Category: Stories

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Cruise Ship Puritan

We are are not who we appear. Amazingly, it was another anthropologist who forced the moment. He moonfaced asked me, “Who are your People?” In my less civilized incarnation in the ’60s, I’d have shown him by the tip of my boot. But I was now in the Ivy League. So, I made an honest attempt to explain. I was a typical New Yorker – a melding of peoples and cultures. In my case, a mix of Catalan Spanish, Hungarian, Irish, Scots, and Caribean all mixed in that beautiful stew pot we called New York City. “Well, yes, but who are your People?” 

Some people can’t deal with complexity.

Casting about for a way out of the discussion, I looked at him and did some creative confabulation.

” I’m Hispano-Yankee. It’s an obscure group. Our ancestors were blown off course from the Armada and eventually wound up on the coast of Maine, where we promptly started breeding with Native Americans and English fisher folk who preceded the Mayflower. My People preceded your People.” With a lift to my chin, I shifted my gaze over his right shoulder and ignored him. Five points for a correctly performed Ivy League Cut!

Little did I know at that juncture that part of the story was curiously close to the truth. I discovered that the same company that sent the Mayflower sent a second ship – the Seaflower. The Seaflower went south to the Caribean. The Mayflower crew were busy being Puritans and talking about Cities on a Hill. But, the Seaflower folks were opting for a good time on the beach, growing tobacco, and going buccaneering. Letters exist between the Providence Island “Puritans” ( snort, laugh!) and Governor Winthrop’s son inviting him down for a fun cruise raiding Spanish shipping, towns, and other fun mayhem. While the Colony on Massachusetts Bay became, well, the term Puritanical comes to mind, the cousins to the south began to reveal a casual cruise ship attitude towards life.

So. Yes. I am not as I appear. My ancestors originated the Caribbean holiday cruise for wayward northerners. Celebrate good times!

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Pyrates and Emeralds

Family –

Seamen stand in ranks of generations behind me on both the paternal and maternal sides. My father’s maritime ancestors were all merchant mariners. But, growing up, nothing was said about my mother’s family, and the one time she slipped a reference to them, she rapidly put a cover on it and denied having ever told me that story. The story, said to me at about age five, was that an ancestor had hung for piracy. Kids of five don’t forget these things when they get raised on whole rafts of sea stories and pirate movies. But, my mother firmly stomped on any inquiry about her family, and it wasn’t until I was an adult that I dared to ask about it again. In the intervening years, her attitude had only hardened: “That never happened, and you stop poking around!”

Mythology-

My mother’s preferred family mythology was that she was an heiress to rich emerald mines in Colombia. As soon as the lawyers sorted things out, we’d all be wealthy beyond belief. This bit of fabulism regularly got trotted out at holidays and family gatherings. 

My father, the romantic pragmatist, knew the whole actual history of his father’s heart condition, the loss of wealth during the depression, and his first jobs as a longshoreman, and then as a merchant mariner. My father either didn’t know, didn’t care, or more likely was cowed by my mother into accepting the blank slate offered regarding her family. He tolerated the popular mythology of the emerald mines.

She had been orphaned at eight and brought to this country by her brother/ stepfather ( another merchant mariner). He rapidly stepped out of her life, leaving her with a string of non-relatives. The experience of being a poor orphan boarding with a strict landlady had not been pleasant. That was not the narrative mother wanted to discuss – End of discussion, let’s talk about the emeralds!

History –

That was where my mother’s story stood up until about ten years ago. Ten years ago, I got nosy. You know, the internet. The internet did not have much on the little speck of rock in the Caribbean that she was from. Just enough. ” You stop that!” I persisted.

Eventually, I found that there were two origin myths on the island regarding her family. Both have bits of tantalizingly historical detail. In the first, I found the original male progenitor had been a mate on one of Henry Morgan’s ships. Morgan left to give Panama a thorough sorting out, but his mate either stayed or returned to it later. He left a long line of descendants. 

OK, Morgan was a privateer on a technicality, but still a pyrate. 

In the second story, the stem ancestor descended from a Napoleonic War Privateer named Berelski. He deserted from Napoleon’s efforts to control the Caribbean. Knowing that someone named Berelski would stand out, he took an English name. Berelski was a technically a privateer, probably a Pyrate.

Mother’s reaction to this? “You stop this, now.”

So, for the time being, I have stopped. All my shipmates and classmates from school now have ample opportunity to say: ” Yup, the Dread Pyrate Wesley.”

