This story involves a young black 3rd class Radioman named Paterson.
First just a little history. When we were in that short yard period in Vallejo and Cassias Clay and Sonny Liston were going to fight Paterson and $200 bet on Clay and I remember telling him he was nuts as a married man to bet that kind of money against Liston. Of course he made a bunch as everyone gave him real good odds. Now to the real story. He was also a person real prone to getting sea sick. One day underway at the evening meal we were having Chinese and he was sitting across from me at the table next to the galley wall with two other guys. He got up to go get some bug juice and I told the other guys to watch Paterson when he came back.

At this point I palmed one of the bamboo shoots from my plate. When he sat back down I acted like I sneezed and shot the bamboo shot into his plate of food. He immediately jumped up
and ran to the head throwing up on the way.

Then there was Pixie from Dixie and I don't remember his name. He was cleaning the fuel oil purifier in the after engine room. When they did that they had to stand on the lip of the hatch and put one foot up in the air above the hatch to support themselves. Well, Pixie was doing just that when from the maneuvering room came a big fire ball that shot right between his legs. He jumped down and ran to the maneuvering room and could hardly talk as he tried to ball out the watch.

 Well, after that happened he was later on the same watch section as I was and when he came to maneuvering to talk as he would leave I would wait until he got to the forward corner and slap the
side of the cubicle real hard and watch him jump, got him every time.

Lindsey