Tag: sea stories

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Mr. Wakey Wakey

Ah, October, readers and writers spend time separating the cryptid from the cryptic and the insuperable from the insufferable. Vampires, mummies, witches, and ghouls cavort. Bah humbug!
Not to be splitting hairs, but there are much more frightening things than the undead – my apologies, Vlad, but bear with me on this. We have some scary shit at sea that beats your banshee, raises your zombie, and calls your Cthulu.
One October evening, the Capn’ and I had some hard cider with Willis. We sat around the woodstove, sipping quietly; the only sounds were the quiet drawing on their pipes. Outside, the wind rattled around a pile of lobster pots and leaves. Willis made lobster pots, and the yard looked like a hurricane had done for a small boat and left the remains in his yard.

So, around the stove, we sat, and soon the stories started. Willis sighed and related in ’33; he’d been on board a trawler that snagged its nets on a wreck. The winches pulled and pulled, and eventually, up came the wreck. It was the Lucy W. Lost a year previously and crewed by brothers and neighbors in his small coastal town. The axes couldn’t cut the gear fast enough as they all stood there wondering if their loved ones were still onboard.
The Capn’ looked into the flames and said, “Well, they all talk about the Mary Celeste or the Flying Dutchman; Bridge officers on the midwatch see things all the time. After the last war, my ship spotted flares to port and picked up a weak radio signal that sounded like a distress call. So we altered course, but we only found an abandoned life raft. That was 1946. A liberty ship with that name was torpedoed at those coordinates in ’43. Lost with all hands.

The silence and the looks told me that it was my turn to share something. “Mister Wakey-Wakey.” they looked at me skeptically. ” Onboard my ship, a particularly sadistic bosun’s mate got Jonah’s Lift one night ( tossed overboard). His ghost came back looking for revenge. He walks the ship just before the mid-watch, waking people from sleep. He lays his corpse cold hands on you and says, “Wakey Wakey, beautiful dreamer, you have the mid-watch!” The Capn’ looked at me, “what’s so bloody scary about that?” I replied, “Some of those he lays his hand on don’t wake, ever. There they are, in their bunks, with horrible looks on their faces. The watchstanders going around waking for the mid-watch find them that way.”

We sat around watching the flames and sipping for a few hours. Then, finally, the Capn’ drifted off to sleep while Willis and I continued to talk. Just before midnight, I decided that we better head up the hill to the house.
Perhaps it was the storytelling or just a bit of a desire to tease the Capn’, but I put a cold hand on the back of his neck, leaned close to his ear, and in a hoarse voice whispered, ” Wakey Wakey skipper- you have the mid-watch!”

He shivered, jumped up like he’d been shot, and was out of Willis’ in a shot. He stumbled and fell into a puddle. Willis and I stood in the doorway laughing. He glared at us.
“Tomorrow, I want that chain locker cleaned up, Mister Wakey Wakey. Is that clear?” “Aye, Aye, sir,” I responded while I laughed. It’s hard to give orders smeared in mud, lying in a puddle.

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Scuttlebutt Syndrome

What follows is a discussion of the newly named scuttlebutt syndrome found primarily among sailors:

Scuttlebutt is a favored term among sailors for how information can get relayed. As in,” scuttlebutt has it that mooring fees are going up next year.” Or, ” the scuttlebutt is that our next port of call in Naples got canceled.”

 For those not initiated into the watery ways of Poseidon or Neptunas Rex, the scuttlebutt was the large centrally located barrel of water on a sailing vessel that sailors could dip water from to quench thirst. Sailors would congregate and pass on news and events. The barrel is long since gone but, the term is still alive and well. Even those of us who have long since “swallowed the anchor” use the phrase with a certain reverence. Sailors are traditionalists and don’t appreciate unexpected change – unless it’s an extra tot of rum in their toddy; they love to pass on the scuttlebutt.

Scuttlebutt is not necessarily a source you should take when you visit the stockbroker, accuse your spouse of infidelity, or buy a boat. Especially buy a boat.

Perhaps something magical in seawater encourages an intrinsic change in a sailor’s sense of reality. The woman or man seems incapable of actually describing the last evening ashore in objective terms. It becomes the most raucous, magical experience of the cruise, and these days the phone provides photographic proof with blurry evidence. 

