When I was a kid in elementary school I read a about the Poseidon, a self-propelled inland barge that was used to transport Saturn V rocket parts and though it was the coolest thing ever.
Fast forward to my mid-thirties, a Tankerman in charge of moving the Space Shuttle tank from Avondale shipyard in New Orleans to Cape Canaveral had to be airlifted off due to an abscessed tooth.
Well no hazardous material can move on or in American waters without a Tankerman, so the vessel stopped in Punta Gorda while they frantically searched for an A-grade licensed Tankerman.
Apparently I was the only one in the entire state of Florida. I was, it happens, 'hiding out' there taking a break from the hustle of Houston in the quiet waters of my home state.
Anyway our tug is dispatched from Miami and there I am taking charge of the vessel in my childhood book. It had the engine ripped out because you know, the Shuttle tank is pretty much a hydrogen bomb under a nitrogen blanket, but there it was just like I remembered from the pictures.
Dang! It's stories like yours that convince me everyone has a cool story to tell, and it sure would be cool if they were all gathered on one website, or one book. Congrats on that moment of opportunity to score on a childhood dream!
Well they are gathered in one place, my front porch, and I can tell you everyone's sick of hearing them here....
I left home when I was fifteen, and floundered, stumbled and otherwise improvised my way through my early life. Even my greatest successes I fell ass backwards into. I went on the waterway on a whim. I harassed a local tug outfit for chance to hit the waves for almost three months before he finally gave me a shot.
I wasn't looking for a career, I wanted to pull a Hemingway, hop a ship or an outbound tug and see where the currents took me. I started as a deckhand on an inland tug making 45 bucks a day and left as an A-grade Inland Tankerman\Offshore Barge Captain in the upper one percent of my profession earning such an obscene amount of money that I didn't even think twice about turning down a tug and barge combination teaching position at SUNY.
When I left the water I could not think of a thing to do with my life that sounded remotely interesting, but then I though all those years on the water,, all those different cities, I spent a lifetime in the back of a taxi.
So I bought a 'Banana Boat' (yellow cab) and found out that taxiing done right was fun as hell. Knowing the pulse of your city, watching the experienced hands and raiding off them like a pirate, and racing at break neck speed to through t he city to scoop your competition was the most semi-legal fun you could have on land!
I went from an owner operator, to a taxi-manager at a competitor, to opening my own company in less than four years. When I finally sold off that company(messy divorce), it took fifteen different cab companies to fill the void!
I was a soldier at 17, a tug hand at twenty, a business owner in my forties (and at the same time a volunteer haz chem officer for the fire department), and a dozen or so things in between. I welded at Texas 21 a night club owned by custom car guy Big Daddy Roth who hired me personally, a Bouncer\Security man for WIMBA Women's International Beauty Association in Anaheim (where I got a Revlon girl story, I just might tell later, much later) and a crap ton more experiences that come from a nearly two decades of spending my off water time doing odd ball jobs with my friends out sheer boredom.
I'm now at the tale end of my fifties where my wife and I work in semi retirement. She writing bible curriculum and me doing 3d graphic art when I am not restoring my 1870s era home.
Yeah I got a ton of stories. Still won't get me a cup of joe on the open market. Just another 'oppressive', 'privileged' white dude to the world at large it seems.
But oh well, at least you were amused, and reminiscing without the eye-rolling from the younger set is I suppose, a reward in of itself.
WOW. That's amazing! That proves to me that more people ought to share their life story/write a biography.. . I bet you'd fill a book with taxi stories too! AND met Roth! Very cool! A Revlon girl story, lol, I'm looking forward to that!
When I was a kid in elementary school I read a about the Poseidon, a self-propelled inland barge that was used to transport Saturn V rocket parts and though it was the coolest thing ever.
ReplyDeleteFast forward to my mid-thirties, a Tankerman in charge of moving the Space Shuttle tank from Avondale shipyard in New Orleans to Cape Canaveral had to be airlifted off due to an abscessed tooth.
Well no hazardous material can move on or in American waters without a Tankerman, so the vessel stopped in Punta Gorda while they frantically searched for an A-grade licensed Tankerman.
Apparently I was the only one in the entire state of Florida. I was, it happens, 'hiding out' there taking a break from the hustle of Houston in the quiet waters of my home state.
Anyway our tug is dispatched from Miami and there I am taking charge of the vessel in my childhood book. It had the engine ripped out because you know, the Shuttle tank is pretty much a hydrogen bomb under a nitrogen blanket, but there it was just like I remembered from the pictures.
It was probably the coolest moment of my career.
Dang! It's stories like yours that convince me everyone has a cool story to tell, and it sure would be cool if they were all gathered on one website, or one book.
DeleteCongrats on that moment of opportunity to score on a childhood dream!
Well they are gathered in one place, my front porch, and I can tell you everyone's sick of hearing them here....
DeleteI left home when I was fifteen, and floundered, stumbled and otherwise improvised my way through my early life. Even my greatest successes I fell ass backwards into. I went on the waterway on a whim. I harassed a local tug outfit for chance to hit the waves for almost three months before he finally gave me a shot.
I wasn't looking for a career, I wanted to pull a Hemingway, hop a ship or an outbound tug and see where the currents took me. I started as a deckhand on an inland tug making 45 bucks a day and left as an A-grade Inland Tankerman\Offshore Barge Captain in the upper one percent of my profession earning such an obscene amount of money that I didn't even think twice about turning down a tug and barge combination teaching position at SUNY.
When I left the water I could not think of a thing to do with my life that sounded remotely interesting, but then I though all those years on the water,, all those different cities, I spent a lifetime in the back of a taxi.
So I bought a 'Banana Boat' (yellow cab) and found out that taxiing done right was fun as hell. Knowing the pulse of your city, watching the experienced hands and raiding off them like a pirate, and racing at break neck speed to through t he city to scoop your competition was the most semi-legal fun you could have on land!
I went from an owner operator, to a taxi-manager at a competitor, to opening my own company in less than four years. When I finally sold off that company(messy divorce), it took fifteen different cab companies to fill the void!
I was a soldier at 17, a tug hand at twenty, a business owner in my forties (and at the same time a volunteer haz chem officer for the fire department), and a dozen or so things in between. I welded at Texas 21 a night club owned by custom car guy Big Daddy Roth who hired me personally, a Bouncer\Security man for WIMBA Women's International Beauty Association in Anaheim (where I got a Revlon girl story, I just might tell later, much later) and a crap ton more experiences that come from a nearly two decades of spending my off water time doing odd ball jobs with my friends out sheer boredom.
I'm now at the tale end of my fifties where my wife and I work in semi retirement. She writing bible curriculum and me doing 3d graphic art when I am not restoring my 1870s era home.
Yeah I got a ton of stories. Still won't get me a cup of joe on the open market. Just another 'oppressive', 'privileged' white dude to the world at large it seems.
But oh well, at least you were amused, and reminiscing without the eye-rolling from the younger set is I suppose, a reward in of itself.
WOW. That's amazing! That proves to me that more people ought to share their life story/write a biography.. .
DeleteI bet you'd fill a book with taxi stories too!
AND met Roth! Very cool!
A Revlon girl story, lol, I'm looking forward to that!
Thanks!