Glass of Wine on the Dock at Sunset

Glass of Wine on the Dock at Sunset Musing 

When we were at the University of Michigan we lived in a “housing project” sort of place, long buildings divided into apartments such as were built here in PC during WW2 to house industrial workers and military families. Wainwright Housing was one, Annie B. Sale Housing another, and there may have been more, because our Panama City population exploded during the War. Tyndall Field, the shipyard, the Navy Base, and there was a Coast Guard Station on the Cove side of Tarpon Dock Bridge on Massalina Bayou.

Probably the same WW2 origin to our home in Ann Arbor, but when we lived in that housing project it was mostly families of graduate students. The buildings were on the street and behind on the west side was a huge open grassy area for kids to play. The last month before summer 1963, because we had orders to Japan and would gone three years, Linda came home to PC with Malinda (just turning 5) and Joe (2 1/2) so the grandparents could enjoy them. Alone at sunset, I would go out to the grassy field with a beer or glass of wine, a folding chair, pad and pen, watch the sun go down, and discover that every man with a glass of wine is a poet at sunset. A poet or a theologian. Or a lover.

From time to time I’ve wished I had a dock here for sunset wine and musing, but all my neighbors have docks and when hurricanes storm across the Bay, parts of my neighbors’ docks, sometimes large sections, end up in my front yard; so I’ve learned to be happy with just MLP and my iPad and my folding chair with a cup holder. 

Bay, sky, Shell Island, what’s coming and going through The Pass, green navigation light, sunset off to my right, and very occasionally the sound of the Star Spangled Banner from Tyndall Field across the water, make me no better a poet at soon-79 than at 27, though I have another half-century of roads not taken to contemplate and wonder what if and thank you, Robert Frost. 

CFB Season again and we can go back to college yet one more time again. Seldom watch the Gators, because it hurts as excruciatingly to see them lose now as it did sixty years ago. But I’m also MGoBlue. PennState from the years in Harrisburg when and where Joe Paterno was state hero. Whoever is playing Florida State. Always South Carolina not only because of Amy but because of the coach who put the Gators and SEC on top. The man can still get a standing ovation in The Swamp even when he comes to fight, and I hope that always happens for him.
     

6/5 Central, Texas A&M at South Carolina Go Gamecocks

Back to sunset and the night sky. What about the Big Picture. I’m thinking about the end of Act I in Our Town. Mr. Webb says good night to Emily, who is still awake and at her window, while across the way Rebecca and George continue to chat and look at the sky. Rebecca mentions a letter that her friend Jane once received. Rebecca recalls that the letter was addressed to “Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm; Grover’s Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God.” George marvels and the Stage Manager announces a break. As for me, while theologizing that God is loving specks on specks in infinite universes across the breadth of His Mind, I’m looking at that green light and remembering a Peanuts scene a friend sent me when our Patty died five years ago. What is there, really?


Cup of coffee on the front screen porch waiting for sunrise is the same sort of musing, but predawn coffee doesn’t lubricate the mind as well as wine at sunset.

W

Thanks, Norm, ever so much!