In the wake of the Joe Sestak affair, in which the White House purportedly offered Rep. Joseph Sestak (D-PA) a position on an executive advisory committee in return for withdrawing from a Democrat Senatorial race, a race that included Sen. Arlen Specter, some conservatives have begun calling for an independent investigation into presumed illegalities by the Obama Admi...

It has been amusing - at least, for me - to watch offshore drilling proponents scramble for excuses in the aftermath of perhaps the greatest manmade oil related disaster in history, surpassing even the Exxon Valdez debacle. Fox News has spent the last fortnight balancing horrific details with semi-apologist remarks by various pundits. Conspicuously absent in all of t...

There are certain advantages to living in such close proximity to the forest. The obvious compensation for living in so remote an area is the quietude of twilight and dawn. Last evening and this morning the waning and waxing light played in the tops, lighting the pale verdancy of spring, one of my favorite colors. This is one of the more unfortunate transmogrification...

On Monday, I took a long anticipated hike; I say long though I have lived here but a week. What is that old saw? Everything is relative. Evidently, everything is relative. As I have mentioned in another piece, a long road extends adjacent to the property where I currently reside. The road in the title proceeds through a preserve known as Kitty Hawk Woods. These woods ...

On Sunday, April 3 2010, I finally moved into my new digs. It has been nearly four years since I had a place to call my own. Kitty Hawk, North Carolina is the site of these premises. In order to find a place at a reasonable monthly rent, it was necessary for me to move inland a bit, as inland as one can go on this island outpost off the coast of the Carolinas. Farther...

I awoke this morning at about dawn to a room suffused with the rose-tinged light of an ongoing sunrise. I peered outside to see high clouds resplendent with this roseate hue. Last evening the sun set in similar ruddy fashion, leaving windows aglow with pink to purple shades. It has always amazed me how the sun during its entrance and egress into and out of this world ...

Over the past twenty-four hour period, a cold front swept across the mid-Atlantic seaboard, accompanied by a return to the daunting winds of a couple of weeks ago. Along with the formidable wind activity, was a correspondingly turbulent upheaval of the ocean waters. The surging seas rose and fell in eight to ten foot swells, apparently astonishing even the clusters of...

Today proffered a gorgeous afternoon as temperatures crept incrementally upward; it was, hopefully, the first of many especially after such a loathsome winter. The creeping nature of the rise, as opposed to a rapid temperature surge, gave me hope of a sustained escalation. For the first time, I did not feel the overly optimistic fool taking my beach chair out to the s...

After successfully shepherding a comprehensive health-insurance reform bill through Congress, Democrats rightfully rejoiced. Republicans, however, reacted with puerile, petulant responses. Almost immediately, Republicans vowed to campaign against the bill with a promise to repeal the bill if they regain a majority in Congress. This seems unlikely if the best they can ...

Last night, the winds howled, literally. For the most part, such zoomorphic references base a descriptive characteristic such as this on something only tangentially associated, e.g. a whooping cough or baying at the moon. In this case, the winds actually did make a howling sound much like an animal and enough to keep me up half the night. These mighty winds buffeted t...

As I watched a young boy play on the mock-up of a sailing ship in the playground, he picked up a wooden slat, late of a fence or lattice and proceeded to wield it as a simulated sword or similar weapon. This incident called to mind my own youth where the appropriation of common objects for use in imagined scenarios was altogether commonplace.

I also recalled ...

After nearly two weeks of inclement weather, here on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the skies this week broke clear and blue. The formerly raging seas, tended to tranquility heretofore unseen for nigh on a fortnight. Gone were the tumultuous seas, replaced now with waters of a near lake-like composure. The once roaring waves now placidly slipped ashore their ampli...

I have spent the majority of my life trying to attain the farthest reaches possible. When I was a boy, fresh out of high school I hurled myself across this continent (North America) in an attempt to find out exactly who I was. Upon my return to the city of my birth (i.e., Boston,) I signed up with the Merchant Marines (commercial shipping for those not conversant) and...

No one can argue about being blindsided; this morning broke with an entirely expected sight. The weather service had been forecasting heavy snows for the region over nearly the last forty-eight hours. The title of this piece incorporates two words rarely seen together, particularly in a descriptive setting. The snows covered the beach in white and the seas raged accom...

