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     “All comes to he who waits;” at long last relief from this monotonous assignment came to my rescue.  I received word I was being reassigned to a land base, which would no doubt rekindle my love of flying.  Plus I was looking at five days off.  Currently I was sharing an apartment with a cute, green-eyed, Cajun redhead, in the Vieux Carré (French Quarter) of New Orleans, who performed an artistic striptease at the Sho-Bar on Bourbon Street. 

     Mardi Gras in the Vieux Carré.

     “My” Cajun redhead performing at the Sho-Bar, 228 Bourbon Str., Vieux Carré.

        We had big plans for tonight: Shrimp etouffe with pals at the Court of Two Sisters, with some serious clubbing later.

     613 Royal Str., Vieux Carré.

    Shrimp etouffe.

     Winding up the festivities at Café Du Monde, for coffee and beignets, on the river at dawn.

     Jackson Square across from Café Du Monde.

 Their fabulous beignets.

     Not to mention the sex, dear reader.  Being young, dumb and full of cum, there would be a whole truck-load of sex.  Hey, this was the sixties, the era of the pill, “free love,” and way before AIDS.  I was merely doing my part to socially fit in...purely another innocent victim of my culture.  And if you buy that...perhaps I could sell you a bridge in New York.

     I drummed my fingers impatiently on the couch in the dispatcher’s office, as I sipped coffee and listened to the radio for the Huey that would be taking me to the main PHI Base at Morgan City, where my car was parked.  And, when I got to my car, I would then face the most dangerous part of my job: “The long haul to New Orleans.”

     The problem was this: Everyday on the roads along the south coast of Louisiana was comparable to New Year’s Eve - they were loaded with drunk drivers.  All because the oil companies got together and issued this simple rule: “No booze or women are allowed offshore.”  This resulted in hundreds of oil workers driving to work each day - facing 14 days offshore without a drink – requiring them to hit every other bar on the way. Additionally, there were hundreds more flying in each day, from 14 days offshore, who were hitting every other bar on their way home.  Plus they were all driving on narrow, two-lane highways wandering through the swamp and marsh of the south coast; causing quite the most spectacular wrecks that I’ve ever witnessed. 

          During the drive to New Orleans, I could plan on my young life frequently flashing before me, as many drunk drivers attempted to kill me!

     Unfortunately, in 1967, actress Jayne Mansfield found this out the hard way outside of New Orleans.  

         In spite of this life-threatening prospect, I was genuinely happy to be getting off this platform.  As I mentioned before it was one of the first built out here in the early 1950's, making it old and tired, with several physical indications of its fatigued integrity. 

     To begin with there was an iron stairway that dropped thirty feet to a landing, before it descended to the boat dock.  Standing at its top, gazing down those first thirty feet, I could clearly see this iron stairway had a definite bow in it.  I was told a few years back a hurricane had come through here - bringing 150 mph winds - which had literally bent this stairway.  Making me wonder what other parts of this huge platform were warped and suspect.  

        The usual hurricane hammering the gulf, and all the offshore platforms there in.   

       This is what a hurricane’s 150 mph wind can do to a platform.

     Then there was the arrival of the supply boat in the middle of the night.  Although my bunk was 65 feet above the boat dock, just the same, whenever a wave slammed the boat into the iron dock it would jar my bunk - similar to a California earthquake.  Giving me the impression that this entire iron structure could imminently collapse into the sea!

     The other thing that gave credence to this feeling was the “head.” Our communal bathroom consisted of a half-dozen sinks, shower stalls and toilet stalls.  When I’d get up to use the toilet in the middle of the night, I could always tell a heavy sea was running - each time a swell would surge through the platform’s legs, all six spring-loaded metal stall doors on the toilets would swing open and pause.  Then, as the swell passed and its trough arrived, all six stall doors would close.  This indicated to me that this gigantic iron structure with living quarters and oil storage tanks – resting atop immense legs of iron and concrete thrust into the seabed far below - was all being shifted back and forth by these swells!

     Let’s face it, dear reader, Delta Platform was old, tired and on its last legs (pardon the pun).  I was always happy to vacate it.   

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