Category: Life

1.28.2024 – a cleat, an anchor

a cleat, an anchor
fasten, secure, clamp …
hang on to something

I like to sit on the Calhoun Street Dock on the May River at the foot of the bluff that gives Bluffton, South Carolina its name.

The fact that Calhoun Street is named for John C. Calhoun is for another time and another day.

The Calhoun Street dock is a tidal dock and it floats on the water and goes up and down with the 8 feet of ocean tide that reaches this far up the May River.

Anyone can tie their boat up the dock and leave the boat there while they boat owners enjoy beautiful downtown Bluffton.

Boats can be left tied up for three hours which is all anyone needs to enjoy beautiful downtown Bluffton.

The dock is lined with deck cleats.

We sit on the dock and watch boaters tie up to the dock.

There are the weekend boat owners or maybe those who have found themselves driving a boat that weekend, who slowly maneuver closer and closer to the dock and then have some jump over with a rope and pull the boat in.

Those folks take ropes from the bow and the stern and wind the ropes around and around the cleats until there is a great wad of rope wrapped around the cleat and the boat is made fast.

And the boat owners hopes it is secure.

Then there are those boat owners who come in fast, back down at the last moment, swing the bow away and drop the boat right next to the dock at a dead stop.

They step over to the dock and take the bow line and with a quick slick twist of their hand, drop a ring of rope around the cleat in such a way that when pulled tight, the rope locks itself over and under the cleat.

Not only is the boat secure, but with another flick of the wrist, the loop comes undone and the rope is free of the cleat.

And the boat owner knows it is secure.

I have watched this 100 times.

I have practiced this (at home with a make shift cleat) 100 times.

I still can’t get it.

And I guess you get it or you don’t.

I have studied United States History most of my life.

At one point the plan was to teach the wonderful history of this country that thought maybe they were different than the rest of the world.

When all other governments came crashing, smashing down, the United States of America and its Constitution, THE OLDEST continuously in user written Constitution in the World today, was an anchor, something to hang on to, something to secure the hope of the world.

There was such promise in the history of the United States.

A promise for a future.

You either get it or you don’t.

Now I am not so sure.

There sure seems to be a threat to all we held dear and cared for.

It also seems that if there are any folks who can do anything about these threats, they are busy renting rooms in the front of hotel that is on fire in the back.

Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help.

So says the Bible in the Book of Psalms.

I would like an anchor.

I would like something in these times to hand on to.

Paul (or maybe not Paul) wrote about God’s promises in his letter to the Hebrews, “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”

Once more, you either get it or you don’t.

Faith in the United States and a hope.

Faith in God and much more than a hope.

1.24.2024 – may the Lord bless the

may the Lord bless the
man who invented noble sleep
and was never told

Adapted from the poem, Glad to Sleep by Julius C. Wright in the 1906 book, Poetic Diamonds.

God bless the man who invented noble sleep
Bless his noble eye
Bless him that he didn’t keep
His wonderful invention, nor try

May the Lord bless him; yes, I say,
Lord, bless his soul
Invented almost the greatest thing
And was never told

Mr. Wright identified himself as, “A Youth of Twenty Years, Who Never Spent a Day in College.“

And he wrote in the preface to Poetic Diamonds:

 Whether or not the contents of this little volume will suit you I can’t tell. But I have put forth my best efforts to compose something to please everybody — 

 The Saint and the sinner, 
 The looser and the winner, 
 The great and the small. 
 The low and the tall. 

 So I have pulled wide the throttle to let it go, and ask you to keep your eyes upon the rails that it may be widely and publicly circulated. And I truly hope that it will find a useful field of labor instead of filling an early grave in the cemetery of forgetfulness. 

The poem took me as I had a late late late night the other and as I learned in college, it was the day after an ‘all-nighter’ that killed me, it was the day after the day after that I was a zombie.

But last night I had a noble sleep.

A sleep so tired that I didn’t dream.