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Patience

<p class="has-drop-cap" value="<amp-fit-text layout="fixed-height" min-font-size="6" max-font-size="72" height="80">I met Cap'n Brown while chasing my big grey tom Clancy over to the other side of the island. Cap'n Brown was more than a Cap'n by courtesy, but less than a retired master mariner. He was a handy boat builder. And, respected in the community. He was known to be tolerant of grandchildren in his shop, and he put up with an elderly cat who was as cantankerous as my Clancy. Tiger had been there and done all that in his youth. Clancy, naturally eager to learn from the very best, became a fast companion for Tiger.<br>On the day I found out where Clancy had been lighting out to every morning, Cap'n Brown had just finished laying out a bowl of ice cream for the two buddies to share. The shop was a cavernous barn with molds, patterns, and lumber everywhere. Half hull models lined whatever space was available on the walls not already taken up by photos of a much younger Cap'n Brown standing by the many boats he'd built. Cap'n Brown was not too friendly but offered a cup of strong black boiled coffee to take the chill off the early May morning.<br>Being that Clancy and Tiger were regular buddies, I found myself walking over frequently to make sure that my cat was not overstaying his welcome. My father in law warned me that Cap'n Brown had some strange habits, like being seen shambling about the woods near his house, mumbling to himself. I took this with a big dose of salt; my father in law thought everyone not in his family was strange.<br>Still, the first time I found him walking by the side of his driveway bent over looking intently at something I could not see, I wondered. Seeing me, he called over and excitedly showed me the early Trout lily coming into bloom—the leaves were green mottled with bronze, and the small flowers a pale yellow. Over the next few weeks, I became familiar with the early blooms of Trillium, woods anemone, and other springtime ephemeral flowers. These flowers were the initial sign of spring. But, the calendar could not tell the date on which they appeared. Every day in early coastal spring could be a surprise, and this was why neighbors saw him wandering the woods hunched over mumbling. Appear a couple of days too late, and you missed the flowers of bloodroot until next year.<br>My father in law was more concerned with when he could get a date for hauling out Psyfhe than little weeds in the woods. I got the impression that he thought Cap'n Brown a bit odd, but as with most things with my father in law, all was made right by the correct maritime credentials. Brown was a boatwright of local renown. He could mumble all he wants in the woods if his curves are fair, and the sheer lines of his boats sweet. End of issue.<br>Many years later, my second wife and I wound up buying a house bordered in the back by a local Audubon sanctuary. The dense cover of cherry and maple in the rear of the lot precluded growing much. The kids had already decided on digging out a pond, so I put my mind to what sort of landscaping I could do with that much shade. I decided on re-wilding the area with native plants. Some volunteered from the neighboring woods: false Solomon's seal and Sasparilla. Some I bought through plant sales, and from nurseries.<br>Eventually, one year I noted that my next-door neighbor was peering at me from her window. Was she looking at me?<br>I realized that there I was fussing over the little patch of trout lily that had green and bronze leaves, but not yellow flowers yet.<br>I had bluets, May apples, black Cohosh, dolls eyes, spikenard, spirea and lots more. There was a lot of mumbling and shuffling going on in my yard. My current cat Xenia ( empress of all she surveys), was being watched by Sam, the great hunter of pond frogs. I smiled. All was well; it was spring in New England. Patience, abetted by some mumbling and stumbling, helped you get through.I met Cap’n Brown while chasing my big grey tom Clancy over to the other side of the island. Cap’n Brown was more than a Cap’n by courtesy, but less than a retired master mariner. He was a handy boat builder. And, respected in the community. He was known to be tolerant of grandchildren in his shop, and he put up with an elderly cat who was as cantankerous as my Clancy. Tiger had been there and done all that in his youth. Clancy, naturally eager to learn from the very best, became a fast companion for Tiger.
On the day I found out where Clancy had been lighting out to every morning, Cap’n Brown had just finished laying out a bowl of ice cream for the two buddies to share. The shop was a cavernous barn with molds, patterns, and lumber everywhere. Half hull models lined whatever space was available on the walls not already taken up by photos of a much younger Cap’n Brown standing by the many boats he’d built. Cap’n Brown was not too friendly but offered a cup of strong black boiled coffee to take the chill off the early May morning.
Being that Clancy and Tiger were regular buddies, I found myself walking over frequently to make sure that my cat was not overstaying his welcome. My father in law warned me that Cap’n Brown had some strange habits, like being seen shambling about the woods near his house, mumbling to himself. I took this with a big dose of salt; my father in law thought everyone not in his family was strange.
Still, the first time I found him walking by the side of his driveway bent over looking intently at something I could not see, I wondered. Seeing me, he called over and excitedly showed me the early Trout lily coming into bloom—the leaves were green mottled with bronze, and the small flowers a pale yellow. Over the next few weeks, I became familiar with the early blooms of Trillium, woods anemone, and other springtime ephemeral flowers. These flowers were the initial sign of spring. But, the calendar could not tell the date on which they appeared. Every day in early coastal spring could be a surprise, and this was why neighbors saw him wandering the woods hunched over mumbling. Appear a couple of days too late, and you missed the flowers of bloodroot until next year.
My father in law was more concerned with when he could get a date for hauling out Psyfhe than little weeds in the woods. I got the impression that he thought Cap’n Brown a bit odd, but as with most things with my father in law, all was made right by the correct maritime credentials. Brown was a boatwright of local renown. He could mumble all he wants in the woods if his curves are fair, and the sheer lines of his boats sweet. End of issue.
Many years later, my second wife and I wound up buying a house bordered in the back by a local Audubon sanctuary. The dense cover of cherry and maple in the rear of the lot precluded growing much. The kids had already decided on digging out a pond, so I put my mind to what sort of landscaping I could do with that much shade. I decided on re-wilding the area with native plants. Some volunteered from the neighboring woods: false Solomon’s seal and Sasparilla. Some I bought through plant sales, and from nurseries.
Eventually, one year I noted that my next-door neighbor was peering at me from her window. Was she looking at me?
I realized that there I was fussing over the little patch of trout lily that had green and bronze leaves, but not yellow flowers yet.
I had bluets, May apples, black Cohosh, dolls eyes, spikenard, spirea and lots more. There was a lot of mumbling and shuffling going on in my yard. My current cat Xenia ( empress of all she surveys), was being watched by Sam, the great hunter of pond frogs. I smiled. All was well; it was spring in New England. Patience, abetted by some mumbling and stumbling, helped you get through.

