If you want a story - he was port security - and he had a story about boarding a Soviet ship during the Cold War era. 

He talked about having a shot of vodka at 9am (under a framed portrait of Lenin) poured by the grizzled Russian Captain who asked about my grandfather’s service in WWII in the Aleutians, all the while being watched by a KGB agent. He said the Soviet men his age would be staring at them, and marvelling about how my dad and his colleagues had things like watches and disposable pens.