CHAPTER TWENTY ONE: WEATHER PERMITTING

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE: WEATHER PERMITTING

Weather permitting, we’ll leave North Carolina sometime in August. Yes, today is August 1, and we are still tied up, tied down at Casper’s Marina in Swansboro. Art finished his computer work. We paid our bill, and this morning we were heading to Oriental, sailing capital of the world. Then it rained – again. And it’s still raining. And there’s lightning and thunder. Hey, this ain’t no low budget weather station movie. This is De Mille, Spielberg, Fellini, and Wertmuller wrapped into one. This is epic! Or, viewed another way, it’s just another dreary, stormy day in the state with the worst summer weather – bar none – North Carolina.  If you enjoyed “Twister” with Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton (be still, my heart), as I did, you would love the squall lines, the spouts racing across the inlet, the threatening tornado clouds, the rampant lightning bolts, the menacing thunder. Somehow, when you’re the one at the epicenter, it’s not so much fun as the movie. Then The Admiral adds to the fear and trepidation by informing me that one bolt of lightning could sink Slow Motion –“and if we’re in alligator waters….”

Hey, I signed on for new adventures, visiting places I’ve never seen before, eating new cuisine (peach fritters, yummy), not showering for days, learning navigation skills – but not for days and days and days and days of storms, one after the other, interrupted by a few blazing hours of sunlight in the middle of the day, taunting us for not having the guts to take off in the morning. So far, no sunlight at all today. Our neighbors came to Casper’s two days ago. They’re headed to Oriental too. Their boat: Fishy Pursuits. I know. So far, they have left their boat for a few meals in Swansboro, because there are just a few restaurants in Swansboro, only one of which you would want to return to. When not eating, they’re back on their boat, get this, WATCHING THE OLYMPICS! I knew it, when I saw the thin line leading from the power source on the dock to their boat. And I confirmed it just now talking with Mr. Fishy. He said he’s been watching 4 channels worth of Olympics – fencing, soccer, swimming, judo. Am I jealous? Am I envious? Did I mention that the former owner of Slow Motion had televisions all over the boat, and they’re still here – nice flat screens in the salon and the master bedroom. But we have no cable, and apparently we need a cable repair person to find out why.

True, I did not sign on for television watching. But this is the once in four years Olympics, the only time we care about the American fencer or judo expert, or even the dwarf gymnasts. Okay, I take that back, “the Fierce Five”, the little pixies who have won our hearts. Didn’t you just cry along with Jordyn when she was knocked out of the all-around competition by that unfair rule against more than two finalists from the same country? I thought the Olympics games were about giving the best a chance to compete for gold. Thank God for the Olympics today – even though we can’t watch them on any of our silent, pictureless televisions spread all over the cabin, at least we can “tune in” on our iPhones to get the latest news about Hope Solo’s’ word battle with Brandy Chastain and Justin Bieber’s tweets to the Fierce Five. Oh, and sometimes there are even reports of who won the medals in the events too.

A moment of silence for the passing of Gore Vidal. “I believe the government to be of any value, must rest upon the people at large, and not be the preserve of any elite group or class, or anything of a hereditary nature.” Vidal said that in 1993. He also said: “In 1950, after we won the Second World War, which we regarded as our great victory, we were the No. 1 nation on Earth, economically and militarily. Well, Harry Truman, our then president, decided to keep the country on a permanent military standing. Forever. The result is we’re $4 trillion in debt. We don’t have a public education system. We don’t have health care. And we have two or three race wars going on. And we are falling back, back, back.” That prescient statement was made before we engaged in two decade long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for which we raised no money to wage – no war bonds, no higher taxes, no sacrifices. Just “let’s wage war” in faraway countries for twenty years and see how we can screw up our own economy, while other countries take over the business of manufacturing and exporting consumer goods. We can always sell a few billion dollars’ worth of arms and war materiel, the one thing we’re still apparently good at making in the USA.

The Admiral emerged to report that the rain may have stopped.  So, lucky readers, I may have to turn this Blog back to travel on the ICW, weather permitting. In the meantime, enjoy the Olympics on your wide screens, go out and enjoy the warm sun on your face during the commercials, and pray for rain – anywhere but the coast of North Carolina! Tim Lincecum has won a ball game for the Giants, so anything is now possible again. Whatever you think you can’t do, try it, and today, I bet you can. Except you teenagers, hold it right there – you’re not ready for that, and you know it. Everybody else, swing for the fences, weather permitting.