It was fun living at the beach, but in the 80s there were not many jobs beyond the military, tourism, and other service related industries. So one by one, my family moved north. First my mom left to pursue a government relations job when the Navy subcontract project she had been hired on to ended. Then after spending the summer he graduated from college at the beach, my brother also moved up to DC. in search of a career.
After my dad died, my sister was still in college and I was working as a cook at a local cafe and catering company, and so we hung in there for a couple more years, but by the summer of 1989? It seemed like it was time for us to move up to Washington, too. In retrospect, I think I might have stayed but for the fact that my girlfriend at the time, as well as my friend Curtis, also wanted to move to DC.
Our lease ran through the end of August, and a friend of my mom's had an interesting proposition. His company owned several merchant ships, including an "ocean-going construction platform" that was contracted for the first three weeks of August to do a job at the Newport Naval Station in Rhode Island and another just off the Jersey coast. This particular vessel needed a chief cook and a kitchen crew of two, and the jobs were ours if we wanted them.
I can't remember what the pay was, but it was enough that my sister, my girlfriend, and I gleefully accepted.
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