London Grove Publishing Getting It For Love In Old San Juan

GETTING IT FOR LOVE IN OLD SAN JUAN is a personal journey of a twenty-year-old New York college student in the early '60s who, fearing a straight path through life, postpones his education to join the merchant marine for adventure and to prove himself in the "real world." The story is alternately gripping and humorous, introspective and dramatic, as he relives his adventures and misadventures in the worst job in the merchant marine: "wiper" in the engine room of an old cargo ship converted to container service between New York, Florida and Puerto Rico.Encountering a mostly hostile crew, the young man gradually earns acceptance and respect by surviving the ordeals of the work, by his skill at poker, and through his sometimes comical sometimes dangerous interactions with the unusual and even threatening characters on the ship. He confronts both rational and irrational fears and engages in a star-crossed pursuit of women in his ports of call. In the course of the book, he describes his bizarre dealings with the union and the absurd catch-22 aimed at preventing him from getting a ship, as well as the conflicted state of his life before he gets one, and finally, the unimagined way his journey ends.