Allen and Dee get jobs on a small freighter and sail to Roatan and Belize City in July 1965
When I was a little boy way back in the dark ages, one of my favorite books was a picture and storybook called “Pirates, Ships, and Sailors,” which was full of colorful pictures that set my mind to dreaming of setting sail some day for exotic lands way beyond the horizon. In the spring of 1965, I was getting ready to graduate from Austin College in Sherman, Texas, and I was ready for adventure. So, when my best friend Dee Johnson (Milton David Johnson III) told me that he planned to spend the summer in Tampa, FL, and invited me to come with him, I was all for it. Together we hatched a plan to get jobs on a ship, since Tampa is a busy port and sail away to Europe or Asia or some other exotic location. Dee Johnson & Allen Hallmark as we looked in the Austin College yearbook for 1965 our senior year. The plan entailed sharing the guest bedroom in the home of Dee’s mom, Jack, who had retired after serving many years as county clerk of Midland County, TX, and had...