Walking in York

Summer ambling.

In the Footsteps of the Legions

On Hadrian's Wall.
I'd been looking forward to this moment for almost my whole life.

As a boy, in my daydreams, I would walk that wall as a Roman, guarding the border, guarding the Empire . . .
Or, also as that boy, daydreaming, I'd climb and cross that wall as a Celt or Pict, seeking to drive away the invaders . . . .

Anonymous: "Strip Me Naked, or Royal Gin for Ever. A Picture"

STRIP ME NAKED, OR ROYAL GIN FOR EVER.  A PICTURE.

I must, I will have gin! – that skillet take,
Pawn it.  –No more I’ll roast, or boil or bake.
This juice immortal will each want supply;
Starve on, ye brats! so I but bung my eye. (*drink my dram)
Starve?  No!  This gin ev’n mother’s milk excels,
Paints the pale cheeks, and hunger’s darts repels.
The skillet’s pawned already?  Take this cap;
Round my bare head I’ll yon brown paper wrap.
Ha! half my petticoat was torn away
By dogs (I fancy) as I maudlin lay.
How the wind whistles through each broken pane!
Through the wide-yawning roof how pours the rain!
My bedstead’s cracked; the table goes hip-hop. –
But see! The gin!  Come, come, though cordial drop!
Thou sovereign balsam to my longing heart!
Thou husband, children, all!  We must not part.

Drinks.
Delicious!  O!  Down the red lane it goes;
Now I’m a queen, and trample on my woes.
Inspired by gin, I’m ready for the road;
Could shoot my man, or fire the King’s abode.
Ha! my brain’s cracked. –The room turns round and round;
Down drop the platters, pans: I’m on the ground.
My tattered gown slips from me. –What care I?
I was born naked, and I’ll naked die.

--Anonymous, 1751 publication

Source:
Lonsdale’s The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth-Century Verse (1984)

*See also William Hogarth's socio-political prints from that some year--1751--"Beer Street" and "Gin Lane".

"The Music of the Seals"

The seals are very fond of music.  Everywhere I went people told me that, but I was never fortunate enough to hear first hand the music that belongs to them.  I believe there is music that remains privately in the minds of the country people of the West, but can only give here a few pieces that have found their way into print.  I shall put first a ballad, "The Grey Selchie of Sule Skerrie," and, last, a few notes which were sung by a seal off the island of Skomer, Pembrokeshire, in 1946, and recorded there by Dr. Ludwig Koch.  These two have moved me more than the others.

--from David Thomson's final chapter -- "The Music of the Seals" -- in his The People of the Sea: A Journey in Search of the Seal Legend.

Counterpoint Press: Washington, D.C..  2000.

First published in 1954 by Turnstile Press Ltd, in Great Britain; revised editions in 1965 and 1980.

Counterpoint edition features an introduction by Seamus Heaney.

Fish To Fry: Postscript

We had a real English fish and chip shop near my house while I was growing up, run by an actual English family: Rhodes Fish and Chips. The English part amazed me, and I preferred the food from this shop over, say, the H. Salt, Esquire down the road in the other direction, run by locals, not immigrants from England. (I was an early Anglophile in books and fish.)

We often wondered how the Rhodes family ended up in our small town alongside San Francisco Bay. While I was growing up, San Pablo was only known for its murder rate and its proximity to Richmond, with the refinery and formerly the shipyards. I was too polite to ask about the family background, but now I wonder if they didn't come from a small town on the edge of urban and suburban sprawl back in England. I had a friend who moved out to sunny California from Detroit, and he ended up feeling at home in industrial Oakland. I recall my first trip to Portland, Oregon, and feeling at home because it was a scruffy working town/city and it had Powell's Books.

Throughout my childhood, my family often ordered take-out from this fish and chip shop, and as an adult I was saddened when the family gave up the business and the building was bulldozed to make way for an auto parts emporium. (On the other hand, that family must have operated that shop over 20 or 25 years, so I get that the day was done.)

Now, if I want good fish and chips, I head to Bodega and the Boat House Cafe.

Tonight, I baked the cod in wine with garlic and thyme, which proved quite tasty, but the fish market guy's words have awakened a craving: a greasy, salty craving.

I'm planning to hit Rodeo Beach in Marin for some surf action and photography tomorrow, but maybe I should aim a bit further north.