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[[underlined]] Joe Birnbach [[/underlined]] was a Jewish broker from Chicago, short, moustached, jolly, and his harem included his wife and a half-dozen pretty hangers-on who apparently sponged off him shamelessly. He was always followed by a flock of women. In the Costume Ball, he dressed as Little Lord Fauntleroy. I set them all up to a drink one night. I don't think his wife liked me because after that first night, when I'd been more-or-less sucked in by them, I avoided a repetition.

While sailing south on Lake Huron Thursday evening, we were treated to what was perhaps the most beautiful sunset of the trip. The sun sank into a heavy haze that hid it before it actually "went to bed," as Rog would say. However, the reflected light from the clouds illuminated the water with glorious color. In the sunset path, the water was blue and golden-brown as if filled with myriad pools of rich oil. On either side was a broad expanse of lake that was many colors--violet, gold, orange, brown, pale-blue, lavender. And far out on either side, where the oncoming night was creeping in, the sky and the sea gradually merged and the horizon disappeared. There were spots along the wash from the prow as it cut through the still water, that were like iridescent silk. The only thing lacking was the fascinating display that accompanies sunset with a clear horizon when the sun assumes its parade of different shapes as it disappears below the distant separation between water and sky: an orange, then egg, mushroom, inverted cereal bowl, molten ship, submarine, and then very quickly disappears.

A unique experience on any voyage is waking up during the late night or very early morning hours, to be aware that either the ship has stopped or, at best, is moving extremely slowly and carefully, and then to look out the porthole and see some new sight--but to find everything very quiet aboard or on the dock or wherever it happens to be. It may be daylight or it may still be dark--but the point is that it must be in the early morning. If there are any people around, they are quiet as they go about their duties. Everything seems hushed. You are aware of a different world from that of the normal daytime activities soon to come. I have numerous remembrances of such moments--coming into Reykjavik, Kobe, San Francisco, Leningrad, Sarnia. That Friday morning we docked at Sarnia, Ontario, at 5 a.m. to take on 50,000 gallons of bunker oil for firing the boilers on the upcoming trip. We were already docked when I looked out our porthole to see a few men on the pier attending to the necessary plumbing connections. But they were very quiet. The ship had tied up with scarcely a jar. I doubt if very many aboard even knew we'd made the stop. Exactly the same thing used to happen on overnight train trips--waking very early in the morning to peek out the window at some strange station, usually a small town way out in the boondocks--Shenandoah, Idaho Falls, Tupper Lake, Renovo--all quiet and exciting and different.