LOG: logger shutting down

My postmaster won't start.  This is on a Fedora Core fc5 box, new and clean.
It's postgres 8.1.4.  All I get is "LOG:  logger shutting down" in the
pgstartup.log.I've checked for permission errors.

At the relevant moment I get:
# sh -x /etc/init.d/postgresql start
...
++ cat /var/lib/pgsql/data/PG_VERSION
+ '[' x8.1 '!=' x8.1 ']'
+ echo -n 'Starting postgresql service: '
Starting postgresql service: + echo -n 'City CarShare Hacking'
+ runuser -l postgres -c '/usr/bin/postmaster -p '\''5432'\'' -D
'\''/var/lib/pgsql/data'\''  &'
+ sleep 2
LOG:  logger shutting down
++ pidof -s /usr/bin/postmaster