One more thing: What did Jimmy Buffett mean (to us)?

 

 

  I woke up around 6:30 a.m. September 2, 2023, and turned up the computer as I usually did to catch up on what happened while I was asleep. The first thing I saw was a message from a friend telling me Jimmy Buffet had died the day before. You could have slapped me in the face and I would not have been any more shocked. Eyes watered immediately and I leaned back absorbing. Then as the day progressed and more and more announcements and stories about him filled my screen. I attempted posting a couple of things and sharing a few more but none of them really said what I was feeling

Toward evening and still reflecting and letting even more tributes come up, one incident leaped out of the past and spoke to me.

     It happened like this, our usual bunch had gathered in our favorite bar, a place I called Key Largo as I had recently gone through another breakup with another woman I had loved and that song of the time had resonated. A wall of windows overlooked the harbor in Valdez, Alaska. In daylight we could see to the end of the bay where the Chugach Mountains rose to their white caps. Sometimes a sunset behind us would color them pink or purple. One time when they turned deep purple we made everyone in the bar stand up and sing that patriotic song with "purple mountains' majesty" in it. Commercial salmon fishermen sat next to some of us tour boar captains and charter fishermen along with several crew members, girlfriends and other hangers on, even a couple of ocean sailors, with a few tourists scattered at tables a cautious distance from us locals.

     The usual din of conversations, shouts from game players, laughter, cursing to be sure, stories being told, just the general noise that fills any bar along with the occasional interlude for some favorite song coming out of the jukebox. In short it was a normal night at Key Largo.

     Then the first notes came out of that box, familiar guitar chords and then a harmonica lament. By the time the first words emerged several of us were already singing, "Mother, mother ocean, I have heard your call, wanted to sail upon your waters since I was three feet tall…." By the end of that first phrase most other noise had ceased and the place had fallen almost into silence, almost or maybe in reverence as more people joined the song. We sang every word of that song to the ending verse:

"Mother, mother ocean, after all the years I've found
My occupational hazard being my occupation's just not around
I feel like I've drowned, gonna head uptown
I feel like I've drowned, gonna head uptown."

     As the last notes faded, so did our singing, into a funereal silence throughout the room as each of us relaxed into what might be described as a state of euphoria while we searched our own minds for meaning. That musician had been there, in one way or another done what we've done, and held the experience in high regard and was able to express our emotions about it for us, an unseen crew mate. We could feel the meaning but for my part anyway could not find the words to articulate it. Maybe it was the kinship all of us felt for each other, the singer and the ocean. The silence lasted for what seemed several minutes but was probably a few seconds. I recall catching the eye of a fisherman, recognizing each other as brothers despite our differences, as I whispered to my friend, "That was special," and then fell back into my reverie.

     Soon the buzz of conversation rose and the room filled with the usual sounds and the moment passed. Passed for the time being, yes, but not gone as is evidenced here and to tell the truth every other time I hear that song.

Bit of an update: I posted this on the BuffettNews - Jimmy Bufftett facebook page: 98 comments and likes.

MEMORIALS PAGES 

 

ADDENDUM:    I wore this shirt on and off for more than a week as kind of an homage to Jimmy Buffett. The shirt has quite a history of its own. When we sailed to Hawaii from Alaska several years ago with his music playing in the background like a movie theme during the 50 days it took, I had a plan for when we landed. As soon as I recovered my land legs I headed straight uptown in Waikiki to the first touristy store I could find and bought the shirt. I figured I had earned it. But the story doesn't stop there. A few years later when we made the Great Margaritaville trip to Anchorage for a concert I took it along fully expecting fit right in with the crowd. But when I heard my friend Stacey Smith Mitchell wishing she had the right thing to wear, with a big sigh I handed her the shirt. A couple of days after we returned she gave it back to me washed, ironed and folded. The next time I wore it was on the tall ship Kai Sei shortly before that trip landed in San Diego. Somebody had announced it and I said I have the perfect shirt for a shipboard party. I still wear it now and then when a festivity fits the shirt. During the week after Jimmy Buffett died, the shirt again seemed to fit the situation. Maybe I will ask to be buried in in it.