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White Horse Circle

Most of us have events that echo through the corridors of our lives. Thirty, forty, and fifty years later, it remains like a rhythm track beating at an intersection from a car seven cars ahead. You can’t make out the song, but you hear the beat. I have that sort of track inside me, and it emerged briefly to thump into action this morning as I emerged from the house into the downpour to go to the store, out of quarantine.
It was 1960, something. I was standing in the pouring rain in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, at the White Horse traffic circle. It was me, my soaked clothes, and a guitar. The guitar had some extra clothes wrapped inside the case to keep the guitar dry. I was praying for a ride.
Out of the night appeared a large black sedan full of African American Church ladies. I heard one of them holler out to me, “Hurry in, there’s room for one more if we squeeze!” and squeeze we did to Philadelphia.
They grilled me: did my mother know where I was? What was I doing in the middle of nowhere New Jersey in a storm like this? It went on, but in such loving terms that I soon broke down in tears. Out it came my life’s current romantic, financial, and existential crises off the rails.
Then a quiet voice asked: “May we pray for you?” and pray they did all through the dark wet night from White Horse Circle on NJ 226 to North Philly. Letting me out where I could catch a train, I was told: “You’ve gotten prayed over good. Don’t forget; God loves you.”

OK, it wasn’t my tradition. I’m a Methodist escapee from a Catholic upbringing. But the rhythm, the memory kept returning, and I am in that car with those ladies praying for me. And, as I said, it’s like a powerful rhythm track. I can’t hear the words, but I feel the powerful beat. I am so grateful to those ladies; they prayed over me so well that all these years later, It’s still there.

Thank You.

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Setlist

Well, here it is. It took about an hour of digging around to locate. It’s a list.
A setlist. It contains a listing of the songs that I regularly performed when I composed the list. It’s very late, probably around 1977. But, the first 28 songs all date from sets I did from the 1960s in the Village. Some I still know, and could play blind drunk on the floor of an apartment on Christopher Street. That happened, not to me, but a very famous performer who passed out in 1964 in said apartment. I think it might have been Van Ronk or Havens who said: “put his ax in his hands, and I bet he’ll start playing.” He did. In those days, almost everyone knew lots of performance material cold. Coffeehouse playing wasn’t necessarily lucrative, but it was a living. We all had setlists, and mine was neither distinguished nor as expansive as some.
So whether he was giving us all a rise or not, we all howled at the result. And we respected how professional the performance was under challenging circumstances.

This one was more of a reference list of stuff I could put together in different ways depending on mood or need. Narrower ones might get taped to the top of my guitar. Depending on what I was playing, it might be my nylon string old friend “Charlie,” or the speed necked Gibson “I.O.U.”
The spill on the list looks like beer.

Van Ronk once put together a song of all the Towns on the Garden State Freeway – Garden State Stomp. Most of us could have composed similar material of all the coffeehouses, bars, cheap clubs, street corners, and parties that we frequented while keeping it all together. We knew this stuff better than we knew our girlfriends’ names, and that may explain why we had so many bad relationships.

