9.5.2024 – ignore these limits

ignore these limits
thrilling fact that night owls have
been vindicated

From the article, Forget the 5am starts! Night owls like me possess the real secret of success by Arwa Mahdawi in the article where Ms. Mahdawi writes:

Research led by academics at Imperial College London studied data on more than 26,000 people and found that “self-declared ‘night owls’ generally tend to have higher cognitive scores”. And we are talking quite a lot higher. “Evening types … scored about 13.5% higher than morning types in one group and 7.5% higher than morning types in another group”, according to a write-up of the study.

Experts have urged caution in interpreting the findings, saying, for instance, that there are “important limitations”. Still, I think we can ignore these limitations for now and focus on the thrilling fact that night owls have finally been vindicated.

I have never ever been a morning person.

I have never ever been called a morning person.

Sadly, most of my life has been designed to begin with an early morning start.

Larry McMurtry’s thoughts on Captain Woodrow Call and getting up in the morning in the book Lonesome Dove might describe me.

Mr. McMurtry writes: To Call’s regret he had never been able to come awake easily. His joints felt like they were filled with glue, and it was an irritation to see Augustus sitting on the black kettle looking as fresh as if he’d slept all night, when in fact he had probably played poker till one or two o’clock. Getting up early and feeling awake was the one skill he had never truly perfected — he got up, of course, but it never felt natural.

Now I can’t stay up.

I miss those dark hours for reading.

Late late at night when no one else was up or around.

That’s when it seemed like my brain really kicked in.

Growing up in a family with 10 brothers and sisters.

College with 4 guys sharing a 450 square feet of apartment.

Seven kids in my family.

Late late at night when no one else was up or around.

So there is research that shows us folks who liked being up at night have higher cognitive scores that those morning folks.

I didn’t need any research.

It was something I already knew.

If those morning folks had been smarter, they would have been up late at night.

9.4.2024 – I was self-appointed

I was self-appointed
surveyor of forest paths
keeping them open

For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snow storms and rain storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of highways, then of forest paths and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and ravines bridged and passable at all seasons, where the public heel had testified to their utility.

Sometimes the non conformity is living in the Hilton Head area … but wearing a Tybee Island T Shirt

In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line. You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men’s, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint “No Admittance” on my gate.

Inspecting my salt marshes and the Broad River, looking towards Parris Island US Marine Corps Recruit Depot

For a long time I was reporter to a journal, of no very wide circulation, whose editor has never yet seen fit to print the bulk of my contributions, and, as is too common with writers, I got only my labor for my pains. However, in this case my pains were their own reward.

Path not taken … maybe – Lemon Island, South Carolina

For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation.

All passages from Walden by Henry David Thoreau (Boston, Ticknor and Fields, 1854).

Wikipedia quotes EB White on Mr. Thoreau, that to write Walden, “Henry went forth to battle when he took to the woods, and Walden is the report of a man torn by two powerful and opposing drives— the desire to enjoy the world and the urge to set the world straight.”

Mr. Thoreau was in his mid 30’s when he went forth to battle.

I am in my mid 60’s and my urge to set the world straight is waning.

My desire to enjoy the world is growing.

That last line I quote from Walden happens to be the very last line of the book.

I can tweak it to read, “For over two thousand years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation.“

It was Jim Harrison who once wrote along the lines that the United States had passed some 1.5 million laws … trying to enforce the 10 commandments.

It was Mr. Churchill who said in a speech in 1947, “Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

If Mr. Churchill is correct, BOY HOWDY, but do I feel sorry for all those other countries.

Is it any wonder that I embrace my role as a self-appointed inspector of snow storms and rain storms and reporter for my own journal of small circulation.

However, in this case my pains are their own reward.

PS: Thank you to my wife and co-self-appointed-inspector for the photos of our adventure on Widgeon Point, South Carolina.

