Channel Fever
Journal 2006 09 09
Channel Fever
My grandpa, George Washington Bennett, was the son of a San Francisco policeman. He grew up in Alameda, CA a suburb just north of the “City by the Bay.” He remembers stories of the great fire and if memory serves me correctly, he remembers seeing the night sky lit by the great volume of flames as a young boy.
Known to most as “Benny” he was quite a man. He was short and wiry. He was actually my mother’s step dad. But to all of us he was the only grandpa we had known on my mother’s side of the family. And he was a lot of fun. As my brothers and sister and I came into adolescence Grandpa Benny was retiring from a twenty-eight year Coast Guard career as a Master Chief with service hashmarks past the elbow on the sleeve of his uniform. Too many stories to tell here. He enlisted when he was twenty eight years old. Some of my favorite tales are from his times on the wind-driven ice breakers that plied the frigid waters and ice floes around Alaska in the early years of the 20th Century. There are several books written about our nations adventures in the Arctic just after the turn of century. He knew most of the characters and is mentioned in one when he was just a young seaman.
Later in his career he spent many years as a station chief along the coasts of Washington and Oregon manning lighthouse stations. In addition to the lighthouses, most of those Coast Guard stations had rescue stations for ships and boaters in trouble. One summer when I was nineteen I was able to take a trip with him and my grandmother where we visited several of those stations in Oregon. When my grandma would tell the men currently on duty of their time at the base we were visiting we got treated like visiting royalty. These young men knew the courage these old sailors showed when they entered their boats to rescue civilians caught in the ravages of storms. It was an honor to be a witness to the respect and admiration showed by young sailors to an old “seadog.”
We were blessed to be able to travel and fish Washington and British Columbia with him as kids. He has been gone for many years now, but the fond memories still bring laughter as our family gathers. The time he stood on his head for us at age seventy-six will give you a glimpse into his love of life. I had the privilege as a young Christian of praying with him as his body was fighting against his life at age eight six. We all saw him miraculously touched by God and given a second chance on eternity just long enough to gain entrance into Heaven before finally succumbing to death. We miss him.
I write about him today because he described a time in every shipboard sailors life when the cruise is coming to an end but not yet over. He described the scene as the great sailing ship the “Bear” was returning from an Arctic cruise. Men had been able to set their hearts and minds on the duties at hand and survive months of starkness in the frozen waters of the far north without the luxuries life in the United States offered. However within minutes of entering the channel leading to safe harbor in San Francisco a strange disease would take hold of the crew. He called it “channel fever.” Men who hadn’t shaved in many months would all break out razors and scrape off beards. Clothes would be washed and pressed. The conversation would turn to girlfriends and families and cars and shore leave and plans for the future. Most importantly, time would wind down to a crawl and the ship would seem to move backwards because channel fever had taken over the crew. Brave and hardy young men only wanted to get off the confinement of the ever decreasing limits of the deck of their great ship and set feet on terra firma.
“…our party appears extreamly anxious to get on, and every day appears produce new anxieties in them to get to their Country and friends.” Sounds like channel fever is showing its first signs of infecting these same brave young men of the Corps of Discovery. It probably started when they met the first group of traders coming upriver and exchanged buckskins for linens to make themselves presentable in St. Louis. “Dr.” Clark notes the condition as well as the condition of Lewis. “My worthy friend Cap Lewis has entirely recovered his wounds are heeled up and he Can walk and even run nearly as well as ever he Could. the parts are yet tender…”
Ever had channel fever? I have. Anyone with young children on a long car trip has experienced an adolescent form of it in the question, “Are we there yet?” The end of a thing is said to be better than the beginning. Anxiety is at its highest before an event and then reappears as the event is closing. Channel Fever.
We are more “sophisticated” in our machinations as adults and deal with our anxieties differently today. We still have them. “…You have known my soul in troubles; and have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy; You have set my feet in a broad place.” (Psalms 31:7-8)
Like the young sailors on the Bear, like the hardy young travelers on the Missouri River two hundred years ago and like many of us today aren’t we looking for that “broad place” where our feet and our souls find solid ground?
“From the end of the earth I cry to You when my heart is faint; Lead me to the Rock higher than I.” (Psalms 61:2) Will we let channel fever lead us to this Solid Rock of Ages?
Proceed on.