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Sloop

Spinney’s yard was no different than lots of yards on the mid-coast, and in most ways, Spinney was not too different than the run of yard owners. He worried about the big Tahiti Ketch that had sat in the yard for years while the estate tried to sell it. It took up the space of three other boats. Spinney worried about the old 1929 tractor he used for hauling boats out of the water. But most of all, Spinney worried about boat owners stealing supplies and electricity from him. He used a phrase picked up from a client: “Son, in this business, you live or die on the margins, on the margins!” As a result, Spinney often wandered the yard grumbling that so and so had paid for space, but used up as much electricity as he could connive…”. “Not to mention all that crud he’s not picking up, if the dammed EPA comes down here I’m gonna be closed down because of his crud. Bob! Don’t lend that jerk any extension cords. Let him bring his own.” Because of all these distractions, Spinney sometimes had focus issues.

Everyone’s big job that spring was a pretty small schooner undergoing restoration in the yard. It now looked fantastic and, it had kept the yard hands paid through the winter. The money made on the restoration had almost been enough to calm Spinney’s anxiety over stolen power, swiped boat stands, and missing ladders.
Spinney’s yard was home to a few other old project boats. A pretty sorry batch altogether. The only one with any promise was the Old Gem. With a 1910 build date, it had the look of a Morse built Friendship sloop. All the original detail and shape were there but buried under at least a dozen layers of paint. The last owner may have been a Navy bosun who believed that paint not only hid a multitude of sins but that if liberally applied kept one busy enough that there would be no time to sin. As a result, the sloop looked encrusted in the paint.
Despite the neglect, Old Gem retained her hull lines and was more worthy of restoration than the “most workboats turned yachts.” The owner, cap’n Preston, was doing all the work himself. To Spinney, a boat owner doing all the work himself was equivalent to theft of livelihood.
The way he said “cap’n” while referring to the Preston also let you know a lot about the situation. I may miss some of the emphasis that can be placed on this single term being from “Away.” But, not when it’s so broadly put about. Cap’n can be a term of great respect, humor, or ridicule. When you referred to my father in law as cap’n, it was with real respect: he was an authentic master mariner and a handy sailor.
So the way cap’n was said to Preston let me know that he was a cap’n by courtesy alone.
The next day I was down to measure a boat for a transom banner. I saw Preston and his wife stripping the tarps off Old Gem and unloading a springtime supply of sandpaper, paint, varnish, and all tools and goodies, which say – boating season. Spinney could be seen in his second-floor office, peering out on the doings. Old Gem’s new owner was well known at Spinney’s Yard. Leave a hose around, and it would wind up at Preston’s boat. Lose some sandpaper? Check Preston’s out first. With his kleptomaniac tendencies, it wouldn’t seem unusual that Spinney might keep an exceptionally sharp eye on Preston. It had been this way for all the years Preston stored and repaired his various boats at Spinneys. In all those years, Spinney had complained loudly. But, never told Preston he wouldn’t rent him space.

Now let me say this on behalf of Spinney. His reputation for fairness, generosity, and general Christian sensibilities are almost legendary. His character only knows one flaw: give Spinney the least suspicion that you’re cheating him, whether you are or not, and he’ll go to extreme ends seeking the proof of it. You would become the focus of all his attention. His confrontations with owners, who’ve borrowed yard ladders, or supplies without permission, are widely recollected. On occasion, the law has been called in to calm things down when large pieces of lumber, hammers, or planes have been wielded as weapons.
Given Spinney’s temperament, it was a matter of wonder that Preston was never, ever, confronted by Spinney. Spinney grumbled a lot louder about Preston than about some others. But even if Preston was an out and out petty thief, Spinney never did more than grumble. Preston did pretty much as he pleased.

