Introspection

The same thing happens with your self, and it is even more interesting. While "Introspection!" is one of the battle cries of Harvard, college is no place for it. Whether we try too hard, or not enough in the right places, or whether there are too many distractions, I can't say; but from observing myself and my fellows, it would appear that any personal statement tends to be immediately fuzzed with qualifications until it dies altogether. At sea, given loneliness, introspection, unfulfilled desire, and a few other basic components, you learn your defenses. Even college men emerge from a time shipping with a knowledge that they can handle themselves and the world. At school we are (anxiously) hoping that the World, when it intrudes, will press lightly. Then, paradoxically, you find it difficult to give up the pressure of that World when summer is done.

There are two ways in which the results of this isolation-in-the-self come out; at least two that I saw. One was a self-possession that I began to see in my friends and in myself; wherever we were, we began to know who we were. Which is not to say we overrated ourselves, as the seaman doesn't stand too high. But having been flung about we knew how to roll; and lost in the cold woods outside Antwerp or thrown into polite high living at the AMVJ in Rotterdam, we could stand with these formidable foreigners and make conversation, and get the hell back. That skill is the traveller's; but we weren't travellers, really, and for us the skill was a measure of maturity.

The other change I noticed was in something mildly fundamental, sex. I'm not sure how to express it, but there seems to be an uncertainty regarding sex at Harvard that may also be found at other schools but isn't true of all people our age. It's as if the men and women haven't quite sorted themselves out; and it's shown in the endless sniggering double entendres that should have ended years ago. That being the negative aspect, perhaps a result of our half-done celibacy, there are positive ones: you can know a woman as another human, rather than as a tool.

To the seaman--and quickly to the college man at sea--women are tools again. But the distinction man/woman is clearly drawn, and all others as well: you are male, a "buck" or "stud"; or you are homosexual, a "queen"; or, commonly, bisexual, "AC/DC", "Greek", "double-cheeked". (Incidently, the homosexuals in the union hall keep clear and apart, and tend to ship together; anywhere in the fleet you can hear of Tillie, the Queen Bee of the Independence and the sous-chef there.) In the general camaraderie there's a great deal of rough humor about this, but no fundamental questionings: everyone has a place and is in it. After one of the spring love affairs for which Cambridge must by now be famous, it can be a great relief.

Industry Sick

Finally, though hardly uniquely, you learn something of an industry and its problems working at sea. American shipping is chronically ill; despite government subsidies (every large seafaring nation subsidizes its ships), there are a host of problems involving costs, replacements, schedules, etc. For the seaman the result is that American wages, though still the highest, are being approached by the Scandinavian and West-European. American living conditions, eventually more important than wages, are the worst, bar none, of any of the industrial nations. There is a phrase you often hear, that Americans don't live on their ships, they just "camp out for the run."

College students, thrown into this bitterly declining situation, are often called on to help. The feeling of power your expected degree confers can be enormous, especially on freighters. Twice, for instance, I was illegally made union secretary (each ship is a local); and among the complaints, the "beefs," it was easy to see the source of difficulties, which is that technology is eliminating ships, men, and badly needed overtime. Trying to help, you involve yourself in long, utterly pointless arguments. Standing aside, there is only an empty desire to help.

And yet it is hardly that grim. Remembrance, what I have excluded, tends to flood back; the Mass River at night, with lights from cranes cutting the sky as though Rotterdam expected the bombers again; Curacao in the early morning, dry caked and smelling of oil; the union hall and the member who motions to "Kick all the winos, finks, and faggots out of the NMU!" (Curran replied "What d'ye want, a non-paying union?" General laughter.)

Once we sailed north of England, past Iceland, to Boston. There were constant storms, and one night aurora borealis was out. Lookout was on the bridge--you would have been washed from the bow the way a seatainer trailor was washed from its lashings. Standing there and sighting along the ship, you felt yourself rise with a rumble over a wave, plunging down into the black night water. Then the foam broke over the bow and your eyes without moving your head were turned to those green and white fireworks in the sky. Up and down, black and light, for about a half hour; clinging to the rail. Life and art are supposed to imitate one another; I remember reading a story that ended in a graveyard with the phrase, "This is really living!