For Fallen Friends

[Trapper]

For Bob Kotta, chantey man extraordinaire, who crossed the Bar 5 years ago on April 19, and for Steve Guthe, chantey singer, great guy, part of Victory Sings at Sea, who just passed, I offer the song, "Heaven's a Bar"

Heaven's a Bar

Tim Laycock

Heaven's a bar down by the dock

Where the liquor is free they keeps a great stock

There's always a place, always a smile

For a sailor come home from sea

For a sailor come home from sea

The girls are all beauties they dance and they sing

They'll treat an old tar like a lord or a king

Heaven's a bar down by the dock

Where there's liquor for all and it's free

There in the snug drinking with me

Shipmates return from seven salt seas

Tarry tailed tars, gold buckled shoes

The cream and the dregs of the crew

Just sailors on shore with a dream in their eyes

Who saw the world's end where the sea meets the sky

Vision remains, wonders recalled

By the trinkets that hang on the walls

Heaven's a bar down by the dock

Where the liquor is free they keeps a great stock

There's always a place, always a smile

For a sailor come home from sea

Late in the night clouds hurry past

The moon winks and goes

The doors are barred fast

The charts are laid out, the contraband found

The crossbones marked out on the ground

The figurehead does it, and she never gets tired

She beckons a breeze from her berth by the fire

The songs roll around the waves hit the bar

'Til the bottles wash up on the shore

[crow]

My condolences fer yer loss Lass an acording to the shanty I'll not be so worried when my tyme comes to make the trip meownself . An I hope that shall be a long tyme in comming .

[Trapper]

Thanks much, Crow.

It seems that the older we get, the faster those we care about leave us. Bobby Kotta was truly one of a kind, but none of us were ready to have Steve join him.

Fair winds and a following sea,

Trapper

[crow]

When it comes to those closest to us we are seldom if ever ready for their passing but after some time and some healing we are able to give thanks for the time we are given with them and to celebrate the many wonderous things that friends and family contribute to the richness of our lives.

I live with the belief that we will all cross paths again and again in the past and the present and the future particularly those to whom we have a strong bond with . You can usually feel this with an old friend that you may have just met this might not make sense to some but with your Celtic background you may be attuned to these feelings .

[lady snow]

there is a line in richard bach's wandering of a (something) mesiah. i don't have the book and the library/bookstore isn't in my livingroom) it's goes something like this:

don't be dismayed at good-byes, for good-bye is necessary before meeting again. and meeting, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those that are friends.

i know the wording isn't exact, but that's the general gist of it.