From our rest stop on this morning’s walk we watched beyond the two boats and to the left as a couple of porpoises rolled and had their breakfast. Then on back to the cars and home without our usual Friday breakfast stop, as Linda and I are leaving momentarily for a day in Apalachicola for lunch and to make reservations for two overnights, one in a week or two just for the halibut, one for a long weekend in October to officiate a wedding in Trinity Church and supply for the rector that Sunday. October seems a long way off, but I’ve had Apalachicola in my blood since the 1940s, when I used to go there with my father in his truck when he was in the seafood business. I know we bought oysters there, then sometimes we’d drive on down to South Florida to buy freshwater perch and bream. The truck was a 1937 Chevrolet ton and a half army ambulance that my father bought right after WW2 and converted for his use. From olive drab he painted it silver and had a local artist paint a huge red ...

Don’t know about other people, but the Do Not Call list no longer seems to work on my phone. Calls from all over the nation, scam calls, rubbish solicitations. Last few days I even had a rubbish solicitation call from 850-532-xxxx, which is my own exchange. At first I’d answer all of them and be careful never to speak the word “yes” but now if my caller ID doesn’t name the caller, or if I don’t recognize the number, I just let it ring until it goes to “missed call.” Sometimes, especially if it was an 800 number, I’m curious enough to press Call Back, and sure enough it was a solicitation or a “the number you dialed is not accepting calls” trash call. Though once when I called back it was from USAA, which I figured out by myself: my premium payment was overdue. Well wth&wtf, they are supposed to charge my car insurance premiums to my USAA credit card, the only thing I use it for, but when USAA changed from MasterCard to Visa that authorization lapsed and I didn’t realize that, ...

Wow, humid, 77°F 90% here on 7H porch, but a salty Gulf breeze coming across the Bay. I can see Shell Island that is no longer an island, but too hazy to see into the Gulf of Mexico. For who loves Florida, this is the day.  Probably at Lowes, IDK, some weeks ago Linda bought a promising tomato plant which, kept in a pot of course because thanks be to good fortune we no longer have a yard, has given us about a dozen tomatoes. Small, but reddening they are sweet and delicious. Looks to be another four on the plant. The leaves have been bothered by mildew, but if we were in the house and it planted in the yard, various animals would have destroyed everything. Breakfast: warmed over chicken breast from yesterday’s meal, cut up and on two slices extra thin ww toast with pats of butter. I buy my own butter so there’s no discussion about my eating it. Tyndall commissary sells couple odd brands cheap and butter is butter.  Along with black coffee and mug of ice water ...

If I grew up obsessed with cars, with son Joe it’s motorcycles, including a few years ago completely building an antique Harley he bought and brought home in a basket. By the time he was finished, it was showroom. He had many before that and three or four since, including recently a Ducati and a Honda and now a BMW. Joe’s an engineer at a company in Winston-Salem that designs and builds aircraft interiors, has a group of friends there who also are into motorcycles, who go on a long weekend, or weeklong, motorcycle tour a couple times a year in the mountainous area up there. They just returned from a ride over into Tennessee, where they stayed in nice accommodation with lovely scenery and on beautiful lakes. Joe is 56 and one in the group is 70s I think Joe said, and they don't rough it. Joe's Patty died in 2009, and during his time of working through grief he took his Harley up into the mountains for a long weekend tent camping alone, but this group camps in comfort.  E...

Yesterday was Mothers Day and I’d meant to chat about but in the early morning woke preoccupied and blogged the anxiety dream that was still menacing me. Memories though  When I was a boy, mama’s birthday on May 7th often meant that with limited cash I combined her birthday present and mothers day gift. My mother was born May 7, 1912, a hundred five years ago last Sunday. She died early the rainy Sunday morning July 17, 2011, two months and ten days after turning 99. I was 75 but no matter how old we are when they die, mothers are not replaceable in one's heart. A main thing is to try and make sure you don’t die first and leave her with that anguish. I remember, some of which I’ve blogged before. The evening of Labor Day 1941, mama called me into the dining room, where she asked, “Bubba, you’re starting school tomorrow. What do you want them to call you?” Surprised, I remember saying, “Not Bubba. How about Tom?” Mama said, “No, it can’t be Tom. When we were in high sch...

Up just after two o’clock to offer a sacrifice to Father Nature, back to bed, wake, sleep, rouse, doze, sleep, anxiety dream in which I can’t find a shirt to wear to school. All my clothes are still packed up from the trip, I’m almost late, all dressed but can’t find a short-sleeve shirt with red in it to go with these pants, dashing back and forth between house and car, closet and suitcases, getting later, look at the clock, school bell has rung, my kids are in the classroom alone and I still can’t find even a white shirt to wear. I haven’t thought to stop and call the principal to say I’ll be late, put someone in my classroom to watch my students, ah, here’s a white shirt hanging in the closet, why didn’t I see it, put it on, it’s soiled and wrinkled I can’t wear this to class, I'm late and'll get fired, snap awake and realize I was dreaming, the only relief of an anxiety dream, which never resolves except by waking. Head down on the pillow, back to sleep, Linda touche...

1 Jesus said, let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 2  In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so , I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. 4  And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. 5  Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? 6  Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. 7  If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. 8  Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. 9  Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then , Shew us the...