Most yards have an assortment of riff-raff cats that keep rodents under control. Not so at Spinney’s; every cat was plump, healthy, and well-tended. All under the gaze of Spinney’s number one cat. Boo, as she was commonly called, was really Bubastis – cat goddess of all she surveyed, and that was everything in Spinney’s yard. Even the boatyard dog, a shepherd collie named Curly, checked in every morning: “Good morning, mam, you’d like what done today?”
Boo’s perch was the windowsill directly in front of Spinney’s desk. From this vantage, she could oversee the comings and goings all felines and humans in the yard, or sweep Spinney’s desk free of paperwork. Boo’s many litters had squatters’ rights in the yard. The cat seemed to pride herself on finding ever more inaccessible locations to have her kittens, and every time she disappeared, Spinney became a ball of anxieties promising to come unraveled.
Boo had been behaving oddly for a week and then gone missing a day or two ago. “Have you guys seen Boo?” “Naw Cap can’t say that I have. She’s been lookin’ a bit plump though…” This was enough to make Spinney recall the last time he had chased off that damn black tom from the lobster co-op. Smuts had gotten his Bubastis in the family way. Now the word was passed: “Figaro, Tom, Wes, Bubba keep your eyes open for Boo’s new hiding place.”
We didn’t find it. Marion Preston did.
Mrs. Preston is a woman who loves the world. But, such character may be a failing in a woman who puts up with cap’n Preston’s string of dry rotted boats, and poor pilotage. Marion Preston was part of the reason the yard cats were so plump. Despite her dedication to the family pug, Mrs. Preston was well regarded by every cat in Spinney’s yard. Maybe that’s what got all the trouble going because the next morning, the whole waterfront came awake with the shouts coming from around Old Gem.
Cap’n Preston and Spinney were circling each other on the restricted deck of the Old Gem. Preston, no coward, had grabbed a boat hook to counter the jack handle wielded by Spinney.
All work in the yard came to a dead stop. We all turned to look in the direction of Old Gem. There was a holler followed by a frantic Marion Preston leaping between the men. The box clutched to her bosom was full of kittens. A loud yowl rose as Boo declared herself an injured party in the dispute.
“You leave that cat and kittens alone you Bog Irish bastard !” yelled Spinney,
“You get your cat and her filthy litter off my boat, you mackerel snapper.”
No one present had ever heard Spinney use profanity, much less an ethnic slur. But Spinney was madder than anyone ever recalled. So red in the face, I was afraid he was going to keel over with a stroke then and there. Bubba said that Spinney hadn’t even been this mad when Figaro had sanded most of the gel coat finish off of Nickerson’s boat two years ago.
Weaving between the two were Marion Preston and Bubastis. The box clutched by Marion obviously held the kittens.
“Won’t both of you just quiet down.” “Mwoor!”
“You cat thief!”
“Watch who you call a thief.” At this point, Preston bent over and neatly dumped Bubastis, cat goddess of all she surveyed, over the side. Landing neatly on all fours, without having lost either dignity or anger, Bubastis leaped to the attack. Togo, Preston’s pug, was the object of this attack. Boo neatly cuffed Togo on the nose, causing the dog to spin away from the cat. As the dog’s rump hove into range, Boo gave that a swipe too. Togo commenced spinning. His spin was being helped out by occasional swats from Boo. All this accented by Togo’s ongoing yips.
Marion Preston had also reached the ground, but in a more dignified manner than Boo. She put the kittens aside safely and began trying to separate the angry cat from a perplexed dog.
Sensing unfolding drama, relief from boredom, and a break in work, a sizable portion of the manpower on the waterfront drifted in the direction of the noise. Realizing that she had won the fray, Boo retreated far under the hull of Old Gem, leaving Togo to seek comfort in Marion Preston’s arms. The arrival of the local police ended the excitement, but it was the favored topic over lunch and dinner across town.

