The longest walk

As a young gofer one of my tasks was to escort our sea captains to the Customs House to perform the bureaucratic paperwork to enter and clear their ships. This Monday morning we had two ships in port and I was to take the two masters at the same time. What I did not know was that these two seasoned seafarers were not on speaking terms. They came from different backgrounds and cultures. Capt. Archie of the SCOUT was Scandinavian, very stoic - he had sailed before the mast on clipper ships around Cape Horn in the mid 1920s and proudly wore his Cap Hornier crest on his blazer. Capt. JJD on the PLANTER was a tall southern gentleman, had been thru Annapolis and was a bit eccentric in that he always wore sandals and grew flowers on the ship i.e. the PLANTER. We walked the four blocks in silence. But they did have one thing in common - they had both been prisoners of the Japanese in WWII and their differing experiences may have been the source of their enmity. In any event, words were exchanged on parting and it was the longest walk of my life.
tjs
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