New York Harbor

Dear Diary:

In summer 1976, I was a young Coast Guardsman attending school on Governors Island. The session lasted 11 weeks.

At the time, there was a special ferry that ran between the island and a spot on the Battery near the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. A group of us took it to Manhattan one night, and then went up to Times Square.

We lost track of time, and returned to the Battery around 1 a.m. to discover that we had missed the last ferry back.

As we sat there wondering how much trouble we were in, a small harbor tug nosed up to the pier. A window on the wheelhouse opened, and a man poked his grizzled face out.