Jay Stevens is a free-lance writer living in Erie, Pennsylvania. Born and raised in the Berkshire mountains of western Massachusetts, he's since lived in Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Germany, and Russia, and written extensively on politics, social trends, technology, sports, and anything else that interests him. His work has appeared in The American Prospect and The Guardian, and he just returned from an assignment for NBC in London, helping cover the Olympic Games. He's a regular contributor to Erie's alt-weekly, The Erie Reader.
The Watery Part of the World
The standing watch was sent below for wet- weather gear, and the clattering of their feet on the ladder awakened me. I headed above deck, blinking in the light and trying to align the fair skies behind us and the gentle roll of two-foot waves with the urgency of the crew laying out the line—called …