The Crescent Odyssey

INTRODUCTION

This is a tall tale where the raconteur seems to have lived several lifetimes in the space of eight decades. It spans three generations of adventurers over 130 years, between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, and across four continents, along with innumerable fellow travelers. It is a case study in diversity.

I was born the son of an Ottoman princess whose father was Cürüksulu Bahri Pasha, an Ottoman soldier who became the governor of several provinces of the Ottoman Empire. My father was an intrepid entrepreneur with both Jewish rabbinical and French Catholic roots. Ruben Renner, on his maternal side is the progenitor of a long line of descendants that built up the wealth and strength of the Jewish community in theHamburg-Altona-Wandsbeck boroughs of Germany. My great-grandmother was Emma Ruben, whose progeny include a number of renowned persons. These distant cousins include the composer Mendelssohn Bartholdy, banker Baron Maximillien Goldschmidt-Rothschild, and vintner Baron Elie de Rothschild of Chateau Lafite Rothschild fame.

I was strongly influenced in adolescence by a devoted Muslim nanny and a Catholic nun. When I reached my majority, I chose Christianity, married a devote Catholic lady, and raised our three sons Catholic.

Cervantes might have written a sequel to Don Quixote using the life experiences of a man for all seasons, whose journey along a tortuous path between heredity and environment led to the creation of an adventurous, seafaring man, a Renaissance man. Along the way, The Crescent Odyssey explores the origins of character, heart, and soul. Where does character take root? How does it blossom? Good and worthy character is easily recognized. It contains a measure of courage, compassion, loyalty, fairness, and a moral center. These attributes are also at the core of a pied piper, the person all will follow along an uncertain path into harm’s way.

In exploring the matter of recollection of past events, studies have often been conflicted in the understanding of the function of the right and left brains. Apparently the left brain handles speech functions and is the more structured of the two. If perceived facts are incomplete, the left brain fills in the blanks and rounds out the recollections. It files a well-edited and complete event in the right brain. The right brain accepts the filing, and when called upon to release the file, it releases the edited, filed event as if factually correct. When called upon to recollect, the right brain does not edit further. This may explain the embroidery of stories over time. The facts may have been hazy, but when an event is recalled, it is with full and complete clarity.

When two or three shipmates gather and old tales are retold, the recollections may be contradictory, but a kernel of fact is present in each remembrance. Overly precise readers may observe that an anecdote or two conflicts with their own recollection. I quickly confess that mistakes may exist owing to lapses in memory or my inclination to embroider. There is no malice intended. I easily agree that each person believes his recollection is the most accurate. Indubitably, each person may be right!

So often truth is deemed to be fiction, and, more often, fiction is presented and accepted as fact. Truth, like beauty, is most often in the eyes of the beholder. The border between fact and fantasy is blurred by the passage of time and the telling and retelling of particular anecdotes. The distilled product is the truth.