It Doesn’t Have To Be Spectacular….

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Yellow Head Jawfish out of it’s hole.

Although I didn’t get out diving in July, I did make it on Sunday for an early birthday celebration. It was a bit bouncy going out, but while we were underwater on the reef, a rain shower swept through and calmed the winds down. Watching the rain come down when you’re underwater is an interesting sight. There weren’t many people on the boat, so the crew and I think maybe one person were able to be in the covered part so they were sheltered.

We did two shallow genuine wrecks. By that, I mean they weren’t deliberately deployed to become an artificial reef. The first, City of Washington, was  somewhat famous in its day because it was in the port of Havana when the USS Maine exploded. The City was the primary rescue ship to bring the surviving crew back. It was later converted to a barge though and met with a very ordinary end when it ran aground on the reefs off Key largo. Anyway, as a genuine wreck, it’s all broken apart, but is a thriving artificial reef. On the second site, we went to one which actually has two names. For many years, people referred to it as Mike’s Wreck with the idea it was a rum runner back in the days of Prohibition. Some underwater archeology folks did some cataloging and research though and explained from things like the type of rivets, it couldn’t have been the kind of boat everyone thought. They determined it was the Hanna Belle (might have the spelling wrong), a British vessel. It, too, is quite broken up, but marine life that takes hold doesn’t care if it doesn’t look like a ship any longer. Coral and sponges grow just as well on a jumble of wood as they do if the structure is still intact. Little fish can hide and bigger fish can cruise around looking for a meal.

We didn’t see any of the “big stuff” like eels, turtles, rays, or sharks, but there were plenty of fish and a few of my favorites. I was able to find a juvenile puffer and stay with it for a while. They tend to dart away as quickly as possible, so that was a treat.

 

 

When It Comes to Subplots…..

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One of the interesting aspects of writing is working through the use and type of subplots to include in a novel. In some cases an author has already developed them as part of the main plot and it’s a matter of how much detail to include and the sequencing of them. At other times they may literally emerge as the main plot is being crafted. When writing a series, it can be a subplot is created specifically to serve as either a main plot later or more often, it’s to continue to fully develop a character/characters. The relationship between characters is probably the most common subplot because the entire range of family, friends, romance, and even enemies is available. Geography, culture, history, activities come in to play as well. My scuba-themed novels of course enable me to describe the underwater realm we love and provide either adventure for the character to pursue and/or pose a danger. As I have mentioned in previous posts, the reason I’m adamant about being technically correct when I write about something like treasure hunting is because I want readers to feel a part of whatever experience I put the characters through even though it is fiction.

Metaphorically speaking, subplots serve as curves, hills, and scenery along the trip of the story. In some cases, a subplot can appeal to a reader almost as much as the main plot. Someone ask me the other day what new book I was working on and I had to confess I’m hung up a bit with trying to create an extra subplot to weave in. It may be one of those situations where I need to simply work on the main plot and subplots I’ve already decided on and see if anything else emerges/unfolds during the process. It’s not the infamous “writer’s block” that can cause angst – it’s more like deciding to tackle another part of a puzzle until you can sort out that mass of pieces in one spot.

And Another Good Cause…..

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I often do a post after I submit an article for the paper when it comes to non-profit groups. Almost everyone who writes for our weekly paper is a stringer, but we do have more-or-less “beats”. It’s no surprise I focus on the military, but also non-profits, certain aspects of education, and generally heart-warming things. I do, at times, get the heart-breaking as well, but thankfully those are less frequent.

In this case, there was a piece I intended to do months ago, but other topics kept bumping it back since it wasn’t time-sensitive. Among our tourist attractions, we have the Everglades Alligator farm with air boat rides, plenty of gators and so forth. When the kids were here right after Christmas, we thought two-and-a-half for Amelia was probably still a bit young for that, but we also have the Everglades Outpost Refuge. It is actually on the way to the other and I thought it would be more age-appropriate. A plus was that before son was diverted by his passion for dance, he intended to be a wildlife ecologist and work with restoring animal habitats. So off they went and had a wonderful time. Their description of the place was far different from what I was expecting and I mentally filed away a story.

