Writers of sailing range from the mundane to the transcendental and my opinion of who to read has evolved from my own experiences.
There’s the great Herman Melville who wrote Moby Dick, a book that goes beyond the experiences inspired by the tragedy of the “Essex”, a whaler that was sunk by a whale that rammed it. In it he spoke in depth of the soul and consciousness of man. Read More
I had happened into working at the Boston Tea Party in it’s Lansdowne St incarnation. A friend of mine, Smitty, needed someone to cover a few shifts for him while he was away on a family matter, out of state.
Summer of love, Open City
Following the Monterey Pop Festival the kid fell in line like a lemming and headed up stream to find himself in that Mecca of the times, Haight Ashbury, but despite the expectations of the guileless youth, the center of the universe had shifted and wasn’t to be found there. Read More
According to Joseph Conrad, the yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity; the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. So here in a nutshell are factors that shaped the Skipper and me.
We called ourselves “children of the 60’s”, which we certainly were. But, more exactly we were “children of the 50’s”, having passed through childhood back when TV’s had dials on them to change the few channels that existed then. Those times probably couldn’t be better described than Jimmy Buffett did in his song “Pencil Thin Mustache.
As Jimmy’s lyrics related, on Saturday morning television Andy Devine narrated “The Jungle Book”, featuring the adventures of “Rama of the Jungle”. In prime time hours on the “I Love Lucy” show, Lucy Ricardo’s husband Ricky wore a two-toned jacket and, yes, only Jazz musicians were smoking marijuana.
As children of that era, we sat rapt in wide-eyed wonder in front of the TV as one exciting adventure after another unfolded before our eyes in black and white images. In our minds’ eyes, on galloping horses, we rode the Wild West with the “Cisco Kid,” “Hopalong Cassidy,” the “Lone Ranger” and “Tonto”. We had showdowns and gun fights along with Matt Dillon, “Billie the Kid” and Wyatt Earp. We sailed the high seas, swashbuckling with Errol Flynn and we hunted for treasure with “Long John Silver” and young Jim Hawkins.
These adventures, dangers and quests fed into our imaginations and dreams and lay dormant till years later when we would eagerly jump into things that a saner generation would shy away from. Yes, we were a generation of risk takers and always attracted to the more crazy and colorful people and situations that we encountered
