#sealers and searchers

[maypoleman1]

26th November

Wareham Court Leet

Source: Calendar Customs website

In the last week in November, a Court Leet takes place in Wareham in Dorset. A genuine medieval survival, although now entirely symbolic, elected officers of the Leet tour the shops and pubs of the town to test the accuracty of weights and measures for bread used by the owners and (naturally) the purity of the ale. Other officials, known as Surveyors, Scavengers, Sealers and Searchers check the adequacy of rubbish disposal and the cleanliness of the premises’ chimneys. The participants wear a variety of outlandish costumes during their “duties” which are performed and watched with deadly seriousness, despite the entire occasion being something of a pantomime. At the end of the week the officials retire to the Town Hall and when the clock strikes thirteen (seriously), they give the report on their findings to the Lord of the Manor before retiring to the Red Lion pub for a long lunch.

In the Middle Ages, many towns held Courts Leets which were intended to ensure customers were not short-changed by unscrupulous shop owners and landlords, seeking to reduce the weight or quality of bread and ale through dodgy measuring devices and so diddle punters of their due. Quite why the Leet in Wareham has survived is unknown.

[canonicallyobserving911]

Buck & Eddie: Their LOVE story is also being told in CANON by the songs included in their scenes

9-1-1 has been very LOUD and INTENTIONAL with the direction they’re planning to take regarding Buck and Eddie becoming a romantic CANON couple.  Not only do their scenes tell their love story but the songs’ lyrics embedded within each scene help to provide clarity on their love story as well.  Each episode, scene, song title, and the lyrics of the song that played during a scene between Buck and Eddie has been included below.  The song choices TPTB selected provides even more evidence on the journey to CANON BuckandEddie.

Please note: This post only includes scenes from seasons 2-5 that have Buck and Eddie in them with songs that specifically pertain to their relationship.  Any scenes that included them with their ex-girlfriends were excluded because they aren’t relevant.  Finally all but 2 of the Buck and Eddie and/or Buckley-Diaz Family scenes from seasons 4 and 5 didn’t include any songs that were linked to their scenes.  It’s shocking but with all the information that’s come to light regarding KR’s vision for the show, it’s not a surprise.

2x1 “Under Pressure”

Scene: Eddie’s first day at the 118 from Buck’s POV

Song:  Whatta Man by Salt-N-Pepa featuring En Vogue

Lyrics playing during scene: “Whatta man, whatta man, whatta man, whatta mighty good man. Say it again now!”

Scene: Buck feels threatened by Eddie and they have a small disagreement in the firehouse gym

Song:  Blood in the Water by Layup

Lyrics playing during scene: “I don’t know what you’ve been told but this here is not your home.  If you want some trouble. You want some.  Come on in and I’ll take hold. These hands will break your bones. If you want some trouble, you. When I see you, I see, I see blood in the water. Ooh. Run deep. Ooh, Ooh. Ooh.”

2x3 “Help is not Coming”

Scene: Buck driving Eddie to pick up Christopher after the earthquake

Song:  Heroes by David Bowie

Lyrics playing during scene: “We can be heroes, just for one day. We can be heroes. We can be heroes.”

2x4 “Stuck”

Scene: Buckley-Diaz Family-Buck and Eddie helping Christopher come down the fireman’s pole

Song:  Stuck in the middle with you by Sealers Wheel

Lyrics playing during scene: “Stuck in the middle with you.  Clowns to the left of me. Jokers to the right. Here I am stuck in the middle with you.”

2x18 “This Life We Choose”

Scene: Buck and Eddie hugging at Eddie’s induction ceremony

Song:  Once in My Life by The Decemberists

Lyrics playing during scene: “Could just something go, could just something go right?”

3x1 “Kids Today”

Scene: Eddie’s the first person to run up and hug Buck because he was going to get his love

Song:  Come and Get Your Love by Redbone

Lyrics playing during scene: “Come and get your love. Come and get your LOVE!”

Scene:  Buckley-Diaz Family with Christopher giving Buck a card he made for him

Song: Doors of Your Heart by The English Beat

Lyrics playing during scene: The lyrics are hard to hear over Buck and Christopher talking but the song is about opening one’s heart to let someone in. One of the lyrics is “Everybody needs someone they can cling to now and then, No more defense, no more pretense, No reasons to explain”

 3x3 “The Searchers”

Scene: Buckley-Diaz Family-Buck is sitting at the table in his loft feeling depressed but Eddie knocks on the door to bring Christopher back to him

Song:  Photograph by Ed Sheeran

Lyrics playing during scene: “When I’m away, I will remember how you kissed me. Under the lamppost back on Sixth street. Hearing me whisper through the phone. Wait for me to come home”

3x11 “Seize the Day”

Scene:  Eddie tells Chimney “It’s the family we chose” and Buck tells Maddie “This is Eddie’s house I’m not really a guest.”

Song:  Home by Phillip Phillips

Lyrics playing during scene: “Hold on to me as we go. As we roll down this unfamiliar road. And although this wave is stringing us along, just know you’re not alone. Cause I’m gonna make this place your home.”

