After dinner last night, we strolled down to the lighthouse upon noticing a bright moon rising above. The full Corn moon will appear on Sunday, so it isn’t quite round yet. Still, it was stunning. As is true with most every vision of grandeur, photos don’t do it justice, but they do form a starting point for the imagination.
I took this monochromatic shot in auto mode, but plan to play with manual mode to get a sharper image. We are all constantly learning on this journey called life.
In the dark, quiet hours of the night, I awoke and listened to a soft rain falling on the still harbor. Those are the peaceful hours of silence, and the cleansing moisture from the skies were drifting down upon this special place. I looked forward to a pretty panorama I knew that cleansing would bring with the rising sun.
Bapa and I were excited to take his sailboat STARA for a sail around the harbor at some point today. She takes letters of Jim’s wife Mary (Mimi), his oldest daughter Stacey, and his youngest daughter Sara in her name. This is the 40th season in Scituate harbor for STARA, with Jim at her helm probably 90% of the time. He bought her for $1,200 dollars in 1986. We estimated that the operating costs when only considering purchase price turns out to be about 8.2 cents per day! She has been well, well worth that. I have been sailing her with Jim for over 30 years now myself. Time marches on. For many years, we have been trailer-sailors, launching her and then pulling her home after sailing. It is awesome that she is now in a slip, and taking her out couldn’t be easier. Our journey began under an overcast sky and ended under an abundance of sunny blue skies. Weaving in and out of all the moored boats of this pretty harbor is so much fun!
I took a drive through Cohasset and thought of my buddy Chip after sailing. He and I would take the same drive every time I visited, stopping at several memorable locations along the way. We would always go to the end of Parker Avenue where we could sit and look across at Bassings Beach. Pictured below is one of two cottages over there. His family had the other one, about 100 yards to the right through the reeds, for two weeks every summer. I moved in and out with them for every year of my youth. During the middle weekend, they hosted a lobster bake with more lobsters than you can imagine. His Mom “Puz” taught me to love every bit of a steamed lobster during those memorable bakes.
I took the drive alone today. It will be three years since we lost Chip on Sep 16th. Chip is the first person I met when we moved to Cohasset in 1978, and we became best of friends. He had a heart of gold, and I learned a lot abut being a good person from him over the decades. I miss our drives and our talks, but I did get to chat with him while adding a Navy crested flag by his headstone.
The first Friday of the month, there is a fish fry at the local church, so we joined Mimi and Bapa and walked over. The food was delicious, and there was live music from an incredibly talented couple. They had us singing along to several great songs from the 60’s.
We capped our evening with ice cream while listening to more live music at the bandstand by the harbor. Life in New England. 😍🇺🇸😍
Today started at the “high tops” near the Harbormaster’s Office, where we met Dave, Mimi & Bapa for coffee. It was a beautiful morning, sunny and 70 with a light breeze. We chatted for over an hour while breathing in the refreshing salt air.
Stacey and I arrived at home to find kids selling lemonade and cookies. Impossible to resist!
After watching the Hoos 🏈 lose to NC State, I went out for a paddle. It was very,very windy, so I didn’t go too far. Small whitecaps in the harbor make paddling into the wind quite a chore.
As with the names of beach houses, I love to see the names of boats too. I had a 22 foot O’Day sailboat named LIBERTY CALL, named for everyone’s favorite announcement after pulling into port on a Navy Warship. I’ll share just one with you here, as I think it is apropos of my attitude since returning to where I grew up. We all lived them for real once, and a few times since.
Stacey bought me water shoes yesterday for $3 at Walmart. They make walking on the rocks to launch the kayak so much easier! Thanks Stace! That was the best $3 I can remember. Though, that first cold beer when pulling into port on those Navy ships is worth almost any price as well!😉
Time to grill some swordfish steaks!
