First Ship - Paperback

Set in 1969-70, this is a chronicle of a young man's flight from the Viet Nam draft and potential arrest on unrelated charges. The story starts in Seattle and goes to the coast of Maine, a vegetable oil factory in New Orleans, the red light district of wartime Saigon, and ends up with hitchhiking on Route 66 to get back to Seattle from New Orleans. This is the first in a collection of sea stories based upon the author's experience working aboard 17 freighters and tankers from 1970 to 1982. John Merriam was an unlicensed seaman in the U.S. merchant marine for those 12 years while working his way through college and law school. Tuition for law school was paid with a scholarship from the Seafarers International Union. Passing the bar in 1982, he was associate and then partner at a small, general practice firm in Seattle before starting his own firm in 1996. Mr. Merriam now restricts his law practice to representing individuals with claims for maritime wages or injury. He is a sole practitioner with an office at Seattle's Fishermen's Terminal. The author lives with his wife, Kaye Walker, in Shoreline, WA.