The City At The Bottom Of The Sea

October 8, 2018 2:53 AM

I’d never known my grandfather to show any interest in boating but, even at seven or eight, I understood that this was how he did things, with an impulsiveness so decisive and so laconic that the whole question of premeditation seemed somehow beside the point. Explanations, generally speaking, ran counter to my grandfather’s mode of being. If he had an idea about how to farm pigs more efficiently, he became a pig farmer. If he wanted to fly, he bought an airplane. Was there a boat he liked? Let’s hit the water. Why would someone need to know what he was thinking, when anyone could see what he was doing? [slNewYorker Personal History]
posted by ellieBOA (2 comments total)

Sad story, if you're ever on a boat when someone goes over the side do NOT jump in after. Throw stuff - cushions - wood -- closed cooler -- anything that floats, throw rope (tie one end to the boat), hook them (maybe a later resort and may not be friends after:) tie them to the boat and motor in if they can't climb in, but unless there's a full crew with a plan, do not go in after someone.
posted by sammyo at 8:36 AM on October 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

I spent a lot of time dreaming about leaving Ponca City. This, too, was something I had to be careful about expressing, because it could so easily be taken the wrong way. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t like Ponca City; it was simply that I did not belong there. Liking Ponca City, even loving it, as I sometimes thought I did, was a trap, because I could only relate to Ponca City from a kind of sideways angle, and, if I loved it too much, I might end up never finding the place where I was straightforwardly supposed to be. I was not supposed to be surrounded by churches. I was not supposed to have science teachers who believed in the gospel of creation, to hear commercial country music on every radio, to spend my life cruising down Fourteenth Street. I was not supposed to feel obscurely haunted by the half-ruined and mostly abandoned downtown, full of crumbling relics of the oil boom, or by the residential streets that bordered it, where what had once been the grand houses of Marland Oil lieutenants were now going to seed among old cars and trampolines.

I could see that these things suited other people, somehow fit the DNA of other people, often people I loved. But, when I imagined spending my life among them, I felt a wild desire to escape to the ends of the earth.

This is so...well put. Thanks for posting this.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:09 AM on October 8, 2018 [8 favorites]