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Ida M. Dow

    So far  as I can relate, the origins of the Ida M. Dow are "lost in antiquity" as they say.  I do know that she was an old, fairly well preserved five or six-masted, ocean-going schooner that Old George found up some tidal Potomac Creek and forthwith acquired.  I like to think maybe she was one of that turn-of-the-century breed of the last of the world's commercial sailing vessels - so many of which wound up in the Chilean guano trade, and thence under German registry, the wily Germans in those immediately pre-World War I days knowing a profitable trade when they saw one, and by virtue of which they could simultaneously get nitrates for their growing munitions needs... 

    Maybe Dow, however, was never in so glamorous a trade as that at all - maybe she was an old Yankee lumberman, often on the offshore run, decks awash and piled high with green, roughcast pine from the cold forests of  New Brunswick and Nova Scotia... 

    It matters not to our tale.  What does, is that now in her twilight years, she got a new Master - "Captain" George W. Rhine - who was soon to move permanently aboard with his young and growing family.

    It is interesting, too, that at this juncture, Chuck had now become old enough to remember many of these events himself, and thus he often added details to me that corroborated his father's tellings. 

    The impetus for the purchase of Dow, was that Captain Rhine had only just received one of his greatest salvage contracts to date ... that for salvaging the fleet of sunken destroyers in Chesapeake Bay - these latter, direct result of the ill-conceived Kellogg-Briand Pact.  Perhaps I can refresh my reader's knowledge of these affairs.  After the conclusion of hostilities in World War I, the former Allied Nations went all-out for eternal global peace (no matter the grudges being nursed by survivors of the Kaiser's late empire... let them lay out there and lick their wounds).  Ever eager to be in the vanguard for world peace, Uncle Sam - a sap then as now - jumped into the breach with the Kellogg-Briand Pact - brainchild I believe of a onetime Secretary of the Navy.  No matter ...  It was offered to a world he thought was obviously ready for it, and its stipulations were for all modern nations to destroy their warship fleets, no less, thus making future wars doubly unlikely. 

    As pledge of good faith for their own Pact, the Americans were the first and perhaps the only nation ever to sign it (!), and if my recollection is right - they were the only ones to ever honor it... shooting themselves in the foot, as it were, by scuttling quite a number of naval destroyers in a reach of Chesapeake Bay. 

     So much for long-gone liberal sentiments in a decidedly, and still, un-liberal world. 

     Thus, it came to pass, that George got a contract not many years after the actual scuttlings, to salvage these vessels - and in particular, their brass nautical fittings and accouterments - a most valuable scrap metal.  This was to be a long-term venture, so George had Dow towed out to the site, she having no engines, and her suit of sails long since blown to shreds in some forgotten gale.  Here she was moored permanently right over the sunken fleet. 

    Modus operandi was this: along the shores within rowing distance lived many unemployed Afro-persons and their families, large and small.  (With that nod to PC, gentle reader, I now revert to vernacular - for to do otherwise - is to lose the flavor of this tale, and George's telling of it into the bargain).  These niggers, most of them, were old Chesapeake watermen and crabbers, and many were excellent shallow-water divers.  The ships lay at no great depth, and many parts were even reachable at just under the surface.  For deeper salvage, George was equipped with standard hard-hat dive equipment of that era.  Every morning at break of dawn, these blacks would launch their flatboats and rafts, their bugeyes and sharpies, and whatever vessels by means of which they made their way in this watery world, and soon a veritable flotilla of them would be made fast alongside both of  Dow's rails. 

     Their soft 'gullah' tones and laughter were pleasant and harmonious to the ear upon the early morning breeze.  George knew his niggers, he did.  As a Southerner and operator of construction gangs and work crews from Arkansas to the present stretches of backwater Virginia - he knew how to get a day's work out of a man, black or white.  (A skill he still had in the later days when I worked for him weeks as an editor, and weekends in "voluntary servitude" on his various building and remodeling projects, of which more later). 

    Once, as we rested wearily on our shovels, was it over at Haverstraw? or perhaps up at the place in Ridgefield? or maybe just down at the office on the shores of the Mianus during noon hour when we could stretch our muscles from our desk jobs by digging a ditch across the compound... I remember Chuck saying to me, 

    "Lord-God, Bernie - all's Pop really wants, and what he likes best, is to have a gang of men doing physical work for him - happy to be fed, and have a place to sleep." 

    Such had been his method in Depression years.. but now the Depression was long gone.  Still Ruthie ran an uncommon good cookhouse, and if your wife threw you out, there were still work sheds and warehouses aplenty to sleep in out of the weather.  And if you were so unwise as to have gotten into a 'swapping deals' mode when you signed on, then so much the worse for you...

     But I digress... 

