March 2021 - bc-bog-trotter.com

Last day of the tulips. There is nothing more beautiful than a bunch of faded flowers.

There is a British actor on YouTube who calls himself Johnathon Pie. Most folks are convinced that he is a genuine reporter who has had enough of the smarmy syrup we have come to expect from our media. He delivers scathing abuses of politicians in general and I love his acid, ranting satire. He also attacks journalists at times and “keyboard warrior” is a term he employed which I thought was wonderfully descriptive. Am I one myself? Dunno? I’m just trying to do my bit to persuade some folks to ask questions and get off their dufus to go see a bit more of their world; and someone else’s as well.

Command center of the keyboard warrior. This is the setting up process of a wonderful new tiny printer, excellent for my summer ahead living in my tiny camper.
Thank you Jill.

The paperboy still comes by. Downtown Ladysmith
Say no more.

The leaning fence. Take that as you will.

The widow’s window continued to look out on the harbour long after she was last seen.

Image irresistible. It’s a lovey wee town. Next hanging at noon.

The crime had to do with obscenity. I assume this is supposed to be funny. In the quest for attention it is an ultimate statement of low self-esteem. Does mom let him/her park in front of the house?

You will see some changes with this blog (number 335) and there will be a few more modifications to come. The blog has now been renamed DRIFTWORD.

The url seafirechronicles.com will still get you there and now so will driftword.ca. I reckoned that the old handle is misleading as the boat it was named after is two years behind me. There is no point in grieving about the loss of my beloved home, temple and magic carpet. I will miss her dearly forever but I also repeatedly write that you cannot steer a steady course by looking back at your wake. It is time to look ahead to the days I have left. Life has no rewind buttons and there is no point in musing about that which cannot be changed.

There will undoubtedly be another serious boat in my future, life for me just does not seem whole without a life afloat. However, I have discovered there is adventure out of sight, sound and smell of the sea and in fact I found a new passion deep in the desert. Oddly, wonderfully I am filled with the same sense of wholeness which I know when out of sight of land. Perhaps a happy compromise will be in a place like Baja where life is lived on an edge between ocean and desert.

I was delighted to discover this center light in a local Tapas Bar. Simple and very cool.

Another dramatic change is about to be my location. I am entertaining the idea of a summer’s employment at a place called Lake Koocanusa. It sounds like the title of a bad movie with someone like John Candyis a real location located in the East Kootenays and the border between British Columbia and Montana. There is a long man-made reservoir on the Kootenay River which extends northward 150 kilometres from the Libby Dam in the US. There is a need there for an old seadog with a wide skillset and so I go. Apparently the job begins with a visit to a pig farm in Central Alberta where sit some old wooden boats to survey. Adventure or ordeal, it’s always up to us to control our attitude. The gods have put me in front of an open window and ready or not, it’s boots and saddles. The adventure continues. Yeehaw, kerplunk.

Woody Lives. A new flock of bark owls is appearing with spring.

Meanwhile here at home an old friend and his dear wife dropped by on their boat. Jimmy and I have been been buddies for thirty-nine years. We’ve laughed and cried together, shared some huge tragedies and triumphs, pissed each other off at times nearly to the death and are still friends after all these years. Jimmy is a talented singer and songwriter among many other things and we have just completed our first music video. Of course I see all the flaws, but initial reviews are very favourable. Thus encouraged we will hone our skills in future productions. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7wGZcXO0hg

An old sailor finds a job holding up a wall at the corner of Seemore and Didless in Ladysmith, “Where everyone is over the hill.”

And so I’m off to the mainland before I’m quarantined on Vancouver Island as the numbers of Covid varient infections seem to be on an accelerating “Uptick.” Oh the words we’d never heard a year ago.

Happy Hour at the Eagles Club. Tie your horses out back.

Sadly I must leave my beloved pal Jack behind on my next adventure. He is just too old to travel. How can a crusty old man come to love any dog so very much?

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
― Andre Gide

A sign of spring. What beauty in just one little crocus!

There seems to be signs for every occasion and every level of stupidity. Here’s one I saw recently which I liked. “I don’t like being old so it doesn’t take much to piss me off.” On a T shirt I read “the older I get the less life sentence means to me.” A caption on a short video I just watched says, “Everybody wants to be the captain until it’s time to do captain stuff.” That’s certainly been my experience. And then there are really dumb-assed road signs which say things like “Be Prepared To Stop.” Are there really folks out there who aren’t? There probably are!

Name this object and win two, shipping not included. It is a gadget I conjured up to allow the changing of a through-hull valve on a friend’s boat. I chickened out at the last moment when too many “What ifs” began to shout.

In a farmer’s boneyard.. Maybe this old delivery van had a second life as a hippy home on wheels. She’s a ‘Moho no mo!’

Remember this? The Dead Dog’s Memorial Christmas Tree? After the season passed the photos and decorations were removed. Now some bastard has cut off all the lower limbs!

The recent Virtual Fisher Poets Gathering went extremely well. I’m amazed at the talent which coordinated all the performers from around the planet and threaded them together like pearls on a string. Kudos to all and let’s hope we don’t have to do it again. Here’s the link to my little gig, I am on right at the 1:18 hour mark.

Following is a little piece I wrote in tribute to the wonder of it all.

Fisher Poets 2021

I sit mesmerized in front of my computer screen

absorbing all I can of the lights and depths of musicians and poets,

my peers, my muses, my confessors and affirmers, my fellows

from around the long curves of the planet

who are possessed by the common bond of sea-bound masochism

and the thrust and sway and plunge of living water beneath our keels.

This strange gathering was all made possible by the discovery of the electron

and the spreading wake of technology

and now we take for granted our instant ability to see the universe

through the pinprick camera lense of our computer screen.

Try to explain this to someone fifty years ago,

We would have been considered as mad as a hootchie.

I watch as a senior fisherman named Gary reads to the world

from the confines of a spare room and uttered wisdoms

you only gain from the peace and terror long-lived at sea.

Through the open door of that room

I can see a lady, presumably his wife, in another room,

sitting in front of a window

through which I see lights of other buildings in the night.

She is busy with her own endeavors

painting a picture perhaps or maybe knitting

I feel very much an intruder in that home

and I marvel at the different worlds

so far apart

even though we touch mutually oblivious to our passing.

This particular poet lives in old Port Hadlock

A place I know well

I have anchored there on more than one long winter night

sheltering from a brisk Sou-easter

in front of the wooden boat school and a fine quaint restaurant

and who can resist a place with names like ‘The Old Alcohol Plant?’

I feel a familiar ache as I imagine the gentle rumble of

anchor chain on bottom, the flicker of my oil lamps.

I hear the echoes of my own addiction to the sea

duplicated in the words and tunes of my fellows

I am in the affirming company of fellow mariners

who I’m sure all long to reach out and

draw each other into firm embrace

but we sit safe in our homes

like goldfish in a bowl

only an arm’s length away.

This old wooden liveaboard boat burned to the waterline a week ago in Dogpatch Bight. A woman died. Jack and I had met her, she seemed nice. Today is the only one you have.

Well, like the little pig stuttered, “Tha, tha, that’s all folks.” There are some big (to me) changes coming which will upgrade this blog to make it more suitable for plans ahead.

You’ll be the first to know.

“All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that’s an alibi for my ignorance.”
― Will Rogers

Month: March 2021

Keyboard Warrior

Signs