24th of November Thought for the Day

Subject: 24th of November Thought for the Day
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 24 Nov 99 - 07:07 AM

One Midwinter day off the coast of Massachusettes, the crew of a mackerel schooner spotted a bottle with a note in it. The schooner was on Georges Bank, one of the most dangerous fishing grounds in the world and a bottle with a note in it was a dire sign indeed. A deckhand scooped it out of the water, the sea grass was stripped away, and the captain uncorked the bottle and turned to his assembled crew:
"On Georges Bank with our cable gone and our rudder gone and leaking. Two men have been swept away and all hands have been given up as our cable is gone and our rudder is gone. The one that picks this up let it be known. God have mercy on us."
The note was from the Falcon, a boat that had set sail from Glouster the year before. She hadn't been heard from since. A boat that parts her cables off Georges careens helplessly along until she fetches up in some shallow water and gets pounded to pieces by the stuff.
One of the Falcon's crew must have wedged himself against a bunk in the focsle and written furiously beneath the heaving light of a storm lantern. This was the end, and everyone on the boat would have known it.
How do men act on a sinking ship?
Do they hold each other? Do they pass around the whiskey?
Do they cry?
This man wrote; he put down on a scrap of paper the last moments of twenty men in this world. Then he corked the bottle and threw it overboard. There's not a chance in hell, he must have thought. And then he went below again. He breathed in deep. He tried to calm himself. He readied himself for the first shock of sea.
(from The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger)

I wonder what I would do? What would be my thoughts and last actions if I knew my life was ending within a very short time?

Subject: RE: 24th of November Thought for the Day
From: bet
Date: 24 Nov 99 - 03:34 PM

Phew! BonnieLass, katlaughing/MamaKat Sagewalker eher from my sister's computer. That's a deep one, I iwll have to think of and come back to later this week.

If I refresh this, I hope it will entice others to comment.

luvyaKat

Subject: RE: 24th of November Thought for the Day
From: Bob Landry
Date: 24 Nov 99 - 04:57 PM

I've recently been thinking about the horror experienced by those who face imminent death by drowing. Over the past year, I've done considerable genealogical research into my family's history and have gathered a lot of information about ancestors faced with death. During the Acadian deportations of 1755-1763, many of my ancestors were forcibly deported from Nova Scotia simply because they were of French descent and because New England merchants and politicians perceived them as economic and military threats. The entire Acadian population of mainland Nova Scotia was hunted down and transported to various locations in the New England colonies and Europe. Two of the ships, the Duke William and the Violet, foundered at sea not that far from Georges Banks taking entire families to their deaths. Victims included grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Michel Boudrot and Michelle Aucoin. They were original Acadian settlers from whom both my grandmothers are descended. Some eventually settled in Louisiana and are the ancestors of the Cajuns Some of my direct ancestors escaped by hiding in Cape Breton while others subsequently returned after hostilities ceased and the British were in control of most of North America. They made their living through fishing and many of them drowned in the pursuit of their livelihoods. At least half a dozen of my friends and relatives have drowned in the 52 years I've been around. I watched, in horror, a news broadcast some years ago when a new steel fishing trawler from Lunenburg (which just happened to have a news crew along during its sea trials) cut into another, small fishing boat and sent it to the bottom. The news footage showed men being sucked back into the swirling water as the smaller vessel sank. Many didn't survive.

What goes through peoples' minds when they come to realize that they are about to die and there is no escape. I can only think of one word ... horror.

Bob

Subject: RE: 24th of November Thought for the Day
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 24 Nov 99 - 05:28 PM

Thanks for your story Bob

I've always been intrigued by men who make a living fishing and the challenges they must deal with.
It's risky hard work. It reminds me of the life threatening work the miners endure.
I've heard a couple of songs by Gordon Bok about men being lost at sea. Bok also sings about their lives since he is also a fisherman himself.
I very much enjoy his music.

Banjo Bonnie

Subject: RE: 24th of November Thought for the Day
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 24 Nov 99 - 05:37 PM

Mama Kat Sagewalker, see what happens when your not around. The Thoughts for the Day, get way too heavy.

