The Captain

Are you ready for another fairy tale or as usual to be more exact an elf tale.

Ready or not here it comes:

Once upon a time not long long ago but sorta long ago there lived in a far away place called Cornwall which is part of a country called England (even though all the Cornish to this very day aren’t sure they should be), a young boy named Edward. His father was a Cornish tin miner at the time when one by one the Cornish tin mines were closing, forever. The family lived from day to day never being sure that there would be  a job for the father tomorrow.

One day Edward’s father said I have saved up enough money to book us passage to America where the streets are lined with gold and everyone is rich. So they packed up what few belongings they had and set sail on the great ship Lusitania.

Edward loved the ship. He noticed that the Captain had his own dining room and that special people like the very rich or the very famous were invited to eat with him and they considered it an honor. Right there and then he decided that he was not going to be miner but a ship Captain. Of course he never got invited to the Captain’s dining room because he was in steerage and didn’t count for anything. When they reached Ellis Island the man that was interviewing them had trouble with Edward’s father’s name which was Tylecote, Fredrick M Tylecote. First off he couldn’t read the father’s writing ( Cornish tin miners are not known for their penmanship) and the Cornish brogue just threw him. So he said look from now on your Fredrick Smith and that’s what he put on all the paperwork. Thus Edward John Tylecorte became Edward John Smith.

The family then traveled to an odd town called Ishpeming in the upper part of Michigan. Here Fredrick Smith found a job in one of the many iron mines and went to live in a company house.  Edward went to school and dreamed dreams of becoming a ship captain. He read every book on the great ships that he could find. He scoured newspaper articles for stories. He knew what he wanted in his life and it was not to be a miner.But by the time Edgar was twenty one he had been working in the mine for three years, was married to Sarah Elanor Pennington, and