Gone Astray—Adrift—Asleep At the Wheel

This is an edited excerpt of a letter to a friend that I wrote a few years ago. I have recycled it here to come up with some blog copy to help avoid my blog atrophying.


I remember so well walking along San Pedro’s 7th street and stopping in awe at the window of S.W. Instruments, an old fashioned shop brimming with nautical lore and navigational apparatus. It was a very real place, a place where true seafarers brought their sextons and compasses for repair, bought their charts, and updated their coastal pilots. Plaster rather then drywall, wainscoting and compasses with bubbles in them (who has ever seen a GPS with a bubble?). Long shelves lined with classic tomes like Bowdages Practical Navigator & Ashley's Book of Knots & Masting & Rigging by Underhill. A few blocks down hill towards the harbor Marine Supply & Hardware was to be found. The uninspiring modern warehouse belied its history as a true Ships Chandlery. One of the staff at that time remembered selling the last of their inventory of cast iron try pots used in the shore based whaling industry. This was a world of mariners who had lives afloat the only boaters around were straw hats. Heady stuff that!

My first passion was large sailing ships. But sadly it didn’t take me long to realize that in the world of large sailing ships I would always be just a grunt, not a major player. That meant that no matter how much I loved a vessel I would always be vulnerable to being a castaway, left on the beach, abandoned.

Then I thought that small craft was the way of the future. Try as I may I was never able to make a living at that. Too expensive, too little a market. Or maybe I just blew it!

One day I found myself trying t o get a piece of teak to stick to fiberglass and realized my life had come to naught. Spending most of my day endeavoring to make rich peoples lives more comfortable.

Then I started to diversify. Finding new and interesting ways to make a living (computer graphics & cartography, and cooking) to add to my traditional skills. Now I am faced with finding a way to make these skills—both old and new—a positive force in the world.

Routes

One of the best things about travel for me is finding my way around places, the to and from.

As a child I lived in a community composed of many islands bunched closely together and perched on the edge of Lake Erie. By land you could only enter the town by three roads; North, Middle, & South Gibraltar.

During the Detroit Riots in 1967 (I was 15 at the time) the police blocked these three roads. I over heard an adult describing the road blocks and had an instant mental map of our little town. The North, Middle, and South suddenly made geographical sense to me and I had, after 15 years of living there could see my little world from a bird's eye view! Before then I had always traveled from landmark to landmark.

That was the beginning of my love for and obsession with maps. While traveling I always have a map near by, even if I know the route by heart. Part of it is the patterns the routes create, the other part is really knowing were I am, where I've been, and where I see myself going. It could be argued that all those things are really an illusion but even if they are they are a comfort and joy to me. It gives me a sense of value to be the "Navigator"

Paper Scraps

I love those little scraps of paper found, short vignettes of someone's life. No telling how many dramas can be read between the lines of a "To Do" list. Birth and death and the errands you run in between. I am a compulsive list maker, it helps me put my life in perspective. But I am not a compulsive list doer, list are something to measure you day from, a bench mark from which to vary rather then a ruler to measure your value by.