Press ESC key to close search

Vic Socotra

Author: Vic Socotra

  1. Home
  2. Vic Socotra
July 3, 2019 Vic Socotra

Swamp Postcard 4th of July!

Ah! the legendary Nat King Cole’s “hazy, crazy days of summer” are here again. I am here to testify to that. As a chaotic prelude to the holiday celebrating our independence from a tyrannical despot, a total of five children occupied the headquarters compound of Refuge Farm. It was fantastic to see the kids taking […]

July 1, 2019 Vic Socotra

Arrias: Independence?

Well, we’ve had the first round of debates among those who wish to run against the incumbent president. As is normal, much time was spent discussing what specific programs each would institute to the benefit of various groups in society. Students are offered loan forgiveness, everyone is offered health care, some talk about a guaranteed […]

June 30, 2019 Vic Socotra

Life & Island Times: Budding, Flowering and Fading

Life is like a flower garden. Unfortunately, we think we are florabundaperennials when in reality we are at best annuals. As time passed and I wised up (no, not a lot, mind you), I settled on thinking that as spring flowers collapse under a summer’s first intense heat wave, my life would somehow abruptly end. […]

June 29, 2019 Vic Socotra

Life & Island Times: Comfortably Dumb

Hello, What the hell are you up to? Someone, please nod if you can hear me Is there anyone home? Come on Now You say we’re feeling down You can ease our pain Get us on our feet again Relax We need some information first Just the basic facts Can you show us voters where […]

June 28, 2019 Vic Socotra

Mad Jack Percival

Some early thoughts from Arrias on July 4th…and the REAL Old Navy. If you are ever find yourself riding along Route 6A in West Barnstable (the “north side” of Cape Cod), drop by one of the old cemeteries and find the grave of Captain John “Mad Jack” Percival. Jack Percival was one of those characters […]

June 27, 2019 Vic Socotra

Life & Island Times: Debate DemKu

As life-long car types and gearheads, W and I watched another “new to us” show on the MotorTrend cable channel, skipping the Democratic Party’s first 2020 Presidential candidate debate last night. This 8-season long show’s title is an eerily scary harbinger of what this debate process will become – “Roadkill.” While W did some early […]

June 26, 2019 Vic Socotra

Swamp Postcard: Smoke, Mirrors and Flashpoints

Well, here we are at midweek, and sort of confident that the world will continue until at least tomorrow. We are walking a variety of planks strewn willy-nilly all over the globe. It is not quite bewildering- I mean, winnowing 24 candidates for the Presidency is going to be an anguishing process over the next […]

June 24, 2019 Vic Socotra

Life & ISland Times: Salle 18

More than fifty years ago while studying as an exchange student at a French university, I suffered a serious head injury in a motorcycle accident. After a long time being sedated to quell my brain swelling, I awoke at night in “Salle 18” or ward eighteen. More than a month later I was allowed to […]

June 24, 2019 Vic Socotra

Solstice in the Country

Well, it happened again. The long swing from winter, in the northern hemisphere, anyway, to our sweltering summers in the Virginia Piedmont is accomplished. From here, we advance (or recess) by a minute or so of less daylight until we shudder and shiver again in the darkness, and wonder at the vagaries of our orbit […]

June 23, 2019 Vic Socotra

Arrias: Iran, Trump, and Napoleon

So, President Trump didn’t strike Iran. (Although reporting now suggests that he did attack Iran – cyber attacks on both the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and on their air defense systems.) In any case, this isn’t the first time a President has recalled a strike, nor will it be the last. We all may have viscerally […]