OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JULY 22, 2016
SETTING SAIL
IN A NEW LIFE
DIRECTION
The Lady
Washington
W riter’s
N otebook
First of Two Parts
By JULIE BROWN
For The Daily Astorian
I
’d been travel ing for 12 hours to get
from Astoria to Morro Bay, California,
and I was tired.
I partially dragged the heavy duffel bag a
friend had loaned me and was trying to jug-
gle that with my carry-on bag full of books,
a pillow, and a sleeping bag that had come
unrolled and was trailing on the sidewalk
behind me.
It was one last mile
from the bus station to
the harbor and there
wasn’t a taxi in sight.
People were looking at
me like I was a homeless
woman.
I fi nally reached the
harbor and there she
was: a beautiful tall ship
gently rocking in the
Julie
sunny breeze, masts as
Brown
tall as the old -growth fi rs
they were made from,
sails bleached white from sun and salt water. I
recognized the smiling face of Martha Washing-
ton carved at the bow.
The Lady Washington is a replica of a his-
torical trading vessel that sailed 200 years ago,
carrying furs and tea and silks to various ports.
This crew was milling about in 18th century
breeches and waistcoats, some on deck, some
aloft in the rigging. I stepped aboard and intro-
duced myself as the new deckhand-in-training.
At 54, I was the same age as the captain, old
enough to be everyone else’s mother.
I
have been an English professor at Clatsop
Community College for many years. I live
in a world of books and ideas, grammar and
spelling and student research projects. I have
always been more at home in a library than at
the beach. And yet something had compelled
me to try this new adventure, to test myself in a
way I had never been tested before. So I signed
up for the “Two Weeks before the Mast” train-
ing program aboard the Lady Washington.
“Stow your gear in the focsle!” some-
one yelled. “Somebody get her some funnies
and get her into a harness!” Funnies are the
18th -century sailor clothes that the crew wears
on the Lady when members of the public are
touring the ship. I was given knee breeches,
a piratey-looking blouse with gorgeous puffy
sleeves, and a long vest with buckles and brass
buttons.
After I dressed (in the galley, I soon learned
there was no privacy at all on board), I was
assigned to a group of 15 children who were
gathered near the bow of the ship, learn-
ing about the life of a sailor. Someone was
explaining to them about life at sea: how pre-
cious drinking water was, how fresh food only
lasted the fi rst week and then the crew was
given hard-as-nails sea biscuits to eat, how
entertainment in those days consisted of sing-
Photos by Julie Brown/For The Daily Astorian
Shipmates hanging on the yardarms unfurling the sails.
ing and playing cards and learning knots and
carving scrimshaw. The kids were enthralled,
and so was I.
A
ft on the quarterdeck, another group of chil-
dren were learning about navigation. These
fourth -graders all had GPS in their phones and
could fi nd their way to China, but were now
learning what a chart looked like, and how
ships found their course before modern technol-
ogy came along. How a chip line with knots in
it was thrown overboard to calculate the ship’s
speed. How a lead line was dropped over board
to measure the depth and bring up particles from
the sea fl oor (sand, gravel), which could then be
analyzed. How sailors judged their position by
looking at the sun, moon and stars. History was
coming alive for them.
A
fter the children disembarked, it was time
for us to quickly set sail for our next port. I
had only been on the ship for about four hours,
yet soon found myself preparing to “lay aloft,”
something I didn’t expect would happen on
my fi rst day. The chief mate strapped me into a
parachute-type harness that wound around my
waist and hips.
I hadn’t even unpacked my bags yet, and
I was already following a group of 20-some-
things over the side of the ship to the ratlines
(rope ladders) that stretched up 89 feet from the
deck rail to the top of the fore mast. If I thought I
was going to fall, the mate explained, it was bet-
ter to fall into the water than onto the deck.
I am not afraid of heights. I am not afraid of
water. But I am afraid of dying. To conquer this
fear, my strategy was to keep my eyes straight
in front of me. I would not look up — or down.
Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot.
Eventually I made it up to the fi rst yardarm.
