OPINION
4A
Founded in 1873
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
A salty world made of
wood, canvas and hemp
Clatsop Community College’s
literature teacher is trying out a
new gig aboard the sailing ship, the
Lady Washington. In this conclu-
sion, she shares her journey. Part I
was published Friday.
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
Trump begs for
a fool’s bargain
Unprepared and unit to be our president
W
hen Republicans went into damage control following
news that Donald Trump would not honor the mutual
defense clause of the NATO treaty, aides said his words were
misconstrued. Then The New York Times released the tran-
script of David Sanger and Maggie Haberman’s interview
with Trump. That document revealed the extent of Trump’s
global illiteracy. How could he have lived as a young boy
and man through the Cold War and not understand the bed-
rock signiicance of NATO?
It is dificult to set aside
The other disconnect of
the jingoism, racial animus the Trump phenomenon is
and misogyny at the heart of evangelicals’ fondness for
Trump’s voter appeal. But him. The Register-Guard of
if you do peel that away, Eugene last Friday addressed
there apparently is a candi- that one (“Trump’s evangeli-
date who doesn’t have a clue cal lock”).
about how Europe and Asia
Said the RG: “More puz-
are stitched together. During zling is why evangelicals
the interview segment that seem willing to check their
touched on American troops faith at the door to follow
based in South Korea, a man who oozes the very
Trump muses that perhaps self-righteousness that the
without an American mili- founder of their faith, Jesus,
tary presence in South Korea condemned in deference to
the two Koreas might have humility, grace and truth.
united. “Maybe you would Indeed, the relationship
have had a uniied Korea,” seems, at best, awkward,
Trump speculates. “Who and at worst, hypocritical —
knows what would have for both.”
happened?”
Simply put, Donald J.
Wow. What part of North Trump is unprepared and
Korea’s ruling, criminal unit to be our president. To
Kim family doesn’t Trump accept his pitch is a fool’s
get?
bargain.
‘Silent mass disaster’
demands attention
Mysteries need solving
V
iewers of television
crime shows get the
impression that discovery
of human remains sets off
an intense response, com-
plete with FBI facial recon-
struction experts, swift and
accurate DNA tests, vast
electronic databases that
match subtle clues with lists
of possible victims.
Reality is more like the
situation we reported last
week in Wahkiakum County,
Washington. A body is dis-
covered and local oficials
do what they can — with
few resources — to deter-
mine whether a crime has
been committed and who
the person is. Ultimately, in
a large nation, each new set
of unidentiied remains joins
a large number of others and
is gradually forgotten.
“The facts are sobering,”
Nancy Ritter of the National
Institute of Justice said in
the NIJ Journal. “On any
given day, there are as many
as 100,000 active missing
persons cases in the United
States. Every year, tens of
thousands of people van-
ish under suspicious cir-
cumstances. Viewed over a
20-year period, the number
of missing persons can be
estimated in the hundreds of
thousands.”
Some of these missing,
which Ritter describes as “the
nation’s silent mass disaster,”
are missing because they are
dead. More than 40,000 sets
of human remains await iden-
tiication in evidence rooms.
Only 6,000 of these are
entered in the FBI’s National
Crime Information Center
database. Many remains are
buried without even a DNA
sample being obtained.
The NIJ makes a variety of
good suggestions. All require
federal or state funding. They
include providing free tests
of unidentiied remains and
collecting reference sam-
ples from the families of the
missing.
It’s shocking to learn the
scale of this problem. An
advanced nation should
make reality much more like
the methodical science avail-
able to us. We can be certain
murders are occurring that
are never discovered, far less
solved. This just isn’t right.
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JULY 25, 2016
Second of Two Parts
By JULIE BROWN
For The Daily Astorian
T
he Lady Washington has 11
sails: ive square sails and six
triangular fore and aft sails. When
all sails are set, the wind carries her
faster than even her engine can do.
With a crowd at the dock cheering
goodbyes and wishing us “God-
speed,” we were off, setting sail for
our next port
on the Cali-
fornia coast. It
was a beauti-
ful sight, like
something in
a movie, and I
half expected
a theme song
to play. Once
u n d e r w a y,
Julie
hands not on
Brown
watch met in
the galley for
our dinner. The captain introduced
me to my shipmates, a group of
young people whose sailing skills,
work ethic, kindness, and humor
were to teach me well for the next
two weeks.
I learned how to do every job
on ship. I learned how to read the
charts and how to navigate (words
and numbers — I could do this!). I
learned how to man the tiller, and
how to stand at the bow from mid-
night to 4 a.m. for watch duty. I
learned the names of the 15 sails
and how to move them up and down
and how to tilt them to best catch
the wind. I learned a lot about lines:
how to brace and slack, to sweat
and tail, how to belay and coil.
