Harking back to my childhood I can remember the confectionery Irish potatoes made of coconut and covered with cinnamon - and here they were back on the counter this year. The subject of potatoes reminds me of the time - early 1950s - when we put the S.S. AMERICAN JURIST into Searsport, Maine to lift a cargo of sacked potatoes to Germany. It was a time when we were still putting Europe back on its feet. The stevedores had to stack the potatoes in the ship's hold and they rigged up a slide with a counter to slide the sacks down into the hold to avoid rigging up nets, etc. The counter recorded the number of sacks so we had a good count. Upon discharge in Bremen we were five bags short - the Germans were very precise. Then a crew member remembered that while loading in Searsport several longshoremen - during a break - had sport by sliding down the chute thereby being counted as a sack of potatoes. No wonder we had a shortage on outturn! (This story is excerpted from The Eagle Blue Chronicles - published 2010)
PS - You will note I did not learn spelling from Dan Quayle.
tjs
Next -Cape May
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