With trembling hands I hooked my harness into
a safety cable and edged my way out toward the
port side, out over the water. Little more. Little
more. Keep my eyes in front of me at all times.
Little more, little more.
When I had reached the very outer end of
the yardarm, the bosun gave me instructions
— we needed to untie the ribbon-like gaskets
that were keeping the sail furled up. We had to
do this without getting the gaskets tangled up
in the sail or in our harnesses. We had to keep
one arm around the yardarm while doing this,
hanging out over the water and bobbing up and
down. Three of us worked together on the Main
Course sail.
Finally the sail was free, and it dropped down
beautifully and curtsied in the breeze. Rather
than follow my shipmates higher up to the main
topsail, I decided I needed to get my feet back
on deck. Look straight ahead. Left foot. Right
foot. Back on deck, I started to breathe again.
Monday, in Part II, more
about life on the ship.
Julie Brown teaches writing, literature and
maritime culture at Clatsop Community Col-
lege. She enjoys fi shing and clam digging and
was a co-founder of the Fisher Poets Gathering.
This summer she will be a volunteer deckhand
on the Lady Washington as it sails through the
Straits of Juan de Fuca.
Open forum
Equality
I
’ve been working on my family
history for nearly 30 years. I asked
my aunts to write about a trip they
had taken to England and the Isle of
Man, and our family genealogy. This
is the fi rst paragraph of said docu-
ment, written in 1994 by Delsie Reid.
As I was reading through our history
book today, I thought this applies to
the world today:
“When one starts to write a family
history, it seems that he or she should
start at the beginning. But when or
where was the beginning?
“The Bible says that ‘in the begin-
ning was God,’ and he created Adam
and Eve and placed them in the Gar-
den of Eden, with instructions to mul-
tiply. So aren’t we all descendants of
the original family? Regardless of
race, color, religion or social stan-
dards? And, aren’t we all equal in the
eyes of God? I believe that we are.”
BRENDA KAY HOXSEY
Warrenton
Torture not funny
T
o the people of Cannon Beach:
Recently I visited your city.
Although there is, in general, a wel-
coming atmosphere I had an unfor-
tunate experience in the parking lot
of one of the city’s restaurants. I am
hopeful you will see it as a serious
matter you need to confront if it con-
tinues in your midst.
There was a car in the parking
lot with two signs on it. One, on
the bumper, only presents a prob-
lem of civility. It said “Up yours Hil-
lary Clinton.” The other was differ-
ent: it said “I love waterboarding.”
That required a response, so I wrote
a brief note, but he was gone before
I could give it to him, or leave it on
his car.
This is the note, and I hope it will
produce some thoughtful consider-
ation in the Cannon Beach commu-
nity. The note read as follows:
I stand in awe, and I am humbled.
I did not know anyone could dis-
play such malicious ignorance. Your
lack of civility undermines what so
many have sacrifi ced in our courts,
and on battlefi elds to secure for all
of us. When waterboarding becomes
“due process of law,” we sink to the
level of the very totalitarians we have
faced so often. You might read the
Bill of Rights as a place to begin your
education.
THOMAS D. MORRIS
Portland
Safe and fair
I
n the July 14 edition of The Daily
Astorian, there was an article about
the Astoria Police Department hav-
ing their periodic pedestrian safety
program, where drivers will get cited
for not yielding to pedestrians (“Asto-
ria Police to join pedestrian safety
enforcement program”). So far, so
good.
For a fair and balanced approach,
I request they devote the same
energy to walkers for a similar time
frame. Jaywalking in the middle of
a block seems to be a local sporting
event. Pedestrians walking against
the “don’t walk” light when cars are
attempting to turn or proceed seems
to be a game of chance, with prizes
for the winners.
How about a few citations for the
bicycles running down the downtown
sidewalks, putting the city at risk of
a lawsuit for injuring the pedestri-
ans we are trying to protect? Lastly, a
good big ticket for the guys I see fre-
quently roaring down the middle of
Eighth Street on skateboards.
We can all be safer when everyone
follows the rules of the road.
MIKE GREEN
Astoria
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher • LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
• CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
• DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
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