Why can't I have everything I want?

Sometimes, spending time in an idyllic, natural setting surrounded by the beauty and majesty of God's creation causes you to think deep thoughts, to ponder the large, unanswerable questions of life. Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? That sort of thing. To those epic questions that have baffled philosophers for millennia, my wife has added another, which has become perhaps the theme of our vacation....Why can't I have everything I want??

As she kayaks around the lake gazing at the various properties on the shoreline, she sees several that would be perfect for us to buy...NOW! But then she discovers that they don't have enough bedrooms, or bathrooms. Then she is disappointed to learn that they aren't for sale, or on the rare occasion when they are, they cost a billion dollars. She then looks at me with plaintive eyes and asks a simple yet profound question...why can't I have everything I want? WHY???!??!!

At first glance this would seem a question born of envy and greed. Not so! It is not a petulant demand, but rather a baffled stating of the obvious, more like an expression of confused resignation. She knows  why she can't everything, but still feels compelled to ask the question...to no one in particular. And it's not just about big expensive stuff. She asked the same question yesterday when trying to decide whether or not to buy the package of...well, I'm not exactly sure...

Apparently, this treat has some sort of historical significance to her, some childhood In Maine thing. I said, "Honey, that's 1200 calories you're looking at right there and if you ate all four of them, you would consume exactly 0% of the daily essential viatmins and minerals crucial to maintaining human life on earth." 

" But they are sooooo delicious! Why can't I have everything I want? Why!!!???

Later, we had to decide when to meet with our realtor contact here in Camden to talk about buying and/or renting a place for next summer. The decision boiled down to, do we see her in the morning or afternoon? If we go with the morning, we'll miss the warm sun on our dock and the morning is the best time for kayaking. But if we go with the afternoon, we'll have to take a shower at lunch time and we will miss our afternoon coffee and fluffer-nutter triscuits. Why can't I have everything I want???!!! WHY?

Last night after grilling steaks on the grill, we both went down to the dock and sat in the dark and talked. She informed me that she wasn't leaving on Saturday. She had decided to stay at Camplaba forever. I reminded her that the owners might object, that eventually she would run out of food and starve to death. Wouldn't she miss her kids? Our dog? Her friends? Me? She let out a long sigh. Then a couple minutes later...Why can't I have everything I want??!!

I attempted an answer..."Because if you got everything you wanted, you would start acting like a spoiled brat and you wouldn't have anything else to dream about, no more goals..."

" Would not."

Well, who can argue with that?

A Pahty-boat ride with a couple of old Mainahs!

Yesterday was about as perfect as a day can be, made especially so by some very nice neighbors. We were asked if we wanted to go for a ride in a pahty boat by a couple of retired Mainahs! Although this is our fourth visit to this lake, previously we have only explored it via kayak. But, thanks to our kind new friends, we got to see the entire lake...all five miles of its length. We had no idea how massive and grand this place is. Meguntecook meanders for miles in all directions and features hidden inlets, and several large, oddly shaped islands, some inhabited, some not. We saw a half a dozen loons on our boat ride and heard their magnificent song up close. The couple that was so nice to include us were the quintessential Maine couple. The man looked to be in his mid 70's, a lifelong Mainer who grew up in Belfast, right up the road. He had a twinkle in his eyes when he laughed that reminded me of someone I know but just couldn't place. The wife was a cantankerous busybody type who seemed to know everything about every homeowner on the entire lake. When we asked her to tell us the best restaurant in Maine, without hesitation she blurted out, "There arhh no good restaurants in Camden!" She was delightful!

Where our cabin sits, the lake is at its most narrow spot, probably only a thousand feet across from a public boat landing. I was up at 5:30 this morning and the lake was slick and silent. I made my coffee, then settled down to read the news on my iPad. At exactly 6:00, I heard voices from across the way, the calm water amplifying the spoken word so clearly I could hear every word. It was several people and they were all joking and laughing and terribly excited about something. Then I heard someone say, "OK, here we go!" Eight fully grown men and women then jumped in the water and began swimming in a slow, flowing line north, along the edge of the lake. It made me want to put on a parka just looking at them! A full forty five minutes later they returned, one by one, until all eight of them were standing on the dock laughing and talking like they had just gotten back from grocery shopping or something. 

Mainers are tough!

The happiest that my wife ever gets in life is probably when she is in a kayak on this lake. I can't even describe what it does to her. She is transformed in some bizarre almost mystical way. It energizes her, animates her conversation, brightens her. I enjoy kayaking, I really do, but not in the way that Pam does. It's her happy place. Both of us are going out in a minute for a morning jaunt in our bright red rented kayaks. Pam will be the one beaming...

Mornings in Maine

This is my throne chair for the week. I come down the rickety steps from the upstairs bedroom each morning, brew myself a cup of coffee, sit down in this chair and watch the lake wake up. At 6:15 it's as smooth as glass with a few whispy curls of fog dancing across the surface. A fair question might  be, why am I up at 6:15 on the first day of my vacation? The answer is, I don't want to miss anything.

