Thursday, May 24, 2012

Dad is a funny guy

After I finished my seminar at Black Belts Kenpo in Margate, FL I went over to Cape Coral stay with my dad. I arrived at his condo after midnight and didn't expect him or anyone else to be up. But I saw people in the parking lot and thought that was a bit unusual. No big deal. When I mentioned it to him in the morning he asked if I'd seen the Angel of Death out there, too. Why? Because apparently the Grim Reaper had been by to take a few people from the building with him. Dad says "I've been wearing a name tag with someone else's name to fool him".
  When I'd told him I was down in the French Quarter of New Orleans recently he said when he was in the Navy he used to love to hang out at Marty Burke's, a long-gone bar there, when they were in port. Apparently, Marty Burke had been a heavyweight boxer in the Jack Dempsey era.
   One of the shipmates got pretty drunk and the cops were going to take him. They kept him by tying him to a lamp post with his neckerchief until they could get back and properly arrest him. His ship-mates found him first, untied him and took him back shipboard.
   On the way out of port they encountered heavy seas in the Gulf of Mexico. Everyone except about nine of them were seasick. Dad was one of the nine and he told me he and some of the sailors had to hold down a piano they had on board since it was banging off the walls as the ship pitched and rolled.
  Funny stuff, I think. Got more for you later.  

No comments: