Before I went to sea
I knew about watertight compartments.
Men don’t cry!
Month: February 2015
Shadow.
Here be poetry and an open heart!
She’s the voice inside that’ll
Tell you to take a
Step forward,
To give yourself a chance.
She’s the push you need
To reach the seashore,
Unscathed.
She’s the historical monuments
With stories of their own,
The strong word of
Reason,
The flowers smiling in the first spring
Season.
Like the first sip of
Untouched wine,
Her mind is
An unexplored
Taste,
The words to fill,
An empty
Space,
One who’ll give
Your steps a
New face.
Lost and gone
Three haikus born on commute,
At work abandoned, then forgotten.
Gone forever haunting…
The rest of the story…
I left off the About me story (see: What’s This Guy Doing Here?) adrift in the Pacific off the coast of Hawaii.
That seemed ok, it must have been obvious that I was saved somehow and the saving part wasn’t important to that Blogging 101 assignment. But, was certainly important to me. So here’s the rest of the story.
Just as I was wondering what I was doing in that predicament I looked up toward the Gridley to see if I was making any progress. What I saw was my friend and shipmate Andy Mott charging down the port side, coiling line (rope to you non-nautical readers) as fast as he could. I started swimming harder, keeping my eye on Andy – something they train you to do as a rescue swimmer. He slid down the port side ladder onto the fantail and raced aft. As he skidded to a stop just short of the stern, he wound up and heaved the bitter end (the loose end) of that line for all he was worth. It uncoiled in slow motion, Andy leaned out, extending his right arm…
Straight and true, every inch of it extended, the end of that line dropped about five feet in front of me. I lunged, grabbed it, and let Andy reel me in. Saved!
EPILOGUE
You’d think I’d have stayed in touch with the man who saved my life but no, such is youth, the military, life, that you loose touch with even the important people in your life. This WordPress Blogging University assignment was to write a post to your dream audience. I wasn’t sure what audience that was at first. I thought of a lot of different audiences that I had had in mind for different postings over the years. But it seemed fitting that this should be for an audience I literally owe my life to – and yes, I do know that there are many more of you out there – so Andy Mott, if you stumble across this, let me know. Or at least know that I’ve never forgotten.
Full of yourself…
Now, full of yourself,
You dominate all those around you.
Full moon arising!
Do or Die – Praline Peach Pie!
Two slices of home made praline peach pie and they must survive until dinner, actually after dinner. It would too decadent to eat pie, this pie, for dinner.
Steak and kidney pie, now that’s a dinner pie – especially with the proper savory pie crust. Made with real suet so it holds up to the gravy.
Why, you could even do – wait, a minute I’m explaining something here – where was I?
Oh, yes, you could even do rhubarb pie for dinner. It is technically a vegetable after all. And, I don’t like they with strawberry, too sweet, that pie, and definitely moving into the desert pie category.
Quit touching those pie slices!! I’m trying to save them here.
So, what other pies would qualify for dinner pies, ones that we could eat instead of these two slices of praline peach pie? I know, those peaches really look fresh don’t they. Especially that redness where they touched the pit. And the crust is so flakey… Man, get away from the pies, don’t think about the pie.
Come on, how about pot pies. Those are dinner pies, well yeah I know everyone thinks chicken pot pie. But, what about a seafood pot pie, maybe some scallops, peas, a hint of ginger? You could add some lobster meat. That’s a good idea. Then we should include just a little bit of diced potato and some corn. Oh yeah, that’s making… Wait, we’d need to maybe use a savory crust for the bottom crust but definitely a butter, a real flakey, butter crust for the top. Yeah, a couple of fat pats of butter on top all that lobster meat just under the butter crust. Oh man, I can smell it now. And when the fork cuts into that crust, and the steam rolls out, I…
What do you mean 301 words!! We were supposed to save those pies in less than 300 words.
Damn! EAT THE PIES, EAT THE PIES!!!
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Do or Die.”
What do I want…
This blog is meant to serve a purpose. Three actually, that focus on walking, local walking resources and trails, long term improvement to community.
First, I want this blog to begin to raise awareness of the many walking – not around the High School track or an athletic field – options that exist for walking in Ledyard (Connecticut), the green spaces, and trails in our community. For this blog to raise awareness of the bounty of similar areas within our state and neighboring Rhode Island, and to occasionally explore similar areas globally.