Twice a week, by necessity, I have to make a long journey to the local supermarket. I say local because to others it probably seems within close proximity but for me, consigned to foot bound traffic it is a formidable trip. The distance is approximately two miles and given my current state of infirmity, this requires a four mile round trip by cane-aided locomotion. ...

An intensely influential area of low-pressure sat off the East Coast over the weekend producing tempestuous seas that violently churned the ocean waters. The roar of the surf was audible well away from the shore rivaling the sound of traffic from the main highway. The pounding of the waves has been consistently more than merely perceptible throughout my stay here on t...

Yesterday, (1/19/10) this area enjoyed a brief break from days of chronic cold as well as the persistent punishing winds. For one day, at least, balmy breezes blew softly ashore wafting warmly along the winter-ravaged seaboard. Temperature readings rose markedly into the mid-sixties, certainly not tropical in nature but a veritable heat wave after the sub-freezing lev...

The above title pretty much sums up the atmosphere around this place. During this time of year, here in Outer Banks, North Carolina, which outlanders regard as off-season, the population dwindles to virtually nil. The roads while still lightly trafficked nevertheless hold the rare appearance of persons afoot, which most often in my limited experience has been me. As I...

The title above has been a mantra of mine for the preceding months leading up to my much-anticipated move to the Outer Banks of North Carolina (or OBX in local parlance.) The weather has been rather uncooperative during my first few days here; it has wrought a fierce wind accompanied by a walloping cold front that has left me somewhat confined to my comfortably appoin...

During the twentieth century, the nomenclature of decades seemed easy. Beginning with the first decade, naming took a simplistic route. Wits defined the first decade numerically as “aught,” as in aught one, aught two etc. The following decade became the first named decade i.e., the roaring twenties. Later decades were associated with tumultuous events, e.g. the Depres...

The march of time may cloud the incidents recounted here. After all, they transpired over fifty years ago. Memory plays tricks as time and intervening occurrences color what the mind recalls of people, places and events. I remember my kindergarten class and my teacher at that time was a kindly old woman named Miss McGilicuddy. I recall her as old not only because she...

At present, I am engrossed in a memoir, by Vladimir Nabokov entitled Speak Memory. From the first, it is a fascinating look into his early life. In the first chapter, the author dissects his childhood bringing forth the minutiae drifting through his mind as sea borne debris charily sieved for its restorative properties. The process of reading this absorbing account, h...

Many small towns have an auxiliary police force particularly during whatever may be their high season. My encounters with these were paramount during my band day’s experiences but held forth beyond those halcyon days. My memory of these is of feckless youths barely out of high school attempting to stand tall in their respective communities, most with little or no succ...

On one recent night, I watched television and viewed the Sunday News-Magazine, 60 Minutes, which included a segment on a new anti-aging drug Reveratrol, a drug produced from studies of the wellness effects intrinsic to red wine. As I was drinking red wine at the time, I felt I would choose to ignore this new drug based solution to a long-term problem and, instead, con...

I sit here thinking about words or rather the assemblage of same and wonder why sometimes the impetus comes along on its own and other times its seems a forced matter. What exactly causes the words to come? I question whether we, as writers, are endowed with only a limited number of opportunities or whether there is an infinite universe of permutations available to us...

In all the years I worked in a band with my brother, booked by an agent who did little to advance our career, we had little to be thankful for in regards to his lamentable efforts. One time, however, this agent, in response to a cancellation by one of his more favored acts, booked us into a job in a dance-hall showroom on the island of Bermuda. I say dance hall becaus...

The past few weeks, I have been searching vainly for a teapot in which I can brew loose tea. You would think I was asking for apparatus in which to concoct some alien witch’s brew, from the response I have gotten from the local mercantile establishment. It seems brewing tea outside of the customary use of a pedestrian teabag is beyond the scope of present day emporium...

This season I thought autumn might pass without remark, at least from me. Fat chance of that, I initially thought. I say this because nary a day has passed in this change-filled season that some new example of its many-hued caprice has not held me in its thrall. Nor does a day go by that I do not notice one example or another of nature’s inexhaustible capacity to asto...

I awoke today to a glorious November morning, the kind of mid-autumn day one presumably only reads about. The cloudless cerulean sky held much promise and it did not disappoint. I had consulted maps of the immediate area to which I had recently moved. These maps told of one Waller Mill Park, which encompassed a small reservoir. As I traversed the moderately trafficked...

