JUNE 17th - Never Work in a Shipyard

1972. Early morning. Watergate. Democratic National Head Quarters. Five plumbers are arrested for breaking in and the Watergate scandal that brought down Nixon began to unravel. If you need to brush up on your American History and Politics, I suggest you dig into some books. Or you could watch some late night PBS. They show some really good stuff. You can learn all kinds of things. And not just about history. I once learned about super-cooled water that is so pure it doesn't freeze. If you introduce it to an impurity, the water then freezes within seconds. Wowed my mind at 1 o’clock in the morning. But that’s not really here nor there. Fast forward a bit to the summer of 2003. For cyclical purposes—and I do love cycles—let’s say it was June 17th 2003. It could have been. Anywho, I was working in a shipyard that summer and met a variety of different characters. Boatmen who would work in the US for a year and then go live in Mexico for two. Fine, interesting folk. One of the more colorful characters, was this older gentlemen, Gus. I don’t think that was his name, but he seemed to be a Gus. He stunk to high heaven, but he knew his way around a boat. Now, I was the young, impressionable, college kid, and many of the workers took turns trying to shock or wow me. Well Ole Gus, he took the cake. You see Gus apparently drove the getaway van for the five plumbers who broke in to Watergate. Told me he was writing a book about it. Now, as you can imagine, I seriously doubted that Gus the Smelly Boat Mechanic, actually drove said getaway van. But I never really questioned him. I didn’t believe him, and I now have a ton of hard-hitting questions I’d ask him. I’d Geraldo that guy. But a funny thing about working in a shipyard in 95 degrees and 110 humidity in what basically amounted to a hazmat suit while painting resin to the bottom of a big-ass boat—you don’t particular want to chit-chat. Or even think. So I nodded, said okay Gus, and continued to sweat inside my suit until it was knock-off time. Of course there is the slight chance that ole Smelly Gus was telling the truth. It’s a rather obscure fact to mention and required little skill on his part, which might be why he picked it. It wasn't like he tried to tell me he was actually Philippe Petit and had walked a tightrope between the Twin Towers in 1974—another excellent subject I saw on PBS. So maybe I was actually working next to an obscure historical figure. I’m sure there are many out there. Like Henry Rathbone and his fiancé who were sitting next to Lincoln when he was shot. Nobody ever talks about that guy. Or the guy who stabbed Caesar before Brutus. Who was he? Or the dry cleaner that got Monica Lewinsky’s dress. Some of these people just walk among us, clouded in anonymity, the world never even knowing how close they were to world-altering events. But ole Gus wasn’t going down like that. He was railing against obscurity. So I applaud Gus. Whether he was just a smelly old man or a smelly old man that played a small part in one the biggest scandals in our history. Either way he was entertaining. And you need entertainment when you work in a shipyard.

This day has been Marked.

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