Document text
IV. LIVING FOLEIORK
May Swenson
Anca Vrbovska
8/8/' 39
SPACE AND JOHil 4INOCUR
Time on your hands is what you got most of, if you're pounding
a key Aboard ship. It's something else again for the land operator
he puts through maybe seventy-five messages in an hour. But us guys,
we got it easier on that score, you might say-- speed's not so
important. It's persistence, and knowing how to buck the air waves
in all weathers, making connections with other ships on the relay
on
0
chain and stickin the phones through emergencies.r A sort of
glutton for long term punishment is a cableman at sea.
It's a different proposition all around. First of all, a guy
who takes his tou I to sea had better be extra fond of his 'own
\e,
company, 'because he's going to have to spend to WO, day at a
sttting.-
stretchiln-hil little six by twelve cabin dressed in earphones and
holding a conclave with the instrument board. He'll be relieved
to eat and sleep and that's about all. Emen though he's sending
or intercepting measages for probably only a fraction of his time
siNielig he's got to remain on duty regardless-- so in slack hours
2
he has plenty of opportunity to think, or memorize poetry, or write
his diary in code-- or weave wicker baskets if he feels that way
inclined. Me, I made a study of Hamlet one trip-- "To be or not
-ssor
to bet.< Yep, that Danish fellow was quite a card-- a bit of a
pansy maybe, hut I could sympathize with him. Like me, he had too
much time on his hands—, he thought too much.
Nights especially. That's when Ghe old thinker takes you
for a ride sometimes. I'll be sitting there in the cabin, my ears
glued to the phones, waiting for signals, and watch the waves slap
at the portholes. All the miles of .blaak water laying under this
tub, I'll be thinking, and different kinds of fish populating the
sea-- some with eyes like headlights and some with phosphorescent
bodies, and electric eels and things. And under all that SMEMOW
141=71m1:11:14,11xismay
there's this big tangled network of cables
laying down there on the ocean floor where no man has ever been..
They had to lay *cables from above, lowered them in relays
from ships. Mach one is really a hollow steel rod, with the wires
insulated inside of it. They're built practically o 14aq/forever:
(I
3
but there are certain things that can happen to them. An earthquake
for instance can bust that cable, and such a thing happened a few
years back in the Pacific. The cables are built flexible so that
there's not too much wave resistance, and then they're weighted
down here and there to withstand the tides. I like to wonder what
all those different kinds of deep sea fish think about that cable
when they nose around down there. Alai And all the wrecks of
old ships, skulls and bones floating around-- aorta mysterious
isn't it? Then take the story of the whale that disrupted the
cable between New York and London couple years ago. It's a fact.
Was in all the papers. There was a rupture reported in the line
a way's off the English coast, and the repair crew was sent out to
investigate. They figured the break must have been caused by an
earthquake on the sea bottom-- nothing less had ever been known to
do it. So they hauled up a section of cable, and when it came in
sight, they seen a big black hulk hanging there. Come to find out
it was a baby whale-- a baby whale had got himself tangled up in
the cables, which at that point branched out into a network of
4
smaller lines-- and this baby had thrashed about till he bent the
cables around his body. He was all snarled up, .and must have
finally choked to death.
It's the lonelines of the sea kinda contributes to the growth
of the imagination, I guess. All a fellow's activity is liable to
be mental, since there isn't much physical exercise a cable operator
getsjoutside of working his wrist over the key. Aboard ship, with
nothing to look at,day or night,bgt sea and sky, you get a strange
feeling aboul]p.ife on land. Like it's too much hustle and bustle
k
and hurry and scurry-- only three minutes from Wall Street to
Times Square on the Express, and an average of 2000 cars crossing
the Triborough bridge every hour-- speed and noise and neuroses.
While in my radio room out at sea it's as quiet as a hospital zone,
and there seems to be a long slow pause between each,seperate tick
of the clock on the instrument Aim* board. Through the portholes
you can see the ocean glassy smooth for miles, and the sky pitched
over it like a big high tent. And you know your boat is just a
little speck bmilig bobbing up and down on all that calm space....
a space so wide that nothing can reach it but radio waves.
5
Yeah, there's plenty of space out around you alright, but
in most radio cabins I've worked in, you have to stay doubled up
like a jack knife, the room is so small and crowded.
The most miserable eight days I ever spent was aboard a
whaler off the coast of Nova Scotia. Those Scotians have nerve
they called this ship the "Leviathan" t And it was more the size
of a walnut shell. Crowdedi Jeez, you had to open the cabin door
to take your pants off. There wasn't room for the receiving set
and the bunk both. My pillow was right across the receiver, and
the tail of the mattress on the spark yap.
