BT2 William Kirchmayer

Well, heres one more tale of the past as it occurred aboard the Joey Boat. I had only been onboard for less than a month and was still getting used to living on a ship and in the cramped quarters that were called B&M Div. berthing. My rack was on the stbd. side and being a booter, I had to settle for a top rack until something better opened up, or someone transferred, went UA, died,..etc.. Anyhow, I was lying in my rack this one night after taps and just could not fall off to sleep. The ship was in port and it was in the middle of the week so the only guys aboard were the duty section and those like myself who out of necessity had to live aboard. BT2 Dale Hammond had the duty as duty BT that night and had hit his rack earlier and was sound asleep and adding his snoring to the efforts of other snorers ( thank God we have Breathe Right strips now). Hammonds rack was a coveted bottom rack at the dead end of the alley. The middle rack belonged to BT1 William R.Reck, the B-Div. LPO. Reck used to stencil his name free-hand and vertical on the fly of his skivvies so (as he claimed) “..my name will stand out with the morning wood”. What a character, anyway, back to what this sea-story’s about. The rack above Recks was occupied by one MMFN Orville Prosser. I cant remember if Prosser worked in Main Control or Aux One or if he was an A-Ganger, but I do remember that old Orville had what I would claim as the worlds nastiest smelling feet. Prosser was well aware of it too and claimed he had tried every imaginable remedy short of amputating and he still couldn’t get the stink off his feet. Well, like I said earlier, there I was trying to get some Z’s when MMFN Prosser comes back from liberty, goes to his rack, takes off his boots and sets them on the deck, undresses and climbs into his rack and promptly nods off. My nose told me that Prossers boots were slowly displacing most of the breathable oxygen back in our alley. I had just about nodded off when I heard BT2 Hammond cursing something akin to ” f—ing Prosser, you bastard!” and the next thing I heard was something whistling by my rack before banging into BT3 Deals stand up locker. It seems that the funk from Prossers boots being parked less than 2 feet from the head of Hammonds rack had actually woke him from a sound sleep, I shit you not! The objects that I heard in flight were Prossers boots of course, just remembering this episode reminds me to be thankful I no longer share sleeping quarters with a bunch of guys, Just a good looking brunette who’s my wife( and her feet don’t smell).