Yesterday's journey was uneventful. We landed in Portland 3 and a half hours after leaving Richmond, on schedule. The rental car is a Chevy Cruze whose engine sounds like it is being powered by two monkeys chasing each other on a treadmill. Nevertheless, it got us safely to Camplaba at precisely 4 in the afternoon. The only surprise so far has been the low water level of the lake. Apparently, mid coast Maine has experienced a mini-drought since the water depth at our dock is three feet lower than it was last year. Other than that, the place hasn't lost any of the magic that has so beguiled us over the last ten years. It was ten years ago when we first discovered this lake and this cabin. Hard to believe.

Last night, after the obligatory grocery run to Hannaford, we stopped by Cappy's for dinner. I so love the place. The first meal I had there was in 2005. It was chilly out and the waitress suggested the clam chowder. They served it in a tin cup. It was the kind of delicious that lives a permanent rent-free existence in your mind...forever. It was so awesome, I bought a hat...

Ten years later, the chowder is still incredible and the hat is still one of my favorites. Of course, afterwards, we just had to get the blueberry-peach cobbler. It was so ridiculously rich that we will be forced to go for some sort of punishment walk/run today, and with a high temperature of 77 and sunny skies, I'm sure that will be exhausting!!

For now, here's one more picture. 

Going to Maine

I've got this handy widget thing on my cell phone where I can follow the weather conditions in several places. Every morning I check the weather in Nashville and Columbia because knowing whether it's sunny or cloudy there makes me feel somehow closer to my kids. Then I check in on Key West and Georgetown in the Cayman Islands because it's always nice to see the bright little suns and the number 88!

But this morning, I'm checking out the other permanent fixture on my weather widget...Camden, Maine. In the winter, I check out Camden and thank God Almighty that I don't live there. Whenever I'm feeling grumpy about the forecast in Richmond, I pull up Camden and instantly feel like a wimpy, crybaby. The residents of that beautiful harbor town are made of much sterner stuff than I. They would have to be to endure the month of February when the temperature never got out of the single digits and it snowed practically every day.

But, February is a distant memory this morning. http://m.weather.com/weather/tenday/04843. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, what you are looking at here is summer as it was meant to be when God invented it, not the sizzling, steamy mess it has become. (THANKS, OBAMA!!) High temperatures in the 70's with sunny skies, and crisp, almost chilly evenings are part of what make this place so enchanting. You haven't lived until you've eaten a two pound, $9 lobster fifteen minutes after it was unloaded from the boat at a wharf-side restaurant, in a long sleeve shirt...in August!

Pam and I will be spending the week at a lovely cabin on Lake Meguntecook, a five minute drive from Camden's harbor. There's a dock and a float and a couple of kayaks. The cabin has a long screened porch at the water's edge with big, comfortable chairs. You can try to read a book out there in the late afternoon, if you can manage to stop staring at the sunshine bouncing off the rippling water's surface. At night you can grill some steaks on the charcoal grill out in the yard or you can decide that it's just too much trouble and drive into town for some clam chowder at Cappy's. I will be posting photographs on Facebook, not intending to make anyone jealous, just to give you some idea of why Pam and I are so in love with the place.  

The cabin does have wifi, but it's not great. At least, that's the excuse I will give for not returning anyone's calls. When I'm there, I'm not any place else...

Missing the Point of Yesterday's Murders

The young, smiling blonde reporter and the young, burly, sweatshirted cameraman stood there interviewing some lady from Smith Mountain Lake. In an instant they were dead, murdered by a man with a gun, all the while filming his crime for dissemination on social media. Before the end of the day he too would be dead by his own hand. As the day dragged on, news began to trickle out about the murderer. We first learned that he was a disgruntled former employee of the station where the victims worked. We discovered that he had accused his former employers of sexism and racism. Finally a picture emerged. The killer was black and apparently gay, with a psychotic fondness for mass murderers. By last night, social media was doing what it does best, providing a platform for demagoguery. Politicians were doing what they do best, trying to score political points by hijacking a human tragedy to advance agendas. This is what we do in America. It goes something like this...

African Americans can generally kill other African Americans without attracting any media attention.

Whites can generally kill other whites without attracting any media attention either...as long as they don't do so in affluent neighborhoods.

If a white man kills a black man the chances are quite good that we will all hear about it, and depending on the circumstances, riots and Al Sharpton will soon follow.

If a black man kills a white man, there won't be riots or any Al Sharpton sightings, but if the local newspaper doesn't highlight the killer's race in 8 inch type across the front pages of every newspaper in America, white racists will scream "censorship!!" on Facebook for three days.

If any of the above scenarios include a police officer as the trigger man, all hell will break loose.

If young black males go on a killing spree, they will be described as being part of a lawless thug culture and generally speaking, beyond redemption.

