When I lived in Topanga Canyon I would sometimes stop at the Vons on PCH between Malibu and Topanga going home from work. It was usually dark by then and often foggy. The elderly black evening security guard there always nodded when he saw me. I enjoyed seeing him as sort of a mythic figure in the fog and thinking he must have a lot of stories.

One night we spoke. He started being mythic right away. He'd been a merchant marine in the 1960s, and collected military ocean lore, strange sightings, inexplicable seafaring events. He said the water lore of any people always starts in its military. That the first mermaid sightings were recorded by Roman military ships off the coast of Wales. I believed him