Wednesday, May 13th, from 530 to 830 is a great event in Downtown New London, just out the door of the Firehouse.  There’s food, music and merriment from about 50 local businesses and it’s a fundraiser for New London Mainstreet, a non-profit doing a great job to help make Downtown New London even greater.  The event is pretty simple- you purchase a button and you wander about the route, sampling a little offering at each stop along the stroll.  Though each individual stop is a manageable snack, you’ll hardly be able to find room for another bite by the end.  Details and buttons are available here.

A ‘Cocktail Corps’ of The Mariners will be out and about , enlivening the streets and pubs with tunes and song, perhaps enjoying a few ourselves (perhaps.)  Hope to see you there.

Joe and Dan’l at an undisclosed location, working on something classified, or at the very least, best left unsaid.

But it might have something to do with a certain Anniversary Muster, coming to a field near you.  Soon.

Before all the parade festivities seen in the Mystic photos below, the Mariners have started a brunch tradition at the Firehouse as sort of a pre-game warm up.

Frivolity follows, and Little Dick on the griddle comes up with pancakes like this:

We then began a rousing game of ‘Who’s under the bear head?’

Play along at home!

Exhibit A:

Another view:

A little more challenging?

Exhibit B:

Another view:

Apparently, she could reach that high.  Actually, I’m a little bit scared of bears with swords, let’s go to Mystic.

Once in Mystic, we found the little people still about:

Oh, and here’s the littlest!

Well, that pretty much wraps up what was St.Patrick’s Month for the Mariners.

And all the good little boys and girls went sleepy-bye.

A beautiful spring day, and a nice big Mariner sound.

Thanks to Sally Rothenhaus for use of her photos.  She has quite a collection of past summer festivities, that, she tells me, will be up and running on their very own page shortly.  We’ll look forward to that.

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Wow, what a great day!  The 50th Anniversary year kickoff continues! A crisp-blue-sky Spring afternoon, huge crowd, big, full Mariner sound.  More photos are being collected and processed to be posted, but our prolific, prompt and photographically capable friend Sally Rothenhaus got these great ones, which needed to be shared sooner rather than later.

And who doesn’t love a sailor and his bride?

Stay tuned.

The Mariners had a good day.  We enjoyed being a part of the benefit for Erin Long at the Company of Fifers and Drummers Hall.  A great job was done by Kate Bolcar and all of the supporting cast.

A shot of your friendly neighborhood barstaff, Neil O’Brien, the Chief Chanteyman and Kevin Brown, the Commodore, in their native habitat.

We then adjourned to our annual season kickoff party in New London.  We try and time this to coincide with the Hygienic Arts Festival, where our contribution is an uninvited and impromptu parade and pub crawl.

All went well, and Greg Bacon, neatly attired and newly iphoneified, spent as much time blogging as he did fifing.

The beer flowed freely, there were even a few margaritas thrown in for good measure.

The only down part of the evening came with a bit of false advertising:

We were summarily not invited in for a beer, or anything else.  “The onliest place in town we WEREN’T welcome.”

We also enjoyed having some members of the Old Guard hanging out for the evening (and the morning after).  Might be a rough Monday at Fort Myer.  We’re sorry Sgt Major Rock. (photos withheld to protect the guilty)

All in all, a great day, and the season is off and stumbling.

Just found this photo of our Swiss Brother, Roman Schneider, either enjoying the snow at Riederalp or practicing his takeoffs to avoid the airfare for his visit here this summer.

Practice seems to be helping.  Maybe he’ll make the flight after all:

See you soon, Happy New Year, and until then, we’ll be waiting for you and practicing up ourselves.

So there we were, (as all Sea Stories begin, as all Sea Stories are true) on our drunken way to Massimo’s from the Gravino’s garden party, August 2007, Basel, Switzerland.  Massi on his Swiss Army bike, Phil on Regine’s, Daniel bringing up the rear, circling back to the walking stumblers to make sure our bike gang didn’t lose them.

I turned my fourteenth shaky U-turn away from the walkers and back to Massi and Phil, just in time to see Phil doing his best Superman imitation over the handlebars, heading (literally) for the sidewalk.

In a breathless moment, he landed, skidded, rolled, recovered.  Momentary panic on my part, then, back on his feet!  A perfect ten!  If it hadn’t been for Phil and his quick thinking, some 95 year old house frau and her seven schnauzers might have become some sort of flattened international incident.  But no.  Not with Phil at the wheel.  He swerves, he misses, he gives it up to save her.  And yet, no one witnessed it but Massi and I.

Back in the States, at our Annual Mariner Awards Party, we relived Phil’s heroic late night ride with the gift of this fine conveyance, shown with our model, Rogi, to give you an idea of scale.

Here’s to Mr Phil Ritchie, International Hero!

Mid-November and 58 degrees (14.5C) on the New London waterfront this morning results in dew point issues and this photo from The Day, by Tim Cook.

The Ship is the US Coast Guard Barque ‘Eagle,’ the training ship for all future Coast Guard Officers.

Just thought I’d share.

Many of the Ancient Mariners are familiar with the Firehouse from rehearsals and meetings over the last couple years, some of the Swiss have hazy memories from drunken visits over the same period.

Some readers of Bacon’s blog may remember his photo essay.

For anyone unfamiliar with the Firehouse, the universal verdict upon a first visit is that “it has a lot of potential.” I share their enthusiasm, though I admit, I do occasionally wonder what I’ve gotten myself into and if they just can’t think of anything else nice to say.

This is the state of the place this morning, as we’ve repaired and are repainting the walls.  Rehearsal tonight at 7pm.  Anyone wonder what I’m doing today?