12 November 2003

Bought the Ticket- Let’s Ride!

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(Motto of the US State of Georgia. We all may be needing it shortly).

Sorting it out is a challenge, isn’t it? There are challenges all around. Here at home, we still don’t know the composition of the Future. The American House of Representatives may have flipped from one side to another. The Senate component of that body is still up for question. Marlow rang in from his Coastal Empire to mention that other medical adventures are still in progress. He got “a so-so one” from one of his -ologists this past Thursday. His medical staff is trying to track down the cause and possible “Hail Mary pass” solutions to the malady. Like of lung replacements for his asbestosis.

We all spent some time drinking small quantities of jet fuel and breathing other industrial materials in our time at sea. Marlow summed it up with something simple:

“We bought the ticket, so let’s ride.”

That is a possibility today, since the heavy tropical rains are now past from the dying hurricane. Some of us wanted to sing, and it could be heard from the deck on the Bunkhouse. “The legend leads on, from the Chippewa on down, to the Big Lake, we call Gitcha-goomie…”

That was the lead-in to Gordon Lightfoot’s version of disaster on the lake. The loss of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald 47 years ago. News of that anniversary raised memory of the hike on Isle Royale, a 45-mile long chunk of land in located in the northwest corner of Lake Superior where Canada, Minnesota and Wisconsin jam themselves together. Fitz paralleled the island we walked, close aboard on the Wisconsin side, before turning SE to head for Whitefish Bay where she was lost with all 29-hands. During the hike, a year or so before the storm, we found something near something else that made the geography ring clear. In the second day humping up the trail we came to the shore of a respectable pond on the royal island with a lump of dirt that emerged from the water within sight.

It made us combine somethings, and for a couple months after the sighting, we would mouth, slowly, to one another the words “We have walked the length of the biggest island on the biggest freshwater lake on Earth. And we stopped on the way to admire an internal beauty: the biggest island on the biggest lake on the biggest island on the biggest Island in the biggest lake in the world.”

We think we had it correctly phrased. This morning we did not slow down for additional analysis. But the thought of all that blue freezing cold sweet fresh water rising over you on a dark roaring night…

That was 47 years ago, when the gales of November came early on a week like this. There were some long looks around the Fire Ring, remembering old sailor chills and the raising of glasses in memory of the EF’s whole crew lost that night.

Today is a Different Deal and we thought about going with ‘Consequences’ this morning. Old fleets consigned to the ash heap. Some being ‘upgraded’ and others constructed ‘new.’ Marlow’s thoughts colliding with others not quite so ancient. Splash had dug around in the Chairman’s mound of files. He found something that originally appeared in The Daily nearly twenty years ago. It was about a formation of ships, thirteen of them, being towed across the Atlantic for scrapping in a north-east English town called Hartlepoole.
The Old Salts had been immersed all afternoon on Veteran’s Day in discussions of ship-life and submarine issues. You know the drill, complete with metaphors. Steel and saltwater are part of a process of entropy when combined for years. Today, in a world with conflict, some of the Cold War fleets still existing require ‘life extension,’ as if inanimate things could have life. Or replacement of whole classes of expensive underwater machines. Two decades ago, the system was preparing us for Hillary in 2008. So, like the weather, there are always other issues in play.
Reading the old words made us laugh. The Russians have produced a new addition to their Strategic Reserve. It is the mighty BALROG missile-carrying submarine. There was discussion about whether there would be a demonstration test of their advertised “tsunami making” weapon. It is a long-range WMD explosive device intended to create a vast nuclear wave after detonation to swamp coastal cities. There are roll-out issues that cross the bounds of “tests” and “demonstrations” while echoing elements of the long list of evils included in the Climate Change hysteria. Sudden sea water rise!

Coming atop the election frolic in America, there is news this morning, brand new. It is from the Conference of the Parties, the 27th such event, happening at Sharm El-Sheikh. That is a resort town in Egypt. It is easier to say the short way: “COP-27.” Senior delegates have flown there in private jets from around the globe to emphasize the importance of the rest of us cutting back on things.

You can count the various severe and real threats to our societies. In the long series of meetings, we have veered from “Global Cooling” to the other frightening extreme. It was a little cooler for a while back when Fitz went down, then things got a little bit warmer. Nothing alarming there, except the warning it would suddenly accelerate into scorching heat. In the interests of accuracy, it changed from ‘warm’ to become “Change,” which we think almost everyone can agree on. And the Western nations are now supposed to compensate all who have been wronged by industrial activity since 1840.

Seems fair, in a way, though it is a little before our time. Of course, that justification will primarily enrich those in power in those nations. But it should be fun to follow.

naturally, that change is linked metaphorically to the conflict in Ukraine. News this morning had a jolt. The major dam upstream from the city of Kherson was imaged this morning with a sluicegate breached. It could have been the beginning of a Russian demolition of the whole structure, an event rumored to flood the SE portion of the Oblast and despoil the drinking water of Crimea, which is now a matter of restoration of sovereignty for Kiev on territory taken by Russia eight years ago. We agree it is a little confusing.

A modest majority of our circle emerged, similar to the Mid-Term results. Some of us think the dam damage in Ukraine is a big one. Some call it the “damn damage,” and attribute it to a Ukrainian missile that went awry. Others think it was a Russian blast intended to breach the road atop the dam without breaching the whole thing. That is less than the way Britain’s Royal Air Force treated the German hydroelectric system the last time there was a major European war. All of us recall “The Dam Busters” films as one of heroism, not war crimes. So, more discussion is required.

The general consensus view was that this is part of the combatants going into relatively secure Winter lines, with the Russians having withdrawn east across the Dnepr River. There may be a certain calm returning to a war in progress to accommodate climate change. That matter is one on which we can agree. Winter is coming and those who must deal with it will do so. That is the sort of change we understand. The motto of the state of Georgia seems applicable: “Wisdom, Justice and Moderation.” We all may need it in the coming weeks.

As to us, we prefer Marlow’s conclusion; “We bought the ticket. Now, let’s ride.”

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