Author: Vic Socotra

Life & Island Times: Beach & Bonaventure

With the Empire’s cooperative spring weather and good fortune, we took W’s mother out to lunch along Tybee Island’s North Beach. It was a splendid way to pass an afternoon on one of her last days with us here in the Empire. We added a brief side tour of the island’s funky junk stores. With […]

Field Investigation

We had the meeting late this morning, since two of us had to go perform a Field Investigation. Normally, that involves putting down the steaming mug of Chock Full O’ Nuts and looking southeast down across the pasture now starting to shout brilliant GREEN in the placid Piedmont Spring awakening. This was a different matter, […]

Arrias: Earl Weaver, Volodymyr Zelensky, and Vlad Putin

Editor’s Note: I keep feeling like we are trapped in a high school “Modern European History” seminar when we covered the Great War and Depression in like, two or three class periods and everyone went “How could some conflict about an execution of some prince guy in a country none of has has heard of […]

Fact Checking the Queen

(Mac chats with a nice English lady at the Dedication of the World War II Memorial at Arlington) It is a weekend, and we watched a moderately old film on the flat screen we share in the Bunk House at Refuge Farm. We have a cis-gendered sort of viewing schedule, carefully adjusted to the possible […]

Life & Island Times: Emmet Park — A Palm Sunday Stroll

W and her mom had finished their Palm Sunday devotions and were raring to eat at a small place along Bay Street much beloved by locals — B Matthews. With tables scarce for brunch, we decided to spend our hour-wait strolling the park across the street. Overlooking the Savannah River, Emmet Park was renamed in […]

Implausible Deniability

We can’t talk directly about what is going on. We could, but it might attract attention. Amanda is taking a late Saturday approach to the morning oversight duty, but we know the rules. If you notice some of the crap going on, there is the real opportunity to be censured and even lose the chance […]

Arrias: Spring

Dark and thick they loom, Crowding o’er the trees, Branches shake and shiver In the gathering breeze. Spring rain, cold and hard, But the grass is turning green, Trees all covered in buds, Mother Nature’s spring routine. The first few large drops fall, A heavy, staccato beat, But then they come in a torrent, And […]

Working Backwards

Our Attorney Amanda is the one that started the minor controversy this morning. She normally tries to steer us away from C&C issues, since those are the ones most likely to get us into trouble. “Current and Controversial” is too complicated to say in full, so we go with the abbreviation. It is not intentional, […]

Going Through the Laundry Bag

DeMille is the leader of the Writer’s Section at Socotra House mostly through default. Everyone else is too lazy. By training, he is an engineer with a specialty on safe reactor operations. It is harder for him to let go the basic organizational skills than it is for the rest of us. For example, while […]