Old Man and the Sea

One of my many fantasies growing up in land-locked Saint Paul, Minnesota was to sail the seven seas on a tramp steamer. At the time I probably wasn’t even sure what a tramp steamer was. But the name conjured up images of beautiful brown girls, swaying palm trees and vast blue oceans. Perhaps it was some ‘50s Errol Flynn movie that warped my malleable mind into wondrous thoughts of riding the high seas.

The Run for Home by Leland Frederick Cooley

By my mid-teens, it had become a feverish dream burning a hole in my idle hours. I began perusing magazines, novels and seafaring books for clues on how to enter that maritime world. I devoured Joshua Slocum’s ‘Sailing Alone around the world’ and ‘Moby Dick.’ Jack London’s ‘The Sea Wolf’ gripped my imagination more than Dick Tracy or Tarzan ever could.

In fall of 1961, a Life magazine article pushed me over the edge. It was entitled: ‘Before the Mast’ and subtitled: ‘A farm boy ships aboard a freighter.’ The article went on to chronical the adventures of an Iowa farm boy who was selected by the Seafarers International Union hiring hall in New Orleans to work aboard the M/V Del Monte that was sailing off to Brazil. By the end of the article the young sailor was in Rio de Janeiro and getting a tattoo. I was hooked.  I sent off an introductory letter to some maritime union in Detroit seeking employment on any ship available. Their form letter response demanded an in-person interview and I didn’t have the bus fare to get there. Totally dejected, I went to college instead.

Fast forward several lifetimes and after college I went to live in Europe. I ended up working at a Danish laundry outside of Copenhagen. Weekends were spent wandering the harbor and talking to the marginal characters who inhabited that strange dockside world. After a month or so I applied for employment on a Norwegian freighter bound for who knows where. I can’t remember why I was turned down; lack of experience, my glasses or my foreign status. The only available work was as a deck hand or dish washer and I didn’t qualify for either. Go figure. A couple of rough weather weekend runs to Germany by ferry boat got that seafaring wanderlust out of my system for good. Or so I thought.

Upon my return to Minnesota I used to imagine Duluth as my gateway/getaway to the great lakes and the open seas beyond. Lake Nokomis became my Inland Ocean. My girlfriend and I used to drive up to the Twin Ports. We would find some forlorn hilltop overlooking the harbor and hunker down. We’d drink cheap wine, eat cheese and crackers, and wax philosophically about foreign lands and the exotic travels we imagined we might do some day.

Later on in life Sharon and I discovered river cruising in Europe. We found that pace much more to our liking. It was relaxed, controlled and manageable. My youthful fantasies had subsided and the thoughts of living in the same work clothes for more than twenty-four hours caused me a chill.

Recently a ten-day tour of Cuba put us on a cruise ship for the first time. The Celestyal Crystal is one of the smaller cruise ships in the cruise industry. It could hold more than one thousand passengers. Ours had only six hundred. But that was still about five hundred and fifty too many for my liking. Sadly, that ship is as close as I’m ever going to get to my tramp steamer at sea.

I’m an old man now (when I’m willing to admit it.) My imagined seafaring days never came to be and I’m OK with that. It was a fantasy born in boredom, a sense of abandonment and no inkling of the exciting years ahead.

As I matured and came to understand my own idiosyncrasies, quirks, strengthens and weak-nesses I realized it was best that I didn’t end up on some cluttered, vomit-strained deck somewhere. A deckhand’s life was not for me. Laguna Beach is a fair substitute whenever I feel the need to suck in salt air and feel sand between my toes.

My world became rich, involved, and stimulating. The women I knew and the men I befriended were all part and parcel of another world that wove a tapestry of memories as firm as any ships log possibly could. My life ended up a journey well taken with never a sea storm to swell against my ship of state. I crested life’s rolling swells of good and bad experiences always aiming for a horizon that promised only better times ahead.

It still does.

Great North Sea

The north shore of Minnesota has long held a deep fascination for me. As long as I can remember there was an inexplicable allure with its vast ocean and deep woods that seemed to beckon my wandering imagination. It fed into my youthful fantasy of traveling around the world on a tramp steamer. Anyone remember that pop song ‘Brandi’? Later on, it provided the basis for two screenplays and numerous poems among other artistic ventures.

In my wandering youth, that old harbor town Duluth and Lake Superior were distant destination points for Susan and me in my less than dependable VW. There were wine picnics on Hawk Ridge while listening to the ‘Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald’ and youthful musings about travel and life and what the future might hold for the two of us.

Interest in northern Minnesota was further fueled by ownership of an octagon vacation rental on Spirit Mountain called the ‘Mountain Villas.’ There were weekend family sojourns exploring the coastline for rocks and gulls and threatening waves. It once meant training with Melanie for the Twin Cities marathon – 18 miles one Saturday morning.

Recently we revisited the great Northland once again. Two welcoming invitations to the land of the loon, quiet lakes and huge eagles sailing overhead.

I could see that Duluth is finally coming into its own now long after the mines closed back in the early 80s. There are new buildings going up in downtown. A more progressive mayor and city council are encouraging growth. New businesses seem to be spouting up every day. It’s been years since I’ve ventured up there yet the sights and sounds of that coastal city continue to draw me back.

Canal Park is busy as ever. Buskers are the newest attraction on the lake walk. Buskers are street performers who entertain visitors each day and evening. In addition to all kinds of music, dance classes are also held along the boardwalk. Its great entertainment and symbolic of the freedom of expression that is so predominant in that ocean city.

                       

Our first invitation came from an old high school classmate who has retired on a small lake ten miles outside of Duluth. He and his wife are now enjoying the quintessential northern Minnesota experience. It’s a Minnesota thing. 

Our second visit was to Lake Vermillion, even closer to the Canadian border, with its pristine lakes, deep woods and abundant wildlife.

What ever happened to the little cabin up north? They’ve become modern day castles in the woods. Even as old turn-of-the-century cabins made way for much larger structures the old title of ‘cabin’ has strangely stuck. Perhaps it’s a lingering handle of times past or simply a less subtle way to describe the family compound up north.                      

At first I thought the owners were being a bit euphemistic in describing their second or third homes in the woods. Perhaps those owners were being coy or unassuming or just hanging on to their ‘Minnesota Nice’ moniker. Turns out neither is the case. The lexicon of outstate Minnesota when it comes large and small homes on the lake is to call them all ‘cabins;’ plain and simple. 

While not quite the Cote d’Azur - Minnesota style, Lake Vermillion is never-the-less quickly gaining a reputation as a playground of the rich and famous. If our visit up north was any indication it’s a veritable sandlot for boy toys. 

Most of the homes we sailed by had their own collection of man toys. There were power boats, cruisers, simple and elaborate fishing boats, crawlers, pontoon boats, sailboats, canoes, kayaks and all sorts of floating devices stacked along the shoreline. 

During the summer months the garages hold the motorcycles, bicycles, ATVs, prowlers, snowmobiles, ice-fishing equipment and every yard game known to mankind.

For Melanie’s kids it was a wonderful weekend full of exciting adventures they would never have experienced in their own backyard. 

Can you spot the eagle?

The allure is still there for me. But it’s not the desire for a mansion up north or a decked out cruiser on the lake. Instead it’s allowing one’s mind to embrace the vastness of the ocean, the pounding of the waves on an overcast day and the depth of the forest always nearby.

 

It’s all those elements and more that caused a young man to think great dreams of ‘what if’ while still embracing the realities of his day. Now years later it’s still a draw on his imagination even if that tramp steamer left harbor a long time ago.