Anyway, back in 1991, a couple who had some acreage in Redland officially established an animal refuge since in truth, they’d been doing that in an unofficial capacity. The founder had his first pet alligator around age six and there are both odd laws and illegal activities that cause non-native animals to be in a situation to need rescue. Basically, when the Florida Wildlife agents conduct a raid and find something like a tiger, they need somewhere to put it. In other cases, there are native animals hurt that need rehabilitation. The website for the Outpost has all sorts of stories, photos, and some video clips. https://www.evergladesoutpost.org

In essence, they are on “speed dial” for the Florida Wildlife agents and they are linked with other groups around the state. The resident camel that certainly can’t be released into the Florida wild was at another place in Florida and the owner was having too many issues with him. The three gray wolves (mostly wolf with a little bit of dog) were born into captivity, yet again, they aren’t native to Florida. They’ll be in residence unless someone else is willing to adopt them. As I mention in the article I did for the paper last week, there is never a shortage of good causes to support. This is one I can vouch for if helping wild animals is something you care about.

Another Musician From Our Time….

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Ah, Aretha Franklin, whom I never heard in concert, but did admire. A voice lost to us as have been others in the past few years. Now, as I mentioned a few months ago, we did go see Jimmy Buffet and the Eagles together in concert which was amazing. In fact, last night we went to one of our regular restaurants that has this one guy who plays and sings on Thursday. He takes requests, but mostly does 60s, 70s and 80s with the mix of Croce, Fogelberg, Atlantic Rhythm Section, etc.,. He was good and those songs do bring back memories.

I have often said you know you’re getting older when you are in a music section and look at the top songs unable to tell what the title is from the name of the band. Or you don’t even bother with the Top Tunes stations and instead have Classic Rock or something similar as your pre-programmed stations. C&W is a little different because in general, the top selling new artists aren’t terribly far afield from those of the 70s and beyond. Granted, you go back to the 50s and there will be some noticeable changes.

At any rate, The Queen Of Soul did give us some great songs and I say Rest in Peace with all respect.

The Darker Role….

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I caught the last part of “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” the other day and it caused me to reflect on that as a different kind of role for John Wayne. Not of him as a rough-tough-don’t-mess-with-me cowboy, but also not as the unequivocal good guy in the white hat. I’m not certain that I saw every single John Wayne movie, but certainly many of them whether he played cowboy, military man, or detective. Even though there weren’t too many comedies along the way in his career, I still get a chuckle from “McClintock” and “Eldorado” is sprinkled with humorous segments.

I don’t know enough about the background of the movie to know how Wayne was approached about the role. Perhaps the fact the true “guy in the white hat” (Jimmy Stewart) was unable to adequately cope with the brutish Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) appealed to Wayne. I also don’t recall why Wayne’s character was willing to let Valance bully people since there were a number of tough-guy roles in Wayne’s movies where he would always plan to take on the bad guy and simply had to find a way to bring about the bad guy’s demise. Not “getting the girl” was another deviation from so many of this movies. The sacrifice Wayne makes to allow the woman he has loved and planned to marry was a powerful theme of how love triangles play out with little chance of all three individuals coming away happy.

The broader theme of how force can sometimes only be met with greater force was artfully done. Despite the fact Stewart made the decision to confront Valance in the violent way he had declared he wouldn’t do, he was able to believe somehow he had miraculously prevailed. Having thought he had actually killed Valance caused him guilt which he then wrestled with. Wayne’s choice in revealing the truth to Stewart was initially rejected and then Stewart accepted perpetuating the lie of the killing was the correct thing to do under the circumstances. The complexities of the movie can still generate philosophical discussions.

 

Not What I Was Expecting…..

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Hubby and I will be celebrating our 30th anniversary in Nov. For those who have followed the blog for a while, we did the great big celebration of the 25th with the Australia trip. We didn’t intend to do anything nearly like that this time, but I was surprised when I talked to Hubby.