Second, I want the first goal to lead to a better community, one where neighbors and more distant residents know each other, spend time together, share ideas, goals, and accomplishments. What may start out as maintaining a neighborhood trail should grow into developing new areas and trails, and then engender the restoration of neighborhoods that include sidewalks, small parks, benches, neighbors who know, care, and support one another.
Third, that those neighborhood communities begin to take what they have found through the sharing of ideas, time, talent, work, dreams, goals, and accomplishment to family, friends, co-workers in other areas.
So, to get started; I’d like to have 1,000 likes and 250 followers for this blog in the next 12 months.
And, that by next October to have led 6 monthly walks on local trails with an average participation of 15 people.
It’s only a dream until it becomes a reality…
Where…
Where is the haiku
Sitting on your shoulder it still asks,
Coming says the haiku?
What’s this guy doing here?
That’s basically the same question I asked myself when at 20 I found myself in the Pacific, swimming as fast as I could, as the Gridley drifted toward the far horizon.
Maybe that story says something about why I write, why I blog, who I am.
I had grown up in a Navy family, traveling here and there. Picking the wrong entry into higher education, then the Daytona Beach Community College, when I fancied myself a surfer, ended with the first semester. So, a couple of short stories later, finding my employer’s business seized and padlocked, hitchhiking to Ohio, I was avoiding the draft in the Navy. Naturally, see my blog, Teacher’s Pet, the key is in there, I’d choose the Navy.
I was a young Boatswain’s Mate, the ship’s swimmer, and we were on an exercise off the coast of Hawaii – way off the coast, even from the bridge you couldn’t see the island. We’d ended the exercise because the seas, while calm, – it’s a Pacific thing – were running 10-15 feet and we needed to recover the small unmanned remotely controlled boat that had been part of the exercise. As the swimmer I got to go aboard the Boston Whaler and attach the block (a technical bosun’s term) to the whaler so it could be hoisted back aboard the USS Gridley (DLG 21). I won’t take the time to fully explain what was happening or why self-compensating davits are important and will just tell you that with 10-15 seas Gridley was rolling 15 degrees to starboard then 15 degrees to port. That 60 degree difference would dump the block, a lot of heavy metal cable into the whaler on the roll to port and then yank it and the whaler up and out on the roll to starboard. Not what Boston Whalers are built for!
So when the whaler starts to break apart and I see that my safety line is hopelessly tangled in the block and cable I had cut myself loose and went overboard. It seemed a smart idea at the time – considering the condition of the whaler when it was recovered it still seems a smart idea.
But I was upwind of the Gridley and she was presenting a lot of surface area to the prevailing wind, actually leaving a shadow of wake as she sailed downwind. Being young, strong, a good swimmer, doesn’t mean you can out swim a situation like that. And, that’s when I started asking myself, ‘What am I doing here?’.
And that’s about 1/50 th (a wildly unsupported statistic) of who I am.
Teacher’s Pet
Well, not me. I was probably Mr. T.F. Davies’ biggest headache. And, he died before I was mature, smart, brave… enough to tell him what an impact he’d had on my life.
He was constantly after me to read. It seemed a daily project, maybe it was only weekly, but I remember that he was unrelenting. Just taking a book, waiting a couple of weeks and returning it was not enough. He asked questions, lots of questions, questions that could only be answered if you’d actually read the book. Opening it, skimming, dog-earring some pages, nothing else would work. He knew those books hadn’t been read.
In his persistence he finally offered me a very slim book, funny that I don’t remember which it was. Just that it was a Sherlock Holmes story – suddenly I was hooked, deeply, the barbs fully imbedded. I wanted another. Then another. Finally I’d read all the Holmes books in our school’s small library. He found me more, playing me well, enough to reel me in but not enough to break the still delicate tippet.
From Doyle to Conrad, from Conrad to Michener… Each book about something I was interested in, mysteries, the sea, adventure, the world. The written word has shaped my life and my insatiable curiosity is never sated. I wonder how much more I would have learned had I been teacher’s pet. Thank you Mr. Davies!
Haiku Journey 