JULY 3rd - Fresh Prince of the Sea



On this day in 1895, Joshua Slocum took off from Nova Scotia to continue his attempt to solo circumnavigate the world in a sailboat. He had departed earlier that April, and SPOILER ALERT he successfully completed his trip on June 27th 1898. For the vast majority of those three years, home boy was just kicking it on his sailboat, The Spray, acting all cool and circumnavigating the globe not going to school, when a couple of guys who were up to no good to started making trouble in Joshua’s neighborhood. Okay, that last part didn’t happen cause Will Smith wasn’t around in the late 1890’s. Oh and Joshua was on freaking sailboat, so schools and neighborhood troublemakers weren’t really issues he was dealing with. More likely his issues were the weather and being so lonely that he hallucinated manatees into mermaids. No matter his issues, Slocum made the trip around the world, and then wrote a book about it, became a celebrity (he got to speak at dinner honoring Mark Twain) and then he disappeared at sea in 1909, never to be heard from again. Disappeared at sea. But maybe not. Maybe he just got into one little fight, causing his mother to get scared and make him move in with his Aunty and Uncle in Bel-Air. Doubtful though. Still no Will Smith in 1909. But you have to give the guy props for making it around the world in sailboat all by his lonesome. Quite an impressive feat if you ask me. You all know that Thomas Jefferson wouldn’t be impressed, but then he once saw a magic show in which the magician made the whole audience disappear and then brought them all back wearing those fashionably weird white wigs. Parlor trick, Jefferson called it. But to anyone other than TJ, Slocum’s feat was pretty awesome. And if you’d like to take a minute and just sit right there, I’ll tell how Joshua Slocum became the prince of town called…I don’t know. Nobody does. The guy disappeared at sea. I just hope he didn’t drown chasing a manatee. Manatee=Mermaid? Still don’t get. Anyway, cheers to you Joshua. Cheers to you.

This day has been Marked.

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