SLPAD - 124 - “Low-Lands” - 35

[Michael Bailey]

“Bolingbroke, however, had a sea story.”

This is a wild one.

Can’t help but want to tie it into headlines from the time of writing:
Cuban Revolution. Even though it’s set in maybe 1919.

Apparently, long before the time of “Low-Lands”, soon after “the first war”
Bolingbroke and a friend named Sabbarese -

Poking around, this name might mean “born on Saturday” (Saturday’s child
works hard for a living)

- sailed on a ship called the “Deirdre O’Toole”


“…sailing under Panamanian registry—Bolingbroke apologized for this detail,
but he insisted it was true: back then you could register anything, a
rowboat, a seagoing whorehouse, a battleship, anything that floated, in
Panama….”

Still true to some extent, though there’s a little more oversight now.

Long story short, kind of a capsule description of Latin American politics
in the microcosm of a ship.