CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR: MOVING RIGHT ALONG

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FOUR: MOVING RIGHT ALONG

I’m waterlogged. The Admiral has “suggested” that I swim every day. And at first I thought that was a bit excessive, but now I see the wisdom of it. The exercise is great, and the time in the water is usually relaxing while at the same time energizing. I still experience the phenomenon of having no nerve pain in my right leg while swimming. I have to pick my time to go to the pool, because sometimes it’s full of kids cannonballing everywhere. Other times there are gaggles of snowbirds clogging all the possible swim lanes. But many times I’m the only one in the pool, just swimming from one end to the other, over and over again. When I first enter the water, I think “okay, maybe five times back and forth”. But then I get started and completely lose track of the number of laps I’ve done. And I’m thinking “Well, maybe just one more” and then “okay, just one more after that”. It’s a wonderful feeling, being virtually weightless and gliding through the water under an autumn sun. Yesterday the pool water was actually warmer than the air – a first. The Admiral believes that my heart rate has returned to normal because of my regular exercise routine, which now includes a daily swim. It has been amazing in the past few weeks, going from a heart rate in the 90’s to a heart rate in the 60’s or 70’s.

I’m moving back to Slow Motion. I spent part of two days last week visiting the boat and figuring out logistics. True, I will have a trek to the hotel bathroom and shower, but getting back to boat life will be a relief after living in a room surrounded by drunks and uncontrolled kids on the weekends. I had no idea that motel living could be so noisy. And some of the loudest people are the folks hired to clean the rooms. This building is four stories, and the room cleaners are constantly shouting to one another from story to story, and even on the same floor. No one has a conversational voice amongst this group of workers – unless one’s idea of conversation is screaming near the top of one’s lungs. I almost forgot the loud hammering and power tool cacophony coming from the room above me. Lord knows what’s been going on up there for weeks. By now it should be “model” room. Fortunately, they stop work at night, when the drunken guests and their floor pounding kids take over. Suffice it to say, it will be quieter on Slow Motion. Hooray!

I haven’t read the Wright Brothers book yet, although everyone who has read it has recommended it to me. I am currently reading All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr. It’s a Pulitzer Prize winner. I was chary of taking it on, because I had seen a summary and thought “Oh God, not another gloomy World War II story.” But folks who have read it told me it’s not depressing at all. Well, sorry folks, your definition of “depressing” must be very different from mine, because I have read 300 pages so far, and this book is depressing. I didn’t expect the Nazi occupation of a French village on the water would be light and airy, especially when I knew that one of the protagonists is a young blind girl. To his credit, the author makes the life of young German boys and girls just as depressing as the life of the young French girl, even more depressing for the sensitive bird lover, Frederick. That’s enough – you’ll have to read the book yourself to learn any more. I hope and pray that the end will be uplifting somehow, but with the French girl’s father having been carted away to a “work camp” somewhere in Germany, I don’t expect that he will have a happy ending. Oops – that slipped out. Read it yourself. I have had to set it down after reading a few chapters, just to get out of the funk it puts me in. But you may want to read it from beginning to end without a break. I won’t say “Enjoy!” But don’t shy away from it. Despite its effect on me, I recommend it. The characters are very well developed, and the writing is excellent.

I’m still volunteering at the State Attorney Office. I have been given a 2008 murder case to review to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to convict. The suspect fled the area immediately after the murder. It is likely that he has returned to the country of his birth, and it is also likely that he can be found and returned to Florida, but we need to know, before going to that expense, what the realistic chance of conviction the State has. That’s always dicey, especially with no known eyewitness and with no known confession, but it’s a nice challenge for me to read all the reports and find out what evidence has been gathered and what evidence remains to be analyzed. I don’t know whether the investigators have stayed in touch with any of the witnesses, so I’ll have to find out what witnesses can still be located as well. “Cold” cases are always problematic. This isn’t “cold” in the traditional sense – the murder was solved, i.e., the alleged perpetrator was identified, immediately. But since he fled the jurisdiction, I suspect not much work has been done on the investigation, and the case gets “colder” as it sits in a file on someone’s desk for a number of years. The victim has surviving children, adult children, who are still interested in getting justice for their mother. But they aren’t picketing the State Attorney’s office demanding action. There are most likely hundreds of these murder cases throughout Florida, where there is an identified suspect who has fled the jurisdiction. Florida has a large transient population, mostly from the Caribbean islands and Central America. Building a wall across the border between Mexico and the United States will not stop their two way travels. Just as California relies on migrant workers to do most of the agricultural work and low paying restaurant and hotel jobs, Florida relies on migrant workers to work in the orange groves and on the sugar plantations, as well as to do all the menial jobs in the hospitality industry. Employers will continue to get them into the State on work visas, with or without a wall. And some of them, not a greater percentage than in the permanent population, will commit crimes, including murder. They just have faraway places to run to and hide which most American-born criminals do not have.

Enough about the putative migrant murderer. Back to moving on to the boat.  Two drawers are empty – only two more to go. And then there are the books, oh yes, the books – my personal library built up over the months. Fortunately, I have been re-gifting some of them, so we’re not at the Library of Congress level yet. But for some reason the heaviest tomes seem to stay with me. Don’t get me wrong. I have yet to read a book on an electronic device. I still like to hold a book in my hands and turn the paper pages. But some modern authors don’t know when to stop! A lot of new books are 700 or 800 pages long. Save the trees, please. Cronkite’s life is interesting, no doubt, but let’s get some better editing. And Stephen King, you’re responsible for whole forests being clear cut. As to O’Reilly and co-author, the next title in your “Killing” series should be “The Killing of Trees.” We have book shelves on the boat, so they won’t have to be stacked up on a chair, and the Admiral will hardly notice them, once they are behind the cabinet doors. That’s the difference between books and personal papers. The papers, even when boxed, always look like clutter, and clutter is the Admiral’s worst enemy. I have de-cluttered my life incredibly since the arrival of the Admiral in 2009, but I still have 10 times more clutter than he does. With each move, we each have less (except for what we stowed away in boxes in the two storage sheds in California and what we shipped to my sister, Sue.) I suspect, as does the Admiral that many of those boxes will be given away or thrown away, perhaps without even checking the contents. I know that no one else wants to sort through them, so the de-cluttering will continue. Can I have an “amen” for simplifying one’s life? Actually, that calls for an entire Hallelujah Chorus. And simplicity “shall reign forever and ever.” Amen.