So!
It’s 9:15 am on February 7th. Tripp has woken me up, still amused about the ejection of our French Press into the briny deep, to see cormorants, seagulls, pelicans and other sea birds swirling in the sky and populating the waters at the mouth of the Chesapeake. The weather is warm, finally finally finally.
And a milestone for us hits soon after:
That grainy three-digit number is our 400 mile mark since leaving Rhode Island. What an accomplishment. Out of the New England and New Jersey cold into an area where the accents started to sound southern.
On the way up the Chesapeake, the act on Channel 16 (the international distress frequency on marine radio) was a cargo ship hailing the coast guard to ask permission to run life boat drills, in a thick Indian accent, and then – after getting the permission – proceeding to make the same deadpan request again. The coast guard guy on the other end granted it a second time, in a tone of voice that suggested confusion (“Didn’t I just do this? Is this the same guy?”).
Norfolk is home to the world’s largest naval station and that was apparent the whole way up the Chesapeake. We didn’t get a picture of it, but there was some kind of stealth armored looking navy speedboat that was zipping up and down around us that Tripp referred to as “Dr. Evil’s Escape Pod”. I thought it looked more like the Enforcers from MST3K’s Space Mutiny.
The scale of the construction and amount of navy ships was unreal, if you’re an unexposed rural Vermonter. I told my father about it. His response, as a former military man himself, was that he had already told me about it. On the way up, we reviewed the status of our reliable goldfish.
We tied off at the Waterside Marina at 1:45 PM on February 7th. James, the dockmaster, asked if Tripp’s last name “was really Seaman” since it seemed too on the nose. I told him that was why Tripp went into the trade. James: “Makes sense, my last name is Dockmaster.”
I liked that guy.
After lunch at Grace O’Malleys on Granby Street, Tripp and I returned to the boat where I promptly collapsed at 5 PM for the entire night. I don’t think I’d ever slept 11 hours in that exact time frame before.
Getting up at 4 AM definitely allows you to get some pictures of the sunrise, I tell you what. Once Tripp was up, we made an easy breakfast of link sausage, eggs and bagels and, of course SAN FRANCISCO BAY COFFEE COMPANY’S FOG CHASER (this was bought for us by Tripp’s mom, Judy, and had been a staple of the November – January stretch where we’d been working on the boat in Rhode Island).
Once out and about in town, I stopped by Prince Books on East Main Street, which Tripp and I had passed the day before on the way to lunch. The owner and one of her employees, Sarah and Bridgette (I’m defaulting to the spellings I know here) helpfully gave me some restaurants and bar tips for the area. I would come back to Prince Books for coffee and lunch at the attached Lizard Cafe (proprietor Brian and the waitress a very friendly lady whose name I didn’t catch). Anyone going to Norfolk should pay a visit to both businesses and get a homemade sweet potato biscuit at the cafe. Too darn good.
Bridgette recommended Grain, a top floor bar with a beer garden, as a place to go. Thus:
An excerpt from a letter I wrote to a friend back home that naturally finds its place here:
... I now sit on the fifth floor at a beer garden, listening to a decent cover of Otis Readding's Sittin' on the Dock of a Bay by Uncle Kracker's stunt double. I slept from 5 PM Tuesday to 3:45 Wednesday, the most novel timeframe for near 11 hours unconscious that I can recall collapsing into. I've had my drink paid for by Mark, a broker in an electric wheelchair who was ecstatic at the serendipity of randomly asking a former support for the disabled to turn an Allen wrench to fix his rear wheel. He picked me out in this businessmen's bar by my steel-toed boots and plaid as a "guy who would know how to fix things", a dart my father, brother, ancestral spirits, and 85% of my coworkers in Rockland, Maine would likely find hilarious and more than a little off the bullseye.
I also had a 45 minute conversation with a homeless man who, attracted by my fiddle practice, spoke in cycles about Whitney Houston's And I Will Always Love You, Tim McGraw's Be Humble and Kind, Faith Hill's contribution to the last piece, and how he himself did not "sing" ("No, no. Let me tell you." said he frequently, with tears in his eyes), rather he SANG.
Having a sixth, or maybe even seventh, sense for the body language of sudden malice that can spring dangerously out of a mental condition (I write without any stigmatizing intent, just experience), I could tell that this guy was of a distressed but likely placid type. I was correct, as I expected (and hoped) to be. Many handshakes and hugs occurred, he requested insistently that I play And I Will Always Love You for him before we parted ways. Well, he had already SANG it for me at least three times, so what could I do? Eight horrible notes were all I could improvise; it was enough. He was simply over the moon, likely - in his heart of hearts - more for the empathy exhibited than the technical aspects of the performance. The things we can do to acknowledge the humanity of our fellow human beings with only an allen wrench, or a fiddle bow, and an open heart. What a world.
Mark would prove to be the Jim Buie of Norfolk, there at Grain on several trips to Grain, on the 8th and again on the 9th. Always personable and offered to host me if I ever come back to Norfolk.
Ha! He also introduced me to a friend of his, whose name escapes me, that I had coincidentally already met at the Sheridan Hotel where he was a valet. I admit that I lied him and the house keeping people about being a guest (or having a friend who was a guest) so I could get out laundry done there. As I intend to share this with Mark: let your buddy know I’m sorry for pulling one over on him, but at least he got a good cigar out of the deal. Tripp split off with me, just like in Cape May and, by God, I was going to GET that laundry done.
Actually, to mention for the reader: I’m traveling with about a dozen La Galera cigars that my Uncle Mike got me for Christmas. So far, I’ve given two to Jim Buie for his services around Cape May, one to the valet at the Norfolk Sheridan to change the subject from what I was there for, and have smoked two myself.
I’m updating the blog right now, sitting in a bar in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The third cigar I intend to smoke is in my pocket and I am going to leave the update off here:
Imagine that it is the morning of February 10th. Tripp and I are about to get underway, with a stop for diesel fuel, before we head into the Intracoastal Waterway, heading into the Great Dismal Swamp. This’ll be a good update.
See you tomorrow!
Oh, and to catalogue for my personal sake: another honorable mention to Diana, a very pleasant businesswoman from El Paso, Texas who shared yet another giant pretzel with me at Grain. Hope the promotion is everything you want! And, to Mandy, also of Prince Books: thanks for the recommendations and kudos again for the cool Over the Garden Wall tattoo.
Hermit Thrush 