Melting bricks, Easter and a parade missed

A sea story:

"Once upon a ti...." er, this ain't no shit:

1978. It was a good time to be a sailor on the good ship USS Blueridge. It was the second year of Jimmy Carter's Love Boat Navy. At that time I was tasked, as a seaman, to do all the gritty work, like painting, waxing floors, sweeping and such, all stuff that I came to love and that came to serve me well later on as a supervisor in my shop. But at that time, once the work was done, I got to fuck off a lot. I found myself, at the beginning of the year, as a mess man, working the floor of the enlisted men's mess deck. We worked hard but we partied a lot, too, and what made it even better was the light hours we had once we got into port.

The Navy turned into a sort of travel agency for me at that time. The first of the year took us down south to Acapulco. There I had myriad off the wall adventures, including being hit on by two old jotos who had a dandy house on the edge of the cliff where the acclaimed cliff divers went to do their thing. Walking, or rather, running away from that bad scene I twisted my ankle, not a cool thing when you are broke and the neighborhood was about as bad as it could get. And this was the night after almost getting busted coming back on board with cannabis in my match box.

From there we went back to San Diego for donut drills but soon departed to San Francisco where we did our best to buy pot and acid from truly bad news street dealers in North Beach. I had many shipmates who came from that part of the world and so for a week or so had mighty good times in and around the Bay area. From there we continued on our way up the coast, Tiger Crew style, this time to the mouth of the Columbia River and on up to Portland, Oregon, to be part of Fleet Week and the Portland Rose Festival.

The biggest bummer of the whole experience was that our antennae mast was too tall to allow us passage up to the heart of the festival. We couldn't make it past the bridge close to the railroad terminal and had to moor out in the industrial section of town. While the rest of the invited fleet got up close and personal with the crowds near the midway, we were way the hell outside of all the action in town. It meant long taxi rides or, worse, long walks back to the ship in a variety of states of mind. No matter, we were young, swaggering, swinging dicks and those walks, after nights of hard partying, always did us good.

Portland is a great town. Back then it was mighty gritty, but there was Powell's, great places to eat, fabulous beers (thanks, Henry Weinharts!) and plenty of old theaters that played classic films, like Treasure of the Sierra Madre, something that my pal Arch and I couldn't pass up.

While we were there one of my shipmates, Jay, went off to visit his people in Yoncalla, a long ass haul from Portland. But the distance we could make away from our navy life, as well as the adventure, beckoned once were invited out to have supper with his family. So, early on a Friday Nick, Willy and I decided to take a Greyhound bus out to see him. Jay felt he could meet us in Eugene, about half way, so we went downtown, bought round trip tickets and took off to the fabled college town to meet him.

Now, meeting a guy and his gal in a new town filled with wild student  hippie types was going to be a challenge for us no matter what. We were used to having really negative experiences with the locals there in San Diego and were wondering what kind of reception we would get once we got into town. To help protect us from any bad vibes we might encounter and to help make us somewhat invisible we each took a nice fat hit of some mighty fine San Francisco blotter acid. What made that move so interesting is that we found ourselves at the back of the bus, right in the midst of some of these savage hippy school girls we so wondered about and feared. We soon found ourselves slowly getting stoned while engaged in great conversation, and before our heads really launched into outer space, managed to get addresses and phone numbers from those girls just in case we ever found ourselves in Eugene again.

No matter, we arrived in one piece but were rapidly falling apart. We were fairly well lit when we wandered out onto the street outside the terminal. I have no idea how Willy found the sense to drop a dime and call our shipmate but he did, and this was right before we decided to go stroll a bit around town. Right now I have no idea where the bus station is in relation to the student quarter but somehow we got there. Or maybe we did. The whole world was dissolving before our eyes. Brick buildings began to sway in the breeze, melt, twist, crumble and then become whole again before our eyes. Of course, we were raving loons at that point, laughing at nothing and at everything. One thing for certain we were certifiable out of our minds and truly needed to be off the streets.

Lo and behold out of the ether came Jay. He had a concerned look on his face when he found us, as we had wandered a bit from where we had landed. He piled us into his car and began, what must have been for him and his girl, one hell of a long and distracted journey, with three sailors completely loony in the backseat of his car and the whole family waiting to meet us in his home town.

We went on and on about the girls we met on the bus and the melting buildings we saw on the streets. But it was the girls we waxed most poetic about. I am sure that in our minds eye and in our descriptions they looked just like the photo posted below. Who the hell knows who or what we saw but we were pleased that we, lowly sailors of the 7th Fleet, were considered nice enough to be talked to by civilian girls!

