I don't know what Bill was doing at the time but I imagine it was better than Capt. Ed.....

On a good run of Calico's, Capt Ed's sales of the meats was 150K per day 24/7 and about 240-280 days of this a year, with weather factored in.....

But Canaveral was Capt. Ed's back yard, he was a home boy, and he didn't like outsiders unless they were working for him....

John, he said, you want a boat, I'll put you on a boat, I got some dickheads that need replacing anyway.....

No Capt.Ed, that 35% share of yours is not attractive to me any more, all us Carolinamen share 50/50 after expences, and hell, I don't know, I haven't talked to Bill yet, he might know of a boat I can work off, and it be mine...... another verbal ***** slap...

That was often done to get a good man to take a boat and hussle with it, most never paid out, and if they did, went right back into the hole (debt) with the man, when fishing got bad, but there was not only a cash flow, but seafood hitting the dock at times they would otherwise not have because the boy's working the boats, were pushing the boat, and they took better care of it.....

John, I'll tell you what, after thinking about it a minute, I just have bought a tupperware tub on a drug sale from the US Government cheap, I got 15K in it right now, how are you fixed for money?

Can you go 2 or 3 months without a pay day? testing me, he knew dam well, I was not a Cocaine sniffing dopey....

Yes why, what have you got on your mind, putting my cards on the table.....

Take the boat, fix it and rig it out and put her to fishing, any and all money I have in it or we put in it, when she pays us back, we are partners in it 50/50, but she will work for me, I get all the Calico product that you land at shell stock price.....

The price of the meats was not only market driven, but at times the market was monipulated by Bill Lambert, Homer Smith, and Capt. Ed...... I will tell about this in the next chapter.....

He had been true to his word before, other than being a basturd and flying off the handle on a lie from another lower manager and came to my home and apoligized, so we shook hands on the deal......

[John Wayne]

Ahhhh, the vessel ONA, I later started calling her the OH NO.... because I put it on the rest of Capt. Ed's fishermen's asses with her, except for one , and him once in a while.......

She had chicken **** nets and spreader doors on her stern to try and fool the Coast Guard and the DEA into thinking she was a real fishing boat, which it was gotton away with many times.....

To be honest I don't even remember if the DEA exsisted in those days..... But the Coast Guard did for sure....

She had buckets of different colered paint, 5 gallon buckets of it and rollers on broom handles to change colores and name stencles in the Lazzerette (Stern) of her...

She had 7 different layers of colors of cheap paint over her Jelcoated basic white hull from the yard she was built at, in St. Augustine.....

The US Coast Guard caught her off of Caneveral with a swinging load of Marijuana, I mean all she would carry below deck......

It was stuffed everywhere they could get a bale in, even the crews quarters......They had to even sleep on bales....

In the fore peak and the engine room as well, she probably had three trailer truck loads on her....

It was crazy... but this is what happened.....

She had been down to offshore of an Island off Veneseula, and took on the load......

On the way back to some seclueded inlet and dock prearanged in the States, she started taking on water thru her propeller shaft stuffing box....

They couldn't get to it to fix it for the load in the way, what stupidos.........

The Marijuana got in the bildges and stopped up the bildge pumps, they couldn't get the water out of her......

The Captain and mate abandonded the boat in front of Canaveral about 20 miles offshore right in the middle of ligetimate fishing boats with the life boat, and sneeked ashore leaving the two crew members aboard...... Honorable men they were.....

The crew didn't know where they were, and started calling the Coast Guard afraid for their lives on the VHF radio........

Hey, when you put out a MAYDAY at sea..... Our People will respond..... And I mean right now....

Thank You United States Coast Guard, although at times I thought you were a pain in the A$$ with your inspections, but working on the water it was nice to know.... You are always there....

The US Coast Guard out of Canaveral homed in on them with their RDF's (Radio Directiional Finders) and responded to the Mayday call immedantly.....

