Seems like we’ve always had great vehicle and dog names. Evocative, story provoking, challenging sorta names. I’d love to take credit for the best ones, as this IS my daily dose of narcissism. That would be an outright lie, I’ve never had an original name issued to anything in my life-just a shameful repurposing of someone elses words, typically misused and out of context. But here are a few of my faves-

seabiscuit

I’ve always had dogs as companions. There was a stretch in the navy where the dogs in my life weren’t technically MY responsibility, but even then dogs were always around. My favorite navy dog belonged to all salty old senior chief from one of the westpac seal teams. They were in pensacola, and finishing out their days near the airstation just chillin. He was boss of the morale, welfare, and recreation facility that was an island or beach area just outside of town. Lodgings were pretty squalid, but there was beach, water, sand, dunes, trees, grass, and best of all, seabiscuit. The dog who loved jeeps.

jeepdog

An old friendly german shepherd who loved to ride on the front seat of our jeeps. Whenever one of us was headed ANYWHERE, seabiscuit was standing by the passenger side, eagerly awaiting the order. Trembling with excitement, hoping against hope to hear the command. The mere breath of the phrase ‘Kennel up’ and he’d shoot into the passenger seat like a shot. If there were passengers, they would typically get sent to the horrid ‘back of the jeep’ seats, which were a joke. Less seats and more like turkish prison tools, especially around the beach and dunes. I pity the fool in the back of the jeep. But never seabiscuit, he took such purpose and pride in riding shotgun it was unthinkable to relegate him to the back. His joy of riding around with us made it a joy to drive anywhere and do anything, as he was a fine mascot. The name fit perfectly, as he was a treat by the sea.

Speaking of the navy, and jeeps. I loved all styles of ships as a boy, especially their names. Not just surface vessels, but also submarines, rocket ships, hovercraft, tanks,mobile missile launchers, and railcar mounted cannons. The old names were always most evocative for my imagination, those of mysterious and exotic women or thoughts. Timeless things, thought provoking things.

serenity

hmssurprise

slave1

One of my favorite parts of the classic helen of troy story is reading about the many craft, their names, origins,and leaders. Its so long as to be overwhelming, like reading the yellowpages. But their stories are so granular, just like ours. Brothers, sons, fathers, husbands, cousins, headed out. To parts unsure, to a future hostile port. Steven pressfield does a great job of giving context to these complicated and evocative backstories in his telling of Alcabiades tale, weaving through the politics and complicated web of relationships. It takes a real master to tease out the story behind the plain facts, and the names of those doomed vessels highlight their true inciting incident.

hope

A vessel of any sort is about hope. Hope for victory, yes, but a bigger hope. We don’t load with rations, weapons, rope, tar, and sailcloth just to take our fight forward. We load to come back, changed. Richer for the battle & conquest praps. But certainly richer for the journey.

A hope for return. To hearth and home. And a dog by the fireside. Wiley odesseus, even after all those years away, was first recognized by his faithful companion. At sea, tossed about for years by his own hubris, he had hope for return.To his family, yes, but also back with his dog. Faithful and well named,argos. When I was thinking about great vessel (and dog) names,i kept coming back to django fetts slave1. And dreaming about the clone wars, compared to troy. Slave and free, clone and droid, good and evil on both sides, in a pitched battle. Seemingly across the universe, timeless. Then I stumbled into this quote. “Servants never do their work when their master’s hand is no longer over them, for Zeus takes half the goodness out of a man when he makes a slave of him” Yes, that exactly. Its taken this daily length of my narcissism to its extreme. Your battle, your fight. It’s mine too, fighting for something to believe in. Our gods, our fates, demand something beyond slavery. They demand hope, passion, freedom, and thats what a companion like a dog or a fleet vessel provide us. Escape, and return. Hope.

headupmybrother

Have hope. Live free, not a slave to the nitwittery of conventional thinking. Live. Free. Or die a slave.