POST

Tuesday May 22, 2007
Today is too much like yesterday. This is the part of the passage where we long to see
land and our thoughts turn to love ones. Pardon me for some thoughts that are not news worthy.

Everyone has a dream they will achieve in some way in their lives. Your dream starts when
you are very young and it is in your first memories as a child. Maybe it starts earlier as
in your genes or from experiences, things you heard while in your mother's womb. When you
live as long as I have and have time like now to reflect and sort out you life in the
middle of nowhere, you realize you are living your dream.

My first memory of my dream occurred when I was about 4 years old living at 3925 Milton
Street in West University Place, Houston, Texas. My whole world was the small, very small
wood frame, house and 80 by 120 foot lot the house was on. My parents repeatedly told me,
"don't you dare leave your yard", and so I did not. I spent long hard to fill summer
afternoons under a big "China Berry" tree in my back yard, all my toys spread out on the
ground. I had not met any other of the neighborhood children; they probably could not
leave their yard either. My only companions where flies; they persistently irritated me as
they buzzed around landing on my face, neck and ears. I knew flies could go anywhere they
wanted to go; they could leave the yard. I imagined flies would travel to distant places
my parents talked about, like the Islands in the Pacific Ocean. My father was in the air
force on Tinean, an island in the Marianas where the B29s carrying the atomic bombs took
off to strike Japan.

This fantasy grew in the next few years to include blue ocean, blue sky and bright
sunshiny beaches. Did I tell you my favorite color is blue? Why these daydreams were in
color I do not know. Every picture in those days was black and white. I met friends who
lived in homes next to mine. Our parents allowed us to expand our world to THE BLOCK. This
was great because if we could get a nickel from our mother we were allowed to go to JMH
Food Market on a corner of our block for a 5¢ coke, 5¢ ice cream, 1¢ gum, 5¢ chips, or 1¢
candy. On the way to the store we walked over an oyster shale path bare foot through a
vacant lot. One day we claimed the lot as ours, no one else seemed to want it, and started
a project to dig a hole to China; it seemed to be the shortest way, thus my first thoughts
of route planning to the other side of the world. After days of digging we gave up and my
thoughts turned to sailing as a practical way to get around the world, thus my first
thoughts of an alternate route plan. In those days, if someone flew on an airplane you
were almost viewed as an astronaut or at least you must be in the air force. From then to
now my dream was a sailing adventure, perhaps to go around the world. My the picture in my
dream was a billowing white sail on a sleek boat slicing through blue water, covered by a
lighter blue sky filled with puffy white clouds. Much just like today in the middle of
nowhere.

When I was 6 my limits expanded to 3 blocks to the school, West University Elementary, I
walked every morning through the lot (wearing my concourse tennis shoes), past JMH, looked
both ways crossing the street where the whole next block was a Baptist Church, across
another busier street to the play ground of the school. One morning as I walked across the
play ground my eyes fixed on a large silver coin, maybe a pirates treasure carelessly
lost. Disney movies at that time introduced me to pirates. I claimed it as my first found
treasure to be used to acquire a ship to sail the world in. I still have this coin.

Many years pasted through school, marriage, children, grandchildren and carrier my
daydreams always turned to the goal of an adventure. At 25 I experienced the picture in my
mind. Living in Hermosa Beach in Los Angeles I had white sand, blue ocean, blue sky and
puffy white clouds. My dream was touched more closely when I learned to sail and scuba
dive. Racing between King Harbor and Catalina Island was as close as I came in those days
to a Pacific Island adventure. I loved it.

I am a very lucky man because I am now living my dream. Bella Donna is sea worthy and fast
enough to allow me to live the boyhood dream, but still return to my life and the ones I
love so much instead of bobbing around in the ocean. I am driven to sharing my dream first
with my family and then with all my friends. I have been very blessed.

God Bless Bella Donna.