Who Go Down To The Sea

In our pre-Netflix days, Cody and I used to rent movies from a place called The Video Store. There was also a Video Shop here in town, and it was easy to get them confused. I'd actually rented from them for a while, but I got tired of them trying to charge me late fees on movies I knew I had returned on time. So I started renting from The Video Store.

I just loved the little man who owned that place. He was the sweetest thing. He got to know his customers and would call you by name as soon as you walked in the door. He got to know your tastes and could usually recommend movies you would like. He closed his place down earlier this year. A Blockbuster had opened a couple of years ago, and most of the local video shops have gone out of business. I really miss his shop, with its homey, welcoming atmosphere. I'd rented some good movies from him over the years. One of them was Master and Commander, with Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany.

Cody doesn't remember his Grandpa. He was only a year old when my dad died. Just a few baby pictures of him and Grandpa is all we have. I try to tell Cody about his Grandpa as often as the opportunity arises. There is so much about my own grandfathers that I don't know. I don't want that to be the case with Cody, so I tell him stories and encourage him to ask questions. I know that this is a good thing, but it makes us both kind of sad. Cody expressed it best when he sighed and wistfully said, "I wish I'd known him." So, there we were, watching Master and Commander and I remarked to Cody, "Your grandpa would have loved this movie."

My dad loved all things nautical. And I don't mean nautical as in a decorating theme with light house pictures and seagull plaques in the bathroom. I mean all things truly nautical. I think if he'd had his druthers, he'd have been born in the late 1700s or early 1800s on Nantucket Island. And he would have worked on a whaling ship.

I'll pause now while all the animal rights activists suck the air from the room with their collective gasps of horror.
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All done? Everyone breathing again? Good, now on with my story.

Dad loved the romance of life at sea. He longed to be a sailor. He was planning on enlisting in the Navy as soon as he graduated from high school, but the Army drafted him first. The drafted him before he even got out of high school, and he had to miss his own graduation in order to report to basic training. But he always wished he could have joined the Navy.

He passed his love of the sea on to me. By the time I was 12 years old, I could read a sextant, tie some 50 different knots (though the Monkey's Fist always eluded me), and throw a harpoon. OK, so it wasn't a real harpoon, just a long piece of bamboo, but I knew how to throw it. When I was small, my dad and I would play ships in the back yard. He was the captain. I was his first mate. I would climb to the top of the swing set. There, he would give me his orders, and I would shout them to the crew.

One summer, my dad, my brother, and I were going to sail imaginary clipper ships from Boston to San Francisco. We each got to name our ship and decide what cargo we were carrying. Russell chose the Flying Cloud to be his ship, while mine was named The Westwind. Mine was made up, but his was based on a real, historical ship. I don't remember what Russell's cargo was, but I was shipping spices and cloth. Each day when dad got home from work, we would plot our ship's location on the map (this is where I learned to read latitude and longitude) and make an entry into our log books. We would note how far we had sailed that day, what the weather conditions were, and anything worthy of note--like seeing whales, or skirmishes among the crewmen. Rus got bored about halfway through and didn't want to play any more, but I sailed my clipper ship all the way into San Francisco and tied up at the docks. I even unloaded my cargo.

I eventually outgrew such games, but a love of the sea has stayed with me. I graduated high school and went on to college, where I got a Bachelor of Behavioral Science in psychology. After putting all that time and money into it, once I graduated, I realized that I just didn't want to work in that field. After spending two years in a rather uninspiring job market, I decided to enlist in the military. There was never any question in my mind which branch it would be. I was going to live out my dad's dream.

I was going to join the Navy.

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