When I was in 5th grade one of my classmates announced that she
and her family (they were a family of singing folksingers)
planned to take a trip in a boat they had built around the
continent. In that class were were all required to give talks on
various topics of our choosing, and she gave a talk on that. We
were all impressed by many aspects of the planned adventure, but
one thing stood out: During this trip the folk singing family
would pass dangerously close to Haiti, which was on very bad
terms with the US at that time (I believe it was a Soviet
Satellite or something along those lines) and storms could blow
their boat into Haitian waters and that would be trouble. This
was especially impressive to those of us who had transferred
into that public school from the Catholic school nearby, because
we knew of “Haiti” as a synonym for “Hell.”  The next year she
gave the talk again and told the story about how their boat
actually did get blown into Haiti, they were picked up by the
Haitian authorities, and actu