Such a rendezvous seemed more typically
the stuff of spy stories and mystery novels than the activity of retired
merchant seamen. Two middle age men, who
had met briefly three decades earlier and who would not recognize each other
today, were both traveling to a prearranged meeting point in midtown Manhattan
for a discussion over dinner. The
thought of it made me smile, and also remember the first James Bond book that I
had read many years ago. It was You Only Live Twice, by Ian
Fleming. I bought this book in a small
shop on a side street in Napoli not far from the Stazione Maritima when the Rigel
was docked there one day in the summer of 1979.
Subsequently, I read all of Ian Fleming’s James Bond stories aboard
ship. At the time, I considered this to
be an important part of my education in the humanities.
Silly thoughts like these filled my mind on
Monday, March 28, 2016, as I rode the train westward from Mineola into Manhattan. More seriously, I wondered how we would
recognize each other after so many years.
For this purpose, I wore my Waccamaw
hat, something I don’t often do. I had
previously lost my Furman hat, and I
did not want to risk losing another irreplaceable item of memorabilia. But today was a special occasion. Arriving in Penn Station, I disembarked and
walked the short distance to our meeting point, the Rare Bar & Grill at 152
West 26th Street, just off Seventh Avenue. I paused at the big sign in front. After a quick exchange of text messages, my
friend emerged from the restaurant and invited me inside. Rendezvous accomplished.
Walter Burke and I had last met 32 years
earlier aboard the oceanographic survey ship Bartlett in Port Everglades when I relieved him as second mate.
On Friday, October 12, 1984, I departed
from La Guardia Airport in New York aboard an Eastern Airlines A-300 and flew
over the Atlantic Ocean to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was an uneventful nonstop flight, and it
landed at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on time at
3:00pm. Boots James, a former shipmate
from the Waccamaw who was now posted
aboard the Bartlett, met me at the
airport and drove me to the ship in a rental car. The Bartlett
rested alongside the wharf on the east side of the Port Everglades basin and
adjacent to Burt and Jack’s, the famous high-style restaurant that overlooked
the harbor. I had a 45-days-old chief
mate’s license, and I felt very fortunate to be getting a job as second mate so
soon after passing the license exams.
Once aboard the Bartlett I was duly logged in and introduced to the shipboard
luminaries. Captain Kim L. Giaccardo was
the Master. Richard Carlson was chief
mate. Walter Burke was second mate. Joe Bogusis was third mate. Boots James was the purser. Walter had been on board for a year and had
travelled to South America and back. Soon
he would head home while I took his place. I spent Friday afternoon and a large part of
Saturday with Walter. He showed me
around the ship, told me what my new job would be like, and introduced me to everyone
else on board. It was a very pleasant
occasion, filled with good food, amiable conversation, and high hopes for the
future.
Five days earlier, I had reached the age
of 27. I had just under three years left
to achieve my goal of receiving the Master’s license before turning 30. Despite the gradually deteriorating
employment situation in the Merchant Marine, the future looked bright enough
for me to have every expectation of realizing my goal. To this end, I planned to remain aboard the Bartlett for a good long time and possibly
relieve Mr. Carlson as chief mate when he went home on vacation. If someone with prophetic capabilities had
told me then how the future would really turn out, I daresay I would have dismissed
his predictions as sheer nonsense.
My time with Walter was limited to these
two days. Then he left for his
vacation. He and I had crossed paths
once previously. When I had joined the Waccamaw in Augusta Bay, Sicily, in June
of 1982, Walter was third mate on the Rigel
with my classmate Owen Clarke as chief mate and Captain Rigobello as
Master. The two ships were tied up
directly across the pier from each other, which made for easy visiting. This served as a common memory for us during
our brief acquaintance on the Bartlett. Then, with the business of relieving him
concluded, Walter went his way and I went mine.
I spent the next five and a half months as second mate aboard the Bartlett. The ship made oceanographic survey voyages in
the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
Besides Fort Lauderdale, the ship made port calls in Key West, Florida,
and Gulfport, Mississippi. After experiencing
some initial nervousness about beginning a new assignment, I became quite
comfortable in my position. The Bartlett was a good ship with a good
crew, and I enjoyed sailing on her. Now,
many years later, I have happy memories of this time.
Such memories were what brought Walter
and me together again. Discussing the
good old days at first via email, we found much common ground. In many cases we had sailed on the same ships
with the same Masters and the same mates, but at different times. We had never sailed together, and our paths
crossed only twice. Like me, Walter had
served aboard the Mercury, the Rigel, the Kane, and the Saturn. Additionally, he had sailed aboard the Vega and the Truckee, two that I had missed.
