I really dream well at the farm. It must be the fresh air, the exercise and the deep silence of the night here. I was going to get up and write about Paris, since I love that town, and the 1989 visit to the City of Lights was well-nuanced and spectacular. It had everything, literally. […]

 I am not going to gruber you this morning about cast iron. I am sure you have heard the new verb “gruber,” (as in: “to mendacious lie about major policy issues affecting all Americans because you have contempt for their intelligence,” and “an erroneous and inflated assumption of superiority and enlightenment totally in conflict […]

I had just got to the thrilling conclusion of time with the redoubtable Matre Avery-Glis Kaine. We were swapping sea stories, and we had all made calls in the south of France, at Toulon, Marseilles, Nice and Cannes. They are all connected by frequent rail, and you can get all the way to Monaco in […]

26 DEC 1989: I am up early to organize for the trip to Paris. I wander down to the ship’s Disbursing office and turn a semi-worthless check into a couple thousand francs. I pack my bag, to include formal wear, for the journey to Paris. I have pain et brie frommage for the journey. I […]

20 DEC, 1989: There was a great Foc’sle Follies the last night at sea before pulling in to Marseilles on the mighty USS Forrestal, (CV-59). The Follies are the satiric variety review the Air Wing puts on for itself to poke fun at the complexities of life on the Bounding Main with 4,000 of your […]

(The Iron Duke- Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS gives us an imperious look. I have to tell you, I have enjoyed taking a trip back in time to visit some of the great cities of Asia from a long time ago. Since I threw in a trip […]

I am late on the story this morning, but I have a decent reason. I attended a small but very moving memorial at the cemetery for those veterans who gave the last full measure of devotion to their nation. Considering how almost universally dismal the recent events overseas have turned out, this ceremony with active […]

Here at Refuge Farm, I got some things done that didn’t really need doing, and and started others that are going to be left unfinished by the time we get to beyond this chilly morning. The dawn was bright and the skies Virginia Blue as I swept up pine needles and surveyed the Fall debris […]

I talked to the LTJG via the miracle of Google Chat the other morning, and we discussed a couple clear differences between my Navy and his. It is a lot more correct these days, and not nearly as hung over as my class of hard-partying liberty hounds. Of course, I was a couple years older […]

Vic, the stories about Sydney were Interesting, though the waters I cruised in my career were a little closer to home. You wrote about sea-stories yesterday. I have a few of those, too on the way to a career that culminated as a Master Chief Boatswain’s Mate, United States Coast Guard. I don’t mind your […]