From Richard Horn
Brooklyn
To the editor:
Just read your piece about Josh Smith. (Present Tense, column published June 3.) Recently my wife and I were on an Elbe River Cruise entirely in the old East Germany. I had a visit with the captain and I asked him how he became a captain. He was also a landlocked youth and couldn't leave the DDR. They still had apprentice programs even as Communists. He started out that way at age 16 with parental OK. This was about 1984. Coincidentally our son Doug was serving in the U.S. army in Germany on the other side of the Iron Curtain at the same time. The captain thought that was really cool.
Naturally, after 1990 the captain sailed all the rivers in Europe. Being a captain of a ship is a big responsibility and he learned it from the bottom up. One of the deck hands, a Czech, told me he wants to do the same thing. This story is mostly about sailing, but also about how much better Europe is now than in the past.
Our son will be 52 this year and the captain 50 and now they are no longer enemies.
Brooklyn
To the editor:
Just read your piece about Josh Smith. (Present Tense, column published June 3.) Recently my wife and I were on an Elbe River Cruise entirely in the old East Germany. I had a visit with the captain and I asked him how he became a captain. He was also a landlocked youth and couldn't leave the DDR. They still had apprentice programs even as Communists. He started out that way at age 16 with parental OK. This was about 1984. Coincidentally our son Doug was serving in the U.S. army in Germany on the other side of the Iron Curtain at the same time. The captain thought that was really cool.
Naturally, after 1990 the captain sailed all the rivers in Europe. Being a captain of a ship is a big responsibility and he learned it from the bottom up. One of the deck hands, a Czech, told me he wants to do the same thing. This story is mostly about sailing, but also about how much better Europe is now than in the past.
Our son will be 52 this year and the captain 50 and now they are no longer enemies.
