Mumbleskumdarknut

        Ughhhrrhhh!  Mumbleskumdarknut!   I must be near a farm for I hear sheep, chickens and cattle and smell them also!  But why in this darkness that even with eyes open can't see, still everything seems to be moving and pounding til my senses all are overcome with to much.  I can feel that the weight of my gold is gone.  Was I robbed?  I remember little but a ship grounded!  Lights and laughter with merry music and ladies dancing and all seemed well!  The owner shouted  all a' round and I felt I was with friends for the first time since I had left my home in Columbus, Ohio.  My beautiful bride and my two children, Robyn and Luke, whose father went to California to find the wealth that was in every paper from Florida to Maine!  Gold, In California, Lying on the ground to be picked up by anyone who can find their way to this place! " Eureka!  I've found it!"  So where am I now? Am I at sea?  A kick to my side sent my wandering mind to the realities at hand!  The pain and a voice that I was to hear for two years and more set me to a trade that I did not aspire to gain.  His name is Fearsy and he is first mate on a vessel from hell named , " The Reefer"!  The cattle I heard meowing after I was adjusting to being " Shanghaiied ", out of San Francisco was headed for China with a load of laundry.  Can you believe that? Because of the  Gold Rush ", and the building of the " Railroad"  there was a period of time in San Francisco where a class of people found it more affordable to send their washing by a slow boat to China and back than to do it them selves?  My gold is gone.  Maybe my claim has been jumped!  I don't know at this time because I am waking up after a " Mickey Finn " and apparently have signed " the articles" of seamanship and now am owned by the ship!  Well, this is before the uncivil war!  I realized that Fearsy was a simple man that was very good at following orders.  He only kicked me the one time because when I realized that we were outside the Farallon's headed more west than I had intended to go I knew I had to get back to my family! I be- friended him and used his friendship to propel me and his-self up to better food and a more responsible life.    I learned ( I was told ) nautical realities faster than any man before the mast before me.  When I returned to California on " The Reefer"  I returned as a bit of an anomaly.  Because I was educated and knew mathematics there was need for me and I learned the skills of navigation.  People aboard ship before and aft the mast placed me in a position to arbitrate the disparity or distance between solvency and active harsh punitive measures that upset the balance of the fluid operation of the owners goals, which was and is profit alone! I sailed with a sick captain from San Franisco to the island of New York around " The Horn"!  We lost four men off that cold harsh frozen tip of converging oceans.  Becalmed at " The Latitudes"!  No wind, just heat.  The hides we had picked up at " Thousand Steps", in Dana point made the owners wealthy.  The captain died two days after arriving at " the Port of New York"!  He was 43 years old.  I think it was malaria from the mosquito that got him.  I never got on with him.  He was a frog.  Never found one I liked.  Still looking, but not that hard.  So, Shanghaied in San Fran.  Sailed half way around the world. Sailing became me.  So here is what you have to look forward to.  The wife and children in Ohio.  The "Claim" in California.  Sailing and the " Uncivil War".  And,of course, what is Fearsy's name and what happened to him.  He is still my friend and is alive and well in my heart!  Arrggguhhh, matey!