As a purely scientific experiment, ask a standardized series of questions the following day and two days after leaving port. The next day grunts and groans followed by a rush to the head are all you’ll get. But two days later, that evening transforms into a wondrous experience.

This seems to be a widespread phenomenon among Navy, Merchant Mariners, and civilian sailors and being that it is a worldwide phenomenon, we really can’t blame it on the sailor. No. They are poor victims of some toxic miasma of the sea that causes these figments to become a reality in their minds.

The only way this can spread is by waves. Waves can travel across an entire ocean in days. We do not know at this point how much exposure is needed to result in a full-blown case. We are applying for funds to study further this debilitating syndrome for which no known cure is known. We do know that taking the sailor away from the sea can make it worse.

 Our best advice currently is that parents not let their children become sailors. 

There is no known treatment. Neither Ivermcectin nor Hydrogen peroxide is beneficial. However, clinical trials of dark Caribbean rum show some promise as palliative care. Give the patient several drams, and they lose the ability to tell sea stories. This may not help the afflicted, but it offers relief for those who listen to the endless lies.

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Plans

As Dwight Eisenhower said -plans are worthless, but planning is essential.
So not to be too jocund, well maybe just a little humorous, we may now refer to the “Seven P’s”: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.
I was first introduced to this paradigm for success by Petty Officer First Class John O’Toole.

When I met John, I was trying to escape duty a deck ape should be doing, not someone with my delicate hands. I learned fast that avoiding work with John was a novice sort of thing. He knew all the tricks and evasions. Soon though, John found more valuable work for me and my skills: bootlegging.
John did not produce the hooch. Where the hooch derived from is a mystery to this very day. But John was the man in charge of making sure each bottle made its way to Officers Country and the Chief’s wardroom. Of course, mere peons, such as John and I, were not included in the larger scheme of things. But with proper prior planning, he and I managed to divert small quantities for our consumption.
The bottles had no tax stamp and never got resealed. Instead, they were carefully recycled and cleaned between uses. The “Source” filled the bottles and passed them on for distribution. John brought them to me in the sickbay for careful measurement with the available lab equipment. We had found out that the “Source” was imprecise in filling. We merely averaged out the system, adding occasionally but most often removing small amounts. When we finished, each bottle was amazingly uniform, and we had enough Scotch, Rum, Rye, or Bourbon for personal use.
John and I felt that we were doing an excellent service to the ship. While we were in charge, quarrels about unevenly filled bottled ceased – peace reigned among the drinkers.

All good things end. I got reassigned, and my successor was a teetotaler not interested in participating. I did not run into O’Toole again until after I was out of the Navy. He was still a PO1 and never even tried to make Chief. He claimed it would cramp his style. His ship was at the Navy yard for overhaul, and he asked me if I’d like to pick up some fast cash every week. All I had to do was pick up and drop off uniforms on their way to be cleaned and repaired – ripped seams, insignia replaced, and the like.`He had an arrangement with a Charlestown tailor; he took a cut from each job he handled and had a cut-rate deal with the tailor. He’d even arrange fittings for custom uniforms for a minor consideration.

Sitting around at the Harvard Gardens one night, I asked him how many little rackets he had going. John took a bit of umbrage at the term racket; he preferred services for which he took a fee. He then counted out about seven ” services” that ran concurrently. One or two were freebies – he used the Latin Pro Bono. They were simply for goodwill and trust among the officers and crew. He carefully maintained the fairness of all he did. “Reputation is everything when you do the sort of work I am involved in.”
“And how did you get all this started?” His answer was, “Planning. I observe every little rub or friction in life, calculate how much of a nuisance it causes, and evaluate what it might be worth to people if I eliminated the irritation. Do that often enough, and you have a service. Then, create a smooth manner to carry out the service at a price you can profit from and have a revenue stream. Finally, get enough services going, and you have an income. See – proper prior planning. Do it right long enough, and you gain the trust of your customers. That prevents the piss poor performance.” O’Toole was outfitted in a custom-tailored set of dress Blues. Dressing for success was an absolute for him.
My own life was changing directions, so I turned down some other work opportunities with him. So I have a sort of bittersweet feeling about this. I’m pleased with how my life turned out but a bit envious of the O’Toole Financial Group’s success in managing retirement funds and investments.

