B.A.

For a 20 year old American the interesting thing about
all of these South American countries is that all of
the wealth and culture of the country seemed invariably
concentrated in the capital. In Argentina this was true
in spads.

One of the prettiest, most modern, cultured cities in the
world, or so it seemed to me. My first trip there I
disembarked and started heading over toward what
seemed to be the city center. I collared a man
I was passing with this query-- in very awkward Spanish:

"Puede Vd .. uh.. decirme.. uh donde esta .. uh Avenida
Corrientes." He looked at me rather quizzically for a
moment, then said, "Oh, you mean Corrientes St. It's
two blocks straight ahead." I thanked him --- in English.

There was actually a large English colony in B.A.
(Actually there's also a large American colony in
Brazil. These were the descendants of my Confederate
cousins, who couldn't abide Reconstruction in their fallen
country and took up residence in a place where slavery
still happened (though not for long). I heard of a man
named Larry Clayton, but didn't get a chance to look him
up.)

The English in Buenos Aires were my first close
exposure to perfectly bi-cultural people. They looked,
spoke and acted just like the Brits and also fit in
perfectly in the Latin scene. Unbelievable!

I was sitting in a barber chair (we Americans were very
well treated there), and I must have commented on how
nice everyone looked or some such inanity. A man
responded like this: "In Argentina everybody dresses
like a millionaire." I thought for a moment and
replied, "In America the millionaires try their best
to dress just like ordinary people."

I met some naval cadets; they took me aboard their ship
and really seemed to enjoy my company. We all felt like
princes in those ports during and shortly after the war.

In Montevideo I went into a bar to eat: filet mignon
with all the trimmings for 25c. What really broke me
up was the string quartet provided as entertainment in
that place. Those people lived well-- in the capital.

Our last trip included two disasters. On the way over
we were approaching Belem, on the Amazon near its mouth. The Brazilian pilot managed to put us on a sand bar at the entrance. He pleaded insanity at his trial.

We were on that sandbar for a month. Had to get a ship
from Merrit-Chapman ; they unloaded the entire ship to get us off that sandbar. The Brazilians robbed us blind, more than all the profit of that cruise.

We finally got off, did our business in Belem and went
on our way. Going back was a sad time for me; I was
saying goodbye to those wonderful people in Santos
who had put me so high; romances were ending.

I fell into a depression. I had the benefit of music in
the radio shack, and I heard Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano
Concerto. That work still haunts me.

The last disaster: cruising up the coast of Brazil two
messboys got into an altercation, one of them threw a
plate that cut the other near the temple. It wasn't
bleeding bad, but the purser just couldn't stop it.

We had to put in at Fortaleza to get a surgeon. Once
again the Brazilians robbed us blind.

Coming up the Mississipi on Jan 1 the pilot was bent
on getting to the Sugar Bowl. Half the time we were
on one side of the river, and the other half on the
other side (you know it's quite serpentine). Duke
was playing somebody. I would have dearly loved to
see that game, but no chance. (I believe the pilot
did get to it-- some of it anyway.)

Back in New Orleans: I had made up my mind I must
give up sailing. Either that or resign myself to
being nothing more in my life. Back to Duke I went.

The port of New Orleans practically evaporated soon
after that. The corrupt levee board was stealing
everyone blind, and the steamship companies came to
prefer the Houston Ship Channel. Houston became a
megalopolis, and from then on the population of N.O.
remained around half a million. Until Katrina of
course. Who knows what it will become now.

(At some more recent time, with modern inventions,
N.O. has made a comeback as a port. There are
three 'ports of N.O.' apparently. One at the
mouth of the river that deals in oil. Somewhere
else the wheat barges offload to deep sea vessels;
then what used to be the port, the wharves along
the river adjacent to the city.)

A South American Paradise

As stated before this 'B.A. run' was all any seaman
could wish: getting home regularly, lovely adventures
in those wonderful Latin countries. Brazil was my
favorite, and among ports Santos was the best of the
Brazilian ones:

Santos was the coffee port (probably the greatest
single importer of coffee in those days). Right at
the foot of the escarpment that leads up to Sao Paulo,
which at that time was a faster growing metropolis
than any other in the world. But Santos was relaxed;
the elite lived along the beach. You could swim, but
there were usually more exciting things to do.

At 20 I was still something of a reclusive, innocent
of most of the habitual pastimes in which seamen
engage. But like most young men I was interested
in a relationship.

I was in the radio shack one morning when the phone
rang; a young woman spoke; apparently she thought I
was someone else. I couldn't figure out who to direct
her to. But lo and behold you wanted to talk with me.
More than talk, she invited me to meet here at the
beach. I met her, and she was upper-class!!

