Ken’s birthday is March 11 and every year the NESTER includes a post reminding us all of the significance of Ken’s life to our lives. Last year, Jerry & Keith contributed a post that chronicled a family cruise on the Christian in 1994. In prior years, Nancy shared a post highlighting her years with Ken on the CHRISTIAN. Last year, The NESTER published Ken’s poem CALL ME ADVENA KEN. These past previous posts are available on the NDSTER.
In Jerry’s humorous post this year we don’t meet the Ken writing poetry, theology and skippering the CHRISTIAN in Southeastern Alaska waters. We find Ken in his early twenties fishing for salmon off Cape Addington on his 33 foot troller, Lady Fay, with a seasick teenager for crew. You will enjoy every sentence! You will find yourself telling others . . . “Don’t miss this post!”
KENNY'S CURE FOR SEASICKNESS
By Jerry Olson
I first went to sea on my brother Ken’s troller, fishing for salmon on Cape Addington in Southeastern Alaska. There I learned the basics of being a seaman. Skills I would use all my life. However, the central fact of those three seasons on the Lady Fay and the Seabird, the very focus of my life, was that I was seasick. The rugged towering beauty of the cape, with the rolling heavy seas breaking over the end of the cape was barely enough to distract me. In fact, we talked about going ashore there which would cure seasickness, but that was not possible with constant seas on the beach.
Ken, however, had other cures for my misery. He thought memorizing poems would help and he had one of those compendiums of endless poems on board. The first one was Masefield’s “I must go down to the sea again” and having memorized some of that I moved on to others including the first two verses of “The Raven”. Poe was my favorite.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a napping
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”
After several other poets it appeared that I was still hanging over the rail. Ken then decided that singing sea shanties might help. Poetry set to song. “My father was keeper of the Eddystone Light” was the first. Another was about a woman named Katie who had a glass eye, a peg leg and a passion for rye whiskey.
It was decided I might benefit from reading some of Thoreau’s philosophy concerning living life as you find it to its fullest. If you find life is mean then get the full meanness out of it. So, my seasickness had meaning.
Me father was the keeper of the Eddystone Light,
He married a mermaid one fine night,
And from that union there came three,
Two little fishies and the other was me.
Chorus:
With a yo-ho-ho, let the wind blow free,
It’s all for the life on the rolling sea.
You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
The next cure was quite different. I was to hang upside down from the boom like a pendulum. Watching deck pass beneath with each roll and then seeing the cape while upside down. Ken watched and asked that I please heave when rolling to port rather than starboard so I would not heave on the deck behind the pilothouse door.
After three seasons Ken was off to the Marine Corps and my fourth season on Addington was with Severin Hildre who was a strong influence on my brothers Ken and Tim who spent seasons with him. Now it was almost two months at sea with no relief. Severin looked at me and said, “Yah Jerry, I vill tell you the same thing I told Kenny ven he vas vith me, you vill either get over it or you vill die” And that was that. Seasickness ended. After several more seasons I left for the Navy and never saw Cape Addington again except in a dream.
A couple months after Ken’s Memorial Service in Everett, I dreamed I was sport fishing and heading for Cape Addington. The sea was calm as a mill pond. I mentioned wondering years ago what was ashore on the end of the cape. So I went in a skiff and climbed up to the small grove of trees. When I walked through the trees, I found myself standing in a small grass meadow with a feeling of quiet peace that can only come in a dream. There was Ken, with a grin I always remember. He said, “Now we know what is on the end of Addington.” Nothing profound, just peace. His cures for seasickness were not lost, however, giving me a lifelong fondness for poetry, sea shanties, rye whiskey and an introduction to philosophy. I suspect Ken knew all that it just took me a lifetime to understand what he gave me. Still at last, I doubt anyone ever saw Cape Addington from a perspective such as mine upside down
To view & read Jerry’s previous post, 1994 OLSON FAMILY CRUISE ON THE CHRISTIAN – click here
