Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 15: Line 70 (175)

 That evening Chick and Darby, as the port section of the crew, had watch-duty, while Miles and Lindsay were to be allowed "ground-leave" in Chicago.

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Is this a bit of class consciousness aboard a ship? Those who work the "port" section are of lower class than those who work the starboard? I suppose if your ship doesn't have a substantial above and below deck working environment which makes it much easier to tell your place in the class structure, you need to judge the crew by simply left and right, or fore and aft. So those on the left side of the ship are lesser than those on the right. Left is bad while right is good; that's simple logic (if you're mind is bound in the social logic of a current point in time and history that is 1893, give or take a century or maybe even two). And, obviously, fore is good and aft is bad.

But don't get too comfortable with those beliefs, my non-reading friend! Ideas like this are only brought up by an author like Pynchon or Vonnegut or Heller or Kesey so that they can be subverted! They're brought up casually so that the reader thinks, "Oh yeah, I see that. Darby and Chick are totally the low men on the totem, both being either new or young. Therefore by mentioning that they're the 'port' section of the crew, I can now equate location with the lower class qualities that come with youth and rookie standing." Then when you least expect it, feeling comfortable in your status quo reclining chair of comfortable social beliefs, Pynchon will kick one leg off the chair and you'll tumble out of it, at first maybe angry that your life has been upended but—soon if you're capable of self-reflection; perhaps never if you're a dumb Republican jerkface—quickly you'll see the light and think, "Hey! I've been bamboozled by traditional ideas that aren't actually based in any kind of universal law! I've just lived with them so long that they seemed natural! What a tool of the system I have been!" Then you will drink a V-8 and feel proud of your spiritual and social and maybe intellectual growth. Good for you!

Pynchon puts "ground-leave" in quotes because it's a made up word for an airship's crew that equates to "shore-leave." Get it? This line suggests Miles and Lindsay are going on "ground-leave" together which I can't imagine is something either of them is looking forward to. Maybe I'm wrong and they have a good relationship. But if I were Miles, I'd be looking to ditch Lindsay at the first smell of a funnel cake stand.