Thinking about Lisbon & the one place there that I really loved, the tower of Henry the Navigator, where he watched his ships sail away (& used Chaucer's "Treatise on the Astrolabe" to send them safely south) made me think about shanties. My people come from England, and although I don't know that we ever had sailors in the family, I grew up singing "Blow the Man Down," "What shall we do with the drunken sailor," and my favorite, "A Capital Ship" (for an ocean trip was the walloping window blind... I'm off to my love with a boxing glove 10,000 miles away...). Read More