Let me give a little background first. We were married at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland (that’s a sub-post of Aberdeen Proving Grounds). We split our honeymoon with four days in Nagshead, NC on the beautiful Outer Banks, then two days in Charlottesville, VA. Although I normally travel to Louisiana for my father’s birthday the first week of Oct, I’m actually going to see him next month instead. Son Dustin’s birthday is Oct 25th and the studio where he is Ballet Master always has their Fall show with the older students right around his birthday. We decided to do that this year and since the latter part of Oct is close to Nov 13th, I thought we would go ahead and celebrate our anniversary by taking a few days somewhere near D.C. I was expecting Hubby to say, “Let’s go back to Charlottesville”, or maybe even down to the Outer Banks or perhaps over to Maryland’s Eastern Shore or up in the Poconos. Nope – New York City. Say what? We have occasionally mentioned that as one of those places one should probably visit. I have basically seen NYC many times from the air, but spent only three nights there over the decades when flights were delayed and was always at an airport hotel. I was usually in a state of exhaustion/frustration with no thought of going “into the city”. Hubby has been twice for brief business trips. Now, I’m not going to say the fact he is very much into photography and one of the “Meccas” of photographers is in NY was the only reason he latched onto the idea. After all, we do enjoy food and that time of year the weather should still be pleasant.

We’ll only be there a few days and don’t plan to wear ourselves out. I think we’ll probably take the train up from DC rather than fly. I will also take comfortable walking shoes.

Tempests in Teapots…..

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Notwithstanding the naive factor of the question, “Why can’t we all just get along?”, a significant portion of the past two weeks has been spent caught up in situations where that is a central question. The simplistic bottom line answer is, “because of human nature”, but the point of “civilized behavior” is in millennia past we made the decision to try and seek resolutions with “win-win” or at least consensus. For those who have not yet read, To Play On Grass Fields, credibly managing this theme is part of what took me twenty years to write what is a very different book for me that was inspired by my time in Haiti during Operation Uphold Democracy in the closing months of my Army Career.

Anyway, as I have mentioned, my specialties for our weekly community newspaper does not include controversy. In a rare agreement (and really more to do with timing), I was pulled into a story where a local business through no fault of their own was thrust into a swirl of controversy. It had to do with a reporter most definitely for another paper sensationalizing a sensitive topic. The reporter allegedly returned and agreed certain phrases in the article might have been inappropriate. I hope everything does calm down. http://www.southdadenewsleader.com/eedition/page-a/page_89d65bb5-9dfa-5a89-ae1e-1eb14dffb8de.html

Okay, on to something far less nationalized. Of the different non-profit boards I sit on, a long-simmering issue erupted in one of them. In trying to draw more support for “Position A” than “Position B”, a group of people supporting “A” found what they thought was a loophole to involve some of us who normally would not be involved. The end result was a great deal of intense emotion being stirred up. A significant amount of time has been expended and it looks as if perhaps a reasonable resolution is in the works. I happen to have a greater degree of background into the controversy than one of the new individuals in the organization. He asked me to explain the background. I gave him the “short version” and he said he really wanted to try and understand. As I finished the
long version”, I used the worn phrase of, “It’s complicated.” He softly said, “No it isn’t. It’s pride and miscommunication.” Indeed, and doesn’t that so often apply?

 

 

What Spirit Does……

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I would say I can’t believe nearly an entire week slipped past me, but there’s been a fair amount of turmoil swirling around the non-profits I work with and some other obligations. The irony of course is this is “the slow time of year” for a number of organizations/individuals. As I’ve explained in previous posts, that doesn’t hold true for Hubby and me.

Anyway, in writing for our weekly community paper, “heartwarming” is one of the areas I specialize in. A couple of weeks ago, I ran across a Facebook post from one of our council members who has a great non-profit of, This Is For The Kids. It’s another one of those that began quietly and small and they’ve steadily grown it. Not beyond local size, but still quite respectable. They do different things throughout the year, but their big event is an annual Rib Fest. In the summer, they select 5 non-profits that mostly (or exclusively) support kid causes. The proceeds from the Oct Rib Fest is then split among the selected five. So, the founder is always on the lookout for other situations and he ran across one a few weeks ago that I then picked up on for a story. It was the the lead piece in the July 20th edition (http://www.southdadenewsleader.com/eedition)

The summary is a young man who was a very promising athlete had swapped from track and field into football. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind he would be a college star with a decent shot at the pros. That was before the automobile wreck where his two best friends were killed and he was left paralyzed from the waist down. You can imagine the impact on the families and fellow students. This is a “small town” despite a rise in population and the track and field coach for one of the other high schools knew of the young man’s athleticism. No one here is involved in adaptive sports, but the coach was sure Isaac would have the ability if he was willing to make the effort.