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Tall Tales

“Everybody loves a juicy story with just enough naughty components that your interest is kept from beginning to end. So learning to pare and filter is important.” These were the words of wisdom imparted to me by the infamous teller of tall sea tales, Bosun’s Mate first-class John O’Toole. As everyone knows, a sea story differs from a fairy tale by two significant details: 

  1. a fairy tale starts with once upon a time – a sea story inevitably has the warning posted out front that “this is no shit.) T.I.N.S
  2. The fairy tale ends with the sweetness and light – “and they all lived happily after,” but the sea story advises you of the absolute truth of the story because you heard it yourself from someone who had been on board when it happened.

Of course, O’Toole promptly suggested that this was just the rudiments. Anyone can learn the rules in five minutes, but mastery could take a lifetime. So, I have been working tirelessly at this now for several years. And, I think I may have achieved Journeyman status. 

A few years ago I found out what happened to the masterful O’Toole. After twenty years of not making chief in the Navy, he retired and has became a successful author: Dorothy LaFlamme – specializes in bodice rippers.

I guess it’s like Jack Londen said, “You can’t wait for inspiration; you have to go after it with a club.”

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Funereal

As a folksinger, I had to perform some odd gigs. At the coffeehouses, you knew what to expect at two in the morning from the drunks. But at a wedding, where bride and groom requested Wild About My Lovin’ as a processional down the aisle and Jelly Roll Baker at the reception, it was a toss-up. The time it happened, their parents just weren’t into it.

I didn’t give up playing for many years, but I did stop performing at public venues. Instead, I often played at parties for friends, which was how some of my more salacious material got included at the wedding. 

I was not afraid to write topical and sarcastic material while in grad school – did that contribute to my doctoral difficulties? Anyway, I was a wild child, and many of my friends appreciated my take on folk music.

But by the 1980’s I was not making much music. Then a close friend died. He and I were sailing buddies and raconteurs of the highest water. He had perfected the art of the sea story, and I picked up many finer points from him. So I, of course, made plans to attend the funeral.

Then came the call from the widow, also a friend sailing buddy, and active in the Coast Guard Auxiliary. Would I play some nautical numbers at the funeral? “Well, Tink,” says I, “I haven’t played or sung in years.” 

Silence at the other end of the phone connection. “But Lou, it would mean so much to Bill. Now don’t do some boring old thing like the Navy Hymn; the choir will do that. Instead, give us some salty songs that Bill would have liked.” Salty. OK.

And, that’s how I got to stand up at the funeral home in Winthrop at my friend’s funeral and sing. I pared the selection down to two songs in light of my being so out of practice. I chose a shantey for the first song- Go Down You Blood Red Roses- a piece about being at sea aboard a whaler. This song was done acapella, singing right on the guitar’s surface and using the guitar’s body to resonate with the music. For the second number, I choose a mildly salacious piece called Toralai. It went over very well, and Tink was pleased with the performance. 

Afterward, I packed the guitar away and joined the other guests at the reception. I soon found myself mobbed by retired Navy, Coasties, Auxiliary members, and Merchant Seamen. All wanted to know why I had sung the clean version of the song. The song may date to the early days before the United States Navy formed, and we borrowed many traditions, including music from the Royal Navy. It might date back as far as Drake or at least Nelson. It was part of Nautical Tradition, and I had sung a sanitized version of it. All of them outranked me, and I was rapidly introduced to some of the bawdier verses that I had not included. I was duly educated.

That was my last public performance. I keep a low profile these days. But if you are interested, here is the version of the song that I sang.

All you salty types out there are free to message me with the good stuff I left out. But this is a mixed audience, and I have to play to the House.

The enlisted men ride in a motor launch,

The Captain rides in a barge,

He don’t go a damned sight faster,

But it gives the old bugger a charge.

Singing turalai, urali, urali,

Singing turalai, urali, ay,

Singing turalai, urali, urali,

Singing turalai, urali, ay,

The enlisted men ride in a motor boat,

The admiral he rides in a gig,

He don’t go a damned sight faster,

But it makes the old bugger feel big.

The enlisted men eat in the wardroom,

The Captain won’t eat with the mob,

It ain’t that he eats any better,

He don’t want us to know he’s a slob.