Subject: RE: 24th of November Thought for the Day
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Nov 99 - 08:05 PM

I suppose this thought is what lies behind the fascination that the Titanic has for so many people. And behind that lies the consciousness, which we put aside most of the time, that it's only a matter of time anyway for all of us.

As Hank Williams put "You'll never get out of this world alive."

You've got to admit it, you can't beat death in a song. In a nearby thread (RE: Mother Cat Dead - Kittens Live) Art Thieme asked whether people could think of songs about being born, and there weren't many came up. Whereas if you try to think of songs about death, they come pouring out from every direction.

As they say, the only two certain things about life are death and taxes - and you can sometimes dodge the taxes.

Subject: RE: 24th of November Thought for the Day
From: Allan C.
Date: 24 Nov 99 - 09:29 PM

There's an image that has been stuck in my mind for most of my life:
I was a very young kid who was attending a summer camp thing at a YMCA in downtown Washington, D.C.. Like most of the other kids at the camp, I didn't know how to swim. So, like many of them, I steered clear of the part of the swimming pool which was over my head. But sometimes I would do a shallow dive at the six foot marker, pointing myself toward the shallower water so that I would come up in a place where I could stand.
I was about to do just that and approached the edge of the pool where the big number 6 was painted on the floor. But when I looked into the water I was stunned to see a boy who was standing on the bottom of the pool! His arms were outstretched toward the surface and bubbles were streaming out of his mouth. He was yelling! At least that's what it looked like - I could hear nothing. But in that instant, our eyes met. Or that is the way I will forever picture it because I suppose I would have appeared as an indistinct blob to him through the water.
All of this seemed to happen over a much longer period of time than it actually was. For, in truth, in the same moment that I saw the boy, the lifeguard had dived into the water. In moments the boy was brought out of the pool and was resuscitated only a few more moments after that.
I have never had any doubts about what was going through that boy's mind in the time he spent standing on the bottom of the pool. I truly doubt that there were any thoughts, formed or otherwise, flashing through his brain. I think Bob Landry had it right. It was nothing other than complete horror.

Subject: RE: 24th of November Thought for the Day
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 24 Nov 99 - 09:35 PM

I think the horror of a storm at sea lies in the involvement of all elements, all around you. On land, at least you have solid earth beneath your feet- you can seek the quietude of shelter. In a storm at sea, the wind howls, the waves crash and fill the very air with foam, the ocean below you heaves and drops away. There is no shelter, and you will never feel as totally vulnerable or as totally alone as you do in a storm at sea. The sense that you will be swept under the surface and buried in oblivion is horrifying- your isolation means this will happen leaving even your grave unmarked and unknown. Perhaps this is what drove the crewman of the Falcon to leave the msg in the bottle: some sense of human connection, even though it would come long after his death.

I have come near this, as I stated in another thread. It is perhaps some comfort to know that the feeling of sheer terror is unsustainable for long- at some point comes acceptance and a strange surreal joy at the abandonment of hope.

Subject: RE: 24th of November Thought for the Day
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 25 Nov 99 - 04:47 AM

I grew up near a natural feature called the Chesil Bank, it sounds like Georges Bank, but this is made of stones, starting with shingle and little pebbles at one end, getting bigger as it goes along, until 11 miles later, it becomes part of the Isle of Portland (the first one, that Oregon and Maine were named for) which is rock. About 2 miles down from the other end, it seperates from the mainland and holds back a salt lagoon. Where is seperates, is a village called Abbotsbury, and I spent much of my childhood there. On a calm day, you can hear the pebbles as they are rolled about by the tide. The noise comes in two parts, the gentle shush as the water breaks and then a much louder, more urgent shush and splatter as the undertow pulls back. Only one ship has ever made land on that bank, the rest are all pummelled to death by the undertow and the pebbles. It was said that on really quiet nights, you could hear the roar and suck of the undertow for up to 10 miles inland, and if there was a storm at sea.......

LTS