The Great Grumpy 50th Column (more or less) Commemorative Undersea expedition

Aboard the S.S. Hindenberg Somewhere on the Gulf of Pizzaria (or something that sounds like Pizzaria; I can't find it on any map.)

We are coming up on the end of our second week aboard the S.S. Hindenberg. The Great Grumpy 50th Column (more or less) Commerative Undersea Expedition (TGG50thC(more or less)CUE) has been a howling success so far. By that I mean we haven't sunk or capsized. Mack Murphy is the one responsible for our being on the S.S. Hindenberg. It belongs to a friend of his and it so happened that when the GBICWWMM,L needed a seaworthy vessel for it's expedition, Captain Chapman ("My friend Johnny," as Mack calls him) was available.
   Captain Chapman seems like a nice sort of fellow, not like the sea captains you read about in novels or see in the movies. Except for his rather strange habit of wearing an old cooking pot on his head, he seems most capable for the task at hand. So here we are, anchored in the beautiful (I am told) Gulf of Pizzaria; or something that sounds like Pizzaria. I can't hear the captain very well over the noise of the ship's engines and I can't find anything by that spelling on any of the captain's charts. Of course that might be because the only map I can find on this ship is a 1964 edition of Funk & Wagnall's "Scenic Routes of the North Eastern United States."
   Captain Chapman assures me this is no problem. "I just head into the sun in the evening and when I get there I know it, Gip!"
    OK, so the captain has two strange habits, the second being that he calls everybody Gip. But I really don't know how he knows we are actually in the beautiful (I am told) Gulf of Pizzaria (whatever). It is raining so hard nobody can see anything and when it stops raining the fog rolls in. The fact of the matter is, we almost didn't make it this far, wherever "this far" is.
    On the fourth day out, the crew (Mack, West Sandusky Fred, Cujo Mike, Lois Playne, Miss Penny and Mr. Kent) nearly mutinied over the chow Captain Chapman was serving. Apple dumplings, apple fritter and apple jack get boring very quickly. Well, maybe not the apple jack. The captain is a reasonable man and asked us what we would like. Before any of the rest of us could answer pizza, Miss Penny suggested a chicken dish. So for dinner that night the captain prepared chicken kiev, which tasted suspicously like salty apple strudel! But the captain served the apple jack first and nobody objected.
    So here we were on the 10th day out. I decided that fog or no fog, we should make some sort of exploratory dive. We had to do something. I wrote myself into a corner and I am trying like the dickens to write myself out of it without being too lame. No more so than usual anyway. So hang in there, please!
    Anyway, we were up bright and early the morning of the 10th day out and I had the crew line up on deck. It may have been a dreary morning but the crew made it look bright and sunny by comparison. And I know I must have made them look pretty good. Suddenly the boat heaved to and then the crew heaved, too. That pretty well shot the morning all to pieces so we all went back to bed, missing breakfast. (But not very much.)
    It was around noon when I finally got up again. I felt much better but still wasn't hungry, so I took a stroll out on deck to try and work up an appetite. The only other soul I encountered was Cujo Mike. Cujo was sitting by the rail idly striking matches and throwing them into the water. "Ya canÕt set the ocean on fire, ya know!" was the observation I regretted as soon as I made it. But Cujo just looked at his matches, then the ocean and sighed. Morale was sinking fast and I had to do something. Luckily I have until next week to think of something.

NEXT WEEK: The S.S. Hindenberg explodes killing every ... huh? Whaddya mean I can't do that? ItÕs my column isn't it? You'll WHAT? Would you repeat that? Uh ... well OK, since you put it that way.

NEXT WEEK (Rev. 1.0): Cujo makes a dive and the captain makes apple sauce.

George Breithaupt is a copy editor, photographer and weakly columnist for the Mount Vernon News. Lucky for him he knows an unrefusable offer when he hears one.