Some kind of wonderful

I don't need a whole lots of money,

I don't need a big fine car.

What to say about golf

   Golf is for people who can’t play baseball or some other real sport, is what I used to say.  Now, having listened to many friends and acquaintances talk about their golfing, it seems to me that golf is almost entirely for people who can’t golf. 

Call me Ishmael

   All of the restaurants in all of the seaside towns around Boston have entryways with racks of brochures that are full of pamphlets advertising sturdy little ships that go out from the nearby harbor toward some rolling ocean meadow where the captain knows the whales will be.  The pamphlets of course have great pictures of whales – the great heads of whales breaching, the great backs of whales rolling and diving, the great flukes of whales that somehow make better, more iconic pictures than their faces.    

   And then we finally go – driving into P-town from our rental in Truro, cruising out of the harbor, thinking we will be happy if we see a whale or two.  The captain and the naturalist assure us that we’re in for much better than that.  

   Indeed.  Minke whales at first, so close to shore.  Terrific whales, which roll around us but – as is their habit – neither breach nor show their tales. 

   And then, farther out, at the edge of Stellwagen Bank, we encounter the tremendous humpback whales – sometimes alone, sometimes in groups, rising, rolling, spewing, diving and finally, as we are about to head back, breaching again and again. 

   The naturalist admits that the experts have no idea why whales do this.  It seems not to be a mating ritual, or display of aggression, or anything else that correlates.  So maybe, I’m thinking, it’s just fun.

Sofas, end tables and bowls

   My father, like a lot of fathers I suppose, had his particular place in the living room, on the right side of the sofa, next to an end table which had a good lamp for reading Time or the Rutland Herald, and which had room enough to put down the bowl from a late snack – ice cream or maybe cereal.  He was that sort of man, with that sort of life, who looked forward to something in the evening in a bowl, instead of a glass. 

A bit much

   I have said out loud once that this little bit of writing I do comes from a need to expend some creative energy, which is true.  I have not also said that sometimes, when there is an idea pushing itself around in your head, that it is rather like sexual energy, something that pushes forward like a wave, gaining ground, rising forward, until it finally breaks apart and seeps away, bringing just a little bit of peace.  That seems a bit much, no?

The house that everyone owns

   Take a ride through these New England towns.  On Main Street, just off the village green, you can find at least one great, commanding house with gables and porches that run the length of the house both west and south and seem to hold the sun all day.  It is the type of house the town takes pride in, for its cool white elegance in the green summer, for its rich warm glow on black winter nights.  It is the kind of house that dresses up for Christmas, with electric candles in each window, and delicate white lights on the evergreen shrubs in the yard.  It is the type of house the people in the village speak about as if they all own it together.  And so, in a sense, they do.

Slow dancing

   Rachel lacks the enzyme.  Turns bright red and warm when she has the least bit to drink.  Like her mother.

   It takes me back to college dances.  Slow-dancing with a woman who has had something to drink, whose body is flushed and damp from the alcohol and the not-so-slow-dancing.  A hot cheek pressed against yours.  You move your hand to another spot on her back.  And you think, among other things, play another slow song.