'Previous Lives'

In what feels as if happened in a previous life, but wasn't, I had the very good fortune to serve as an 'Ordinary Seaman' on the US merchant ship the freighter USS Ulysses S. Grant, one of the ships belonging the The US Presidents Line.  I boarded the ship in Brooklyn, NY, sailed westward around the world, and disembarked in Brooklyn about three and a half months later. I managed to get permission to re-enter college ten days or so late.

I got the job through The Sailors Union of the Pacific, the SUP. I knew someone who knew someone; isn't it ever so? I knew Clarence Morse, a lawyer for the Pacific Maritime Association, who knew Morris Weissberger, head of the SUP, a labor union. Later, Clarence Morse worked for the US Government Maritime department. I don't know anymore how important the US regards maintaining a large merchant fleet for defense. Troops were sent to Korea, for example, and returned to USA by ship. Now, probably, such transport is all done by huge planes or Navy ships.

Altogether I had thirteen and a half months actual sea time through the SUP, time spent first on oil tankers, out of San Francisco, then an ore ship, then freighters. I wasn't a full union member, I had a 'Permit.' Good unions police their own ranks. I never saw anyone misbehave, show up drunk, or miss the ship. 

I did perpetrate a prank on the 'Grant.' Using my boots I outlined foot prints onto the pages of Life Magazine, painted them black, cut the 'prints' out, then, while at sea in the middle of the night, using paint the color of the mast as glue, placed the foot prints up the mast directly in front of the wheelhouse. I was not seen. Officially, nobody was named the culprit, but the Boatswain did wink at me.

Barry