EXCERPTS FROM THE DAILY LEVEL # 10
Thursday, September 10, 1998
5'8 1/2" above SEA LEVEL
Rose Tankard
(Director Social Services Sailors' Snug Harbor)
MOTHER RACHEL IV
Sea Level, N.C., July 27, 1998
...I never forget Mother Rachel was wearing a pair of army pants one time, and someone said, 'Rachel, were you in the army?'...he says, 'I tried not to be, but they took me during the war'... he said, 'I told that sergeant, when he asked me to urinate in a bottle', I said, 'all the way from here, sergeant?', and the sergeant said, 'GET OVER HERE!'.... Rachel said, 'I tried to stay out'....he says, 'I walked in that room, and there's all those guys with no clothes on, and I say, 'my, sergeant, smorgasbord!' 1), so they took me in the army ... someone says, 'so, where did you serve in the army Mother Rachel?'...he says, 'New Britain Island in the South Seas'... 'that must have been awful duty there, Rachel'...he says, 'oh, it wasn't too bad, there was five-thousand soldiers and only five of us girls'...
(Harrison Maycroft)
1) smorgasbord = open sandwiches served with delicacies as hors-d'oeuvres or a buffet
EUREKA!
One day, while sitting in his bathtub, Archimedes 2) noticed, that his body felt lighter than it would have been, had there been no water in the bathtub. Archimedes understood that he weighed less in the water, because some of the water was pushing upward on his body. This upward pushing force is called buoyant force. Archimedes wanted to know how strong the buoyant force was. He found that the strength of the buoyant force on his body was equal to the weight of the water that spilled over the sides of the tub. This water spilled because his body took up space in the tub, that had been taken up by water before he got into the tub. When an object takes up space in a liquid in this manner, we say that the object displaces the liquid. Archimedes' Principle is, that an object in a liquid is buoyed up by a force that is equal to the weight of the displaced liquid. The legend tells that, after he made this discovery, Archimedes ran through the streets of Syracuse, shouting: "Eureka!" (I have found it!).
2) Archimedes (c.287-212 BC) = Greek mathematician and inventor
A resident of Sailors' Snug Harbor checking Archimedes' Principle.
THE WATER DISPLACEMENT OF AN INTENTION
When sailors neared port and were full of plans to quit the sea, here's the song they sang (Jay Ottinger:)
I thought I heard the skipper say
Leave her, Johnny, leave her!
Tomorrow you will get your pay,
Leave her, Johnny, leave her!
The work was hard, the voyage was long,
Leave her, Johnny, leave her!
The seas were high, the gales were strong,
Leave her, Johnny, leave her!
The food was bad, the wages low,
Leave her, Johnny, leave her!
But now ashore again we'll go,
Leave her, Johnny, leave her!
The sails are furled, our work is done,
Leave her, Johnny, leave her!
And now on shore we'll have our fun
It's time for us to leave her.