They saved it all, the men, the boat, and its load, which was later distroyed, and the boat put up for auction, and the two men aboard procisicuted.......

The Captain and mate got away, and because it was written up in the news papers, the money men South of the Border, knew they wern't just ripped off and continuted on their business as usall, and I guess nobody died over the incidence....

What they really need to do in the "War" on drugs, is just take it away, destroy it and be real quite about it, and let them go, but deport the non US citezens, perhaps just one at the time to give the money men time to think they had been Fukced and react accordlingly... Let the Basturds kill each other...... I could give a $hit.....

I was young and strong in those days, and long winded, and could work circles around lesser men that had little self motivation, always working for the man on a chicken $hit salery...

Took the marine transmission out of her and sent it to Hicksville (Jacksonville Fla.) to a reputable "Twin Disc" dealer to be overhauled, put the boat on Otto's dry dock, sandblasted all that drug running paint off of her and painted her back in basic white with black trim to blend with the Carolina boats to be nondiscript, I knew they would be coming back down soon, I wanted everyone to guess who was way over there and not know for sure......

Did a cutlass bearing and propellar repair, and a bottom anti fouling paint job, and the Keel cooler repairs for the engine, the rudder and rudder post, and threw her back in the water.

And then overhauled the main engine myself with a helper.......

I went over that boat from her anchor to her stern..... Left out no details....

Had State of the art electronics installed on the Bridge with radio scramblers for talking, which I did very little of, and went fishing....

You could say the boat was a brand new baby....

The Calicos offshore had grown to comerical size, and I had a hay day, worked her off in about 4 months.....

I put my part of the money in South African kugerands, Capt Ed got them from somewhere because he was staching them away himself, I put mine in a rented lock box at his bank.

I knew there was a bad day coming, there always is fishing, I lived on my Captains share, absouletly no one knew of our araingment, not even his son, who was about my age.......

Judy's car was still doing well, but Florida had changed it's insurance laws and considered my old Chevy pickup to be a risk and it was'nt worth it to have it classifyed as an antique and go thru all that hassel...

Being her Toyota had been serving so well, went back to the same dealership and bought me a new pick up with all the trimmings....

Plain jane white in color and air cond. powerful steering and heavy duty radial tires......

Judy and Dorothy would meet me at the dock, I had a radio to my house and they would grocery shop for the boat for me, take the crew's laundry and have it done and the next day have it with them.....

Judy got to drinking again a bit on the vodka.... I didn't need any.....

I got high on being almost top dawg..... My family had everything, but I had married the ONA, I was never home anymore unless bad weather came up, where before, Judy and I were always on the boat together.....**** you have to make hay while the sun is shinning......

Lester Todd a good 'ole Mississippi boy, again a man of my fathers age, Capt of the fleet, would often ask me over the radio, John the Baptist, I just had so-n-so boat drop out, can you take his spot?

That I can, and it would jump me anywhere from 2 to 8 hours ahead of schedule on the line up, which I then kept that till it happened again, and I would jump again.....

Sometimes a boat would come in with a light load that had been looking and haden't done much, and all of us would be asked if we could jump schedules to the plant....

Sometimes I got two or three trips in for the week more than some of the other boats.......

I had found a bed close in to the South a bit and 15 miles off the beach, and left them alone, I could make a 12 hour trip dock to dock in there in a tight, I kept my mouth shut and my pilot/mate knew if he put anything over the radio his ass was fired.....

If any saw me in there they just thought it was a Shrimp boat that far inshore....

Capt. Jim Finley on the "Big Foot" was the top dawg, his boat was twice the size of mine in tonage and more power and bigger nets.....

But I made his drukin ass push it.....

He and I were always put to the top of the list after a blow of bad weather because we would lead the fleet when every one else was letting the NOAA weather forcasts scare them......

