They're all gone, I'm still here. The 27th edition of the Outer Banks Fishing Trip was pulled off despite a COVID scare (my daughter's friend had it) and forecasts that looked awfully wet.
like fine wine...
14 aging W and M chums plus OBX Dave and a few of my delinquent Norfolk friends came down on Saturday after the group had mostly depleted. Kudos to everyone for making it, especially those who traveled long distances and those who made all 4 days.
Here's Friday night:
We usually log many hours at Tortuga's Lie, but the pandemic meant we had beach days instead. Not a bad Plan B. But we did manage a quick meal there on Saturday.
Gheorghies in attendance included OBX Dave and regular Dave, rob, Wheelhouse Jerry, and a surprise appearance from Marls and family.
One of the nights, the moon and lightning did some tandem illumination.
My father-in-law, Mike, about whom I wrote previously, died on June 20. This was expected but sad nonetheless. Mike was very much a participant, rather than an observer, in the game of life. As a result we are fortunate to have tons of "Mike stories" to remember him by.
And we're in the process of generating one more Mike story! TR threw a party for his son's first communion last month, where I wound up talking watches with a mutual friend as well as FOG:TB Juan Carlos. I mentioned Mike's watch, a Paul Newman Daytona, and our family's interest in selling it without getting ripped off. Turns out both guys know the head of Christie's watch group and he lives around the corner from zfamily. They put us in touch and the watch expert is a fantastic guy. I brought the watch to his house, he verified it isn't a fugazi, and it will be auctioned online starting June 28 through July 12. They even took some nifty glamour shots.
Remarkably, it appears to have the highest estimated value of any lot in the auction. Not too bad for a $295 purchase that was worn daily for 40-some-odd years.
You can follow Mike's watch here. Feel free to bid--you can use a credit card! The whole zfamily hopes the auction results in one more awesome Mike story.
I was ready to simply comment this on the latest "Sentence" of Dave, the one where he concludes:
I remain optimistic that people are not as stupid and narrow-minded as the folks representing them in our government right now.
Here's what I typed in reply:
People ARE that stupid. And somehow the right has decided to capitalize completely on their ignorance.
I credit the shrewdness of the plan to convince millions of simple Americans to flush their better interests away in the name of egregious hypocrisy, hubris, and hatred. It's clever, and it's working. I just can't stomach the hideous lack of human decency.
And because of that, I instinctively avoid these articles and podcasts. Can't do 'em. They make my neck and back ache almost immediately when I read them. Stomach acid starts bubbling. Instant hypertension, and it's not these scholars' and crusaders' faults, but that's what happens.
I'm sorry to put my head in the sand when civic atrocities are occurring daily, but it's a survival mechanism. I need to go to the Outer Banks, hit our favorite spot, and watch surf videos while listening to reggae and eating fish tacos.
And there it is. More and more I am involved in civic leadership groups and roles in my hometown, but more and more I have to put national, international, and sometime state issues on a mental shelf. That's a challenge when even around my town, or in any pocket of the parachute pants known as social media, I quietly bear witness to daily, logic-dashing emanations attacking intelligence and factual integrity in contemporary revivals of The Emperor's New Clothes all because of America's version of Brewmeister Smith and his skating minions.
I get frustrated with people's fixed alignment with patently faulty logic. That's an enormous understatement, I'd say. I've had major relationships crumble because of this scenario. If people want to quietly hold opinions dear that make no sense and serve as self-sodomy, that's fine. I will, sometimes very unfairly, quietly judge them to be morons.
When people make grand proclamations of ass-backwards, stupefyingly stupid nonsense and then look at me like I'm the asshole, though, that's more than I can bear. And I'm aggressively non-confrontational -- not only am I a pacifistic "can't we all just get along" wiener who couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag, but also when I know I won't have the slightest opinion-altering impact on sputtering nitwits, I arrogantly won't deign to speak to such people about a topic of which they just demonstrated a grasp that's equivalent to mine on greased trigonometry in marriage -- so I won't do anything at all, instead turning my attention to lighter fare and more easily achieved smiles. (Dave, that "sentence" was for you.)
My city's slogan is "Life. Celebrated Daily." Doesn't get much lighter fare than that, but that's about perfect for me. I am so painfully obviously ill-equipped to process and deal with a world where logic gets stuffed in the glove box and puffed-up insecurity posing as patriotism is behind the wheel, I'm guilty of being a quitter. A non-participant. An ostrich among eagles, condors, and vultures.
You could do worse than to have your worldview imbued by the teachings of His Holiness the Gheorghe Carlin. One of the bits that always sticks with me is his take on the disparity in license plate messages between New Hampshire and Idaho. Check out the first 2 minutes of this segment:
Yep. That's about right. But in a way I'm both; I'm gonna live free; I'm gonna revel in silly stuff like goofy slogans, stand-up comedy, blogging like a clown, and eating some famous potatoes; and then I'm gonna die. Hopefully as happy as I am right now, not blissfully ignorant but removed enough from the fray that my glass stays half-full. (At intervals before my man Tortuga's Sean fills it back up.)
I will close with my favorite slogan 'round these parts:
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