A Ship in Charleston

October 1971


I got out of Boot Camp by the skin of my teeth. After seeing my friend kicked out and after exceeding the amount of demerits necessary for putting me extra weeks in Boot Camp, and after passing a Coast Guard test I should have flunked, I somehow got out at the end of October with only one extra week.

I had 10 days of furlough (vacation) before I had to turn up for duty in Charleston, SC. During those 10 days I bought enough hash to keep me stoned until I made connections in SC for further supplies. I brough two grams of hash with me.

Charleston was a pretty Southern City with a great downtown area in which was one head shop (where I hung out looking at the newest pipes, and drug paraphernalia). I got to know the owner and his friends pretty well in the next few days. The owner was a Beatles fanatic. He loved the Beatles and had two copies of the Butcher album for sale - it was an album by the Beatles that was banned in the U.S. and England because it had the Beatles holding decapitated baby dolls with raw red meat strewn around. They were hard to find because they were either trashed by the record companies or rarely one could find the album covered up with a newer and nicer version of the Beatles known as "Yesterday and Today."

My stay at Charlston was only 10 days. During that stay while I painted, cleaned and did odd jobs around the station, the Coast Guard was going to let me know where I was going to be permanently stationed. I knew that it would be either NC, SC or FL, but I didn't know which state until the end of my 10 days.

There was a ship docked at the Charleston base that was called the U.S. PawPaw. It was a buoy tender that went out almost daily to clean and repair buoys. On one of my days on the base station one of the workers from the PawPaw ran up to me, and shook, saying, "Get me off that ship, trade with me, I'll go anywhere." I heard his tale about the ship that nobody wanted to go near. The Coast Guard district used it as a ship on which they could put their biggest trouble makers, and worse workers. Morale on the ship was as low as it gets. It was the punishment camp of the district. This crazy guy's haunting stories about the PawPaw saved me from a world of trouble in the days ahead.

Near the end of my time in Charleston two officers from the base came with a hat with four names in it. There were four of us who were to be transferred to permanent stations and the officers told us the names of the four stations. Two were on board a small ship in Tampa, FL, one was on a buoy tender in Jacksonville, FL called the U.S. Sweetgum and one was the PawPaw in Charleston, SC. We were told that after we had chosen our destination from the hat we could exchange with each other if we wanted. So we picked one by one. The first guy picked Tampa, the second picked out Jacksonville and then the third guy and I opened ours at the same time.

When I saw the one I chose a wave of terror came over me... It was the PawPaw in Charleston, SC. I thought of that guy who grabbed me and panicked. I looked at the guy who had chosen the Sweetgum in Jacksonville, FL. I knew he lived in NC and hoping he would prefer being closer to home asked him if he would trade with me. He said yes. I was relieved, I would rather have had Tampa, but was quite happy getting out of the PawPaw. While we exchanged the names of our destination, the officers both looked at us and said to the guy who took the PawPaw, "You will regret that one."

Six months later he was reported AWOL.