The enlisted men sleep in their hammocks,

The Captain he sleeps in a bed,

He don’t sleep a damned sight better

But he’s twenty feet nearer the head.

The sexual life of a camel.

Is not quite what everyone thinks,

One night in an excess of passion,

He tried to make love to the Sphinx.

Now the Sphinx’s posterior regions

Are all clogged by the sands of the Nile,

Which accounts for the hump on the camel,

And the Sphinx’s inscrutable smile.

In the process of civilization,

From arthropoid ape down to man,

The palm is awarded the Navy,

For buggering whatever it can

Further experimentation

Has incontrovertibly shown,

That comparative safety on shipboard

Is enjoyed by the hedgehog alone.

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Sails For The Constitution

This post is about the USS Constitution’s sails. But there is a bit of a story that precedes it.

My eldest son, Nick, could be a problem when he was young. There was the time, at age nine, he disappeared at the WoodenBoat Show. To Matilda and I, he was among the missing. His mother anxiously wondered if Nick had slipped into the cold Maine waters. A frantic search of the entire boat show turned up no Nick.
Then I spotted him at the very end of a long line of large yachts tied up to the pier. He was at a party for the show elites.
After spotting him from a distance onboard an absolutely to die for Baltic style schooner, I had to negotiate my way through the owner’s security detail…while Nick stood there and smiled at me. After clarifying that that boy was my son, they explained that he was a guest, and I was not. Afterward, Matilda had to reason with me until I could see the humor of the situation.

How had Nick become a guest? It was exquisite. Nick evaded his mother while I was working my booth. He set out to wander the show with a brand new dollar bill in his pocket. My son is no slouch, and he’d spent formative years listening to my friends and me discuss boats. So, Nick walked up to the owner of the said gorgeous boat, pulled out his crisp dollar bill, looks up at the owner, and said – “Mister, if I give you this dollar bill right now…will you sell me this boat?”
Ahh, the essence of the moment; cute kid, money, and the intent to close a fiscal deal at a significant advantage to oneself. How could a capitalist not admire the Moxie, and audacity of the attempt?
Result: one invitation to post-show soiree as a guest of honor.

This ploy’s success was so good that Nick continued to use it boat show after boat show. He deployed it with much success and regularity that we had to eventually forbid him from doing it because some of my friends had junker boats they’d happily sell him to laugh at me.

Nick eventually seemed to outgrow his little routine, and I began to forget about it. But one Saturday, we were in Boston to visit a friend at the shipyard. We decided to detour for a look at the USS Constitution. As we were standing there admiring the ship, I saw the then Captain, Commander Beck. I pointed him out to Nick and then saw that old gleam come into his eyes. He reached into his pocket and began walking in the direction of Commander Beck. I lost no time and grabbed my boy. I glanced over at the Captain of the Constitution. I noticed that he was gazing at the man and boy with a dollar bill in his hand. To Nick, I said, perhaps a bit too loudly – “If you embarrass me in front of the Captain of the Constitution, I’ll sell you to the Navy as a Powder Monkey.
Nick seemed to realize that he’d pushed things as far as they’d go and agreed that a frigate was more ship than he wanted anyway.
Commander Beck had recently been the first captain of the Constitution to handle her under sail in years. So on the way home, I explained to Nick why this was such a big deal.

So now the story about sails for the USS Constitution:

In 1966 I had been a very wet behind the ears enlisted man in the Navy. Sometime between Gemini recovery deployments ( the space program, remember?), the USS Wasp was in the Atlantic for war games. One night several of us enlisted were out by the smokes locker having a very illegal smoke. The topic of conversation? Would they ever put sails on the Constitution? We had exhausted favorite liberty locations, girls, and booze as topics. So, as most Navy men will do, we moved onto an irrelevant ( as in above our pay grade) matter.

In the tropics, the night sky can be incredibly dark, even while phosphorescent organisms’ glow lights the sea. So we were all taken by surprise when we first heard and then saw a match flare beyond our circle. Out of the dark came the glow of someone lighting up – not one of us. As the figure moved closer, someone saw the rank and squeaked out something akin to” Admiral on deck.” It was Admiral Outlaw, one of the senior officers in charge of the war games. He unfroze the crew with a simple ‘”relax.” We all stood looking quietly out to sea for a moment. Then he authoritatively scuttled our BS. “The Constitution is a junior command. How would you like to be the commander who took a national treasure out to sea and ran it aground? Your career would be destroyed. Naw. They’ll never put sails on her.” and with that, the Admiral turned and headed back to officers country.

