Mongo
Talk about being too stupid to be nuclear qualified, how about a guy that engraves his name on CRES piping...WITH HIS TEETH! … drinks hydraulic fluid, chews on glass like candy, or bites the heads off live sea creatures? Kinda sounds like someone destined to be a smoke boat sailor. Right?
Wrong... This guy rode nukes, actually boomers. This guy was a TMSN and lived his life like he was a throw back to a bye gone era. I think he could've helped keep Dex, Olgoat and Cowboy or any other diesel boat sailor, stay in some deep doo-doo. Hell, they coulda STILL be in the hooscow!
I was with him on several occassions, but I was lucky.
His name, for now we'll go by his boat name, Mongo, as in "Blazing Saddles" fame. I've seen Mongo in some of his crazy younger days while we were both on the 619B. What he did later in life was probably still wild, but I don't think that even he could continue to be as crazy as he was then.
Mongo and I had our own snake ranch and did our share of drinking and collecting panties out in Flanders, CT for a run or two. Most of the trouble that we saw together was in Charleston, SC.
One time in particular comes to mind. We were in a bar on Reynolds St. (don't remember the name, just that it was a biker bar). Mongo and I went sniffin' around and soon found a pair of honeys sittin' all by their lonesome. We ordered a pitcher of beer and sat at their table. We was have a good time for a while, jus' sittin' there drinkin' our beer and makin' nice with the ladies, when in walks a couple o' dudes in leather. They look our way and head towards our table.
Let me tell you, they were the biggest & ugliest guys I had ever seen that close up. They had chains everywhere, following them came the rest of the gang. I was just about to fill my britches and get the ass whoppin' of my young life...But not Mongo, nnoooo not him. He calmly reaches over and pours himself another beer. At this point the first guy reaches our table and hollers,
"Hey, assholes, what the f*ck are you doin' with our ladies?"
Mongo doesn't say a word, he puts the now empty pitcher up to his face and takes a big bite out of it! Well let me tell you, those guys stop dead in their tracks and they stare at him for a minute. The first biker starts to say something else and Mongo justs starts CHEWING THE DAMN GLASS!!
I'm here alive and with all my original parts because of that pitcher. We didn't get our asses whupped, instead we all just became drinkin' buddies, but we did had to give up the panty raid though, we just sat around drinkin'. They even dropped us off at the main gate. We did get a free drunk out of it and we were welcomed back anytime.
Who sez what you ride makes you different? I say it's how you live life that makes the difference. Smoke boat or Nuke, doesn't matter, it's the impression you leave on the world that determines your mettle. I say that if you can go into a metal tube and close the hatch, knowing that you are going to purposely sink a perfectly good ship, then you are truly a bubblehead, period.
Billy Lary