They worked together for him to focus on wheelchair races, discus, javelin, and shot-put. Not only has he excelled, he is being invited to be a motivational speaker by some notable area athletes. In raising money for him to be able to go to the Junior Olympics last week, he brought home more medals and made more contacts. The hope is he can get a scholarship to one of the colleges/universities where they have an adaptive sports program.

 

The Year in France, Part III…

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If by chance, you’re a first time visitor to the blog, Welcome, and do pop back and read Parts I and II for context.

The simple fact is like most not-quite-eighteen year olds, I did not recognize how much my ten months in France would change me, nor did it happen all at once. I mentioned previously I had to take an American History course by correspondence for my final credit to graduate from high school. In those days before computers and internet, “snail mail” was it. What none of us knew was the predilection for strikes in France (well, a number of European countries). That included the postal service and due to frequent delays in overseas mail, I was actually only able to complete half a credit instead of the full one. There was discussion about how we were going to handle this.

Now, “follow the bouncing ball” as they say. The town where I lived was predominantly agricultural around, but was a “college town” with Northwestern State of Louisiana. It was hardly a major university, but  because the primary public schools in town actually sat on campus grounds, there was a strong student teaching program. Additionally, for high school students, in junior and senior years, one could take selected freshman courses and receive credit without an actual grade. There was also the standard option to “test out” of certain classes. Once again, I don’t know how many conversations took place, but in the end, the decision for me to enter my freshman year without having graduated from high school was an interesting arrangement. I had, after all, been in attendance at an accredited university. I was given full credit for those courses and I tested out of two other freshman classes – one of which was American History. I therefore began college with almost enough hours to be a sophomore. At some point very late in that year, I received a certificate of completion (I think it was called) for high school. I suppose in the strictest definition, I skipped my senior year of high school, but I’ve never been entirely sure of the correct administrative category. In any case, I graduated from college not long before my 21st birthday.

 

The Year in France, Part II…..

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Okay, this continues the explanation of my year – well, really ten months – at the university in Angers, France. After a somewhat circuitous routing flying Icelandic Air, our group arrived and we spent the first afternoon in Paris. A couple of staff members from the university met us with a bus. Despite the jet lag, we did get a quick tour of some of the highlights and one would think I could recall my very first meal, but I don’t. As I mentioned, I was the youngest of our group and when we later met the students from Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s, that also held true. Everyone was basically indulgent with me, although in addition to being the youngest, I was also the one with the least French background. Most had of course taken multiple French classes, although my month in Canada had helped. In fact, my first day of class with our professor, she asked why I spoke French with a Canadian accent. Naturally, I wasn’t aware I was speaking with an accent.

Anyway, the program was set up as semi-immersion in the sense our professors did not speak English to us. You could choose to take this even further by living with a French family rather than in the dorm, but I wasn’t ready to go that far. My lack of French background did place me in the lower level class so only one other student in our Louisiana group was with me. As I mentioned in the last post, this part of the university was designed specifically for foreigners to learn French. We had students from Denmark, Lebanon, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, and probably another country or two. All the classes were the equivalent of college freshman level. We had a number of field trips as well as classes and we were able to travel on weekends and holidays. It was about a three hour train trip to Paris and so it was not uncommon to do so. I tended to not go off as much as some of the others, but after a while, one of the French girls invited me to dinner with her family and I went there maybe once a month. She was the only one who spoke English so it was good practice.

English was not widely spoken in town and so transactions in stores, at the post office, etc. did sometimes result in either misunderstandings or protracted time to accomplish something.

As for food, what a difference it was. Aside from the fact I never thought about eating horse, (and didn’t have that very often), it was doing things like learning to eat fruit with a knife and fork. Peaches are not all that difficult – an apple is a different matter. At the time, I wasn’t a coffee drinker and that’s one of my regrets. I had a lot of hot chocolate and hot tea.The experience quite simply changed my life and when I returned home, there was a bit of, “How do you get them back on the farm after they’ve seen Paree?” (Old WWI song for those who may not know of it). Also, as it turned out, my high school diploma and college credits were unexpectedly impacted. That will be the third part to this tale.