Channel Fever
My grandpa, George Washington Bennett, was the son of a San Francisco policeman. He grew up in Alameda, CA a suburb just north of the “City by the Bay.” He remembers stories of the great fire and if memory serves me correctly, he remembers seeing the night sky lit by the great volume of flames as a young boy.
Known to most as “Benny” he was quite a man. He was short and wiry. He was actually my mother’s step dad. But to all of us he was the only grandpa we had known on my mother’s side of the family. And he was a lot of fun. As my brothers and sister and I came into adolescence Grandpa Benny was retiring from a twenty-eight year Coast Guard career as a Master Chief with service hashmarks past the elbow on the sleeve of his uniform. Too many stories to tell here. He enlisted when he was twenty eight years old. Some of my favorite tales are from his times on the wind-driven ice breakers that plied the frigid waters and ice floes around Alaska in the early years of the 20th Century. There are several books written about our nations adventures in the Arctic just after the turn of century. He knew most of the characters and is mentioned in one when he was just a young seaman.
Later in his career he spent many years as a station chief along the coasts of Washington and Oregon manning lighthouse stations. In addition to the lighthouses, most of those Coast Guard stations had rescue stations for ships and boaters in trouble. One summer when I was nineteen I was able to take a trip with him and my grandmother where we visited several of those stations in Oregon. When my grandma would tell the men currently on duty of their time at the base we were visiting we got treated like visiting royalty. These young men knew the courage these old sailors showed when they entered their boats to rescue civilians caught in the ravages of storms. It was an honor to be a witness to the respect and admiration showed by young sailors to an old “seadog.”
We were blessed to be able to travel and fish Washington and British Columbia with him as kids. He has been gone for many years now, but the fond memories still bring laughter as our family gathers. The time he stood on his head for us at age seventy-six will give you a glimpse into his love of life. I had the privilege as a young Christian of praying with him as his body was fighting against his life at age eight six. We all saw him miraculously touched by God and given a second chance on eternity just long enough to gain entrance into Heaven before finally succumbing to death. We miss him.
I write about him today because he described a time in every shipboard sailors life when the cruise is coming to an end but not yet over. He described the scene as the great sailing ship the “Bear” was returning from an Arctic cruise. Men had been able to set their hearts and minds on the duties at hand and survive months of starkness in the frozen waters of the far north without the luxuries life in the United States offered. However within minutes of entering the channel leading to safe harbor in San Francisco a strange disease would take hold of the crew. He called it “channel fever.” Men who hadn’t shaved in many months would all break out razors and scrape off beards. Clothes would be washed and pressed. The conversation would turn to girlfriends and families and cars and shore leave and plans for the future. Most importantly, time would wind down to a crawl and the ship would seem to move backwards because channel fever had taken over the crew. Brave and hardy young men only wanted to get off the confinement of the ever decreasing limits of the deck of their great ship and set feet on terra firma.
“…our party appears extreamly anxious to get on, and every day appears produce new anxieties in them to get to their Country and friends.” Sounds like channel fever is showing its first signs of infecting these same brave young men of the Corps of Discovery. It probably started when they met the first group of traders coming upriver and exchanged buckskins for linens to make themselves presentable in St. Louis. “Dr.” Clark notes the condition as well as the condition of Lewis. “My worthy friend Cap Lewis has entirely recovered his wounds are heeled up and he Can walk and even run nearly as well as ever he Could. the parts are yet tender…”
Ever had channel fever? I have. Anyone with young children on a long car trip has experienced an adolescent form of it in the question, “Are we there yet?” The end of a thing is said to be better than the beginning. Anxiety is at its highest before an event and then reappears as the event is closing. Channel Fever.
We are more “sophisticated” in our machinations as adults and deal with our anxieties differently today. We still have them. “…You have known my soul in troubles; and have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy; You have set my feet in a broad place.” (Psalms 31:7-8)
Like the young sailors on the Bear, like the hardy young travelers on the Missouri River two hundred years ago and like many of us today aren’t we looking for that “broad place” where our feet and our souls find solid ground?
“From the end of the earth I cry to You when my heart is faint; Lead me to the Rock higher than I.” (Psalms 61:2) Will we let channel fever lead us to this Solid Rock of Ages?
Proceed on.
posted by @2007 Dick Cinkovich | 11:42 AM
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