Polly Pureheart and I in Port Townsend ready to depart for home

I've always wondered where it all starts, and a blog doesn't necessarily make it any easier. But a sailor on a stormy day has to go somewhere, even if its an imaginary trip.

Its Saturday, my first real day off in 2 weeks, its windy, the barometer is falling rapidly and rain showers blow in off Sitka Sound every 30 minutes or so. The only sails I'll raise today are the ones in my daydreams. It would be a nice day to sit by the fireplace, read a good book with a goblet full of spiced wine. However, we don't have a fireplace, and wine is not on my diet so I'll satisfy myself by writing. I have read many blogs over the past few years, most worthwhile ones start with some kind of introduction so the reader will have a paradigm to fit the subsequent posts in. I think I'll start the same way.

To summarize 58 years of life I can say, with candor (and credit to Bill Cosby) "I started out as a child." What Dr Cosby did not continue with was " I haven't left all of it behind." Some of it I'm not proud of and some makes me very happy. I am considered to be well educated. Its taken me years to get over that, I'm a conservative in the Barry Goldwater 1960s style (not in the current bastardization of the term,) and I am currently embarrassed to say I registered to vote as a republican. I live on an island off the coast of southeastern Alaska in a small relatively isolated community. I am owned by a sailboat, recently purchased and consuming a large portion of my time and energy not to mention money, but also directly responsible for whatever tenuous hold on sanity I can claim.


The current state of affairs in the U.S.A. sucks to put it bluntly. Were it my fault, I would be embarrassed to show my face anywhere in the world. In the span of the past 15 or so years we as a country have lost our soul. We have turned into selfish uneducated drones, not questioning and not caring about the greater good. Slaves to material goods and despoilers of our home. Poverty is on the increase, we are constantly assaulted by advertisements to acquire and consume more needless stuff. There are many things we as a people need; health care, a good diet, peace, security, privacy, a chance to be happy. But we don't need stuff, we don't need junk food, we don't need most of the things that are heavily advertised. What we need as a people is to question our leaders, hold them accountable for what they say and do, be involved with our communities, and not blindly accept anything as fact that has no concrete evidence behind it. This won't solve the world's problems, but it will go a long ways and it would make us feel better both as individuals and Americans.