Palma.... the toilet post

I read another story on her posted by a sailor that also went to the island of Palma. It is a small island in the Med off the coast of Spain and a darn good liberty port for sailors.

Palma is a small town on the island where the booze was cheap and the coffee was cheep and the ladies were very friendly to sailors if you happen to have a couple dollars that you wanted to spend carelessly. Over in the ''old part'' of the town the streets were about the width of our sidewalks and they were lined with buildings with doorways that opened directly out on the street. Ladies would stand in these door ways ''hawking'' their wears to the sailors that may go staggering by. It was kinda like a ''reverse auction'' with the product person and the ''bidder'' haggling over the price of said ''wears'' concerning the length of the rental period and exactly what is included in the terms of the rental agreement with ''offers'' and ''refusals'' on both sides until a satisfactory agreement is reached between both parties concerning the ''product'' offered for use to the buyer as it were. The price usually was around two dollars american. The fun really started when another prospective ''buyer'' stepped up and got into the bidding. I saw it happen to a buddy of mine and while he was ''haggling'' another sailor stepped up and became the second man in the ''haggle''. My friend turned to the second sailor and invited him to remove himself from the ''haggle'' or suffer the consequences of a ''bidding interruption process'' in which he was the party of the first part. It should be understood right now that both participants in said ''auction''(?) had been in more than one shot of the fine burbon available over there for about 25 cents a hit. The second sailor told my friend that he should go fly a kite and my friend smacked him in the mouth at which point the second sailors friend hit my friend and I hit the second sailor in the back of the head while he was helping his friend off the cobble stones in the street. The lady of the evening had disappeared back into the door where she was promoting her personal business and me and my friend went fist and skull with the two other sailors for several rounds. No one was ''winning'' because we were all drunk to the nines and the fight broke up when the shore patrol hit the whistles and we all broke and ran like rabbits. After several turns into allies and finally wound up hiding in a bar and we managed to get away from the Shore Patrol. Personally I believe they blew the whistles just to watch us run because I saw that happen again while we were there.
Anyhow, me and my buddy decided to split up because we knew they would be looking for two guys so he went one way and I went another.

You need to understand that the ''bars'' over there are slightly bigger than a broom closet most of the time. I wound up in a place called ''Bar Soul'' which was about 10 feet wide and about 35 feet long. It was lit by Christmas tree lites and the light from a juke box. It was mostly a long bar with stools and a couple tables in the back and one toilet...... I asked the bartender for the ''la trene'' and he pointed to the door in the back of the bar.
Understand this. The toilet consisted of three tiled walls with a water pipe on top and water dripping down the wall into a ditch that leads to a drain. There was also a hole about four inches in diameter in the middle of the tiled floor. That was it. No flushing, no paper, one small lite in the middle of the room and the ''smell'' was pretty rough. Anyhow, I ''went to the wall'' and was writing my name, rank and serial number using my bodily fluid discharge when I realized that another person had just walked into the room. I turned round and low and behold there was one of the bar girls squatting over the hole in the middle of the floor. HOLLY CAT STUFF.... This literally embarrassed the dickens out of me and I stopped half way thru writing my service number, buttoned up and hit the bricks out of there. The bar girl just laughed at me and said ''wait a minute sailor man''...... didnt happen.... I left.....

From then on, when I went into a bar the first thing I checked out was the bathroom to see if it had separate facilities …....
strange as it may seem a lot of the ''bar girls'' were very pretty. Long black hair, dark eyes and dark skin smooth as silk sometimes. Most of them carried ''Health Cards'' they would show you to show that they had been inspected by the health authority and that they were ''clean'' at the time of inspection.
Nuff said about this for now but I will tell you that Palma is one heck of a liberty port and any sailor or marine that has been there can tell you some sea stories that will make you ''drool''................

God bless this great nation and the men and women that defend it....

Seajay the sailor man ….