My dad, who worked offshore in the Gulf for 20 years, told me last weekend he never once took a 'souvenir' from a job site. Said it was bad luck and disrespectful to the water. I'd always thought that was just superstition, but the way he said it made me pause.

3 comments

3 Comments

My uncle worked on the Great Lakes and said the exact same thing... he called it borrowing trouble. There's a real weight to that kind of respect for a place that feeds you and could take you. Your dad's tone probably carried twenty years of watching the water give and take things. It's not just superstition when it comes from someone who's lived it.

hayden7205h ago

That "borrowing trouble" phrase says it all.

kevin_adams5h ago

Call it respect if you want, but it sounds like fear to me. Sometimes you just have to push past old superstitions.