Action in the Ram Room!

[Dick Zimmermann]

Mark Falade, MM3, 1976 – 80

Action in the Ram Room!

Do you recall they used to store the towing hawser in the ram room all the way behind the ram in a big coil against the stern bulhead? Well, with a bale of rags it became a very nice little rats' nest back there, quite cozy actually, and only "A Gang" really knew about it. So one Saturday afternoon on a duty weekend, the boat is in dry dock, the girlfriend comes to visit and I take her on a tour of the ram room. Nobody is around anywhere so we should be safe, right?

Well, there we are, I’ll spare the details, and down the hatch comes the resident EN1, who was an old Cajun boy from Lousiana, and damned if he ain’t headed over the ram to the rats' nest for a little leak check of the old eyelids, I didn't even know he knew about it. Well, we're caught, so the best I could do was try to save the girl from 100% embarrassment (we were at like 98.9% at that point) so I kind of got up on one elbow and let him know we were there while not really knowing  what to expect next.  When it clicked in on him as to exactly what was happening he busted out laughing as hard as I’ve ever heard anyone laugh and just turned around and left, telling us to go ahead and stay put, which we did.

And the rest is history...