Just a noble sleep.

Then that last paragraph I quoted from the preface.

 So I have pulled wide the throttle to let it go, and ask you to keep your eyes upon the rails that it may be widely and publicly circulated. And I truly hope that it will find a useful field of labor instead of filling an early grave in the cemetery of forgetfulness. 

I find it hard to get my arms around that I have been writing these haiku now for five years.

I started in January of 2019 after a morning of mindless commuting in Atlanta when I started to take note of odd combinations of words as I listened to books on tape and looked at the signs and advertising on my way downtown.

My admin page says I have made 1,786 posts and used 741,983 words (I know I copy and paste often so I cannot say I have written 741,983 words).

This is all a bit much and a bit nutz at the same time but the drinking song from La Traviata is playing on the radio just now so as I good Roman, I will take that for a positive omen.

 I have pulled wide the throttle to let it go, and ask you to keep your eyes upon the rails that it may be widely and publicly circulated.

And I truly hope that it will find a useful field of labor instead of filling an early grave in the cemetery of forgetfulness. 

1.21.2024 – Schmidt, Karras, Barney

Schmidt, Karras, Barney
Sanders, Charlie and Barry
Bussey, Hill, Moore, Sims

The Lions have won two playoff games in the same season for the first time since 1957, the last time they won an NFL championship. They play the 1-seed San Francisco 49ers in the NFC title game at 6:30 p.m. next Sunday at Levi’s Stadium for the right to go to the Super Bowl. It’s the second time the Lions are one win from a Super Bowl, losing 41-10 to Washington in the 1991 season in the NFC title game.

From Detroit Lions one win from first Super Bowl after beating Tampa Bay Bucs, 31-23 by Dave Birkett in the Detroit Free Press, 1/21/2024

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

Henry V, Act IV Scene iii

1.17.2023 – those who watch rainbows

those who watch rainbows
gather a reputation
as rainbow chasers

Adapted from Moments of Dawn Riders by Carl Sandburg in “The People, Yes: Sky Talk” (Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1936).

Those who straddle foaming sea-horses and ride into the sunrise
do so with no instrument board, no timetables
Those who watch one rainbow after another dissolve in seven prisms
they seem to gather reputations for being rainbow chasers —
they also choose bright mornings of clear weather and fading daystars
to study the organization of the sprockets of the bursting dawn …

Life is filled with talk of the path not taken and the road less traveled and the sounds of different drummers and the grass being greener over there on the other side of the fence.

Sometimes you get to look down those other paths, hear the different drums, look over that fence.

The past weekend, the Wife and I watched the movie, “The Holdovers.“

Charming film, though a bit disconcerting when the era of your childhood is the subject of what is called a “Period Piece”, where the look and feel of a by gone era is ‘historically accurate’ as recreated on screen.

Not wanting to become a movie review, the focus of the story is a teacher who is teaching at same small private school that he attended.

The teacher left the school for college and came back and never left.

As far as we know he moved into his ‘rooms’ and stayed there the rest of his life.

In those rooms he accumulated books, school papers to be graded and dust.

Here is my point.

The life of that teacher as portrayed in the movie, was a life I could easily imagine to have been mine and consider, more or less, one my paths not taken.

As the credits rolled over the screen at the end of the movie, I said to my wife, “That could have been my life.“

My Wife said, “Yes, it could have.“

I said, and full transparency here – spoiler alert, “I would have been fired.“

My Wife said, “Yes, you would have.”

I was thinking about that this morning as I drove to work.

I thought of a singular, solitary life, surrounded by books and a school schedule and dust.

And I thought of my life and jobs and kids and meetings and car problems and taxes and bills and grand kids and kids.

And I thought of the path not taken.

And I looked at the path I was on.

I was driving over the bridge to the island and I thought of George Bailey.

And I said, “Thank you, God.“

I would write more but I have to go chase some rainbows and study the sprockets of the bursting dawn.