Boats is one of my heros. He may be the last guy around here who actually understands Admiralty law- which is how he came to be at odds with a certain Department around here, but that is another story.
I convinced him to stop by Willow for a drink even though it is a bit out of the way, and was going to ask him for the blow-by-blow, but Boats is a retired Master Chief, and he talks about what he wants to talk about. He pulled up a stool and looked admiringly at the lovely Liz-with-an-S who was stoking the fires of the happy hour crowd at the Amen Corner of the bar with a fresh Bud for Old Jim, more white wine for me, and a top-off of the red for John-with-an-H.
“You got me going with the pressure cooker article,” he said, contemplating the list of beers at the back of the wine list. “Every once in a while, Daily Socotra opens a flood-gate of fond memories.”
“We aim to please,” I said. “But only once in a while?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said. “And don’t quit your day job. But I had a pressure cooker accident and it may have changed the direction of my life.”
I picked up my pen and sighed. Boats versus the government was going to have to wait, and I copied frantically as he spoke around the Racer 5 Lager that Liz-S brought him, pouring it with a neat white head right to the top.
“From the time I was about 11 until I went off to the Navy at 17 years and 12 days of age, I was a not untypical boy of South Louisiana extraction. Together with my friends Joe and Cy we often made a good deal of cash out of the bald cypress swamp near our homes in the eastern end of Orleans Parish; today the home of the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge.”
“However, back in our day the area which we called the “L&N Swamp” was swamp land held largely by various railroads, mostly unposted, utilized freely by fur trappers and commercial crawfishermen. As small boys we were under age for a commercial fishing license and we didn’t have the capital for the boat, motor, nets and other gear for a real commercial fishing operation. So we mostly trapped fur in season with a small sack of steel traps, and trapped turtles and caught snakes for sale to a local reptile farm. Later we branched out to milking water moccasins for their venom which we sold to medical labs.”
“We were always on the look out for new sources of revenue that could be derived from the swamp. One spring, Joe got the idea of making and selling blackberry wine to our fellow Cajun minors. We read a book on wine making from the public library, then cleaned up an old ten gallon fish bowl type aquarium, picked the blackberries in the swamp, and bought a few pounds of sugar. Making a long story short we had a resounding success the wine not only had a market in our illegal trade with our fellow minors, but even some adults in the neighborhood bought it.”
“We had found a source of supplemental income. New Englanders may have invented the term “Yankee Trader,” but Cajuns are simply born free market and free-wheeling capitalists. We no sooner started making money on wine than Joe got the idea that making “harder stuff” would fetch a higher price.”
“Well, it was back to the public library for a while. It never ceased to amaze me how Sister Regina, our eighth grade teacher couldn’t get us to attend class regularly much less undertake anything like a term paper that might lead us to the library, but the opportunity for profit would bring us right in. We found making a still a bit more complex than originally anticipated so Joe suggested that we start small to learn the process. Starting small started with an experiment in making “corn squeezings” in Joe’s Mom’s pressure cooker. These types of activities, of course, could only be undertaken when moms were not present in the house.”
“The opportunity to experiment soon arrived and we started working on our “corn squeezing” experiment complete with pressure cooker. We thought we were near the end of the process and about an hour away from arrival of the duty Mom when the pressure cooker exploded. It did some serious damage to the dry wall and ceiling and splattered “corn squeezings all over the place. We had the cash from our other nefarious activities to replace the pressure cooker, and we were sure that if we could at least clean up, we’d be able to talk our way out of the situation. We were lucky to have been out of the kitchen when the pressure exploded but that was the end of our luck. Joe’s Mom arrived early.”
“The reaction was classic Cajun Mom. We had no need to explain ourselves because we weren’t given any opportunity. She grabbed one of those cast iron skillets and smacked me right up the side of the head because I was closest. Then she took after Joe with the clear intent to kill or beat senseless. The last I saw of the two of them they were running down the street with Joe maintaining a healthy lead, women’s shoes, thank God, just weren’t made to run in the 1950s. My parents were later given a full briefing.”
“My Dad gave me a lecture about legality and ill legality in “business” and the need to distinguish between the two and organize to the maximum extent reasonably possible on the side of legality. I was encouraged to continue my capitalist ways but to be more careful to consider the law. Our turtle and snake hunting and fur trapping activities were given a bit more scrutiny, we were made to quit the commercial fur trapping trade. We had to go straightforward and upright in our adherence to all Louisiana made game and fish laws (there was decided less concern for federal or “Yankee” law). And, we never ventured into moonshining again.”
“Probably, thanks to that blown pressure cooker, I made it to 17 years and 12 days and safely within the proper supervision of the U.S. Navy and later U.S. Coast Guard for my further development as a young man; without the stigma of a felony moonshining conviction, or game law violation. If it hadn’t been for the explosive capacity of a pressure cooker I might have grown up to be a very different person from the military and civil service retiree that I am today. As a Coast Guard Boatswain’s mate and patrol boat coxswain I used my well-honed wetland hunting skills on search and rescue and law enforcement missions. I stayed away from the “hooch distilling” and oyster pirating activities of some of my crew-mates having learned my lessons early.”
“By age 25 I was a Chief Boatswain’s mate, one of the youngest since WW II, a veritable “certified responsible citizen”, though a proud member of the “Hooligan Navy”; as long as no one looked past the date of my original Navy enlistment to view the little poacher and moonshiner who was hatching in the L&N Swamp until a pressure cooker disrupted the first course of my evolution.”
“That is the best pressure cooker story I have ever heard,” I said, putting down my pen next to the unruly stack of napkins. “And I think I am going to need another couple glasses of wine.”
Boats gave me one of those enigmatic Master Chief smiles. “Just stay away from the blackberry wine,” he said. “It can lead to explosive developments.”
Copyright 2012 Boats and Vic
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