Bill
and Pat’s further exploits
A Coastie Pub Crawl
By
Pat Varallo
Bill
and Pat always had a plan for liberty when they were on the DUANE.
Sometimes it was Plan A and sometimes it was Plan B. Usually it was Plan A and
Plan B.
Plan
A was S&M (Search for and Make out) with women. Plan B was to find a
“congenial” tavern and drink beer. In their interpretation of the word,
congenial meant a place where the regulars might buy a round or two for a couple
of 20-year-old Coasties.
On
one occasion Plan B was in operation; after all, you can only accommodate a
woman to a degree, whereas beer isn’t tiring or fattening or as hard to find.
In
suburban Boston, as great a liberty town as you will ever find anywhere, the two
located themselves at the end of the bar in a tavern in Salem. It was a
congenial place.
“What
do ya wanna do?” asked Bill.
“I
got an idea,” replied Pat.
“What’s
that?”
“Well,
let’s go to a bar and have one beer and then go to another, and so on, and see
how many there are in Salem.”
“That’s
a great idea.”
“And
we will need to write each bar down so we know where we’ve been.”
“You
make a list and I will, too.” With that they were off to implement Plan B—in
spades!
After
several hours and numerous taverns, they didn’t always stick to having just
one brew at a tavern. Pat said that he had had enough and wanted to go back to
the ship. Bill told him to go ahead, but he would continue the quest.
The
following morning the duo got together for breakfast and went over the events of
the preceding evening. They recalled in the back bay of their fuzzy minds that
they had written down where they had been. As the looked over the two lists with
a few of their shipmates, they were amazed—the list for the first ten or so
bars was rather clear and neat. The hand writing for the next ten began to get
shaky and sloppy but still legible.
Then the writing quickly became a illegible scribble—no one could read the names of the taverns. They might not have been in Salem at that point.
Pat
had registered about 35 beer joints when he bade Bill good night. Bill went on
to at least six more beer joints, but after that, he said, he grew tired of
writing.
Coasties are crazy b_st_rds!