Well this may sound very conceited-- until you
understand the circumstances. Believe it or not,
this was the sort of thing that upper class young
women in Santos did in those days.

Maria (I won't give her middle name) introduced me
to many of her friends (boys and girls). We had
wonderful times at the beach. My favorite activity
was to sit with some of those friends in the sidewalk
cafe of the main hotel watching the paseo.

(The paseo was the every evening social: people went
around in a circle: the boys counter clockwise and the
girls clockwise. Oh joy!)

These were idealistic and (very) literate people (I
had never met anybody like those Santistas). Most of
them spoke three or four languages; they were musical;
the girls generally went to 'normal' (even in my day
normal meant, even in the good old U.S.A., a
teachers' school).

It was the thing for these young women to go to
teachers' school, maybe teach a year or two before
taking up 'real life'.

ITEM: Strangely enough to these girls American boys
were just like movie stars. I can't explain it: maybe
we were war heroes (BTW Brazil had the only Latin
American expeditionary force in World War II).

But I think the real reason was deeper; I once asked
Wanda, my second girl friend there, why they thought
so highly of American boys. Her answer was revealing:
because they're not malicioso.

For my part they make wonderful companions. With no
duties on the ship while in port I spent a lot of time
on the beach. I thought seriously about settling down
there. I got a room at a pensao on the beach. Now
this was something else: $7 a week for a room,
breakfast, and two six course meals. I was eating
irregular hours by Brazilian standards and often the
only one in the dining room.

The waiter would bring me the first course and stand
there near my table. I would finish it and push back a
bit; he was right there ready to fill my plate again --
with the first course. I learned to say no mas! no
mas!. Then he would bring the next course. Oh my.
I've never seen (before or since) anything like that
pensao.

There's lots more to say about Santos and S.A., but it
will have to await another post. Thanks for reading, if
anyone has.

VE to VJ Day at Sea

I was sitting in the upstairs parlor of the parsonage at St. Marks (edge of the French Quarter when the phone rang. Mr. Wright, the union dispatcher, informed me that a radio operator was needed in Houston. I jumped on a plane to get over there. But in flight I realized I had left my operator's license at home; a radio operator without a license is worth nothing to any steamship company.

At Houston I called Dad and informed him of my quandary. He agreed to send it post haste to the hotel where I was staying. The next morning I went into the steamship office and informed them of my quandary. What to do? I was the only man available, such as I was. They told me to come in as soon as I got it.

I got it later that day, went to the office. They had sent the ship, another T2, the Drapers Meadow, down the Houston Ship Channel to Galveston; it could legally go that far without a radio operator. They put me in a car with an office boy (he happened to be a (discharged) Air Force Major (jobs were in short supply about that time). Anyway we hightailed it down to Galveston and were there waiting for the Draper's Meadow. When she arrived I went out and boarded her, and away we went to Norfolk, or rather Newport News to put her in mothballs at the boneyard with dozens of other old tubs of every description-- no longer needed with the end of the European War.

Home I went again with a nice check in my pocket. Next week I got the Pan York. Formerly a nice steamer, she had been retired and turned over to the Panamanians about 1904, but rejoined our merchant fleet during the war. She was a banana boat. We took cargo down to Colombia-- a lovely place to visit at that time (Cartegena and Barranquilla), then up to Panama for a load of bananas and back to New Orleans.

We often had to lay over several days at Panama. The U.S.Army installation was available to us, the post exchange, etc., but more common was the waterfront bars. At that point I became a drinking sailor. Worse than the others, being perfectly free with the ship in port, I used to go ashore at 11 or 12 o'clock, so I had a pretty good head start on my shipmates who got off a 5. Rum and coke was 25 cents, and went down easier and easier.

On board we spent time in what we called the 'saloon'; a better name for it would have been the officers' mess. We had a purser, a pretty nice man, but a terrible wino. One day, half drunk as usual, he said to me, "Sparky, you're a nice kid, but you're getting to be a terrible wino." Me? I thought, oh my stars, what about you, purser.

But it made me do some thinking and I got off that ship.

Mr. Wright liked me; he must have thought I was a cut above most of his clients. Anyway we offered me a real plum for my next cruise. The Delta Line was the premier steamship company running between N.O. and B.A. and all points between. He gave me the Cuba Victory (the Liberty ships ran 8 knots; the victories 14, a much more decent speed).

Our first cruise was Virgin Islands, Trinidad, several ports in Brazil, culminating in Rio, then Montevideo (capital of Uruguay), and Buenos Aires. They were all beautiful places for a (fairly innocent) 20 year old very interested in seeing the world. Those ports were seaman's ports par excellence (or something like that).