The City of Evanston has a nice, gentle roll to it this morning. A soupcon of pitch and no yaw whatever. The sun is bright, slight clouds in the sky (good wind to come) and a gentle southwesterly breeze. I finish my mug of coffee and go to place it back on my belt. It doesn't place, no belt, I am wearing suspenders! Good Grief! I can't put it on the deck, the roller blader or the woman pushing a stroller might knock it over, fouling the deck and bringing down the Bosun's wrath. I am still caught in a time warp, a space warp, an ocean/Great Lakes warp. Now I'm back at the office, and curiously it is pitching more and rolling less. Last night I followed my usual schedule and had dinner at 1830, finishing around 1900. I promptly went to sleep around 1915, still running unconsciously on my A Watch schedule. I also not quite so promptly slept through an Alumni Endowment Committee meeting scheduled for 1930. (Only a B or C watch type would set a meeting for 1930, for all love.)
I also awoke at 2340, and lay awake for a long time. I checked the bilge (basement?) for flooding, and luckily didn't have to pump, as we have no sump pump. The moon was fading from the full it had been while we were out on the Atlantic, but was still bright enough to spot objects a distance away down the block. I read for a while, and as the house required fairly little steering finally went back to sleep. Slept until almost 0700, so the day was off to a grand start.
I have to report that just as I expected this morning, and just after I forgot about the possibility, a rogue wave hit the HMS 2739 Lincoln St.* and almost laid it on its beam. I had just closed my eyes as I was luxuriating in the constantly (CONSTANTLY, mind you) running shower, lathering and rinsing simultaneously, indiscriminately and in no particular order or limitation. Right after my eyes closed the wave struck, the shower enclosure turned 90 degrees, and I was almost hurled from the shower, saved only by stretching out both arms and tightly holding onto the suddenly horizontal walls. Luckily the barky righted itself quickly, and no one else in the house was even disturbed. My wife can sleep right through the worst of earthquakes, storms and weather, and she didn't even open a quizzical eye and ask me what the hell I was doing showering at that hour anyway?
*(Ship naming conventions vary from territory to territory, and here on the Inland Sea we like to name ours after street addresses. The "HMS" does not denote an unhealthy attachment to things British, but really stands for Heavily Mortgaged State.)
I have decided a number of things as to how I am going to go about narrating my time and experiences on The Rose. One way of trying to deal with the 544 Gunroom and 191 Searoom-L messages is to ignore all which have to do with the NYC/Bermuda/Savannah cum Norfolk trip. It is not that I am disinterested in that voyage, I am with child to learn about it. I want to suffer and triumph with my electronic friends, I want to share each of their experiences, and I want to feel their joys and frustrations (the latter especially at a decent remove.) I followed with eagerness each post from the Rose as it motored to Bermuda, and then tried to motor to Savannah. I sympathized with what I tried to imagine they were experiencing. I envisioned the storm, ambivalent about my missing it. I tried to picture my Berthing Compartment "A" where the "A" stood for Awash instead of Asweltering. I felt about them just a bit as I felt about my brother going through Marine Corps boot camp while I luxuriated as a Lt. in the Air Force.
However, that was their voyage, and I just had my own. I am afraid that if I were to read all of the posts fired off after they docked I would be inhibited in trying to assess my own time aboard, and that rather than appear to be unduly smug about what was a great sailing experience for me and my fellow trainees, I would try to downplay what a good time we had so as not to add insult to their injury. The kind off- list posts I have already received, and the few that I peeked at (well, no one is perfect) make me feel almost a bit guilty about having had so much fun.
That said, I am also a bit reticent about inflicting what might become so much of my own thoughts on the Gunroom and in Searoom-l. I have tried to avoid regarding either as just a bully platform for my own opinions, and don't want to step over that line now in the enthusiasm of my Rose experience, one so intense and extensive that right now I have absorbed a great deal of information, but I also have not begun to process it fully. If consensus gels, or even if a significant minority feels bored or put upon, I shall have no problem with sending future missives off-list only to those who might be excessively polite or morbidly curious or related by blood. You may let me know either on or off list, and I shall abide by what my conscience directs. Silence shall be taken to mean either grudging acceptance of the status quo, or inertial indifference.
All of that said, I still have to try to earn a living so I can go off on a distance race this weekend. Please, I beg of you all, step away from your keyboards, turn down your monitors, pick up and finish that half-completed book, and above all, try to give the poor listservers a rest, and let me clear my own decks rather than read such amusing and erudite posts.
John Donohue
Only slightly swaying today in Evanston on the Illinois Sea (Well, MI, IN and WI also have possibly valid claims, but that's a fight for another day.)