Ravensong Poetry And Writing Blog by Donovan Baldwin

"Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping."

- John Steinbeck

I know the feeling.

I grew up on the edge of Pensacola Bay in West Florida.

Some nights, I could hear fog horns from ships on the bay.

Boats wanting to pass under the Bayou Chico bridge, a quarter of a mile away, blew their horn. The train which passed my house daily, blew the horn for each driveway and road... and there were a lot of driveways.

I would walk down to the edge of the bay, look across the water, and images and stories would play through my head, and occasionally I would make up my own.

Sometimes I could see the ships... in the evening as the night drew down, I could see their lights, and hear the horns...

Trains, ships, stories, and horns... and a young man's imagination...

No wonder, like Steinbeck, some sounds, some memories, can raise the hair on the back of my neck... and make my foot start tapping...

Labels: boats, donovan baldwin, fog horns, John Steinbeck, Pensacola Bay, ships, stories, trains, travel