A New England afternoon in early summer. You know the kind: blue skies, white clouds, sugar maples swaying to the moisture laden air, sweet with salt fresh from Long Island Sound. All the peace and tranquility of a quiet Connecticut town.

Until the ‘entertainment’ began. I had never seen or smelled anything like it. The sulfurous roar as the canon announced their approach. If I could understand ‘canon-ese,’ I would certainly have heard it crying, ‘Fag a Baile! The Mariners are coming!’ And then the sea of red and white stripes and hats and ‘kerchiefs and pewter swinging at hips, and oh, the continued roaring of the drums and the wailing of the fifes as they got closer and closer, until I could see the tooth baring yelps of men, the barefoot-swagger, the pirate in chains leaping through the crowd, matched in enthusiasm and vigor only by the children jumping up and down for joy at the spectacle.

I know. I was 8. I was one of them.

And like a boy signing on board a sailing ship, some part of me left home that morning and hasn’t returned.

It’s been 27 years since that morning when The Mariners marched into my world, never to depart. I have wondered in the interim how eight-year-old me knew, even then, that this was the thing and the place for me. There are different flashes of memory- how it moved me, the music, the noise, the commotion, the pure power and joy; I still wonder, what makes it so magical? And other things I never could have known at that point, like how talented and amazing each and every member of this disorganization is; how they have become family, friends, brothers, counselors, role models and confidants to me through the intricacies, trials and victories that have filled my days. My feelings and ideas have evolved over time, and yet, only in small and inadequate ways have I ever been able to understand or explain.

This seems to be a universal failing among Mariners. ‘Friends.’ ‘Family.’ ‘Heart and Soul.’ All the usual monikers have never explained, never painted a picture worth looking at that even hinted at the model the artist was attempting to render. I was beginning to believe the old religious mantra, “For those who believe, no proof is necessary, for those who do not, no proof is possible.” I was reminded also of a long-standing tradition among sailors to take in hand a painting or photograph of a vessel, stare at it until the smallest inconsistency or error is found in its content and then discard it, never to be looked at again. This seems the fate of definition.

And so it was with amazement and joy that, this August, in a bar, in a somewhat less than reputable section of a very old town, my good ‘friend,’ Greg Bacon, did the job for all time, capturing it for me. With seventy-five or so absolutely soused companions, he masterminded, orchestrated and conducted a cry we have all unwittingly rallied to, one that does as good a job as any at conveying who we are, and why we dedicate our lives to the relentless and sometimes reckless pursuit of human decency and dignity in the most raucous, life-loving and affirming way we know how- because simply, “We Are The Mariners.”