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Re-reading and re-living the Sea

Two Years Before the Mast & Other Voyages

Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

(Library of America Edition)

Unexpectedly, I received a package from a friend containing a copy of Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. The book had a black cover and very thin pages, like a bible. When I was an adolescent it might well have served me in that capacity. Born on the shores of the Baltic, the sea was in my blood. My longing to embark upon it in some fine vessel transcended even the all-pervading fear I had growing up in Nazi Germany. Every time I actually saw the prow of a ship, my knees turned to jelly and my body broke into a sweat.

I immigrated to the United States and went to high school. I read Jack London, Robert Louis Stevenson, Herman Melville, Nordhoff & Hall, C.S. Forester, Richard Henry Dana, and every other author who had been willing to write sea stories. Joseph Conrad was like a god to me. Four days out of high school I was in the United States Navy, one of the worst mistakes I ever made in my life.

I joined in 1957. In the late 1950's the Second World War was a recent memory, and many American families were still grieving for their fallen loved ones. And there I was, saying Yessir! in a heavy German accent.

In the late 1950's I was an unformed, immature individual, and my childhood experiences had eroded all of the courage I would normally have had. It is uncanny how quickly others can sniff out your weaknesses. They began to tell jokes and stories in my presence, for the pure enjoyment of my daily discomfiture.

"It was Christmas Eve, and the Lass family was sitting around the fireplace. The wind was howling outside, and grandpa Lass pulled his blanket up to his chest. It's getting cold in here, Egon,' he said. How about throwing another Jew on the fire?'"

Roaring laughter all around. I cannot remember one day in the Navy that went by without a similar incident.

A year or two later, when I had become a petty officer third class, I was standing at the top of a ladder in one of the engine rooms, fixing an alarm bell. The bolt which held the cover had rusted and had a huge head, and I had brought a large wrench to pry it loose. While I was working one of the firemen yelled up to me, "Hey, Jewburner!"

It happened at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and I was in the wrong mood. I leaped from the ladder, turning in mid-air, and crashed onto the deck plates below. My left hand held a bronze bell cover, my right a huge

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