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Jun 29, 2008 3:48 pm US/Central
Remnants Of Ghost Ships For Sale
BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) ―
The air in Brian Beller's office is drenched in the acrid scent of recently lacquered oak recovered from a World War II era ship.
A row of dusty
cash registers from the USS Des Moines, frozen with the price of their final sales, occupy the top shelf of a metal case behind Beller's desk. His job is to find a home for these items, the incongruent remnants of Navy ghost ships haunting his office.
"It's kind of a service to the people that served on the ships," he said.
"It'd be a shame to see it go to waste."
Beller manages ESCO Sales, an extension of
ESCO Marine Inc., ship-recycling business, which sells the otherwise unrecyclable but usable bounty off of U.S. naval ships scrapped at the Port of Brownsville.
The warehouse offers an improbable variety of items, including ice cream machines, life vests, fire extinguishers and exercise equipment. Other merchandise includes used power equipment, winches, stainless steel kitchen and restaurant gear, diesel generators, marine surplus goods and nautical antiques.
It's hard to imagine there would be much use or interest for practice powder charges, but Beller insists that nearly everything will be sold within a year.
Some items will get a second life on active ships, while others will be sold to nostalgic sailors as souvenirs. Other items salvaged from the galley and infirmary end up in restaurants or clinics, but it all finds a home.
A unique example, Beller said, are jacketed steam kettles. On the ship, the kettles functioned as steam fed tubs for cooking. Today, the tubs, which sell for $3 per pound, are popularly used in backyards as caldrons for cooking carnitas.
Retrofitted with a burner at the base and vents at the top, the tubs are ideally suited to prepare food for big parties.
"It's really just another way of recycling," Beller said.
Each ship ESCO dismantles offers a fresh assortment of supplies to replenish the store. ESCO also sends out shipments on barges leaving the Port of Brownsville for ports all over the world. Machine tools head to Colombia, ship wheels to Australia, crane blocks to Louisiana, watertight doors for a tugboat in Delaware, and nautical antiques to Connecticut.
Compared to the gargantuan ship breaking projects at the port, the pace at ESCO Sales is laid back. Taco, the resident stray dog, lounges on the cool floor of Beller's office to escape the 95-degree heat.
"We figured if we hadn't found him he'd be a taco by now," Beller said with a wry smile.
And every item has a story.
Some customers walk through ESCO's doors in search of the practical, such as life jackets or taut rope in preparation of shrimping season. The items are snatched up and forgotten. Others stroll down the warehouse isles in search of the past.
"We learn a lot about the inventory just from listening to (customers)," he said.
Enthused by his latest find, Beller weaves through pallets stacked with engine parts to a stack of boxes wrapped in white plastic film. He rips off the grubby plastic wrapping and then unfolds a pocketknife to pry open the box's lid. He reaches in with both hands and pulls out a mint condition antique Underwood typewriter price tag $100.
He places the shiny black machine atop a wooden box, and takes a step back and stares in awe.
"There it is," he said, "stuck in time."
Despite his reverence for the items he sells, Beller's work does not follow him home.
"I get asked all the time if my house is filled with this stuff," he said, casting a broad stroke with his hand. "I can tell you, I see plenty of it during the day."
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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