The best advice? It was one of my father’s favorite bits of advice – “Free advice is worth exactly what you pay for it, Louis” He’d always cap this goody off with an admonishment to carefully evaluate offerings because sometimes there were gems to be found in the offerings, but to remain skeptical.
Maybe because of his take on free advice, his tidbits were frequently salted in among the work we were doing. A sort of recompense for an afternoon of cleaning up a mess at work, repairing a wrecked marine engine on a weekend job, or after instructing me on how to mow a lawn. He wanted me to associate the advice with a reward earned, not something out of the blue.
Lesson Learned
But there were bits that formed part of the Nick Carreras System of General Education. These were imparted at signifcant life events.
Here is one of the basics: When I received my first wallet, I promptly tucked it into my back pocket. My dad insisted that I take it out and put it in my left front pocket. I asked why. ” Because you are a Carreras, you’re going to sea one day as we all do. Seaports and harbor towns are full of pickpockets looking to lift a sailor’s wallet while he’s out carousing. Your back pocket is easy to get to, but no one’s going to get into your front pocket unless you’re passed out drunk.”
I habitually placed my wallet in my front pocket as instructed. I thought little of it until one night on Liberty from my ship, I watched a thug neatly pull the wallet out of a drunken sailor’s back pocket without him noticing.
after that I carefully reviewed all the old Seadog advice from my father carefully and faithfully observed them all.
Discover more from Louis N. Carreras, Woodcarver
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
And I see people with their cellphones in their back pocket. Why??!!
idiocy
Good advice.
Oh, I have to comment here! Andre was a young Montreal orphan, grew up in a Catholic orphanage and later worked for the Church. At one point he was living in Rome and a Canadian priest came for a visit.
The first day he set out and Andre warned him: “Don’t leave our wallet in your back pocket. Someone will steal it.”
The priest was incredulous. “In the HOLY CITY, my son?” He left as planned. That night he was back–minus his wallet. Some thief with a sharp knife had slit one side of his pocket and slipped the knife out.
“Yes, in the HOLY CITY, my Father!”
Good story and true! I saw someone use a blade to slice out a back pocket once in Boston’s Combat Zone (bawdy entertainment district). A sailor running from a pimp. the pimp sliced the pocket open, and the sailor was running for his life.