Still, down in the vast dark hold, Thekla had a stage and that was the important bit. And, oh yes, another important bit, the neighbor and his housewife had long since fled.

Meanwhile, on the large white flat bit over the deck, was painted the words: OLD PROFANITY SHOWBOAT. And why? Hell if I know. It just came to me.

All was now ready for the arrival of - Vivian Standstill.

Vivian tumbled on board after the sinking of the Searchlight (fortunately or unfortunately, he was in hospital at the time after thoroughly dislocating his elbow - bloody ouch), and what of his not stored at Winnie's in the countryside (where some of it remains to this very day, ask Steve Winwood, he'll tell you), came to the Thekla. Vivian and all his silly bits were stuffed into the wheel house along with me and all my plants, and I'll tell you - it was colorful. We had a splendid view of the entire downtown Bristolian waterfront and the entire downtown Bristolian waterfront had a splendid view of Vivian.

(But then, as I have often contended, every postman and every day tripper in the whole of Middlesex, afloat and unafloat, had become familiar with Vivian's Wild Red Willy. So why not Bristol? - which for a time was in the County of Avon, but, apparently, no longer is.)

Unbeknownst to us at the time, the Thekla's new mooring was half on and half off the mooring of a ghost ship on which resided the ghost of a sailor who was not so sure he was dead. For him, two hundred year gone Bristol spread out all around him. Since the Thekla herself possessed her own ghost, also a sailor, and since he had sailed with us, you can imagine the kind of thing that went on in the night when these two met up with each other. Came a time when we, the living, needed to have one of those 'sharp talks' with them, the dead - you know, sort of sort things out a bit.

Tony Slattery , attending, was never the same.

(Tony and Richard Vranch came to us with something called 'Aftertaste'. After that, we saw a lot of them... and this is where I ought to commemorate Old Pro's first Hallowe'en Party. Especially since afterwards, in the wee-est hours of the Haunted Morning, we scared the pants off them. That, at least, was their excuse.)