Things stayed quiet in the yard for a while after that. I wasn’t at Spinney’s too much anyway, I had a full-time job at the Spouting Dolphin Art Gallery on Main street. The owner, Micah Payson, had plenty for me to do before the beginning of the summer season.
It was two weeks later that I went down to Spinney’s yard with a freshly varnished mahogany transom banner, all ready for installation on someone’s project boat. The restoration was about finished, the new carving I had made was installed, the varnishing all finished, rigging done, and final payment due. Old Gem seemed to be in precisely the same state of disrepair as two weeks before.
When I saw Spinney, I knew better than to mention the current yard eyesore, but he saw me looking in that direction anyway. Handing me my fee for the banner, he said: “I told Preston to move her or float her by July first, and not to come back.” Moved, perhaps more by the comfortable feeling of commission money in my pocket, than by common sense, I asked Spinney why he and old Preston got on so poorly. Rather than biting my head off Spinney, looked at me and said, “Wes, did you ever wish you could just sit down with an old friend you hadn’t been able to talk to with for ages, but couldn’t because of bad blood? Well, that’s how it is with Preston and I. He was my best friend in school.” With that, Spinney left the office hollering at Figaro to be careful where he piled the blocks they used with the jacks.
Now I was even more curious about what was going on between Spinney and Preston. Micah Payson gave me a Cheshire cat grin when I mentioned Spinney and Preston to him. “It’s so old a story around here that most people forgot it. After coming back from the war, Preston tried his hand as a broker. One of his first customers was Spinney. Right then, he was just starting up a shoestring operation. Spinney, based on friendship, bought an old boat from Preston without having a surveyor look it over first. He figured that Preston wouldn’t sell him something too awful. He intended to fix it up and resell it at a profit. But that boat had been in storage all during the war, and years before. It was dried out something fierce and sank at the dock when she was put back in because she was so dried out. The planks were so dry you’d see daylight through the seams! Nothing much to that normally; just pump until the dry wood “takes up” the moisture needed to close the seams. But this boat never seemed to take up. They hauled her out and did a proper survey. They declared it a total loss. Spinney looked like a fool, and Preston looked like the conniving dealer he’s been known as ever since. Maybe it was made worse that Spinney served in the Pacific for the whole war, while Preston wrote press releases down to the Fargo building in Boston. Spinney wound up a petty officer, and Preston wound up a Lieutenant Commander.” I could tell there was more than Payson wasn’t saying, but Micah was through speaking. But if Micah’s tale was accurate, why had Spinney put up with Preston all those years?
The answer came during the Second Battle of Old Gem two days later. A whole lot of staging, ladders and extension cords had found their way to Old Gem during the past Sunday. Sunday is the only day Spinney isn’t in the yard. Monday everyone was looking for, what had been leaning on their current project on Friday or Saturday. Preston had been working on his hull and fully enveloped it in all the staging and ladders he could gather. A long snake of joined extensions cords wound it’s way to the boat. A lone electric sander whined in the morning air, not the chorus of sanders, drills, and saws usually heard.
A delegation of owners and yard workers converged on the office, and soon Spinney was seen getting up steam and setting a course towards the Old Gem. Within minutes the two men were circling with milling arms, and the first punches in a new fight were being thrown. Then a clear soprano called out: “You Maynard, and you, Carl! A pair of foul, noisy old men. Old dried up sticks! You’ve been at each other for years over an old rotted hulk, and never the sense to either have it out or forgive.” “That boat’s sunk almost forty years and you two children haven’t forgotten. Maynard, your check for that damn boat bounced, and you Carl sold your best friend the worst hulk in the county.” She seemed to run down after this. But more quietly added, “…and I don’t know what I ever saw in either of you when we were courting.” Some of us idlers standing around gave choruses of silent Ahahs! Some of us, with a smile on our faces, turned away from the scene. Hell, most of us hadn’t even known that Spinney and Preston had first names, much less that Marion had dated them both. Marion Preston just confirmed what irritation had lain between the two all these years. No pearls had come from them, only two sour old clams.
The old men glared at each other. Like old tom cats no longer sure of their ground, they pointedly looked away from each other, spat on the ground, hitched their baggy pants up around their skinny hips, and stalked away.

A week later, I was back, between jobs, and just nosing around. Old Gem still sat in her cradle, looking no closer to launch than she had on the day of the fight. I was hoping to find out what had happened since but didn’t quite dare ask. Gladly, I didn’t have to. Marion Preston walked over from Old Gem, and asked Maynard if he would please give Carl the benefit of his superior knowledge…said just like that. Not saying anything, Spinney strolled over. The two warily exchanged mumbled greetings. “Got a problem, cap’n?” Spinney asked. “Just scraping away at this paint on the transom, and found this patch. What do you think it is?”
Spinney turned without a word went into his office. In a moment, he returned with a long ice pick sheathed in leather. Perhaps because he had been so thoroughly burnt in his virgin outing Spinney had become a skillful marine surveyor: valued by potential buyers, and feared by sellers. His tool of choice for judging the soundness of a hull was this ice pick. Up the ladder went Spinney. He thwacked the transom soundly, then pulled his pick and handily shoved it in. He dug into the offending spot with relish. Cap’n Preston winced. Out came chunks of rot. Spinney commenced humming a bit tunelessly. I, not too smartly, mentioned that this appeared to be something missed on the survey. Preston looked at me with a sick look on his face and said that he hadn’t had a proper survey done; he knew he was going to buy the sloop regardless.
Spinney excitedly called down from his perch “I love digging out the rot, it’s like being a dentist.” The excavated pocket soon was almost enough to swallow Spinney’s large hand. Grinning, he cheerfully pointed out that this was an old problem never adequately dealt with, as was evidenced by a short piece of plank let in on the port side of the transom. “Look here! See that flat spot? That’s where they let in a new piece of wood in an earlier repair…never really fixed the underlying problem.” Years of water, salt, and fresh had seeped in beneath an inadequately designed and bedded rail. Hearing this report, I now looked at those separations between the transom and the planking with new suspicion. Spinney was pointing out a hollowing in the transom near the short plank and below the rot pocket, and saying “…you always need to watch for this sort of thing.” He hopped down from his perch and dusted off his hands. A white-faced Preston thought about the size of the problem that had just opened up. “Well,” he said, “you know I want a quick fix. I just want to sail her. Can I just put a patch on and cover it over with fiberglass?” “Well,” said Spinney, a broad grin fixed in place as he strolled away,” sure… it’s your boat.”