On this, Election Day 2008, ostensibly we are all looking forward to a change of the guard. Over the last twenty years this country has been under the thrall of two political dynasties, one of the left side of the spectrum the other of the right. Certainly, during the Clinton years, the country enjoyed, if not unprecedented economic prosperity, inarguably they surely ...

I grew up going to parochial school laboring under the tutelage of the Sisters of Saint Joseph. When I was in the ninth grade, my homeroom teacher was a maniac by the name of Sister Macerius. She had strange eyes. One eye was brown; one was blue and they both appeared to look in different directions, opposite directions, in fact.

She would go into one of her ...

The earth beneath my feet, along the forested trail on which I was walking crunched from the abundance of acorns dropped there from the overhanging arboreal canopy. These intermingled with dried fallen leaves from this season as well as many seasons past from the looks of the leaf-carpeted forest floor. My footfalls disrupted the muted ambiance of the hushed woodland:...

When I was a boy, I was a voracious eater. My parents would suggest, not altogether facetiously, that I had a tapeworm. I ate voluminous amounts and gained nary a pound. My dad took to calling me “stomach,” which my siblings were more than happy to assimilate into their own vocabulary. Suffice to say, I could put it away without any need for pretense. My gastronomical...

Not since I lived in the Boston area, have I had this feeling of ghosts at every turn. The woods of Greater Williamsburg seem to be thick with them. I do not refer to the specters of those who gained fame during colonial times. Local towns and roads remember and revere the names of men such as Rochambeau, Washington, and Powahatan as well they should. No, it is the co...

I have mulled over whether or not I should write this piece. My concern is that it will sound like one more complaint. I feel I have done enough complaining, especially about my present situation. You see, this piece is to be about my inability to engage in small talk. Since suffering a stroke, I have experienced semi-profound speech impairment. This has left me unabl...

I awoke this morning from a dream in a peculiar mood. I was in such an odd mood because it had been an unusual dream. Set as in a music video, it featured Bruce Springsteen singing a song with the above title while walking down a broad city street somewhat like Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco. It was not Van Ness only similar. This street consisted of six lanes of tr...

Of all the locales where this miasmic phenomenon is renowned, nowhere is it as integral to the local scenery as it is in San Francisco. This includes even London where it is as central to the local milieu as are Big Ben, the Thames and the guards at Buckingham palace. In cities along the eastern seaboard of the United States, it is equally ubiquitous. It is in San Fra...

I sat in the small hearing room, listening to the Judge and the Occupational Expert both discuss my prospects of employability with more than a slight sense of the surreal. As they debated the relative transferability of my insurance skills to other types of employment, I grew edgier. I knew the topic of my verbalization skills (or lack thereof) was going to have to e...

While I contemplated this topic, I recalled past literary descriptions of these big, billowy entities. One in particular stood out. It was the lyrics to an old Joni Mitchell song: Both Sides Now. The first verse proceeds as follows:

Bows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
Feathered canyons everywhere
I’ve looked at cl...

Tonight I attended yet another in a seemingly interminable succession of prayer services. A group of ardent adherents assembles in a local United Methodist church at which the head of the ministry to whom I am indebted worships. There is much singing, praising and raising a ruckus. As I say, I am beholden to these folks so I do not intend even the appearance of the mi...

Sea, Seacoast & Seashore

For millennia, the sea has held a profound allure. An attraction inherited perhaps from ancient ancestors who gazed out on these same sea-green horizons, sensing their own ties to single-celled evolutionary forebears; progenitors that evolved out of a murky primordial soup left long simmering in the steaming cauldron of primeval seas...

Muir, Stinson & Bolinas

Along the coast of Northern California in Marin County, north of San Francisco and just south of Point Reyes National Seashore, lies a trio of towns that boast some of the most pragmatic and pristine utilization of seascape in the San Francisco Bay Area. From the south, the first two towns are Muir Beach and Stinson Beach, respectivel...

Stinson Beach and Environs

Slide Ranch

From the overlook, the road stretches north along a ridge flanked on either side by steep slopes. To the east, the terrain slants sharply away to Frank Valley far below only to steadily rise again to the majestic loom of Mount Tamalpais; its three peaks stand at approximately 2,500 feet – far and away the high...

Bolinas

Bolinas

Yet, the contrast between the north end of Stinson with its elitist enclave and the simple 1960’s ethos of Bolinas could not be any more distinct. Surely, surfers flock here and Brighton Beach has its share of typical beach goers and combers. Nevertheless, the beach scene and the town are unconventional, hidden away out of the mains...