9.3.2024 – beneath my palm-trees ..

beneath my palm-trees ..
sat a weeping – no one to
ask me why I wept …

Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side,
I sat a weeping: in the whole world wide
There was no one to ask me why I wept,
And so I kept
Brimming the water-lily cups with tears
Cold as my fears.

Beneath my palm-trees, by the river side,
I sat a weeping: what enamoured bride,
Cheated by shadowy wooer from the clouds,
But hides and shrouds
Beneath dark palm-trees by a river side?

Song of the Indian Maid by John Keats as published in The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900 (Oxford, 1919).

On Labor Day, my wife and I walked through the Widgeon Point Preserve on Lemon Island in Port Royal Sound in the heart of the South Carolina Low Country.

As it says on the park website, A hiking loop travels the perimeter of the adjacent hummock island. The loop is a wide, flat nature trail that travels through pines, palms, and oak trees. Views of the river can be seen from several different vantage points. The various coastal habitats of Widgeon Point Preserve support a rich diversity of wildlife and plants. Visitors have extraordinary opportunities to observe the natural beauty of the Lowcountry.

It had just rained and the muddy path was filled with little mud marsh crabs that gave you the feeling that the path itself was alive.

It was a extraordinary opportunity to observe.

And also an opportunity to learn.

We knew we lived in the low country of South Carolina.

We knew we lived in Beaufort County, South Carolina.

But we didn’t know that Beaufort County is SO LOW that during high tide, up to 50% of Beaufort County is under water.

Pine, palms and live oaks.

A muddy, forest path

And make sure its low tide.

9.2.224 – sometimes don’t care for

sometimes don’t care for
nothin’, sometimes search heads for
meanings, stories, stars..

For Labor Day, 2024, a haiku based on the poem Work Gangs by Carl Sandburg as published in his book of poems, Smoke and steel, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920.

Box cars run by a mile long.
And I wonder what they say to each other
When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack.
Maybe their chatter goes:
I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line.
I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they
splintered my boards.
I came from Detroit heavy with a load of flivvers.
I carried apples from the Hood river last year and this year
bunches of bananas from Florida; they look for me with
watermelons from Mississippi next year.

Hammers and shovels of work gangs sleep in shop corners
when the dark stars come on the sky and the night watchmen
walk and look.

Then the hammer heads talk to the handles,
then the scoops of the shovels talk,
how the day’s work nicked and trimmed them,
how they swung and lifted all day,
how the hands of the work gangs smelled of hope.
In the night of the dark stars
when the curve of the sky is a work gang handle,
in the night on the mile long sidetracks,
in the night where the hammers and shovels sleep in corners,
the night watchmen stuff their pipes with dreams—
and sometimes they doze and don’t care for nothin’,
and sometimes they search their heads for meanings, stories,
stars.
The stuff of it runs like this:
A long way we come; a long way to go; long rests and long deep
sniffs for our lungs on the way.
Sleep is a belonging of all; even if all songs are old songs and
the singing heart is snuffed out like a switchman’s lantern
with the oil gone, even if we forget our names and houses in
the finish, the secret of sleep is left us, sleep belongs to all,
sleep is the first and last and best of all.

People singing; people with song mouths connecting with song
hearts; people who must sing or die; people whose song
hearts break if there is no song mouth; these are my people.

9.1.2024 – hence in a season

hence in a season
of calm weather, see children
sport upon the shore

Adapted from this small part of Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood By William Wordsworth as printed in Poems: In two volumes, Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme in 1807.

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

There are those who might figure I am looking to associate this passage and the the line Nor all that is at enmity with joy, and the following line Can utterly abolish or destroy! with one of the two current Presidential campaigns that, some say, are hoping to return joy to the American way of life.

Joy not grumpyness.

Joy, not meanness.

Joy, not accusatory oratory.

Joy with the understanding that Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy!

The joy of the ocean.

The joy of watching children sport upon the shore.

Joy.

Well, if there are those who figure that … I will not dispute it.