The Great Margaritaville Tour 

The day I Iearned to swim in the Niagara River

 Funny what triggers a memory. I watched a short video on here today of a toddler jumping into a pool, swimming to the edge then with only a little help climbed out, turned around and jumped in again.

It reminded me of the day I learned to swim. My family had rented a cottage on the Canadian side of the Niagara River near Fort Erie, Ontario, for a summer. I am not sure of my age, I could have been 4, no older than 6. A family of friends visited one day and we walked out onto a small wooden dock extending into the Niagara River. That's right, the river that feeds Niagara Falls but way upstream, closer to where water from Lake Erie flows into it. My father used to swim off that dock. Well, this family included a girl my own age and unused to walking on a dock she fell off it.

Silly me, I jumped in to save her. So did my father. He located the girl quickly and brought her back to the dock. Then he turned aorund to look for me. But, by then I had managed to swim back to the dock on my own. 

From that day forward I could always swim and beyond that proved to be a strong swimmer. In my time on a whim I swam the length of Lime Lake in Western New York. I fell off my boat into Lake Chautauqua and fully clothed managed to stay afloat until another boat came by and picked me up. I used a trick I had only read about, removing the light, hooded jacket I was wearing, tying a knot in the neck and then lowering quickly from the bottom to catch air making a kind of float out of it several times over the period I was in the water. In high school I surprised even myself when trying out for the swimming team I swam two and half lengths of an Olympic sized pool, underwater without coming up for a breath. Even so I didn't stay on the team.

In short from that day on the Niagara River I always felt comfortable in the water. One regret is I never went for SCUBA diving. In later life operating boats my whole being was devoted to staying OUT of the water.

OMG. As I thought about it for a while after writing and posting this I realized I have lived much of my life that way: jump into something without knowing what I'm doing and then figuring out how to do it as I go along.

Of mice and cattle

    

How often do you hear something in a television drama that challenges your beliefs or is a deep enough thought to change your view of something? Or, as in this case alleviate some of the guilt you might feel about sonnething?

     First, I am a dedicated meat eater. I do at times feel a little guilt or remorse over animal meat I eat being killed for food, and recently went on a largely vegetarian diet for physical reasons rather than philosophical ones and that brought up more thought about it.

     I’ve been streaming “Yellowstone” lately and enjoying it and then last night this came up. A group of young people had been arrested for demonstrating against ranching in general with the argument against killing animals for food. The head rancher picked out the leader, a young good-looking woman of course, with a history of arrests generated at several other demonstrations over the years. In time they develop a sort of mutual respect without either giving up their basic beliefs. As part of that evolution, the meat-eating rancher asks the vegan demonstrator this: (Paraphrased as I don’t recall the exact words.) “Did you ever look at a field after a farmer has plowed it to plant the vegetables you like to eat? It is bare ground, everything that lived there is dead, mice, rabbits, lizards, toads, maybe a turtle now and then, birds, snakes, every living thing has been killed including flowering plants that might have supported hundreds of bees. How cute does an animal have to be before you care about it?”

     It sent the girl into quiet contemplation at least for a moment and me as well. I had never thought or heard of it that way. Right now I don’t know how it will affect my thoughts in the long run. I doubt I will ever be a vegetarian or quit eating meat anyway. Although my adventure with vegetable casseroles has led me to a whole new collection of foods I enjoy. At the same time I am sure thoughts of the mayhem perpetrated on animals by all farming may at least give me pause. At the very least compliments to the writer.

     Perhaps the spiritual answer is found in Native American understanding as they acknowledge respect for the buffalo they were eating.

And while we're on the subject, this may be a first, adding a recipe connected by the thinnest of threads to a blog post. (One of my fav new vegetable casseroles.) 

Zucchini-and-Spinach Lasagna

Ingredients                                                            

·       1 (8-oz.) container whipped chive-and-onion cream cheese

·       1 (15-oz.) container ricotta cheese

·       1/3 cup chopped fresh basil

·       1 teaspoon salt

·       5 medium zucchini, thinly sliced (about 2 1/2 lb.)

