Old salt

 Many decades and memories ago, I sailed the oceans of the world as a boy just out of high school and craving the life of a sailor. Little did I know what awaited me around the ship's dark passageways as a new boy who hadn't gotten his sea legs yet. Harmless beatdowns more of an initiation than anything else, an old salt tradition, you could say.

I became a man while on a warship, learning the ins and outs and making friends who would always be my brothers. One of my favorite places was the single bridge, the highest point of the ship, where I could look down at the ant sailors scurrying about their duties so far below me.

We spent endless months patrolling, always ready for whatever came across our bow, friend, or foe.

Liberty was a time to let off steam. In every port we anchored, lands of extreme beauty went unnoticed for the most part to a kid of eighteen. His mind was getting drunk and laid over and over again until the ship doctor broke out the crab medicine and worse.

At twenty years of age, I was counting the days until I was discharged and sent back home to begin a new life as a civilian. The only thing was that I didn't want any other life, only life as a sailor. At thirty-six years of age, I was discharged with a bunch of medals on my chest and two decades of service that came with good luck, a cake, and a lifetime of wanting to forget the sadness that sailed with me.

Now, I sit on a boulder looking out to my beloved ocean, remembering how the ship sometimes sailed smoothly and other times got tossed around like a kid's toy. Or I was sitting high above her, looking down at the ant sailors going about their duties. Sometimes, I relive the big guns firing at ships too close for comfort, seeing the flags of our enemies, and the captain shouting orders to steer hard starboard as a torpedo came within inches of blowing us out of the water. 

I hear the screams of my brothers caught up in the fight as metal pierces their bodies, a one-way ticket home in a flag-draped casket. I kept telling myself it was a choice that I could have gone on to college or learned a trade, but the ocean called my name and soon owned my very soul.

Many years have passed, but I still find myself sitting on that boulder, wishing to get my sea legs again, having one more liberty call with my brothers, and feeling the salt on my face as we sail on to distant lands and sometimes crab medicine.

Mike 2024