…Around The World in 80 Days 1980 (continued)
10:30 PM Pacific Time
We’re off! Five hours at sea now (God, send me some dramamine!)
Thus opened my journal entry for February 3rd, 1980. If you’ve followed along thus far, you’ll already be familiar with the adventures I’d dodged and encountered—mostly in the company of my sisters Fame and Seven—to get to that day.
At last! The SS Universe set sail and I was at sea along with 500 other university students from across America.
(If this tale is new to you, you can start from here or catch up by reading parts one, two, three, and four anytime. And your comments or thoughts are always welcome at the end of any of my many available issues of Monday Morning Literary Bric-a-Brac).
ANCHORS AWEIGH
That first full day after arriving at the Port of Los Angeles was filled with excitement as I and my fellow work-study students, who’d come a day early as required, prepared to welcome and process the rest of the student body.
My journal recounts learning to awaken and dress while having to navigate the tight confines of what I’d begun calling our cab (cabin)—me and my two roomies, that is—all sharing an interior (read: no porthole) space the size of a walk-in closet.
The footprint may have been 9’ by 14’ by my calculation, but that included two sets of bunks, a desk, four lockers, a dresser, and a bathroom, paring down our navigable space to dress and otherwise live to slightly more than an aisle 3’ wide and 11’ long.
On the upside, my roomie Lucy and I both had eight siblings and were not only accustomed to the idea of sharing space but loved having top bunks. Dawn, a Cali Valley Girl who’d brought three steamer trunks (we were each allowed only one, supposedly) had commandeered the spare bunk beneath Lucy as her personal closet, and so was also satisfied with the arrangement.
Breakfast consisted of sausage, whole milk, and of scrambled eggs I declared with some amazement as being even worse than those I was accustomed to being served back at my home university—Seton Hill.
By eight we were outside and set up on the pier behind our various tables. I had students with last names beginning with A and up to Lake. Energies, as you can imagine, were high, with hundreds of students queuing to be processed, along with even more hundreds of their family members and friends who’d come along to see them off.
I noticed among my registrees four fellow Pennsylvanians: two from Pittsburgh, one from Philly, and one from Bryn Mawr. One was a fellow named Paul Calibasi, whose name sounded incredibly familiar. He was one of the students from Pittsburgh but said he had relatives in Lancaster County, PA.
He said they ran The Host Farm and The Host Coral, two hotel resorts I was familiar with. I didn’t know it then, but that coming summer I’d be working at one of the Host properties as a lifeguard, and I wonder now if meeting Paul had anything to do with my having snagged that job between college semesters.
Anyway, Lucy and Dawn were down at Station B, across the way from my Station E. Between registering students and handing out ID’s and cabin assignments we made faces at one another, all in high spirits on a beautiful California day, surrounded by hundreds of happy people.
The crew served us sandwiches and coffee at lunch, since we weren’t allowed to leave our stations till the last of the students had been processed and were onboard. I passed any down time by chatting with Paul and with Linda (mentioned in the previous installment), and also to a guard stationed at the dock.
He was an interesting man who’d been in the navy for 23 years. He told me the Universe was originally a gunner boat named The Atlantic. And sure enough, after my duties were over and I spent the final hours before departure taking photos and exploring, I noticed for myself how the previous name of the ship could indeed be seen beneath its current paint job.
At four o’clock the ship’s horn blasted for the first time, scaring the bejezuz out of the thousands gathered in and around her, many of whom I began to realize were drunk. Champagne had been flowing for hours.
I don’t recount having had any, but I doubt I did—I wasn’t much of a drinker in those early days and unlike everyone else, I had no friends or family there to celebrate with. I distinctly recall thinking how odd it was that the ship even had a bar; it didn’t strike me as collegiate, which probably tells you a lot more about me than about any college that ever existed.
It was the ship’s library I was drawn to and where I spent a large bulk of my time. The only occasions I even stepped foot in the bar were times I passed through it as a shortcut from one place on the ship to another.
The horn’s blast was announcing it was time for all guests to leave the ship, and masses of people began streaming off. I never saw so much hugging and crying in my life. It was as if all those family members and friends never expected to see their student loved ones again.
I’d gotten to meet a few, though, so at least I had someone to wave goodbye to: Lucy’s aunt and cousin, and her sister, Sari. Lucy’s mom was there, too, but we’d missed seeing one another. She was going to mail two packages for me: gifts I’d picked up on my cross-country snow-covered adventure getting to the ship in the first place; I’d picked them out for friends Joanne and Julie back at Seton Hill.
I didn’t know it then, but a year and a half later I would finally get to meet Lucy’s mom when Fame and I would take a second cross-country drive to visit the whole Shepherd family in Phoenix.
Once that horn sounded I hurriedly swam against the surging tide of departing people to get to a prime spot from which I planned to observe the departure: topside, as forward as I could go, and dead center. The movie Titanic was years in the offing, but you can well imagine the spot I wanted to perch on, there below me: the very prow, itself. It was, however, a part of the ship off-limits to students, and it wasn’t the right time to flagrantly fly against rules as I’ve been known to do, so I would have to wait.
Fast forward a few decades, you can well imagine though how watching Rose and Jack in Cameron’s famous scene from Titanic stirred in me memories of that day of the Universe’s launch party—only, with a cast of thousands and not one of them CGI!
