Four things I really remember:
- when, in the airport in Vancouver, my father’s pants fell down. Ask me about that one some time!
- the locks themselves. It’s pretty cool being on a ship that is only a couple of feet from the side of the locks. And although I am totally aware of how the locks work, it’s an experience actually being on a ship and seeing it happen.
- tankers full of goods from China in the Panama Canal. Lots of them.
- an unexpected explosion in the distance — they are making the canal deeper and wider but I was expecting only dredging, not the use of dynamite to do so!
BUT — the most interesting thing that I heard was when my 82 year old father told me a never-before-told story. He had been through the canal 6 times (3 each way) while in the Canadian Navy. On each trip, they spent a couple of weeks in Magdalena Bay (which is on the Pacific coast of Mexico. One day, him and another fellow took a boat from the the HMCS Ontario and went to shore. Once there, they stripped naked and ran down the beach.
Never heard that one before, and I must confess that I can’t quite picture him as a 22-year-old.
It was as disturbing as the day a child figures out that his or her parents must have had sex at least once… or more than once if the child has siblings.
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