Virginia Breeze

I was having a conversation with my next door neighbor Mimi the other morning. Everyone calls her Wait A Mimi and she is a sweet girl. She attends Freeman High School and likes to write long papers in this big round walrus font that she found somewhere.

She showed one of them to me and it was pretty impressive.

“Mr. T why do we all act like there is an afterlife? Maybe there isn’t one. We could just be wasting time thinking about it”.

Don’t you like to waste time Mimi? I thought all high school kids liked to idle their lives away.

“No way. . we don’t have time! I’ve had every minute of my life planned out since I took dance lessons in preschool. I had to reschedule my mime exercises just so i could be out here enjoying a little unprocessed air and probing you brain”

You are probing things Mimi? Have you started your premed courses already? Why don’t you take a course in fashion design and invent some examination gowns in cheerful colors like red or mint green? Give them Velcro ties that come all the way around to the front so you can close up the backs when you are waiting for the inevitable.

“Hey that’s an idea Mr. T. I think I will write a paper and present it in my Entrepreneur 412 class next week. But why won’t you answer my question? It’s not like I have eternity to wait for an answer.”

I’m sorry Mimi. You think that there’s no life after death? No God? No angels and Uncle Harry waiting for you after you leave this strange and sometimes frightening place a long time from now. And I’m the one who is supposed to talk you out of this notion? Why?

“Because nobody else likes to discuss this kind of thing anymore. Everybody is too busy talking about things that don’t matter like some old woman stealing that Yankee baseball player from his wife”.

Alex Rodriguez? Noooo. He and Madonna are just friends. She’s been teaching him the Kabbalah so someday he will actually be able to play really well in games that mean something. And the team will play well too.

In some ways he’s like the albatross in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Remember when you read it to me long ago? Fans and sometimes even his teammates take shots at him. They “shoot him down” and then they pay for it. The wind stops blowing out at Yankee Stadium when Uncle Al’s in town.

“Whatever. People pray to their crackberries. They don’t have time for all of this spiritual stuff. It’s all superstition to them.”

Well here’s the deal Mimi Princess. People usually are focused on one of two things. . . the art of survival or the art of having fun. Unfortunately they don’t have time for the art of the spiritual afterlife . But there is something else that works even better.

“What’s that? I need to go work on my schedule for next week. Can we cut to the magic Mr Wizard?”

Sure. It’s called the School of Crash and Burn. And it’s what happens to you when you wake up one day and discover the path you have taken for years and years ends at the edge of a very deep crevasse. And you must either jump or sit down and starve. And then you relax and jump.

Not everyone gets into this school by the way. It’s difficult to gain admission. You must show great potential. Maybe Alex needs to apply. It certainly sounds like he is heading in the general direction.

Ewww. That doesn’t sound very promising. I hope I don’t have that kind of potential.

Of course you do! You have all kinds of potential. But I don’t know where your path leads. I’m just saying that if it leads over a cliff don’t despair. Just be your sincere self and ask for help. When your troubles begin  to clear out of the way you will be amazed to see what is waiting for you.

“Speaking of paths Mr. T my dad says that when your grass gets really high you need a path to find your way to the door.”

Your father is a very wise man Ms. Mimi. Please give him my regards.

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It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary

David Bailey

English Photographer

I don’t know how true this quotation really is but it is a nice thought anyway. Taking photos is a wonderful way to spend free time for sure. And then many of us are fortunate enough to be able to share whatever we have done with others on the internet.

Very nice. My blog says that this is my 1000th post. That’s not really a real number because of various factors. Reading stats about blogging is a lot like reading tea leaves.

So I would just acknowledge it in passing. Also we have experienced 100,000 views and just ran by the one year of blogging mark a few days ago. So all of those things are out of the way now and we can get back to taking and editing photos, writing and listening to music.

I used to worry about not having enough to do after arriving in senior citizen land. What a joke! I have never been this busy between all of the stuff noted above and other activities with family and friends. My brain is like an old lawn mower engine that you have to kick to start. But at least it’s not sitting in the shed gathering dust and rotting away.

Getting older can be fun. And I just managed to get one of the major themes of this blog in the “1000th post”. Maybe you can teach an old dog some new tricks. . .

Dylan Thomas

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I was having trouble discovering a topic to write about today. I was even considering writing about Sparky and Malarky my two German Shepherds who guard the house while we are gone. They are downstairs at the moment imagining how great the trash man would taste and discussing who will get the more tender parts.

But that’s not going to happen. He’s a good guy. Still I don’t want to tell the dogs it won’t happen . In the first place they would be upset with me. And in the second place they might try to eat me. And I am not safely on the other side of the door like our neighborhood trash guy.

