{"id":68,"date":"2026-01-23T23:30:44","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T23:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newstephenddev.wpenginepowered.com\/?page_id=68"},"modified":"2026-03-08T02:24:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T02:24:57","slug":"recollections","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/?page_id=68","title":{"rendered":"Recollections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"767\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Der_Alte_Matrose_b_02-767x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-322\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Der_Alte_Matrose_b_02-767x1024.jpg 767w, https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Der_Alte_Matrose_b_02-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Der_Alte_Matrose_b_02-768x1025.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Der_Alte_Matrose_b_02-1151x1536.jpg 1151w, https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Der_Alte_Matrose_b_02-1535x2048.jpg 1535w, https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Der_Alte_Matrose_b_02-scaled.jpg 1918w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 100vw, 767px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">That old guy in the picture by Gustav Dore is the ancient mariner, grabbing the wedding guest, making him late for the wedding because he has a story he just has to tell.<\/h1>\n\n\n<p><strong>And what a story it is! So compelling, so haunting, so eerie and sad that if <em>I<\/em> were the the wedding guest, I would gladly miss the wedding ceremony so I could hear him tell it. He&#8217;ll finish before the reception starts. That&#8217;s where you get to drink and dance and talk to pretty pretty girls. Who needs the church part?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>You and I aren&#8217;t so compelled, but we have our stories too, and there are always people who want to hear them. The oldest request in the world is &#8220;Tell me a story.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Here is where I tell some of mine.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stephen-davenport.com%2Fmr-zeetzees-terrible-temper%2F&amp;t=Mr.%20Zeetzee%E2%80%99s%20Terrible%20Temper\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That old guy in the picture by Gustav Dore is the ancient mariner, grabbing the wedding guest, making him late for the wedding because he has a story he just has to tell. And what a story it is! So compelling, so haunting, so eerie and sad that if I were the the wedding guest, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-68","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stephen-davenport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}