So to sum this story up: keep your dollar in your pocket, and never say never.


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BPOE

Small nuggets of fact often are below mountains of folklore. Getting to the nugget usually is impossible. So it is with most sea stories. But this story is true and was told to me by an Admiral I knew back in my Navy days. My first father-in-law, the Cap’n, confirmed it.
Navigation and pilotage are difficult. The texts would have you believe that we have a science before us. It is, in truth, an art. Like many art forms and crafts, there are bits of received knowledge that point the way. Most mariners can recite verbatim even the most obscure “Rules of the Road” – a set of international rules and regulations for preventing collisions at sea and inland waterways. Beneath those codes are even older traditional sayings and acronyms used to remember basic things – like BPOE- Black Port On Entry. BPOE meant, in my day, that on entry into a harbor, you left the black can buoys to your port side while entering. The black cans marked the channel.

And that’s where the old sea story comes in. It seems there was an admiral of great repute and skill who every morning arose, had his coffee, and went into his day cabin, opened his safe, and read from a note. That accomplished, he proceeded with his day. None of his staff knew what was on the paper. After he died, they opened the safe and found this note: ” Port-Left, Starboard-Right.” None of the aids will do any good if you can’t tell Port from Starboard – left from right.
The admiral swore to me that he had been among the crew who’d opened the safe. The Cap’n claimed that it was he on board Liberty Ship Charles Owen that had opened the safe. Even though the ships were thousands of nautical miles apart in space and at least a decade separated in time, I believe the story. If you spend enough time at sea or even sailing in coastal waters, you learn that human perceptions and memory are frail items. That’s why we have all the rules, aids, and techniques, and still, things go wrong. Ask any sailor. Life on the water is dangerous.

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Adventures In Coastal Living – Free Trade and…

You probably have a friend who, if you met them today, you’d never befriend. They’re lousy drunks, never help out, or have egos beyond description. Your friendship has that exclamation or wonderment factor: “why is this person, my friend?” On examination, you might understand that what irritates you most about them are the character flaws you have in common.

We met after grad school and bonded over beer and conversation at Dunster’s Pub in Harvard Square. Charlie’s family was well enough off that they paid for his grad school experience, his apartment, and upkeep. None of that compared to the sartorial standards I had experienced in Philly. There I regularly dinned on beurre de cacahuète et gelée and haricots et franks (*), while living in less than rarified digs in West Philadelphia.
Charlie loved and coveted all things maritime, as did I. That mutual interest was probably the firm foundation of our friendship. There was a particularly interesting antique store on Charles Street that we would jointly haunt. The proprietor would have gladly asked me to leave, I never bought. But, Charlie would occasionally purchase for his “collection.”

I did have several things that Charlie envied: actual bluewater sailing experience, a family background that was really “wet” from Mercent and Naval service, and, most importantly, a collection of maritime carving. Charlie purchased his collection. If I wanted something, I had to get out the tools and carve it.
In particular, I owned one eagle that Charles lusted over. It was a small one similar to those carved by Bellamy with a banner reading, “Don’t Give Up The Ship.” After one too many beers at Dunster’s, he would frequently suggest that a true friend would gift him this fantastic prize. After all, I could easily carve another.


I eventually decided to give him a duplicate of the eagle for his birthday and asked him to write out exactly what should be on the banner.
On the evening of the birthday party, Charlie eagerly grabbed the eagle from the pile of presents. Ripping off the wrapping, he held the eagle up for all to see. The murmur of appreciation subsided and turned to giggles and laughter. Turning the eagle over, he read the banner: ” Free Trade & Semen’s Rights.” Those of us who had spell checked his articles ( in the days before spelling checkers) knew this about him – he was a notoriously bad speller, and he never caught his errors. I promptly handed him a second banner that read “Free Trade and Seaman’s Rights.”
I don’t think he ever undid the two little screws that held the banner in place and allowed replacement with the non-joke banner. He took a bit of perverse pride in Semen’s Rights.

*peanut butter and jelly, beans and franks