·       2 tablespoons olive oil

·       1 (10-oz.) package fresh spinach

·       2 garlic cloves, pressed

·       6 no-boil lasagna noodles

·       1 (7-oz.) package shredded mozzarella cheese

·       Garnish: fresh basil leaves

·       Directions

1.     Preheat oven to 425°. Stir together first 4 ingredients in a bowl.

2.     Sauté zucchini in hot oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat 3 to 4 minutes or until lightly browned. Add spinach; gently toss until wilted. Add garlic; cook 1 minute.

3.     Spoon one-third of vegetables into a lightly greased 9-inch square baking dish; top with 2 noodles and one-third of ricotta mixture. Repeat twice. Sprinkle with mozzarella.

4.     Bake, covered with lightly greased aluminum foil, at 425° for 25 to 30 minutes or until bubbly and noodles are tender. Uncover and bake 5 to 10 minutes or until golden. Let stand 10 minutes. Garnish, if desired.

Success on a youth basketball court

A memory triggered: I've been streaming Friday Night Lights and in the

third season now. Focus is on a school in a poor town trying to resurrect its football  team and the subsequent losses. In the third game they play a top team and as expected they lose but this time they scored and gave that top team a tough time of it. Afterward the coach built them up with words about how well they played. 

     The memory? I was coaching a youth league basketball team. About halfway through the season they still hadn't won a game. During practice the week after theat midway loss I taught them a new defensive scheme (box and one). Our next game came on a Saturday of a Super Bowl weekend. The team they played was leading the league at the time. Our team went out and forced two overtime periods, only to lose by one point. Coming off the court a couple of them were even crying. (These kids were in fifth and sixth grade.) I called them in close and then told them they had played the best game of the season, they took a top team to two overtimes and only lost by a point and they should be proud of that and take that into the next game. I recall joking with some happy parents that despite the next day's Super Bowl we had probably seen the best game we were going to see that weekend.           After that we never lost another game for the rest of the season and won the league championship. I'm looking forward to the rest of the Friday Night Lights season, but I think I know the ending already.

A sidebar to that story: My assistant coach that season was my own son, an eighth grader at the time. The championship game came down to a last minute in-bounds play to break a tie. My son gently told me to stand back and he got down on the floor with the players to lay out that play. They went out and executed perfectly, scoring the winning basket as time expired.

Random thoughts on a drizzly day

 Here are a few thoughts I posted on facebook today.

A hint for those who missuse and misspell consistently here. The mark of a good editor is not so much knowing how to spell every word in the language, but in recognizing when you do not know how to spell a word and looking it up. It's pretty easy to type what you think into a Google search to find the correct spelling. Stimulated by a "payed" meaning "paid."

Who said scammers were getting more sophisticated?

Hi,

I was wondering if you wanted an app.

Like - Food Delivery apps, Dating apps, Finance apps, Pet Apps, Ecommerce Apps, Shopping apps, Travel apps and another.

We have a team of experts in app development.

Please share your contact details so I can suggest you the best possible features for you App idea.

Thanks,

Deepak Rastogi

Sorry Deepak NO!

 

All the talk about artificial intelligence reminds me of a joke that made the rounds as computers were coming onto the scene. All the available knowledge at the time was fed into a super computer. Once ready and with some trepidation, developers fed the following question into the machine: "Is there a god?" After much whirring and snapping and blinking lights the computer spit out the following answer: "There is now."

 

I have to wonder why CBS keeps that guy on the early morning news stream. He spends about half his time staring at the camera and nodding his head while his partner speaks. He consistently fades out at the ends of sentences reducing his repoort to unintelligible mumbles. On top of that: This morning I heard him say a record four "ums"and a "you know" in a single sentence. At least get him a speech coach.

I doubt my post had anything to do with it but the guy wasn't on the show the next day. Just sayin'

 

 Todd Rundgren wrote a popular track in 20 minutes, a feat he attributes to his reliance on stimulants such as Ritalin.  And after reading that I had a dangerous thought. All my creative life I have pushed my brain until I came to what felt like a wall, a wall behind which laid an unending creative insight which so far has remained untouchable. Now I am wondering if a drug would knock that wall down and open that whole new creative world now hidden from me. See? Dangerous. I wonder which one would do it. Marijuana doesn't do it. All it produced was nonsense. Of course what's beyond that wall could be all nonsense. What a disappointment that would be. Alcohol helped a little but the lucid time is short lived and the hangovers aren't worth it.