Tales from the Road: Schooner vs. Train

It's hard to even know what to write after coming home from a trip like the one I was just on. I want to distill it, to sum it up; to state what I learned. Maybe I will get to that at some point. Maybe I learned something that can be summed up (not so sure about that). For now, I'm going to devote the next few posts to sharing highlights from the trip. Not that these moments are better than the other moments, but they are self-contained, brief, and narratively satisfying. If we define better as "makes good blog reading" then they are, in fact, better. That is why they are being shared here.

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The Mystic Whaler's crew is, in some ways, a bunch of pirates. Young, fit folks with a devil-may-care attitude. They cut sail theory class short in order to go to the dock for Fitness Club--not a club per se as much as Frances donning a ninja headband and carrying an armload of push-up handles, weights, etc. up from below. "We have a lot of clubs on the boat" said Nicole. "Laura started the Starboard Cuddle Club. She's the only member." "Though others have tried to join," said Miranda.

After dinner, Chris and Frances informed the crew that they were heading out to O'Neill's. "The gay bar?" asked Miranda. "That's just where we go," said Frances. "They have good bartenders there. And $1 drinks till 9."

So at quarter of, Chris came rushing back to the boat with his mandolin. "Come on you guys!" he said. We stragglers (Nicole had been on galley duty, I was helping with dishes, and Laura had just returned from shore leave) leapt onto the dock and started walking towards State St. I struck up a conversation with Chris about his mandolin: "So, the fretted part of the neck extends over the body of it here" "Most mandolin players get that cut off--it's in the best place to strum and it gets in your way..." when life got exciting.

In New London, the train tracks divide the waterfront from the town proper. The very-active train station is within eye and earshot of the Whaler's dock. As we started downtown, the crossing gates started down, red lights and bells between us and O'Neill's.

In that instant, I resigned myself to missing $1 well drinks; to missing any drinks at all. More expensive drinks were, by this point in the trip, beyond my budget. My comrades, the piratical crew of the Whaler, were more committed to the bargain. Before I knew what was happening, Chris and Laura were sprinting for the crossing gates, Nicole in hot pursuit. I tucked the mandolin under my arm like a football, said a brief prayer, and hit the pavement. Ducking under the closing gates, I saw the headlights of the train rounding the corner, its horn blaring, not only in deference to regulations mandating horn use when approaching level crossings, but also because it would be unable to stop in time if any of us ended up in front of it.

We made it (barely) to State St., the passengers on the station shaking their heads at us. Exhilarated, Chris took back his mandolin and struck up a sea tune. We all sang along as we jogged to O'Neill's: "I'm a'goin' downtown, wa-a-a-a-y downtown, I'm a'goin' down to Lynchburg town, to carry my tobacco down..."

We walked into the bar, Frances sitting alone at the bar with his ukulele. He joined us for the verse, and the bartender and the crowd at the table outside looked at us. We sat at the bar and Chris announced, in the centuries-old tradition of sailors around the world "We're from that big ship down at the dock."