More Nelson

Yet another hole in my knowledge. I don't know a damned thing about the Battle of the Nile. I remember reading a book (the only history book on my parents bookshelf, which ran mostly to Perry Mason and Rex Stout) when I was quite young, about the effect of sea power on history. A second day researching Trafalgar and some of the people involved, which leads to rereading parts of some Melville (White Jacket), and other sources of information about working conditions and the actual firing of cannon. Interrupted by a scam phone call, claiming to be about an IRS issue. Interested in the scam, I play along with it. Involved me sending them a one-time payment to get the IRS off my back. I have to laugh because I've been so honest with my taxes that I actually have overpaid by losing benefits to which I was entitled. B and I were talking the other day about how not getting arrested was one of the foundational principles of our lives. At any rate, I found the phone call amusing, then called the scam-call hot line to report it. Preying on the poor is big business. The IRS might legitimately ask how I had gotten out of debt and retired, but the record will show that I was merely frugal. Today, washing some underwear and socks by hand, eating cat-tail shoots with a cream sauce on toast, listening to Bach, I was struck with the fact that I wasn't a part of the social world. Part of the ballast, in a Man-O-War, was sand, buckets of sand everywhere, gunners didn't wear shoes, and sand gave them traction against the blood running to the scuppers. A gun crew was six, usually one side would help the other. Usually a broadside was one side, but breaking the line, finally, the Brits completely took control. Collingwood, who took over command, realized early that they had won. Much of this battle was fought at extremely close quarters, and the British were better gunners. B stopped by, to ask me to lunch/dinner tomorrow afternoon, some chicken wings he needed to get out of the freezer. I agree, naturally; food and conversation with B is a special treat. I do want to talk with TR tomorrow, and if I'm going off the ridge I might as well go to town. I'd like to run out to Home Depot, a significant drive, and buy that grill. Sometimes, in the heat of battle, a ship might just loose a broadside to create more smoke. The 'powder monkeys' were kids or women. The carnage was unbelievable. I didn't go to town, reading about the rigging on a ship-of-the-line; finally do go down to B's for a feast of excellent wings, with Texas fries, and an avocado/sprout salad. A beer and a couple of hours of conversation. We both have an endless stock of stories, so one leads to another. Comfortable silences. Coming back home, the slanted light, a thousand spider-web filaments in the trees, a prismatic world. Musically it would be harmonics. Last night an hour of good blues from Jorma's Music Ranch, delta blues with that slack guitar, and I just shut down thinking, got a drink and sat back. It's difficult to describe, that sense of being totally involved in a particular music, Bach or Son House, where you lose track of everything else, anything else hanging on the next sound. Miles. I've listened to some of those recordings hundreds of times, and what you hear is what's left out, the gap, that's your problem, he seems to be saying, here are the salient notes. Which he mutes and aims upstage. Fuck you and your preconceptions, he seems to say, either you get it or you're a Republican.