I and Jim talked about it one time, we agreed, piss on that small craft warnings being in effect, we are not small craft,.... the end of the weather forcast is what counts.... no hurricanes expected in the next 48 hours..... and it paid off, we got brused and beat around a bit, but we made money......

We were the leaders in a group of followers..... to our backs the rest of the Captains called us the "Golden Boy's" and some even called us "Brown Nosers" to the Fleet Captain.......Lester ignored that, we were the hot dogs and made him look good too...

We were friends and would exchange fishing information only at the dock face to face, nothing went over the radio, it was like telling the world if you put anything on the air on the VHF, voice scrambler or no scrambler.......

I got tickled one time, but Capt. Ed flew into a fit over it and wanted to know who was the asshole......

Wild Bill Lambert liked to play with a voice activated tape recorder......

One time when we were out in the pond as we called the Atlantic Ocean, it started getting real nasty weather and Jim reported back in...

"Tell Capt. Ed we need to stop the fleet can't nobody work in this ****" ...

And it was bad, and showed no signs we could tell, of it letting up....

Jim's words was recorded by Bill, he had the same scramblers also...... Money talks...

When just a small poof of wind came up and we had gone out in it, Jim and I talked over the CB where most had to be very close to hear us talking, and had the other radios turned down to keep from hearing the rest talk ****, complaining about a little bouncing around.....

Bill played that recording over our channel, and stopped the whole dam fleet.....

He would often do that with a bad weather forcast too.... Boy did he love Fukcing with Capt. Ed...

Capt. Ed had a kiniption fit...... A lot of the boys went home or to the bars to drink thinking it was so, but it was purdy out there in the pond, a little rough, but not bad at all....

Now Bill and Capt. Ed as I said earlier were enemies, hell I don't know who started it, but it did effect us all, Capt. Ed and Bill's fishermen......

And Bill, they called him Wild Bill, was a shrude man, he could play nasty sometimes, these were two men with plenty of money.....

Wild Bill, had started Southern Seafood there, and during a lull in the production one year, sold it to an outfit from Texas that had a fleet of 15 steel boats, and signed a no compete clause with them, giving the empression he was going to retire.......

Went right up the road, right under Capt. Ed's nose, was side by side neighbors with his plant, and built another plant, and put it in his son in laws name, and opened right back up, the Calico King, Wild Bill had won.

Sold the old plant Southern Seafood inc. for 10 times or more than what it was worth, to the Texans, old wore out shucking equptment that was custom made in a machine shop that Bill owned.

Bill held the method patients on all of it, and they had to find somebody who could fix it, Wild Bill took his key workers with him........

Calicos are small and for it to be cost efficitive, the meats need to be shucked by machernery that Bill had invented with Homer and another 'ole boy, a machinest from Ohio, hand shucking 'em wouldn't get the job done......

About 80 to the pound of the meats, which is the largest I know of, to 180 to the pound, the smallest they wanted us to work, the smaller ones were young but mature....

One time Capt. Ed turned Wild Bill into the EPA for having standing water on his dockside operation causing flies to breed and grow.

The EPA went and took pictures for evidance, right then, at Capt. Ed's urgeing....

It wasn't so, but they were a thorn in each others side, Capt.Ed and Wild Bill....

When it went to court, Bill pulled out pictures of the same EPA agents that were wittnesses, standing in the rain taking their pictures of them taking pictures, case dismissed......

So Wild Bill says...Uh huh..... Watch me....

Calico meats were dirt cheap at that time, we were having to bring in a $hit load to make a buck......

What Capt. Ed couldn't sell because all of us there in Canaveral were really glutting the market, he was putting in Central Florida Cold storage for later, knowing there was going to be a dry time, it was like money in the bank.......

The shell stock price went really down.....

Red Lobster was the biggest buyer of them in those days, they are really nice Scallop meats, and were distributed all over the US and Canada....

Capt. Ed was shucking 200 gallons of meats an hour with his operation, mostly all mechinized, but it did take a lot of help for even that.....

