I served in the Coast Guard from 1987 to 1991

My first duty station out of Boot Camp was Station Umpqua River just north of Coos Bay on the Oregon coast.

I was a glorified mechanics apprentice.

For my day job I took care of the diesel engines on the life boats and maintained the light house.

Umpqua River Light House.

Since I had the keys, it made for a great place to take your dates late at night. It was pretty amazing standing in there watching the red and white lights slowly move across the sky, listening to the hum of the prism move on it's gears.

But we also have shared duties; search and rescue and law enforcement boardings were the primary roles here.

This is the dry dock where we worked on the 44s and 30 footer when they needed to be pulled from the water.

Winchester Bay (where the station was located) was out in the middle of nowhere, but my Buddy Mark Davis and I found plenty of trouble to get into on and off the station.

We made a lot of friends in the town of Reedsport near by. This is my roommate Keri Caldwell, Mark and another friend’s girlfriend at one of the many back woods parties we’d have. This is either the old airport where we would go 4x4’n or Smith river where we would bring 5 or 6 cases of beer and drink till we passed out or finished the last beer. Believe it or not I didn’t drink before meeting these friends. ;)

There were other distractions to be had as well. This was my first girlfriend Missy Hewes. The first woman to ever break my heart. ;)

And Kristi Wagner, the first woman's heart that I ever broke. She's one of those people you always wonder what happened to.

I chose my second duty station to be closer to Kristi; who was attending Pacific U.

It was the Buoy Tender Cutter Iris out of Astoria, Oregon. This was taken on a trip north to Alaska.

It was in Alaska where we helped mop up the Exxon Valdez oil spill by day and drank copious amounts of beer in the Pipeline in Valdez by night.

You can't tell, but I am 3 seconds from being drenched by a 50' sneaker wave.

I was an diesel mechanic aboard this ship, but the deck hands had the worst job, scraping barnacles and setting buoys. I loved to harass the deck apes

This is Mark Locklear (Chief Electrician) and the Engineering officer. Doing what engineers do best . . . fish.

Mark and I were very close friends in fact he was in my wedding. I wish I knew what happened to him. It sad but you loose track of people over time. Especially when they move every two or three years. The EO was a good ol'boy from Alabama. Damn could he tell stories.

This was Captain Lang.

I think he chose our destinations based on the bars that were in each port. I really liked him. . . . No not because he knew all the best bars, but that was an added bonus.

I celebrated my 21st birthday on the Iris on the way down to San Diego.

When we pulled into port my roommate Mark (not pictured here) and I went and got a tattoos. Mine was an eagle. His was his girlfriends name in a flaming heart . . . I tried to tell him he was an idiot, but some people have to learn things the hard way. ;)

This was back in Astoria at a local pub we would all go drinking at. If it wasn't here it was the Red Lion Inn (aka The Dead Lion).

That's my roommate Mark in the middle and me, piggy back on my buddy Mike.

There were some other advantages to living in Astoria. I was cast as an extra in two movies there. Her I am in Dennis Quade’s movie, “Come See the Paradise.” I was cast as a union leader who has him thrown in jail. These other guys were some of my ship mates also in the movie. (Bob Cuddeback, Ed James and Mark Walsh)

And you can guess which movie this was . . . Kidergarten Cop

He's shaking the hands of a couple roommates I had at the time, yes I lived with three women at the time. I vowed to never do that again. Women are brutal as roommates. . . . You can probably see me in the back ground there. That's about as good as my screen shot in the movie is. ;)