This ship was manned by a bunch of blue -noses-- herr okers—
they're all fishing ships out that may-- and those Nova Scotian
fishermen are the only bastards who can stand the cold. They
never take a bath-- smell like whale blubber. Won't use a table
for eating either, but reach right into the pot under the galley
stove and dip up the dhow with their hands.
First thing I remember that trip, two hours out of the
channel, I'm on the receiver, and I get a whiff out of their
corncob pipes-- Five Brothers Tobaoco-- and lose it rank'
6
EVerything smelt of whale blubber, and tobacco and dead fish
and it was so cold you darsent stick your nose on deck for air.
Eight days was enough of that. I shipped on the Mary B, running
down to Boston-- back to civilimition.
For awhile I stuck to passenger ships after that. You
naturally get more chance to make aquaintances on such a trip
than if you're cooped up on a tanker or freighter. You're
handling personal cables for the most part, and sometimes you
strike some funny ones. TWO years ago I was on a boat bound
for Rio and Buenos Aires. It's a long hop, and the radio
transmitter covers only part of the distance. Some of the
messages we had to relay. Well, one time I got a message.
One word was all it was. It took about three hours for the
other operator, who was pretty far South down toward Rio, to
pick it up. This message was one word: "Waiting." Signed
some galls name.
TWO, three days, and the answer came through. I threw the
letLer back on the same relay chain. It was just one word:
"Coming," signed Charlie. FUnny people.
7
I remember a better one. Threw a message, says:
"Arriving 7 p. in. Please bring overcoat 73"
Seventy-three, appearing on a cable message, means "Best Regards."
Comes the message back, like this:
"Meeting ship. Why overcoat? You'll have me to keep
you warm 88 (Love and kisses)t"
Like I said, a cable operator at sea hasn't much chance
to be sociable. I guess I was never so lonely in my life as
the first year I worked aboard the "Grenada". She was a food
ship, carrying no passengers, and the crew was mostly Spicks
and a few Mexicans, and all I could understand of their lingo
was "Hello" and "Goodbye."
t it was my second trip on the
GARpada that I found myself a buddy. Jimmy was a swell fellow.
Not a night went by but what we'd have a little chat-- over the
wires. Now and then wetclass play a game of chess-- by calling
out the moves and writing them down on a rough diagram of a
chess board we'd each made. I knew Jimmy for two years. Our
conversations sure helped to fill up those empty spaces for both
of us.
8
Can you picture an intimacy between two men who have never
seen each other. I knew Jimmy intimately-- everything about him,
actual4g;
down to the brand of cigarettes he smoked. I never et him.
He was an operator on a tanker down around Dutch Guiana. We
corresponded regularly for almost two years by radio. iiimmit
Admiiiimm Somehow we never ran together in the same port. But I
knew him better than the fellows I see every day. He sent me
some beautiful letters by wire. It just happened he struck oil
with me. We discovered we had the same tastes in everything.
He was well read, and interested in Psychology. I was too at
that time. You know, funny thing, I always used to picture him
as looking like me. Dont know why-- except it seemed we even
thought alike.
The ship would be riding smooth. It would be night, dark
water. I'd stick my head in the port hole and see a star may out
there. I'd think, his ship's as far out away from mine as that
star. Sentimental maybe-- you get that way-- The sea is lonely
any seaman will tell you the same. I used to think, I've never
seen lump— maybe I'll nevot site him. Yet I know him like I know
9
myself.
This fellow, Jimmy. loaned me some money once. We had been
44 New Awlillg/
beached for two weeks/ aria hen we pulled out again, I was flat.
He wired me a large sum. I decided when next I got on the beach
again, I'd look him up-- he was to visit his family that supmer.
I figured I'd meet him and return the money. I looked forward
to it, and yet, in a way, I was prepared to have my illusions
shot. You glik build up a dream --.you picture it your way-- and
the real thing usually falls short.
Well, anyway, the ship made port, and no sooner I was on
land, I spilt Jim a letter-- to his home. I waited a week, didn't
hear from him. Then the letter came back marked non -delivery.
On the stamp they check the reason why not delivered. There was
a check in the column where it says 'Deceased'.
I continued out to his home. I met his family.Aiiimmimlimr
eaggislaill~PmeeikerhoormMP4'. They told me Jimmy had. died suddenly
of fever in the tropics.
10
I had only ten days to make ship, but I laid off, stayed
ashore, and missed the boat. When I shipped out again, it was on
another vessel, an oil tanker, the "Solitaire". She laid up in
Mobile and discharged at Portland, Maine.