A fellow student, Robert Porter, had the same idea as me and soon joined me at the prime observation spot. From our vantage point we watched the hoopla. Tugboats closed in, flags raised, ropes were hauled in. As we drifted slowly away from the dock, thousands of voices were raised in shouts and goodbyes, people waving furiously, streamers flying, and a flotilla of small vessels escorting us, their own horns blaring farewell.
I write my journal of nearly being moved to tears by the scene and the emotion of it all.
In my dotage I must be far more easily stirred, since I’m crying now just to read about it in this yellowed journal I’d kept packed away for decades. It chokes me up to reimagine that moment so long ago when it felt as though the whole world was waiting to be discovered.
I remember the amazement I felt to be where I was, that despite a humble upbringing I was experiencing a jaw-dropping privilege and wanted to drink every drop of it in, to let it sink deeply into the marrow of my bones to become part of my unfolding self.
I was bobbing like a buoy with delight, the sunset stunning, going from yellows to orange, then onto a spray of pinks that deepened into magenta. We passed beneath a bridge, sailed beyond a lighthouse blinking its farewell. The roar of the crowd faded, stars appeared, and the decks were slowly abandoned as students headed to dinner.
That first meal at sea was memorable. It was hard to stay upright, let alone while carrying a tray of food. We all felt like babes, and I’m sure the seasoned crew saw us that way. Lucy and I opted for a table on the starboard side so we could see the receding lights of LA that looked like spilled jewels gleaming in the last rays of sunset.
After we ate we stepped out onto the Prom (Promenade) Deck, immediately struck with our first waves of nausea. They swept over us like an unrelenting tide. Braced against the rail, I noticed the ship had a clockwise roll to it, and wondered if it would roll the other way below the equator.
To my disappointment and surprise I was told we would come to within several miles of the southern hemisphere, but never cross the equator. My geography was lacking; I couldn’t imagine sailing beneath Malaysia and Singapore—spots on our itinerary—and not getting to leave the Northern Hemisphere.
In any event, Luce and I retired at eight, exhausted and now nauseous, but couldn’t sleep. We lay, dizzied and trying to imagine getting used to sleeping while being tossed as though caught in a clothes dryer set on slow spin, then at 9:30 got up again.
I realized I’d left my sneakers up on the sundeck and went to retrieve them, happy and amazed to find them still sitting right where I’d taken them off hours before. Then Dawn came to the rescue with a supply of seasick pills she'd had the smarts to bring along, as well as a few saltines and some crackerjack, and soon I felt well enough to try the shower.
Well, if trying to sleep in my bunk was like being tossed in a clothes dryer, trying to shower was like being tossed in the washing machine.
That first time I write of dicing up my legs, trying to shave them, but I eventually did perfect the dubious art of leg-shaving in a moving shower—by bracing my back against one stall wall and my foot waist-high against the opposite one. Remember, the shower was small, its tight confines a blessing in the end.
Another blessing in the bathroom was the result of daily “maid” service, when a member of the crew brought fresh drinking water. The water that came out of our faucet and showerhead were ocean water. Our daily supply of fresh water hung in a pitcher attached to the bathroom wall.
Soon Luce and I were tucked in our bunks again, ready to take another try at a good night’s sleep, that first day at sea. Dawn? She was out and about to all hours as would become her wont, being the social creature she was.
The ship rolled and rolled, reminding me of the many oil wells I’d seen on my cross-country journey earlier that week with my sister, Fame. I described the scene to Lucy, saying how the oil wells reminded me of birds furiously and relentlessly bobbing for worms, how they made me think of a toy I had in youth—a kind of perpetual-motion machine fueled by scientific thermodynamic principals and fashioned to look like a drinking bird.
Our journey had begun.
In the coming months, through many awaiting adventures, Lucy and I would find countless things to chat about, some as silly as drinking birds, others as meaningful to two blooming minds as can be fostered by the sights, sounds, and discoveries of world travel: cultural disparity, history, archeology, geology, music, sociology, poverty.
I hope you’ll come along and listen in as Lucy and Dawn and I sail on, our first destination: Hawaii.
Please subscribe to Monday Morning Literary Bric-a-Brac for a front-row berth to our unfolding adventure every week.
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Once again, thank you for sharing a little of your Monday morning with me. YOU are the reason I do this, and I hope you’ll feel free to liberally comment and share my posts.
You can also join me on FB at my April event: the virtual version (all month) of my debut booksigning for everyone who can’t join me in person on April 27th (National Independent Bookstore Day) at Winchester Book Gallery in Winchester, VA.
I hope to see a few of you in Winchester, but hope ALL of you show up (sooner rather than later) to my virtual version, because I’m eager to draw some of your names in the on-going giveaways associated with it! As soon as 20 people click “going,” I’ll draw the first winner, who’ll get their choice of a Shay the Brave coffee mug or travel mug:
Meanwhile, if you want to read something else I’ve written, here’s a link to my recent guest blog author Gila Green invited me to contribute to her webpage.
And if listening is more your flavor, here’s a link to a podcast interview I did about Shay the Brave with fellow author Amy Nielsen, and here’s a link to my recent radio interview about Shay with The Spark host, Marquis Lupton, on WITF 89.5 FM, Harrisburg, PA.
See you next week onboard the Universe!
I loved this portion of “adventure with Riley pie”! I’ll read it again later just to soak up your unique descriptions of first day on the rocking and floating world. I’d be sea sick too, even though I grew up on a coastal place and found myself on boats often. They weren’t ships though, and I could get off after a 40 minute ride in most cases!