    Back aboard Dow, all is astir.  The 'gullahs'  are swarming aboard in their bright calicos and straw hats.  Not a few 'blue-gums' among them from the Georgia Sea Islands.  (If you have to ask what's a 'blue-gum', then perhaps these reflections are not for you after all, child of the New Age...). 

    The three main hatchways down the deck are open and ready.  All hands know of course (condition of signing on) that the first and third hatches are the "government hatches" and the middle hatch into the main hold is "Capt. Rhine's hatch".  This nice distinction solves all the decision-making when bringing items aboard: if they are nautical instruments, clocks, barometers, and the like - or if they are unscratched valves and handles, or unbent brass cleats and leadways - in short - if they are unusual items, or nice and still shiny and useable in appearance - they are to be tossed into the "Capt. Rhine hatchway" without further ado or discussion.  All other salvage goes direct either to No. 1 or No. 3 hatchways... 

     Soon, the "Captain's" chair is brought on deck from the Main Salon.  This, from some country auction house out in the Virginia countryside.  Of George's passion, nay his narcotic addiction to auctions I will tell another time.  Suffice to say, that this grand old chair was described as more like a throne - resplendent of carved walnut and all - with dragon's heads and gargoyles all over it, and a grand, high back that stood way up higher than the seated person's head. 

     The Throne is soon set up aft under an awning and the Captain comes on deck to make survey of the proceedings and thence to settle with a dignified air upon his throne - checking with shrewd but outwardly apparently unconcerned eye as to the disposition of the flow of  brass goods coming onboard. 

     Paydays, Chuck once told me, were really something else.  The day before, Pop would have gone ashore to the bank, and there he would have taken his motley crew's pay out in ... silver dollars!  (Still, in those far-off times, legal tender and not just rare coins).  On arrival back at the ship, the dollars were poured into a large wooden tub which sat to one side of the throne.  A small table with the payroll roster was on the other side.  Late in the afternoon, the ceremonies began.  George, now with a brace of pistols at his side,  trousers legs stuffed into boots, was seated in place.  Upon his head, a floppy straw hat.  Red kerchief at neck.  Sweat pouring down his several jowls, mixing enroute with the cigar juice 
rivulets... 

    Behind him a trusted "factotum" or two - to watch for the Captain and his welfare.  I, and others in later years, were all "factotums" in turn and kind. I never really knew what a "factotum" was or is - but I would not have violated this honorary position for all the dollars in that tub! 

    The shuffling line of 'gullahs' and 'blue-gums' now starts forward, doffing caps as they arrive before their Captain, he looking on his seat, as I imagine it, rather like a watery Dutch patroon of sorts, noting the fealty of his servants and wards.  In any event, the dollars are counted out - Clink! - Clink! - Clink!, each laborer makes his "X" in the Paybook, and then over the side and home to wife and chilluns...  If I were a painter, I would paint that scene! 

    Now, the sun is setting over the Chesapeake.  A final stroll 'round the decks with perhaps a pause to gaze down into the depths of No. 2 Hatch.  Here, in the shadows and damp, an ever-growing pile of brassy gold valves and nautical furniture is reaching deckward - like some magic coffer pile perhaps in ancient Croesus' Castle.  Then, below it is, to supper served in the Main Salon - by no less than ... Long John Silver!  (Fact!).  He actually had only one leg, and was their cook and general below decks factotum.  Chuck often told me 
of Long John and how he watched out for Chuck and his half-brother, Don, rescuing them from accidental tumbles overside and all, and protecting their young and tender morals, as we will see  momentarily. 

    But now George has lit his after-dinner cigar (Correction! How could I type such a grievous error?).  He is eating  his after-dinner unlit cigar!  Chomp!  Chomp! Like some dainty, but unearthly banana-from-hell fruit delicacy.  Ah!  It would do my heart good to see old George munching one of those stogies down again - to the bug-eyed horror of the uninitiated.  Perhaps  I yet shall.  Do you suppose they have such cigars in Hell?  Doubtless offered by the Master of that Kingdom pre-lit - an arrangement I'm sure, that was set to rights immediately upon arrival of Hell's now most illustrious factotum...

    George searches out his woodcarving tools.  Did I note earlier his absolute mastery of intricate woodcarving?  He could put a Swiss clock maker to shame: in less time than it takes to tell, I have seen George wrest cherubs, devils, wings, flowers,  fruit, faces peeping out of ivy, mythical animals and geometric designs from the most mundane boards, using only one or two little knives he carried around with him.  In fact, the house at Haverstraw was filled with his carvings. 

   But here aboard old Dow, and at his leisure and to while away the time, he was busy carving all the woodwork in the Salon into fanciful nautical motifs and scenes, since he fancied her rather plain rosewood, teak and mahogany brightwork rather too simple and unadorned. 

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