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A Bad Drunk

My all too wise Canadian feral cat Clancy saw himself as a tough guy. Nothing much could get the better of the wily Ottawa born roustabout. Weighing in at about twenty pounds, he figured that he could easily punch above his class. He had successfully intimidated burglars, large german shepherds, and most of my friends. On moving to Coastal Maine, the only creatures that seemed to get the edge on him were those pesky birds that found him wherever he hid in the woods. To him, it seemed magical that his stealthy moves were so easily detected by the scouting chick a dee’s.
It seemed to come to a head one afternoon when I couldn’t locate him for dinner. I was able to track him into the woods by the loud complaints of screaming birds. There he was in the middle of a small clearing hissing and sputtering away as the birds comfortably hurled their birdy insults at him. I gathered him up and took him home for dinner, for once, he was quiet about being picked up.
Clancy was not interested in hunting birds; he liked big game animals, chipmunks, squirrels, dogs, and the wayward human. He did have a high internal sense of honor. Insult him once, and you had an enemy for life. Being he took offense quickly, he had a long list of enemies. To this list, he now added the neighborhood birds.
He abided. Fall came, and we took the first frost of the year early.
One morning I was in the shop and noticed Clancy paying even more attention to the birds than usual. I had the wood stove running to drive off the chill, and loving his creature comforts; I expected to see him tucked into the large sofa cushion that was his special place. But, no, he was just outside the shop with his tail lashing back and forth.
The frost touched the berries on the mountain ash tree and had set them to ferment. A number of the local birds were below the tree behaving drunk. They staggered and stumbled; other birds seemed to think this behavior was hilarious. For Clancy, it was nothing less the magical delivery of enemies into his paws.
Slowly he stalked out of the shop, belly flat to the ground—ears laid back, tail lashing sinuously back and forth. Revenge is mine saith the cat! Then the unexpected. A very drunk bird spots him and starts counter stalking the cat. Soon three or four birds are weaving back and forth, stalking the cat back towards the shop. Soon Clancy sees that he no longer the hunter, but is now the hunted. His sinuous stalk becomes a panicked retreat, and he slams into the shop’s screen door as he tries to get away from the nutso birds that have determined to get a bit of cat for an after cocktail snack. He dives under the workbench. It’s a few hours before I can lure him out.
We are cautious not to tease him about this. Such things do not happen to large game hunting cats.

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Cold

Summer Complaints. The first I heard that term was about annual summer visitors to the coastal communities of Maine. But, the name had an earlier etymology on the coast. Older residents could speak authoritatively of spring complaints, fevers, chills, and illnesses that came on with the change of the season in the spring. Once upon a time, every grannie would have had a specially concocted mixture of herbs and secret ingredients that everyone in the family would be forced to consume, along with the Cod Liver Oil that was a medicinal standard. A spring tonic.
The Cap’n insisted that most of these foul-tasting concoctions made you automatically feel better once you couldn’t taste them any longer.

I left it at that until I came down with a cold that would not go away. The doctor over town said it was viral, and I’d have to put up with it. The Cap’ns wife Cora insisted that I have regular doses of Castor Oil and Cod Liver Oil. The Cap’n stood in the other room as Cora attempted to coax me into taking the Caster Oil. He seemed to be miming, ” you’ll be sorry.” Not too long after that, I learned that a critical ingredient in most grannie cures seemed to be stimulating the lower bowel. I nixed the Castor Oil after that.
The Cap’n was concerned because I was not perky enough to hold up my end of the work on the 34-foot ketch we sailed. He returned home that evening with a quart of dark brown liquid. Taking me aside, he insisted that I take half a glass of it every night before going to sleep, and swallow it down in one go. I secreted the bottle among the varnish, shellac, and other finishes in the workshop.
That night I went out to the shop and poured myself a half glass; how much worse could it be than Cora’s remedy? No sooner had I swallowed it down than I was re-enacting the scene from the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde movies where the doctor transforms with great agony. I did get a decent night’s sleep, however.
The next day I asked the Cap’n bout the strange elixir he had provided. “I got it from Walter Gray, over to the Fisherman’s Coop. He says it’s Demerara rum, fresh ginger, some herbs, and being he’s a marlinspike guy I wouldn’t doubt if it had a bit of Stockholm Tar in it too. He said for you not to use it longer than five days; might hurt your liver.” Might hurt my liver? “Don’t worry; you’ll be fine in three days.”
I was fine in three days. The doctor over town told me that the cold had just run its course. Cora insisted that Cod Liver Oil and Castor Oil had set be right. The Cap’n just smiled at me and collected the empty quart for return to Walter. If you can choose your elixirs, you should choose wisely.

