Judge — November 23, 1929 — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

JUDGE Ff Kindly sailors showed me some of the mysteries of the sea. ow and then the painted girls of the waterfront N gaze at me curiously in my old dungarees and torn sweater, “Poor little girl-thing,” they say pityingly. you ever wish for lace petticoats and Don't you ever hanker for intoxic : and wine? Don't you yearn to dance with someone who caresses you and breathes honeyed words of passion int ear? Don't you long to know about Lif I only shake my head and gaze at them sadly, Weak landlubbers! how can they understand the lure of the sea? What do they know of life in the raw? seventeen years I lived, ate and slept in the fo'e'stle, a lone girl-thing among a crew of twenty-three mate-hungry mariners; and it was this carefree existence which really taught me to be broad. My s under the bow. My My only caress wa rope’s end on my rear. places with these pampered “Don't our scented For music was the wash of wine was the taste of salt the rise and fall of a frayed I would not have changed girls of the waterfront for Was the Only An Unpublished Chapter from “Salt Water Taffy” By JUNE TRIPLETT As revealed to Corey Ford all the breathed. For I have known what it was to lie on the heach and watch the famous Dance of the gins on No-Men Atoll. I have known what it was to lie aloft in the brizzl’m'st shrouds while the tropic breeze pressed burning kisses to my check (at least, I think it was a tropic breeze pressing burning kisses. I remember that it had a pair of big rubber boots on). I have known what it was to lie in my bunk at night while the kindly sailors showed me some of the mysteries of ‘the sea. I have known what it was to lie—but why need I say more? honeyed words of passion ever I was but a mere babe-in-arms (Father had me pack a 38 re- volver even as a mere babe—he said, just in case) when I joined the crew of the Minnie J. Cohan, and during my first’ seventeen years in the fo'e'stle I picked up 1 lot of interesting things from the crew, such as where to reef a gaff tops'l, how to tie several sailor knots, and what causes the tides. Naturally the question of Sex never came up during the course of this time; nothing could have been further from the innocent sailors’ minds as we took off our clothes and swam together in the pearly lagoons of the South Seas, and as for myself I grew up in total ignorance of whether I was a girl-thing or a boy-thing or just thing. Indeed I might never have known about Sex at all had it not been for a tiny incident which occurred on my seventeenth birthds It seems we had been cruising the South Sea year, searching for typhoons, which were then in great demand in the Statcs for use in theatre ventilating-ma chines, and one day I walked forward to Father carrying someth in my arms. “Father,” I asked him. ‘What's this?” “It's he gasped in astonishment. “Where did you get it? “T just had it,” I explained. Father glanced at me suspiciously. “How did that happen?” “I don’t know,” I said. “I haven't the s: “June,” he id sternly, “you've been thing from me.” htest idea.” ping some- comicbooks.com