3x12 “Fools”

Scene:  Buckley-Diaz Family-Eddie and Buck along with Carla surprise Christopher with an adaptable skateboard

Song:  Blue Skies by Noah & The Whale

Lyrics playing during scene: “This is the last song that I write while still in love with you. Blue skies are coming. Oh yeah, blue skies are coming. Oh well blue skies are coming But I know it’s hard.”

4x5 “Buck Begins”

Scene: Buck was trying to lift a piece of equipment off of Sale’ (sp?) and Eddie comes in first then the rest of the 118 to help him

Song:  So Far by Olafur Arnalds featuring Arnor Dan

Lyrics playing during scene: “So far from who I was, from who I love, from who I want to be. So far from being free of the past that’s haunting me. The future I just can’t touch.”

5x18 “Starting Over”

Scene:  Ending montage with Eddie and Buck walking next to each other towards the trucks with the rest of the 118 in front of them

Song:  Closer to Fine by Indigo Girls

Lyrics playing during scene: “There’s more than one answer to these questions pointing me in a crooked line.”

It’s easy to see the songs that were included in Buck and Eddie and/or Buckley-Diaz Family scenes were INTENTIONAL because they were timed to include specific lyrics from each song. For example, in 3x1 “Kids Today”, the chorus section of the song “Come and Get Your Love” was timed perfectly so that Eddie would jog over and hug Buck right as the words “come and get your love” played from the song. Since season 4 and 5 had only 1 song for each season, hopefully there will be more songs included in season 6 for them since they ended season 5 single just like they were in season 3. Will Buck and Eddie become a CANON couple in season 6?  Only TPTB know the answer to that question.

[cleverwordsandotherstuffilike]

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. - Reuben Crewe vowed he’d never go sealing again after the steamer Harlaw was crushed in ice, forcing all hands to flee over drifting floes to St. Paul’s Island near Cape Breton.

It was a harrowing, freezing ordeal but Crewe survived.

That was three years before his 16-year-old son, Albert John, came home breathless in the tiny outport of Elliston on Newfoundland’s east coast in March 1914. The boy had landed a coveted berth on the sealing vessel SS Newfoundland. And when he could not be talked out of this rare chance to earn some money for the rest of the fishing season, Reuben went along to protect his son.

They were later found frozen together on an ice pan. The boy’s head was tucked against his father’s chest as they died in a fierce storm stranded miles from their ship.

Their embrace will be depicted in a bronze sculpture as part of ceremonies to be held Monday and later this spring marking 100 years since the Newfoundland sealing disaster.

A tragic lack of communication between ships — the SS Newfoundland had no wireless device — contributed to the deaths of 77 men as two captains each assumed the 132 lost sealers were safe on the other’s vessel. Another man would later die in hospital.

Many of those who survived were maimed by frostbite, losing fingers and toes.

The same storm also claimed the SS Southern Cross which sank with 176 including stowaways on board, according to the most recent research.

In all, 254 men died.

Doreen Mercer, whose great-grandfather was Reuben Crewe, said it’s important to remember how hundreds more men died over the years in other accidents and shipwrecks.

“There were so many more sealers that were lost,” she said in an interview. “It was truly, truly hard.”

She recalled hearing from an aunt how her great-grandmother, Mary, awoke in the night to a vision as the men were caught out on the ice in 1914.

“Reuben and her son Albert John were kneeled down at the side of her bed and Reuben was with his hands in prayer. There was such a peaceful look on his face. Albert John had his head bowed too. And it was so clear to her that she could even see the stitching on their jackets.”

News soon reached Elliston, home to eight of the dead sealers. Mercer said her great-grandmother was expecting the dreaded visit that confirmed the worst.

“When she opened the door she said: ‘I know. They’re gone.’”

The twin calamities devastated fishing outports up and down the coast, said Eric Goodland, a Catalina, N.L., resident who grew up in Elliston. His grandfather, John Goodland, joined searchers on the rescue ship Bellaventure that gathered the bodies for return to St. John’s on April 4, 1914, as thousands of mourners crowded the waterfront.

John Goodland recognized his son Alexander’s frozen corpse from the way he always rolled his pant legs between the ankle and knee.

“That was very traumatic for him,” said Eric Goodland. Sealing was dangerous and often deadly, but it gave many fishing families a bit of crucial money and is a proud part of the province’s heritage, he added.

It was relentless work if the hunt was good, and could wind up costing sealers if the hunt was poor.

“The hardships they endured were compounded by the greed of the shipowners, who refused to provide clothing or safety equipment,” wrote Cassie Brown in her book “Death on the Ice.”

“The men had no meals to cook or any way to cook them: for weeks and months they lived on sea biscuit and tea. Even their drinking water was polluted with blood and seal fat until it stank. They slept like cattle in ships’ holds without bedding.

"As the pelts and fat piled up, they simply lived on top of the cargo in utter filth.”

Myrtle Stagg of the Elliston Heritage Foundation said the community has worked since 2008 to raise funds for a sealers’ memorial to be unveiled June 19. It will include the sculpture of Reuben and Albert John Crewe, an interpretation centre and a memorial wall engraved with the names of those aboard the Newfoundland and the Southern Cross.

“They contributed to our history,” she said. “They helped settle us. They helped sustain us, and their contribution needs to be remembered.

"I think it’s very important for future generations to really know that story.”