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The Alley Coffeehouse

My friends described the backside of Beacon Hill in the ’60s as a working-class slum. Not at all an accurate description. Worn at the heels, seen better times, shabbily genteel; those were better descriptors. The populace were refugees from Boston’s urban renewal in the West End, healthcare workers from the Mass General and Eye and Ear, and Folkies. The neighborhood had many charms for its residents. It was cheap, convenient to transportation, had a 24-hour drugstore, and you could roll down the Hill into the Emergency Room at the MGH. Being that most of us did not have things like medical coverage or primary care physicians. The ER was were we routinely got treated for everything from drug overdose to pediculosis. Power users of these services rarely paid. Many had no fixed abode, and the bills would go into mailboxes and from the mailboxes into the trash.


Legal, illegal, and dubious commerce flowed freely along the main thorofare of Charles Street. Coffeehouses, restaurants, antique dealers, clothiers, and head shops flourished. Habitues of both sides of the Hill had to do their business there.
On any given Friday or Saturday night, there was an influx from the suburbs of teens. Most were wanna be Folkies, proto-hippies, and the hungry eyed drugsters from the burbs that knew that they might find their need satiated here.
Some haberdashers catered to the need for just a better cut of a chambray shirt, embroidered jeans, or hat. Then there were also people satisfying other needs. Afterward, quite a few of those wound up in the ER at MGH.


The inhabitants of the third floor Grove street flat occupied by the Teahouse of the August Moon, myself, and my friend Billie had a more genteel racket. We sent Bill, a natural carnie if there ever was one, out befriend the starry-eyed and bring them back to an actual wall to wall Folkie paradise. There we would ply them with Narragansett beer, folk music, and entrust them with confidences about how life really was on Wild Side. In the process, they provided reimbursement for their tuition. They received a more humane fleecing than our friend Dutchie was providing down the street. Many returned in subsequent weeks for graduate work.
Weekday evenings we could be found at the foot of Grove street in our booths in the back of the Harvard Gardens. The table in front of us littered with twenty-five cents 8-ounce glasses of beer that the Evie, our waitress, brought to us by the dozen. One night I was a nasty drunk. I had been told by a coffeehouse owner that I had auditioned for that I wasn’t “sexy” enough. My friend Bill, always the one for wild solutions to problems, looked at me and said, “shit, we’ll open our own coffeehouse in the alley behind his. That began the Alley Coffeehouse in it’s one and only incarnation. The Teahouse of the August Moon gathered some folding chairs. Bill invested in paper cups and a bottle of cheap Chianti. I brought my guitar. Like a rapid guerrilla operation, we set up in the alley just behind the Charles street coffeehouse location. As soon as we had everything set, I began to play. Free Chianti and music began to attract customers. Bill, with waiters, folded napkin over his arm, greeted each and every new arrival and showed them to a seat. The sound of musical notes penetrated into the building in front of us. We were joined soon by one of the performers at the coffeehouse and some of the clients. Soon a screaming proprietor emerged with threats to call the police. Having achieved our goal, we began a procession down the alley towards home singing a bawdy rendition of the Kweskin Jug Bands “Washington At Valley Forge.”
Later back at the Gardens, we celebrated a successful raid upon the Establishment.

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Folkie

I sat down to watch the movie ” a Mighty Wind” with some trepidation. Within moments I was groaning at the portrayals of people who were almost that of Folkies I had known. The movie cut, in a humorous way, just a little too close to the bone. The preoccupations of the performers opened to public view. The jealousies, and innuendos, it was all there. We took it so seriously, and the movie exposed how mundane we were.

It was tough to watch because I know friends who either never picked up a guitar again after their last gig or those who practiced endlessly for a gig that will never come. Think of it; thousands of folkies, male and female, practicing in their basements waiting for the Folkie Apocalypse to come. Do you think I’m joking? We may be getting old, but, Folk Music is a powerful drug.

I have not been able to watch the movie ” Inside Llewyn Davis.” Just watching the trailer gave me bad flashbacks. Don’t get me wrong. I loved Greenwich Village, and I loved my life there. But, to get shoved back inside it again. No. Much too much crazy stupidity. But oh for the beautiful afternoons, evenings, nights, and entire weeks of playing that music.

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