1992 Karachi, Pakistan

Karachi Pakistan is near the mouth of the Persian Gulf

 In Autumn 1972 the USS Trippe sailed into Karachi, Pakistan. Philip Morris and I rented a Victoria (Horse-drawn buggy with driver) for $10 a day. We saw the sights at a slow pace, such as a camel caravan with the guy in charge riding in a cart behind the last camel. I asked our coachman why. The coachman had a kid with him during the day who acted as his interpreter and he told us the camels know where they are going.

One morning our Victoria coachman took us into town. As the horse pulled us by a park, I watched a truck stop ahead of us. The passenger got out and started kicking the people who were asleep on the ground. If they didn't move, he yelled to the truck driver who got out and helped him toss the body into the truck's bed. Our coachman's interpreter told us that the truck comes by every morning to remove the dead.

On our last night, our coachman, with broken English, asked us if he could stop at a building and be gone for a few minutes. He came out in about twenty minutes.  He was very stoned and could barely climb into his seat and grab the reins. He lifted his whip and yelled, "Hi-ho you fuckin horse."  Luckily, his horse knew how to get us back to the dock.

Navy Plumbing

 When I was in the Navy, and part of the repair gang for the USS Trippe, one of my jobs, as a Hull Maintenance Technician, was to be the ship's plumber. A ship's plumbing and a house's plumbing are similar, but not the same. I had been trained in Damage Control school and on the ship. I earned my training by getting lots of practice clearing clogged pipes. My knuckles smashed into steel bulkheads, and metal decks more often than anyone should endure. But that is how learning takes place sometimes. My fingers and knuckles would have preferred to play the guitar.

 Chief Landry, who was known as the Hulk, did not like me. He didn't like any non-white underling. But he did have his qualities. He was an excellent plumber. One day he sent me to the head (In the old sailing-ship days, the sailors peed and pooped at the head of the ship because the crew did not want the wind to push the farts into their noses. So, bathrooms on Navy ships are called heads.) The Chief sent me to the forward head on the 3rd deck to fix the clogged pipe that drained the urinals. This was not a bad job, I've had worse. Soon after I removed an elbow that would allow me to insert a snake, Chief Landry showed up, all smiles. I sensed a smirk, hidden in his teeth. He watched me insert the snake and pull it out. The paper and tobacco that the snake brought out of the pipe; fell into a bucket I had placed under the open pipe.

Chief Landry first asked me if I thought that the tobacco was really marijuana. When I told him I wouldn’t know, he glared at me, “I know you know, so, don’t give me that bullshit,” he said. And then he asked me to run the water before I replaced the elbow. As the water poured into the bucket, he appeared to put his finger in the water and then licked it. I was grossed out. "Urine is sterile," he said. "You should put your finger in the wastewater and taste it, after you have cleared the drain, to make sure that the water is clear."

 I knew he was hoping I would follow his lead. And I also suspected that he used a dry finger to lick. He was hoping I was dumb enough to lick wastewater from the urinals. I shook my head and said that I would not do it. He left.

 Chief Landry was not a nice man. The Viet Nam war was bad enough. He made it worse. In spite of that, I saved his life or at least prevented him from great physical harm when I found him surrounded by an angry mob of my African American shipmates in a bar in Mombasa, Kenya. But that's another story unrelated to plumbing.