Over the years U.S. Lines carried a lot of live animals with the more exotic ones in the Australian trade. But my experience was confined to the stuffed variety. One day I received a phone call from the owners of a Ma & Pa carnival group wanting to send a trailer load of stuffed teddy bears to Hawaii for the State Fair. We negotiated a price of $3000. PREPAID. and they delivered their trailer to our pier on the appointed day which was a Friday. The Ma half of the partnership entered the Chief Clerk's office with a large carpet bag filled with 3000 crumpled dollar bills which she proceeded to dump on his desk.
The waterfront workers in the room were "bugeyed" - the banks closed at 3PM and the petty cash drawer could not accommodate this windfall so the freight cashier had to babysit it at home over the weekend. Talk about money laundering! But there is nothing like "cash on the barrel" or on the Chief Clerk's desk.
tjs
(Excerpted from Eagle Blue No. 12 - March 2, 2006)
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