The Shell Game

“luck is what you stumble upon in life. Providence is what God plans for you, and planning is how you thread your way between the two without getting crushed.” The speaker of these words was the rather infamous first-class petty officer John O’Toole. Destined never to become a chief, he was swimming towards retirement. 

Along the way, he offered bits of sage advice to drifty shit misfits in uniform like me. After the second pitcher of beer at the Harvard Gardens, he’d offer tips on all and sundry of life aboard ship, everything except how he ran his racket as a ship’s bootlegger. Onboard, it was John who, according to legend, had three barrels from which he rendered scotch, bourbon, and rye. 

The Navy built the carrier during the Second World War, but it was still serving through the 1960s. Along the way, so many renovations and rebuilds had occurred that there were supposedly compartments that appeared on no known plan and were complete mysteries to the Master At Arms. In the interstices, John’s barrels brewed up the best hooch available outside of a base, with a Seabee battalion running the still.
We, of course, did not know if any of this was true. But none dared doubt it publically; it was the stuff of nautical and Naval mythology. Sailors love the mythological; it makes up for their otherwise dull life at sea.

Sailors also like to place small bets on almost anything; they are called pools. An anchor pool would predict the date and time the ship anchored. Sailors organized pools for anything -when a sailor’s wife had their baby, the baby’s eye color, or if the weather would blow up. In my day, the pools were for dimes and quarters. If kept quiet, nobody would mind. But John’s barrels were legendary. Every deployment, there was a pool on whether or not the Masters at Arms would discover them. On every voyage, the Master at Arms uncovered lots of activity, but not the infamous barrels.

I’d love to say that the night John blessed me with the formula for success, but that did not happen. Years later, I ran into a former shipmate who told me the secret. There were no barrels. They were just a distraction. The hooch was snuck aboard before each deployment in sealed cruise chests by Confederates who shared equally in the take. I have no idea how the whole thing was a secret for so long. But, the barrels eventually became so famous that they became the absolute focus of the racket and the search. A shell game. Where are the barrels?

Over the years, I discovered that John’s formula had it right. Luck was fickle and could run hot or cold. Providence could get you in a lot of trouble while intending to “save” you, but planning could ease the berth between the two.

I understand there was a pool among the former crew when the ship went to the shipbreakers. The pool was for finding the barrels.