3.24.2026 – small wonder that men

small wonder that men
hold boats in the secret place
cradle to the grave

Men who ache allover for tidiness and compactness in their lives often find relief for their pain in the cabin of a thirty-foot sailboat at anchor in a sheltered cove.

Here the sprawling panoply of The Home is compressed in orderly miniature and liquid delirium, suspended between the bottom of the sea and the top of the sky, ready to move on in the morning by the miracle of canvas and the witchcraft of rope.

It is small wonder that men hold boats in the secret place of their mind, almost from the cradle to the grave.

From the essay The Sea and the Wind that Blows by E. B. White and published in The Ford Times, June 1963 and re-published in The Essays of EB White by EB White (Harper and Row, New York, 1977).

3.23.2026 – tried one, that was it

tried one, that was it,
said on landline, and that is …
the way it will stay

Adapted from the story, Record-setting Big Mac eater underwhelmed by McDonald’s new Big Arch burger by Ramon Antonio Vargas, where Mr. Vargas quotes Donald Gorske, who has eaten nearly 36,000 Big Macs on Mr. Gorske’s reaction to trying a Whopper.

Mr. Vargas writes: “I tried one – that was it,” Gorske said on his landline telephone. “And that is the way it will stay.”

So the guy likes and has the receipts to prove it, the Big Mac.

Gotta love a guy who stands by his favorite, only has a landline telephone and, as Mr. Vargas writes, “politely asked why his opinion on something such as the Big Arch was newsworthy.”

In his 1987 book on the history of the Netherlands, An Embarrassment of Riches, Simon Schama tells how the Dutch were the world leaders in Government, Commerce, Military Power and the Arts and were poised to take over the world but being Dutch with their sense of community, allegiance and manners, they were content to just stay home instead.

As if to say why was their opinion on running the world … newsworthy?

And that is the way it will stay.

Donald Gorske in 2011 eating merely his 25,000 Big Mac at a McDonald’s in his home town of Fond du La, Wisconsin. Photograph: Patrick Flood/AP

3.21.2026 – happy restaurants

happy restaurants
still exist, don’t go often …
like a local church

Adapted from the article, Applebee’s and Ihop unite – will new ‘dual’ restaurant tempt back US diners? by Adam Gabbatt where Mr. Gabbatt writes:

Perhaps the truth is that some Americans have been guilty of indulging in nostalgia over patronage when it comes to Applebee’s and Ihop: people are happy these restaurants still exist, in the same way they are about a local church, but they don’t actually go that often – also like a local church.

I am reminded of the last lines of the movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

The family of Ricky Bobby included his estranged parents, girlfriend and children are standing out side the Talladega Superspeedway when Reese Bobby looks around.

The movie closes with this bit of dialogue.

Reese: I gotta say things are pretty much perfect right now. And it’s makin’ me kinda of itchy.
Ricky: What’d you say we all get thrown out of an Applebee’s?
Reese: Yeah that’d probably do the trick.

Maybe we all need to go get kicked out of Applebee’s again.

And a local church.

Yeah that’d probably do the trick.

3.21.2026 – where the sweep of

where the sweep of
the harbor tide comes in, I rest
dream, sit on the deck

Based on the poem, Waiting, by Carl Sandburg in Other Days as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, by Carl Sandburg, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1950.

Today I will let the old boat stand
Where the sweep of the harbor tide comes in
To the pulse of a far, deep-steady sway.
And I will rest and dream and sit on the deck
Watching the world go by
And take my pay for many hard days gone I remember.

I will choose what clouds I like
In the great white fleets that wander the blue
As I lie on my back or loaf at the rail.
And I will listen as the veering winds kiss me and fold me
And put on my brow the touch of the world’s great will.

Daybreak will hear the heart of the boat beat,
Engine throb and piston play
In the quiver and leap at call of life.
To-morrow we move in the gaps and heights
On changing floors of unlevel seas
And no man shall stop us and no man follow
For ours is the quest of an unknown shore
And we are husky and lusty and shouting-gay.

On my first morning bike ride as an Islander …

I pass this way each day that I drive to work.

I would take a photo with my phone held in one hand as I crossed the bridge in the middle of the island.

Now I ride my bike to the edge of the marsh.

I can sit and I will choose what clouds I like.

In the great white fleets that wander the blue.

As I lie on my back or loaf at the rail.

And I will listen as the veering winds kiss me and fold me.

And put on my brow the touch of the world’s great will.

Oh for the life of an islander.

Still working though.

But a lot closer to work.

3.20.2026 – boxes on beach are

boxes on beach are
empty shake ’em nails loosen
they have been somewhere

Adapted from the poem Sand Scribblings by Carl Sandburg in Smoke and Steel as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, by Carl Sandburg, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1950.

The wind stops, the wind begins.
The wind says stop, begin.

A sea shovel scrapes the sand floor.
The shovel changes, the floor changes.

The sandpipers, maybe they know.
Maybe a three-pointed foot can tell.
Maybe the fog moon they fly to, guesses.

The sandpipers cheep ‘Here’ and get away.
Five of them fly and keep together flying.

Night hair of some sea woman
Curls on the sand when the sea leaves
The salt tide without a good-by.

Boxes on the beach are empty.
Shake ’em and the nails loosen.
They have been somewhere.

This is special to me today as I know the boxes on the beach are empty.

They are empty because we emptied them.

We know they have been somewhere, because we filled them and moved them to the island … were we now live.

Got to go ride my bike to the NEARBY beach and scribble in the sand.