Sea Stories – A Prologue

After rereading the chapters that follow, I felt it incumbent upon me to provide some context regarding the time of the events and some of the places that are discussed therein. More specifically, the era in which these events transpired, coincides with the dawn of the container-ship as the principle mode of conveyance for ship-borne...

Chapter 1 – Piney Point

There is a long tradition of storytelling by men who “go down to the sea in ships”, commonly known as “yarns”. Typically, these stories run the gamut from out-and-out fabrications to essentially true stories with somewhat more than slight embellishment. The tales that follow reflect my experiences of nearly 40 years ago and represent ...

Chapter 2 – Maiden Voyage

Part One “San Francisco and the Hiring Hall”

Once we had completed our stretch at Piney Point (for it had felt like incarceration), we were split up and sent to ports around the country. As this was taking place during the Vietnam War years, many of us were sent to the West Coast. It was my luck to be assigned to San Franc...

Chapter 3 – First Contact

The Philippines – “First Contact”

After fourteen days at sea, the ship finally arrived at Subic Bay, Olongapo City, Philippines. Having never been in a foreign country before, my first impression entering the bay was of a strange, new and exotic world. The large bay was full of seagoing vessels. Freighters, like the one I ...

Chapter 4 – Vietnam

Vietnam – “Characters in Cam Ranh Bay”

Cam Ranh Bay was a major supply depot during the war. There was a huge complex there that for the most part was relatively safe. After some of the ports we had visited in the north, Cam Ranh seemed almost like a stateside base. There was lots of activity what with numerous ships being off-l...

Chapter 5 – On Board Ship

Onboard Ship – “Shipmates”

Throughout my service in the Merchant Marine, I had numerous crewmembers, some memorable, some not so. One thing must be said: In all my experience I knew only a very few who were not stand up guys in every way. When I first started talking about shipping to my friends and peers, I was peppered f...

Chapter 6 – Final Run

Coastal Run

After yet another run around the ports of the Pacific Rim, I was once again in San Francisco, my future wide open. Through the grapevine, I heard that the ship I was about to disembark was to head for the East Coast for retooling. Since I had been at sea for a number of months and this looked like an easy way to tr...

Hiking San Francisco III

Fort Miley, the Sutro Baths and Ocean Beach

The trail eventually completes its course around the point to Fort Miley above on the ridge. In Fort Miley the actual bridge from the U.S.S San Francisco which saw action in WWII is exhibited. The holes left by the shelling she endured are visible on the bulkhead. This ship was in...

Hiking San Francisco II

The Presidio

All of this area, beginning with the Golden Gate Promenade, has all been within the confines of the Presidio. This is the wooded land that the Golden Gate Bridge attaches to on its southern end. It is a former Army Base originally established by the Spanish in 1776. It passed to the U. S. Army after the war with...

Hiking San Francisco I

Wild Places in San Francisco

San Francisco is one of the great walking cities. A stroll down any one of numerous neighborhood main streets is evidence enough of the various social (and commercial) diversions available. Many of these neighborhoods are, in fact, brimming with what makes most neighborhoods great: strings of shop...

Homeless Chronicles

Boy, that was some kind of nightmare! The stories are true! The homeless are invisible. Simply arranging for a place to sleep was a major project. SF has adopted a new policy in recent years inappropriately titled “Care Not Cash”. When the people elected their pretty boy mayor 6 years ago, he ceased the former policy of handing out $495/m...

Summer Musings

I have a good friend who will remain nameless – she knows who she is. This friend urges me to write, saying recently “Why aren’t you writing? Where is your new work?” I had thought I was putting out content on a fairly regular basis but it seems I was mistaken. This is okay; that is the raison d’etre of the muse, after all. As a way of explana...

Spring on the eastern seaboard can be a tumultuous season. The wind roars; the rain falls in torrents. There is also the potential for storms of impressive magnitude. Here in the southeastern United States there have already been destructive tornadoes. Moreover, raucous thunderstorms rumble through the night rattling the dwellings as well as the psyches of their inhab...

On March 26 2006, I suffered a semi-serious cerebral-vascular event, which left me with a speech impairment that appears to be permanent. At this time, I am barely able to order lunch successfully, much less conduct work in my former occupation, that of a reinsurance underwriter.

Over time, unable to work, I lost all my savings and my living situation (my h...