Monday, December 16, 1929
Pressed into the messboy’s job again as Jim is still on a tear in town. Time passed slowly. Cleaned everything up and threw a lot of junk away; played bridge, etc.
Finally we were paid off about 3:30, I receiving all of $27.+ for a month and three days. A crabby customs official was there. He sat and did nothing till 3:45 when he broke the seal and let some of us get our stuff out for examination. I had to argue before he let me have mine. Our efficient customs!!! In a half hour he had OKed two men with a half dozen ahead. Suddenly realizing it was past four and overtime, he made everybody put their stuff back in the room and sealed it up again saying he would be around again at 9:30 the next morning.
Everybody was raving mad and I wouldn’t put mine back, but told him I wanted it passed now. He refused and walked out of the saloon. Then I got a bright idea. It materialized by standing in front of my stuff, thus hiding it, till he had locked the other’s things and left the ship. Then I carried mine forward and packed it all up. A slip was necessary to get past an official on the dock but Knowles and I decided to hell with him and customs in general—so took up our traps and left the ship. As luck would have it we missed the official and piled in a taxi with five others of the crew going to town. Thus I saved a day’s wait and there’s nothing irregular about it for my stuff was OKed in Honolulu and I locked it in this room for safekeeping—not customs examination.
Well, Knowles had a room at the Monte Leone, so we had the stuff sent up and set out to find out about a bus north for me.
One was leaving at 9 PM, so I got a ticket for $23.90 to Columbus, ($21.00 to Chicago)—ten bucks or so less than the train.
Slim knew his oats about New Orleans and we went to the Galatoire for a real steak dinner. About 8:30 Slim left for the R.R. station and Shreveport while I went to the bus station and took a Greyhound. Wasn’t crowded.
The drizzle faded out and nearly a full moon took its place, plainly lighting up the swamps, desolate wastes of weeds and trees.