He had also sailed with several of the great men of the fleet, including
Captain Rigobello, Captain Iaccabacci, and the tragically late Captain
Linardich. And finally, we had both
sailed aboard the Bartlett, one after
another, with the now also sadly deceased Captain Giaccardo.
Unlike me, Walter had left the shipping
business voluntarily in 1986 to pursue his second career on Wall Street. I hung on to the end, when my illness and the
failing job market combined to put me ashore in search of my own second
career. Now our ships are gone, many of
our shipmates are gone, and our company headquarters in Bayonne is also gone. But the memories remain. And so, over a sumptuous dinner in a quiet
corner of the Rare Bar and Grill in midtown Manhattan, we shared our memories
and reminisced about the good old days.
They really were good days, too, although
I recognize that more now than I did at the time. Ironically, with the deteriorating vision
that accompanies middle age, hindsight becomes twenty-twenty. With this clear retrospective, Walter and I
ate and talked. The recollections
transported us back through time and across the seas. We talked of voyages we had made, places we
had visited, colleagues we had known, and ambitions we had shared. The people, the places, and the ships sailed
back and forth across the table. Two men
in their fifties, who had known each other only slightly when in their twenties
and who had not spoken to each other in three decades, discussed enough to fill
a book.
We talked about coming ashore, our second
careers, our families, and our homes.
Like so many of our shipmates, we had made the transition from the sea
to the shore and had done well in our new professions. We discussed the sad times, too. Walter had been at work on Wall Street during
the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. We also mourned the
loss of the freighter El Faro and her
crew in 2015. Graduates of both our
schools lost their lives in this tragedy.
One thing which in hindsight particularly
impressed us was the level of responsibility that we had borne aboard ship. Our employer placed great faith in us and in
many other young mates just like us. We
were so young then, not long out of our teens, and on watch aboard a ship at
sea we carried a burden of responsibility largely unmatched by young men in
jobs ashore. A single mistake on our
parts could have produced devastating results.
But our superiors had confidence in our capabilities and entrusted millions
of dollars’ worth of ships and cargo as well as many men’s lives to us.
Like a scene in a Conradian novel, our
private party took place on a island surrounded by seawater and in a city that had
once ranked as one of the world’s busiest seaports:
This could have
occurred nowhere but in England, where men and the sea
interpenetrate,
so to speak—the sea entering into the life of most men,
and the men
knowing something or everything about the sea. . . .We were
sitting round a
mahogany table that reflected the bottle, the claret glasses,
and our faces as
we leaned on our elbows. . . .Between the five of us there
was the strong
bond of the sea, and also the fellowship of the craft.
Despite the non-English location, I felt
that we and the sea interpenetrated quite intimately; after all, we had come
together because of the sea And while we
were two and not five, we certainly knew something of the sea and shared the
“bond of the sea” and the “fellowship of the craft.” These intangible qualities, incomprehensible
to the layman and unheard of by the mainstream of a large and mostly inland
country, unite in spirit men spread literally around the world aboard the ships
that carry the world’s commerce. United
physically for the first time in decades, two of these seamen, like characters
in Conrad’s novels, swapped stories, shared memories, and philosophized on the
ways of men, ships, and the sea. It was
a very pleasant reunion.
After dinner Walter and I returned to
Penn Station and boarded a train for the ride home. He went to Huntington; I left him halfway
there in Mineola. Our conversation
continued to the last possible minute. Then
we bade each other farewell, shook hands, and I disembarked. Once again, he went his way and I went
mine.
On the walk home from the station, my
mind raced with everything that had just taken place. Thinking again in Conradian terms, I reflected
on Walter’s kindness in inviting me to dine and toast the good old days with
him. I was very happy to have met him
all those years ago, but sorry that I had never actually sailed with him. Nonetheless, we belong to the same
fraternity, having known the “exactions of the sea”
and having endured its “elemental furies.”
We had both “made many voyages,”
gained “a thorough knowledge of [our] duties,”
and had each “become chief mate of a fine ship.”
Decades later, these experiences and
memories are precious, even sacred, to both of us.
As I thought back upon this happy reunion
I recalled the scriptural injunction, “I exhort you to remember these things. .
.” (Moro. 10:27), for these voyages were “ordered for the illustration of life,
that might stand for a symbol of existence.” This is most definitely true. I simply cannot imagine going through life
without going to sea.
