Dreaming

Chuck,

I really enjoyed Tom Paperin's article, "Setting Out". I always thought maybe something was a little wrong with me because I spend so much time dreaming about sailing and visiting remote places with incredible scenery.

Or sometimes I dream about building boats with beautiful lines that will take me to magical places. Anyway I've always felt guilty about spending all that time daydreaming and now I find out I'm not alone. That's very nice to know! Thank you Tom. Now I just need to spend more time making those daydreams into reality.

Paul Cook

Yet another way to waste time online

Chuck:

I found this link through my local Pacific Seacraft yacht dealer, and I can waste lots of time looking at and following all the ships that come and go up here in the Puget Sound area.  If you scroll around the world when "zoomed out", and then zoom back in at various places, you can see all the ships going around The Cape of Good Hope, and you can scroll around to just about every place on the planet.  If you click on the "vessel/port" button at the top right side of the page, you can then see photos of the ships when you click on their Icons.  Green is for container ships, Red is for Oil/Chemical tankers, and Blue is for ferries and cruise ships.  The Caribbean is full of big blue icons.

https://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/home

Have fun with this
Warren Messer
Red Barn Boats
21st Century Stitch&Glue

If You Remember Me

by James Metcalf from "In Some Quiet Place"

I hope if you remember me at all, it will be for what I was, not for what you would have had me be, or what others thought.

I hope that you will say I knew much of love and loving, and dreaming dreams that stayed alive as long as I did.

I hope you will not say that I was strong...or weak...without elaboration.

Say I was weak enough to cry when roses died, to smile when others bloomed to take their place.

Yet strong enough to be unashamed; to admit to being gentle.

Say I often walked my path alone in winter's cold and barren places, say I played the loner's role, but please add, I was never lonely.

Spring

Still much to do.

Once, white and still
Gone to puddles and
Gathering streams

Conifers, once shrouded
Send their burdens with a clumpft
Exposing the green always there

Small cracks and translucences
Steadily replace the near featureless
Expanses of ice and now melting snow

Can it be, that we must now reciprocate
With activity and anticipation,
And that human failing—hope?

Still much to do.

--Dan Rogers--

Seen on Facebook

This Floors Me

OK.  Kate was right!  A painted shop floor IS pretty cool.  Except now, I’ll probably have to hire a receptionist, er something…

Dan Rogers

Who was that Masked Man?

Chuck,

I really enjoyed the Christmas Afternoon poem in last month's "Letters" and I loved the pictures. I'm not sure what lake that is, but I would love to be there. I wasn't clear on who the author is for that. Was it the same person as the letter above that one, Michael J. Beebe, or was it someone else? Somehow I missed the author's name. The pictures almost made me cry because I wanted to be there so bad.

I also enjoyed the pictures Dan Rogers sent of Californian and Star of India. I got to take a sail on Californian when I visited San Diego and I took the dockside tour of Star of India. It must have been an incredible experience getting to sail out on the water close to them and watch them sailing.

I also have to agree with Jackie Monies, I really enjoy Dan's writing as well.

Paul Cook

Paul: I can't believe I failed to credit that poem. It was written by: Gerry Lavoie - Chuck

Nesting Expedition Dinghy

Chuck,

I thought of you with this one. A project for fun, not profit, and very "Duckworksy" in the best way.

The Nesting Expedition Dinghy: A micro-cruiser just for fun

Cheers, --
John C. Harris
Chesapeake Light Craft
"The Best Boats You Can Build" https://www.clcboats.com https://www.facebook.com/chesapeakelightcraft

IF WALLS COULD TALK?

Walls can talk.

They can tell stories about the men who stood them up.
Men forgotten immediately.  Just a name on a paycheck.
Remembered only by the walls they framed, and plastered, and wired, and painted.

Walls know the truth.  They know the touch of a lacerated thumb.
They testify to the lifting, and the pulling, and the sweat.
They display a sense of craftsmanship no one will ever see, or care to know.

Walls are the only record.
Nobody could even guess how many nails, how many saw cuts.
A man thought enough to make them fit, to pull ‘em into square.  Next house.

Walls remember the hideous whine of the saw, the jolt of the hammer.
See?  There’s the pencil marks.  Sixteen on center.  Two nails to the stud.
Two strokes to the nail, keep moving.  Yes, it hurts.  So?

Walls are like a book.  Perhaps the only kept account.
Of the man who wadded into the snow with a McCulloch or a Stihl.
One undercut, One wedge cut.  Another one down.  Set the choker.

Walls never forget.  They carry the scars.
Driven to make them true, wracked to make them plumb.
The omnivorous bite of the auger, the thousand pierces of the drywall nail.

Sure, Walls can talk.

--Dan Rogers--