9
Departing From Ithaca
The Corpsman
I always loved the story of Ulysses the Wanderer. I told you about studying the constellations when I was a kid, lying out in the yard on a horizon-less night in Ritzville. One night my dad was with me and he pointed out a group of stars and said, “That’s Aquarius, Philo.” I didn’t mind being called Philo by my dad.
All I could see was stars, but I asked anyway. “What’s Aquarius, Dad?”
“It’s a constellation, Philo. It’s a group of stars that reminded the ancient Greeks of characters from their stories. They believed you could find all their main heroes and gods right up there in the stars. That one there is Aquarius, the Water Bearer. He’s most often associated with Ganymede, the cup-carrier to the Olympian gods. In the story, Ganymede was the son