Many of the jobs were about keep-
ing our ship clean: swabbing the
deck, polishing the brass, scrubbing
the dishes, the galley, and the head.
I held a propane torch for the very
irst time, melting pitch to pay the
seams between deck boards. Every
minute I was learning something
new in my classroom without walls.
Like the sailors of old, we occa-
sionally had free time to be illed
with entertaining ourselves. We
loved singing sea shanties and also
old ballads. I could never forget the
time that seven or eight of us aloft in
the rigging sang “Bohemian Rhap-
sody” together, the red sun at the
horizon our only audience. Dancing
in the galley was popular, with Bol-
lywood tapes supplied by our cook,
a belly dancer. So was tattoo show
and tell. One night we sailed up
beside the Hawaiian Chieftain, our
sister ship, and had a costume party
with both crews in her aft cabin.
It takes great creativity to cobble
together costumes from things you
ind on a sailboat. Coffee ilters can
be made into almost anything. Eat-
ing junk food and talking in the gal-
ley was another great way to pass
the time. So was sleeping.
I have never slept as well as I did
on the Lady Washington. The cap-
tain and irst mate had their own
private cabins, but the rest of us all
slept together in the focsle, in berths
that were the size and shape of cof-
ins. A small curtain could be pulled
closed for privacy, double hung
with wet socks, but you could not
sit upright (or read, or write) since
you only had about 2 feet between
you and the bunk above you and the
light was dim. It is so delicious to
sleep on the water, gently rocking
back and forth, hearing nothing but
the wind in the sails, the constant
creaking of old wood, or maybe the
sounds of six or seven sailors snor-
ing. It’s a little bit like camping, but
with the added risk of drowning.
We encountered bad weather
only once. After leaving Morro Bay,
a storm came up late one night that
was bad enough for port authori-
ties to close the bar. The engineer
strung a line from bow to stern
for us to hold onto when moving
about the ship, and the cook gave
us each a big zip lock bag. Just in
case. My midnight watch consisted
of hanging on for dear life as the
ship pitched and rolled like noth-
ing I had ever seen before, trying
to look out for any hazards in the
black water. The others on watch
with me called out to each other
frequently in the dark to make sure
we hadn’t lost anybody. We drank
lots of coffee that night.
The inal port for me was San
Diego. As we came near I was
treated to the sights of whales, por-
poises, crab pots, and Navy ships.
Photos by Julie Brown/For The Daily Astorian
The deck of the Surprise.
Julie Brown with the charts.
XtraTuff boots for the trip.
We docked, and the Lady Wash-
ington became part of a display of
other historical vessels, including a
Soviet submarine, The Star of India,
a Spanish galleon and the HMS
Surprise, used in the movie “Mas-
ter and Commander: The Far Side
of the World.” As crew, we were
given passes giving us free entry to
any ship at any time. I couldn’t help
re-visiting the Surprise late at night,
so I could have her all to myself,
to visit the famous aft cabin where
Russel Crowe had kept England
safe from French pirates. I touched
the cannons. I played with the ship’s
wheel. I pulled my boots off and
walked around the deck barefoot in
the dark.
At age 54 I decided to become
a student again: I got out of my
comfort zone and did something
challenging, something brand new
that made me more interesting to
myself. Living and working on
a tall ship for two weeks took me
away from things that were familiar
— electronic gadgets, the internet,
professional mastery, intellectual
pursuits, Shakespeare, Jane Austen
and high-heeled shoes. I immersed
myself in a salty world made out of
wood and canvas and hemp, a world
where centuries of knowledge were
passed on by word of mouth and by
At age 54 I
decided to
become a
student again:
I got out of
my comfort
zone and did
something
challenging,
something
brand new that
made me more
interesting
to myself.
trial and error and not by reading
a book. Like a child I learned how
to walk and how to talk by watch-
ing the people around me. I learned
songs and dirty jokes that made me
laugh. I saw magniicent birds, and
sea creatures that glowed in the
dark. I learned to pull on old clothes
in one minute and to braid my dirty
hair in two. Walking from the San
Diego harbor to the nearest airport
taxi, I was able to hoist my sea bag
with more arm strength and coni-
dence than before. I walked past
other ships on the dock and smiled
at their crews, feeling just a bit like
a sailor myself.
Julie Brown teaches writing, lit-
erature and maritime culture at
Clatsop Community College. She
enjoys ishing 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.