I made it to Chilkoot Charlies and even to a place called the Monkeys Wharf that had monkeys behind the bar. After the fight, I took refuge from the bloody screaming loser in a place called "The Wild Cherry". How appropriate.
The most embarrasing thing for me was when my ship stopped in Ketchikan. I was 19 (but looked 15) and I had bought a big brown bag full of candy in town. Then some friends and I went into a strip bar that had rows and rows of benches holding a large group of our rowdy shipmates. We sat down on a bench for the show and I was and busy eating and digging through my bag of candy when I heard a stripper yell out "Is there a virgin present?" I looked up and saw what looked to be about 50 of my shipmates pointing at ME just like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The next thing I knew was one of the strippers had thrown herself on me. My friends were rolling with laughter because I was holding on tightly to my big bag of candy held above my head. The stripper asked me if I wanted to go up on stage and cure my virginity to which I politely declined. Good grief!
I am still thankful to have spent a good amount of time on a historic Coast Guard cutter traveling to interesting destinations throughout the huge Alaskan coast line. I was able to make stops at St Paul Island in the Bering sea, Adak, Kiska and Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians, Kodiak, Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan and Anchorage.