I left him a trash can full of woodworking trash today. Lots of little 2 X 4’s that add up to about half a ton. He’s probably not too happy about that right about now. He has to pay a whole lot more money for gas just to get here and then I am weighing down his truck with all this wood.

I’m a bad customer.

But on the other hand I could share some good news with him. This will make him happy enough to forget about a bunch of 2 X 4’s.

Oil slipped off a record high above $143 a barrel today as US crude rose 11 cents to 140.59 a barrel. I know that seems like not so good news. You have to dig deeper to find the pony as President Reagan used to like to say. Because the US Energy Information Administration revised down US April oil demand by 863,000 barrels per day. That’s nearly 4 percent below demand last year in April.

“This revision of the US oil demand for April has certainly put pressure on crude futures. This is demand destruction before our very eyes” said Phil Flynn of Alaron Trading. “This is a huge revision and it happened when fuel prices were still lower, so you can expect that there could be more future downgrades in demand data.

On the other hand we have the weak dollar and escalating tensions between Iran and Israel over Teheran’s nuclear program.

Those two are gonna have a showdown at some point. But what I interpret this guy saying is that there is probably a huge glut of oil out here and the traders have gone too far. Prices are going to start down in the very near future.

And we can all take our cars out on the road again! Who has cut back on their driving?

Just about everybody. We all make those little decisions that cut our fuel costs by five, ten or twenty percent. And it adds up! So I need to run down the street and catch my trash man before he turns the corner. And tell him the good news.

Maybe Sparky and Malarky would like to come? Would you guys? Great! Come on then. Let’s get some exercise and run down there to see the trash man!

And there is a lot of sunshine this morning pouring through our living room window as I sit here and try to figure out what needs to go in this post. One of my dearest blogging pals is having trouble leaving comments here. WP Spamfree is leaving her messages that don’t make any sense. If anybody else has had a problem with that please let me know! Use the contact page under the header near the right edge.

I forgot the cord that connects the camera to the computer so I will have to wait until I get back to Richmond to share some photos of the beach. It has been an interesting weekend. Apparently there is a fire burning out of control in the Dismal Swamp down near or below the North Carolina border. If the wind shifts just right you can look out over the water and see. . . practically nothing.

But thankfully a front recently came in and blew all the smoke away so this morning the sun IS shining brightly. The sound of the waves crashing on the beach is very relaxing. And the temperature is very comfortable. Not too hot and not to cold as Goldilocks used to say before she ran away with the bear.

That’s what happened right? Or was that Little Red Riding Hood? What a name for a girl! Gad. No wonder she ran away.

The weekend entertainment theme down here is Elvis. So there are many Elvi running around. None of them are particularly talented from what we can see. Well, maybe the ones that jumped out of the airplane and floated down to the shore line were talented.

But the ones that tried to sing were dismal sounding and blowing smoke when it came to carrying a tune. Most did not even try to sing. They just flipped a switch and lip synched.

There is really so much pretending that goes on at a beach town like this one. Pretend entertainment. Pretend construction. People who are pretending to be one thing or another.

The only thing that is real is the ocean and nature. The birds that skim the water and the fish that nibble at your toes when you venture out there. And the weather of course can be overwhelmingly real when it wants to be.

But the beach is mostly sand that has been sucked through a tube from the bottom of Rudee’s Inlet and then spread around by a bulldozer. I was out there about six this morning taking photos. And every time I do this a strange guy comes up to me and starts asking me if I know this person or that person. I am supposed to know apparently because I’m taking photos. This morning he asked me if you are allowed to walk out on the rocks. He knows perfectly well that you are not supposed to do it. There’s a sign ten feet away that makes the point. So I told him “No you are not supposed to walk out there” and he walked out there anyway with his bag of goodies.

I worked with people like this guy for many years so it’s not big deal playing games with him. But I mention it just because it illustrates what I am trying to suggest about this place. And when we got here yesterday and it was filled up with smoke it just seemed so appropriate.

Smoke and a very large mirror are all around us. The only safe place to be is in the water. Plunge into the surf and suddenly feel like you have merged with nature. Dive deep and stay down as long as you dare.

Late last night I told Beth I wanted to go swimming. And she was not happy about it but she stood on the edge of the water while I waded out into the darkness. The water was warm and mysterious. The waves were fairly large and I was totally unprepared for them when they hit. Still it was a joy to be out there in the darkness feeling the embrace of the ocean. I imagined for a moment being one of those unfortunate souls who are shipwrecked for one reason or another and float away into an endless darkness.

As I looked down the beach at the towering buildings and lights I felt comforted. I would not want to be out in the middle of the ocean with little hope of survival. I want reality but not too much of it. So I swam back to the beach and kissed my wife. I thanked her for putting up with me once again and we went upstairs to sit on the balcony and watch fireworks.

Photos at ten.