there was something
very real, work-like about
this new phase of it
Adapted from the passage: About this time Mr. Bixby appeared on the scene. Something like a minute later I was climbing the pilot-house steps with some of my clothes on and the rest in my arms. Mr. Bixby was close behind, commenting. Here was something fresh — this thing of getting up in the middle of the night to go to work. It was a detail in piloting that had never occurred to me at all. I knew that boats ran all night, but somehow I had never happened to reflect that somebody had to get up out of a warm bed to run them. I began to fear that piloting was not quite so romantic as I had imagined it was; there was something very real and work-like about this new phase of it.
In Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain (Boston, James R. Osgood and Company, 1883).
In the book Mr. Twain recounts his adventures as a student or ‘cub’ pilot on the Mississippi River around 1855.
Pilots stood a four hour watch on and four hour watch off through out the day that required getting out of bed at Midnight every other day.
Mr. Twain writes that on his first day, “The watch was ended at last, and we took supper and went to bed. At midnight the glare of a lantern shone in my eyes, and the night watchman said —
‘Come! turn out!’
And then he left. I could not understand this extraordinary procedure; so I presently gave up trying to, and dozed off to sleep. Pretty soon the watchman was back again, and this time he was gruff. I was annoyed. I said: —
‘What do you want to come bothering around here in the middle of the night for. Now as like as not I’ll not get to sleep again to-night.’
The watchman said —
‘Well, if this an’t good, I’m blest.’
The ‘off-watch’ was just turning in, and I heard some brutal laughter from them, and such remarks as ‘Hello, watchman! an’t the new cub turned out yet? He’s delicate, likely. Give him some sugar in a rag and send for the chambermaid to sing rock-a-by-baby to him.’
It is at the this point that we get to the above quoted passage.
This morning I got up.
I have had to get up in the morning most of my life but there it was today.
Standing in the shower, I had time to ponder the act of taking a shower.
Using the Google I learn that home hot water heaters (as we might recognize them) were invented in 1897 but still by 1920, only 1% of US homes had indoor plumbing or even electricity.
One online article states: The establishment of standardized plumbing codes in the 1940s finally paved the way for widely available, safe indoor plumbing that relied on the storage tank water heater.
My Dad was born in 1920 and I wondered when did he get used to a DAILY hot shower.
In 2024 I expect … EXPECT … to take a morning shower in not only HOT water but hot, fresh water.
I stood under the gush of water and tried to imagine all the I’s that had to be dotted and T’s that had to be crossed to make sure this minor miracle of the industrial age was so thoughtlessly made available to me at a rate that I was able expect my morning hot shower to work
If it didn’t work, it was some kind of an emergency for somebody.
But I digress.
I had a day yesterday and slept heavily last night to wake up a minute before the alarm and was able to switch that off before it sounded and woke up my wife.
Got the coffee going in the dark and into the shower.
Out in my robe, got my coffee and tablet and sat in the dark ready to find out how much the world had changed overnight.
My tablet glowed in the dark.
Morning coffee and reading out of the way I got dressed and packed up and off to the car to get to work by 7am.
Something was wrong or at least I thought it was as I am mostly confused in the morning anyway.
It was cool almost cold and it was dark.
But what was going on?
Something wasn’t right.
I felt, like I like to say, there was one boot off.
One boot off but I couldn’t tell which one.
Up in the dark and off to work.
I do it but I never get used to it.
I do it but I have never liked it.
Getting up and going to work in the dark adds something very real and work-like about this phase of a job.
And I pulled out on to the parkway and drove to work.
Between me and work are several high bridges over the Inter coastal water way.
From the top of these bridges I can spot the eastern edge of the United States and the Atlantic Ocean and the sun coming up.
And this morning was cold and dark and no sun.
Wait just a minute.
What was going on here.
Not any clouds or anything, but the Sun wasn’t coming up or something.
Something wasn’t right.
I checked the clock and I was on time.
I checked the traffic map and traffic was as it usually was.
I got to work and parked.
I got out in the dark, got my bag out of the back and locked the car.
As I walked the walkway to the front door I hauled my watch out of pocket and popped it open.
I held it in the light of the doorway light to read it.
6:00am!
I looked around the dark.
I looked at my watch that I hadn’t looked at since last Friday.
6:00am?
Boy Howdy, I hate the time change.
No Haiku For You 