We finally got to Yoncalla and to make a long story short we survived. We somehow kept it together enough to sit and have beers with those kind logging folk. We managed to get through dinner without too much mayhem and then, knowing we had a bus to catch, were piled back into the car and sent back down the I-5 to Eugene once more. Jay and his girl played a cassette of Jackson Browne's Running on Empty over and over again that night as we made our way back in the rain. Whenever I hear that album these days I am always whisked away to that night, high but happy knowing we pulled off a truly intergalactic coup.
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To listen and see the whole album, click on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_FRV2Qne0g

Meanwhile we had a bus to catch but at the last minute I decided to stay and look up those girls we met on the way in. Of course, to an oversexed young squiddy I had this image in mind about those gals...

..but in reality, after I found my way to their place they pretty much looked like .....

....just normal, pretty Oregon college girls of the mid 70's. I found their place, after a long wet walk, with a full out party going on. We partied till dawn, or maybe it seemed that way. The folks I was introduced to were cool and living the student life. The warm, welcoming vibe I got from them was different from what I had gotten used to after joining the fleet, something that I hadn't felt or experienced in a long time.

Later that morning we all went out for coffee, bought records at a rummage sale and, finally, knowing we all needed some herbal relief, went out and found a dealer who had some absolutely stunning gold mota for sale. Now, at this time, there was plenty of great Mexican and Colombian around to buy, but without close inspection and a time machine I will never know if what I got that day was Santa Marta or Josephine County Gold. Oh well, any port in a storm!

My Oregon hippy friends helped me find the bus terminal and that evening I was back on my way to Portland, with good memories, an ounce or two of gold and a few albums, including Leo Kottke's first, in my satchel.

Well, Fleet Week was still happening and we still had many things to do. A shipmate from my shop had a family who lived there in Portland. I had no idea that this player had a wife and kids but he did and he invited us all to his crib for a Sunday dinner. We loaded up a carload of us and went across town, but on the way I had to stop and buy more albums to go along with all the beer and booze we had gathered up. One of the albums I snagged was a fairly new one on the market, Easter by the Patti Smith Group. I hadn't listened to it before but was moving in the direction of punk and so felt it was going to be the party album we all needed to hear that day.

Well, we had no weed on the scene so before we got too lit we went back across town and went on board the ship to secure a bit of the gold I bought the day before. The boat was alive with tourists who found us way down the river. And my stash, well, it was in the shop, of all places. I felt it was not going to be much of a hassle as we were a secure space and off limits to civilians but who should be in there but BOB! Bob, an old alky gone straight, had pawned off his time on the beach to one of the guys attending the party. I had to get past him and all his questions to secure my pot, which I had secreted up and away in some monkey shit in the overhead wires. With the help of my pals we managed to distract Bob and get the dope and out of there before anything else went south. Never could tell when a Master at Arms might arrive on the scene!

Back at the crib a full out party was in progress. Not to let a party full of sailors go by without a full out assault on my senses, I jumped in and got going on the local beers, but that was not going to be enough! Tequila was broken out, joints were rolled and the music, mostly soul and funk, blared. I decided, okay, time for some punk and put on Patti's album. Let me ask you, have you ever listened to that album? I hadn't until that moment. Did you know that there is a song on there titled "Rock and Roll Nigger"? Did I happen to mention that my shipmate, the one who was so kind as to invite us all into his house was black?

Let me tell you I've never seen a party stop so fast in my life. I think that the only thing that saved me was that gold mota. We were all so stoned that the only thing we could think to do was laugh. After that the tequila flowed, the music got louder and the party began it;s inevitable wind down. I was told later on that, while standing up against the kitchen wall, I went from a standing 12 o'clock position to one that, straight as a clock hand, went down to the three o'clock, right to the kitchen floor.

We loaded up into the car and went back to the ship. Most of my shipmates went up the gang plank unaided. Me, I got sick as a dog and let loose all that Portland home made bbq and all that tequila. Some guys just never learn.

The rest of the visit went well. Friends came out from Moscow to see the boat and we did, in the end, manage to find our way to the midway and groove on the festival delights. Over the years I have made my way back to Portland and Eugene. I have an opportunity to apply to a job there but hesitate, knowing that there is no going back in time. I had a grand time there while on tour, so much so that it was at the top of my list of places that I would have loved to live in after my service days were over. Little did I know that my travel plans for summer were about to change. Within a week of our trip up north my plans to go to New Orleans with my Chief PO were cancelled., Benj was getting out of the service. Would I like to go and check out Colorado with him?

And that's another story all together.

Salud!



From the Easter album: the video Rock and Roll Nigger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLIkM4wvcC8

and the lyrics:
http://www.metrolyrics.com/rock-n-roll-nigger-lyrics-patti-smith.html

Rolling Stone's review of Easter:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/easter-19780420