Barge Watch

The dream this morning had me pulling guard duty on a huge ocean-going barge. This barge is a huge steel construction moored along side a pier. I am wearing my old army battle dress uniform (BDU). The sea-going services would call this standing a quarter-deck watch. I am tasked to keep the barge secure and monitor, and log all traffic coming to, and from the barge.

My watch begins by reliving the previous watch. This young man who is standing the watch is in his early twenties. He will be going to dinner when I have properly relieved him and I have assumed the duties. It was a long night for him and he is anxious to eat, and sleep. It is very quiet as the evening slowly darkens. Suddenly, I hear a commotion around the corner of an office. I walk toward the noise and I see a young boy about 7 or 8 years old. He has fallen out of his wheel chair. There are toys scattered around him. It looks like running into the toys caused his chair to come to an abrupt stop and this is what jerked him out of his chair.

I help the boy back into his chair. "Here you go lad!". I stand there and watch him drive away. It was like he belonged here and I had no question as to why this should be happening. A short time later a young female soldier in BDU's comes striding into the bay. She is blond stout round faced. She is here to give me a hard time and question everything I am doing. I say, "Yes, mam!" as she fumes at me. I look down at her rank and see she is nothing more than a Private First Class! Still, I play along with her tirade and eventually she leaves me in peace.

The next thing to happen is the whole barge starts to heave up and down, and back, and forth! It is some kind of unusual storm surge that has hit the area. I tumble out a door onto the top deck to see what is happening. I somersault for about 50 feet forward toward the bow. I steady myself and look around. The barge is slamming into pier. The shore lines are going slack and then tighten as the barge rocks back, and forth, and it is at this point that I wake up from the dream.

This dream reminds me of a real incident I experienced while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard in Alaska. I witnessed a sudden winter storm hit our cutter while we were in Cold Bay, Alaska. The ship had to get underway and we anchored out in the bay for three days. Half the crew, stranded on land, stayed in a hotel and the other half were on board. There were 100 mile an hour winds. Some of the mooring lines actually snapped from the dock! It has been a vivid memory in my head ever since.

Life can have sudden storms. Sometimes you just have to take the buffeting and roll with the punches and hope you can get back on your feet to fight another day, and you try to help the less fortunate, like handicapped children falling out of their wheelchairs, along the way, and this pretty much sums up how I feel after this dream.