Captain, Shakespearean

Captain, helping: "Read your Shakespeare."

Note: I was in the laundry room to settle the unsettled washer again.  While I was sitting upon the washing machine, I had thought to do a little homework or a little pleasure reading.  Captain helped me to settle upon the classic.

Prepping for Class

Shakespeare's Macbeth, of course.

By Jenner-By-The-Sea

Dive-Knife

When I was exiting the water after kayaking there at the Park Service launch in Jenner, CA, a boy (with his brother and a dog in a kayak on the launch) waiting for dad immediately spotted the dive knife on my leg and asked, What's the knife for?

His dad immediately answered, For whatever is necessary.

I was also answering with Just in case of fishing line in the water, you know, and whatever's necessary (which is the truth: mostly the fishing line phobia).

Still, I was struck by how the boy had noticed the knife so quickly.
Cutting to the chase, as it were.

And, years from now, will that boy be thinking it will be cool to be a diver guy with a knife on his leg?


P.S.  I think of this scene and I think of my Uncle Bob in Guam in the 1970s sending my family Cousteau books about diving and sharks (books I still have) and I think of the speargun Dad had on the wall of the garage, and I certainly relate to that boy on Saturday in Jenner waiting in a kayak with his brother and his dog . . . .


P.P,S.  My kayak-pal JP writes: "For context, if I remember right, the lad asked first if we'd been fishing.  You said no.   Then, after a beat, he asked what's the knife for."

To which I say, Good catch, JP.

Fieldwork

JP, working.

Portage

The Russian River near Jenner:
JP in the background.

Jenner Paddle and Portage

Thanks, JP, for the shots.

Reverberation

Years ago I heard a federal agent describe his mistake in a major crime investigation in a way that broke my heart because that mistake had obviously broken his own heart. I also felt deep sympathy with the victims of the crimes committed, and I still do, as the agent did.   Compassion and pity and anguish for all involved.

I wasn't there in that original hell, but listening to such testimonies puts a burden on the listener.

I still haven't figured out how to share that story with my own students, though I ought to--and I mean that in the best ways.

Postcard: Quarry

This is Rock-Man, a figure I made such a long time ago in kindergarten. My folks kept him all these years (in the garage), moving him from San Pablo to Seaside, until I repossessed him at my father's death in 2004.

Cargo From Cumae

The boat shifted beneath his feet,
And Trojan Nisus bowed his head,
Grey locks cropped against
The cloy, clammy, clinging weeds
Of long nereid fingers
And longing nereid needs.
Scars he touched and counted breaths . . . .

from "Cargo from Cumae"

Stirrup Cup

Glen-What-The-Hell.
Sure tastes good tonight.

Catch-and-Release

Odd sensory memories surfacing from 2016
while I was working through a stack or two of paperwork:

a rat so very gingerly swimming past my kayak in the canals of Venice;

a bat so very gently rebounding from my chest in a castle in Scotland.