What did Wild Bill do?

He started trucking most of his shell stock with a cap of ice on top to hold them for the transport to North Carolina from Canaveral, and shucking them there in NC, with a plant he had there where it all started, and putting the meats in cold storage there, and marked as product of NC......

When he got up a big supply in the cold storage there.......

He put out a convinceing rumor to the buyers, that the Calicos from Canaveral had parisites in them with his marine biologests advisors to back him up...

Hell all seafood has parisites, once you cook it, they done as a human risk.....

Nearly Killed Capt. Ed's business, he couldn't sell $hit, but it did get back on the right track eventually, now I am talking about a Multi Million dollar cluster fukc perhaps 10 million or more, hell I don't know, but it was a big blow to all of us working in and out of Caneveral at the time........

Oh God, did they fight..... Worse than El D and HC could ever imagine...... And I got a kick out of it, as I do with them.....

So Capt. Ed gets another bright Idea, ........ to put it on Wild Bills A$$ for that parisite thing....

He bought a small tug boat and three 100 X 30 foot barges, and started hauling all the effulent from his plant out to sea......

Boy's he said, at a Captains meeting, the sport fishermen gone love us, famous last words.... ROTFLMAO right now looking back...

Sometimes I think Capt. Ed was brain dead, Sporties ain't never loved Commerical fishermen, no matter what, there was always a fight between them from before I was born, most of the time, they are saying the same thing, but just arguing about it, and then they each get the Government involved to regulate things, and who has the most votes wins, and it would have been better to just come to an agreement and stick to it, it would have been much cheaper on the taxpayers anyway IMHO......

Now all three plants were dumping their waste water and Calico guts in the basin, and a resource of mullet grew from it like hell, imagine, ball up your fist, and to your elbow, even on a big man, was the size of the fish grown from it, 100% organic and natural food supply for them.....

It was an ecofriendly resource that grew from the operations, God is my wittness, the Basin did not stink at all, young boy's and old men made good money from cast netting from row skiffs on the mullet and selling them.......

And what few cruse ships working in and out of Canaveral, only two of three at the time and not big ones, were not complaining.......

People loved going to Capt. Ed's waterfront waterfront reaturant, all glass encased and airconditioned on the bottom, and the wide open "Poop Deck" above, to watch the Calico boats unload next door, and the boy's and old men catching the mullet milling around the plants discharge pipes.....

It was most always crowded, and if the inner turning basin and the plants right next door had been stincking, it would not have been that way.....

So Capt. Ed goes and Fukcs all that up, getting back at Wild Bill with his barge operations, over the Parisite cluster Fukc.........

Each one just thinking bigger and bigger, to ***** slap the other, and use the State and Federal Government to do it......

At another Captains meeting Capt. Ed told us, and these were his words, this was a private meeting and what went on there inside those Oaken doors was not to be repeted outside of them, under punishment of banashment from his group.....

Boy's, he said, that fukcin' Wild Bill, cost us plenty money on that useless Parisite scare, and I know all of you suffered over it with the drop in shell stock price here at Caneveral......

He did it on purpose to hurt us all.....

But we got his sorry ass now, grinning like a $hit eating dog, we are now hauling our scraps back out to sea outside of Florida juristcion into Federal waters, where we catching the God Damn things.....(Calicos)

Capt. Ed was one of us, he walked the walk, and talked the talk to us.....

I just put in a claim he said, to the EPA to both the State and Federal governments, about both him, and Southern Seafood dumping their scraps into the basin.....

And still the Sporties hated us for feeding their fin fish offshore....

It was about then that Judy told me there was another bun in the oven, she was pregnant again.......

Dorothy had about 3 or 4 years.......

Please excuse any discrepsinces in time frames, I am going on Memory here, and my memory sucks when it comes to time frames, and my night vision ain't so good either........

Continued...................................