The whales are passing in their timeless migration to feeding grounds in the Bering Sea. This improbably leads to a story about an early Laguna preacher, the Riverside orange grower remembered as Captain Handy. Curious about this Captain Handy, I did some research. Do you remember Herman Melville’s famous opening line, “Call me Ishmael”? Ishmael is the narrator in “Moby Dick,” the classic mid-1800s novel about men in small boats hunting whales. As the book opens, Ishmael attends church at the New Bedford Whaleman’s Chapel. The preacher, a former whaler, tells of Jonah, swallowed by a whale, and introduces themes about life’s search for truth that are then explored in “Moby Dick.”