If the killing spree is committed by a young white male, the news will soon be filled with psychological profiles seeking to discover what childhood trauma might have caused him to snap. In less than a year, Hollywood will make a movie about it.

In all of the scenarios above, if a handgun was used, we will be inundated with pleas from our politicians that "something must be done about gun violence." Then nothing will be done, because short of confiscating 250 million firearms off the streets, nothing can be done. Nothing, that is, that will actually do anything to stop gun violence. Lots can be done to make politicians feel important, though, so the struggle will continue.

When I heard the news yesterday and saw the pictures, all I thought was, "What the hell is wrong with people" But it's a question to which I already know the answer...human beings are inherently violent and sinful creatures. We are all hip-deep in the seven deadly sins of wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony. The most vain conceit of the past 250 years or so is the notion that the perfectibility of man can be a government project. If we can just pass enough laws, regulate enough behavior, eliminate enough injustice, then utopia will be attainable. But man will never perfect himself. Human redemption cannot be legislated. It is a personal, spiritual, internal endeavor. Government has a role, but it can never be the primary shaper of human behavior. That's a house built on sand. We hate each other because we have the gene for hatred. We kill each other because we are predisposed towards greed, envy and wrath. No statute can wash the stain away. 

So, for me, the fact that yesterday's killer was a gay black man and his victims were white, is as far away from the point as it is possible to get. 

Poor, Poor Hillary

 Hillary Clinton just can't catch a break these days. Things aren't going according to plan for Team Hillary, but they never seem to for the smartest woman in the world. Something always comes along to muck up the works and it's always because of some...man!

She agreed to marry the loathsome William Jefferson Clinton back in the day even though it meant having to relocate to Little-freaking-Rock, Arkansas. But she saw it as her best ticket to the big time and for awhile it paid off. Bill became governor then President of the United States! But along with the dizzying access to power came having to endure a series of bimbo eruptions. Time after time she had to submit to the public humiliation of being married to a serial philanderer. Monica was the worse. A twenty year old intern? How could he have been so foolish? But, endure it she did. A small price to pay for the big prize that lay at the end of the 2008 rainbow...first female President!!

Then, she gets denied by a uncredentialed hack first term Senator from Illinois. Once again passed over by a lesser qualified man, and a black man at that! The humiliation was complete, and devastating. How could the party have done this to her? It was her turn! This glass ceiling business was insidious and soooo unfair. But Barack was gracious. She became Secretary of State and immediately began dreaming of 2016 and the coronation to come.

Only, everything is going wrong. She's got all the money in the world, her only challenger is an 80 year old Socialist, and the Republicans are getting ready to nominate Donald Trump! And yet...Bernie is out there drawing twenty thousand people to hear him talk about wealth redistribution in a monotone, all anyone in the press wants to talk about is her e-mail server, and even when her joke writers gave her that awesome ad-lib about wiping her server clean with a rag, all anyone wanted to talk about was her hideous orange pants suit! And now, even Barack has betrayed her by giving crazy Joe Biden his blessing to run against her!! Betrayed yet again by another MAN!! 

If one didn't know better, one might suspect that the Democratic Party has a problem with strong females. Talk about your war on women? Poor, poor Hillary.

What's in a Picture?

The best part about a wedding is the unique opportunity it provides to take pictures. How many other times do the people you love and care about the most all gather in one place dressed in their best clothes? Well, outside of the occasional funeral...it's always at a wedding. Besides, ever notice how nobody ever takes pictures at a funeral? 

So, this one is especially wonderful for me. From left to right there's Jon, my wonderful son-in-law who so far through year one of his marriage hasn't done anything stupid. Then there's Kaitlin, my beautiful and enormously talented daughter who gave the most touching, beautifully delivered toast imaginable. Then comes Rick and Linda Stroup, father and mother of the bride and dear friends for over 20 years. They are those rare friends who over time transcend the friend designation and somehow become family. The bride, Jessica, like a daughter to me since she was three years old, beautiful, sweet and possessed of a devotion and loyalty to my son and daughter stronger than most natural siblings. Andy, the groom,...the new guy. He seems fine, of course, all new brooms sweep clean so... But, seriously, he clearly adores Jess and I couldn't be happier for both of them. My wife was simply radiant at this affair. I look at her sometimes and wonder how it possible that I could have gotten so lucky. During the salsa dancing lessons after the ceremony, she lit up the dance floor...when I wasn't stepping on her feet. Then Patrick, who these days seems the happiest I have ever seen him, thanks in no small part to the girl to his left, Sarah. The two of them drove 8 hours from Nashville, made it to Durham just in time for the wedding, then had to leave the hotel at 5 am the next morning to make it back to Nashville in time for a 1 o'clock Nashville Symphony Chorus rehearsal. That's some of that devotion and loyalty I was talking about earlier between these three.

So, everything was beautiful, and went off without a hitch. I got to spend a weekend with family and the dearest of friends. Worth every penny.