Good Sunday morning seafaring friends hope your all well :) I was going to tell you a story about the Urn today but Ill save that for another time. Let me tell you a little story about Johnny McColl, and John Enright two nice guys I once sailed with. Thanks to Johnny for the early tuition, from you I learned a lot. And for my cousin John, gone these many years, taken to early. You both live on in my fond memories of you. R.I.P Have I bean a fool? :) He was a trickster was Johnny, had all kinds of tricks up his sleeve and used to fascinate us young lads with his stunts. One was the bean tin stunt. Johnny would lay his middle finger on top of a deck board, straight and in line with the board. Hed then take a full bean tin, raise it high in the air and crash it down on his finger! When you looked at the bean tin afterwards, it was bent in two, completely folded over, unbelievable! The other John onboard at this time was my cousin John, he was sixteen and I was fifteen, I tell you we had Johnny doing this trick whenever we could, cook would go dilly cause each bean tin he took out of the locker was bent double and of course he had a job opening them. Even went to the skipper once and said, will you stop them skip, their bending my beans? Skipper looked at cookie and said, how have they bean doing that cookie? (emphasis on the bean) McColl uses his finger skip You tell Johnny he is to keep his finger out of my beans, ok? (Never the sharpest gutting knife in the rack) cookie said, I will skip and trundled off. Completely fascinated by this stunt and so dedicated were we to prove how it was done, without breaking your finger. Your doing it that fast that we cant see properly, your missing your finger and just hitting the edge of the deck board (wed had our faces so close to his finger when he was doing it, once or twice he nearly cracked our noses as the tin struck home!) Ok, says Johnny tie a bit of twine near my finger end, you can hold the end and Ill swipe the tin on the inside of the twine, that way youll know Im not missing the finger We did; another bent bean tin! Whats the secret Johnny, have you got a false finger? Feel it, bend it, does it look or feel false? No, so whats the trick? Im going to tell you lads, keep it to yourself and you can impress the lasses with it when your ashore ( oh yes, great chat up line guys; come on honey Ill show you my bean trick, bound to get girls hearts racing!) Lugs were strained, hanging on every word Johnny said; simple lads, the secret is to hit your finger as hard as you can, if you hold back, youll hurt or even break your finger, the harder you do it, the less you feel! Oh and it must be a tin without a dent in it John, my cousin and I looked at each other? Go on says Johnny heres a tin Honest Johnny it wont hurt? Seen me do it enough times, would I do it if it hurt? We examined the tin minutely for any dents, there was none. We hesitated, procrastinated, mulled over and thought, for what seemed an age! You do it first! Not likely, you do it then I will! Oh give me the tin said my cousin John (I did admire his; er, bravery, he! he!) He laid his finger on the deck board, in line just as wed seen Johnny do may times, he raised the can high. Dont forget now as hard as you can, the harder you hit, the less you feel! Said Johnny with a perfectly, matter of fact face on him. Wallop!!! To be continued! Just kidding! You want to know, did the trick work for John??? The day after the trick we were docked in Aberdeen. Aberdeen Royal Infirmaries X-ray department notes said, a fractured finger. Our skipper said ................................. John did not grass Johnny up, just made some lame excuse about cracking his finger on a stantion post as he flung a fish into the washer! Cook was pleased, for after that incident he had no more bent bean tins. Beans means Heinz or PAIN! Want to know how the trick worked? Want to know why Johnny McColl didnt break his finger? SO DO I !!!! :) x
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 07:29:14 +0000
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