Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun

Thursday, October 1, 2015

A MARVELOUS FRENZY and A FRIGHTFUL MEMORY

     Do you have triggers in your life? Something that turns a switch in your brain?
      This does it for me.  As far back as I recall, simply seeing a small boat switched on two circuits of emotion.  Adventure-the romanticized notion of going to sea as a fisherman struck me as a noble endeavor-man in the elements and nature, laboring earnestly for good purpose. Hard work, health, independence.
       And it awakens a deeply embedded dread-Davy Jones Locker.
     It started at "The House."  "The House" was a large two story turn of the century affair complete with root cellar, orchard, a barn like shed, massive garage, grape arbors and a front porch that spanned the big place. It was in all practicality a boarding house, in this case the residence of my widowed grandmother, her sisters, including husbands, and her eldest sister who was also widowed. Nana Cochrun, Aunt Sarah, Aunt Anna and Uncle Ed, Aunt Mat (Martha) and Uncle Pete and their daily tea and supper companion, their "kid" brother Uncle Bill. The sisters were English, emigres from Tinkers Green Farm by way of Warwick. Ed was a Scot, Pete was an Irishman. Bill, though born in the US, was the perfect English gentleman and always "dressed like the Duke," as the sisters said frequently. The accents were thick, the behavior prim and proper-the sisters never without their purses-and the culture was pure Brit.
      Being the eldest child of WW II vets I was often padded off to "The House" as my young parents enjoyed a post war social life and time with friends. It was in this context Davy Jones locker was embedded deep in my psyche.
      The books were from the UK and it seems an inordinate number of them contained harrowing stories of sailors lost to sea. A couple of the illustrations are so affixed in my memory they give me shivers still. 
      I don't know why I spent so much time on those stories, but I remember my stern English grandmother, very much a no nonsense woman, telling me if I didn't behave I'd end up in Davy Jones Locker.  Bad boys it seems were parceled off to the British Navy or merchant fleets and being the bad and inexperienced lads they were they ended up as fish food.
      Today I admire those boats and the sea but as a devoted landlubber. Sure going to try to avoid Davy Jones Locker.
       Is there anything from your childhood that frightens you today?

FOR THE BIRDS
 Driving south on Highway 1, I spotted a frenzy of birds feeding on a bait ball.  If you look to the left and lower third  in the above frame you will see a tell tale fin of another diner.
   Brown pelicans, western gulls, Heerman gulls, cormorants, sooty shearwaters, black vented shearwaters and terns all looking like an Escher print.
   Pelicans provided an aerial assault show.




   All the drama playing out under a morning quilt.
     Autumn on the central coast.

       See you down the trail.

13 comments:

  1. If you continue to take pictures while driving, you'll probably end up in Davy Jones locker.

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  2. An excellent point, but I did pull off the road and walked to a bluff. I had to use a zoom setting to pull in the frenzy.

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  3. The only thing I was afraid of when I was a kid was Jesus. My grandmother was a church musician. She wasn't particularly religious but she played three churches every Sunday because she liked the organs.. I tagged along and listened to 3 sermons every Sunday. Hell fire, brimstone, heavy castigation of hard working farm families who even they wanted to sin, didn't have the time. The churches were old line Missouri Synod Lutheran congregations and the minister loved kicking ass with powerful threats of damnation, eternity in hell. Scared me, to the point that I didn't see monsters in the closet or under the my bed, I'd see Jesus and his old man. The old painting of Jesus with the sacred heart on his chest, knocking on the door scared me more than Frankenstein's monster or the robot from "The Day the Earth Stood Still"

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  4. You ought to write a scene about how those hell fire and damnation preachers would have been greeted by a hippie prince of peace Jesus or by the welcoming committee at the pearly gates!
    Could be fun, given your gift for good dialogue.

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    1. They wouldn't have let him the church, he had a beard and long hair.

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  5. I used to have nightmares that I was being chased by clowns. Still don't like clowns.

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  6. I know others who share that aversion, including my eldest daughter. I took her "back stage" at a Ringling performance where she could meet clowns and even be made up. That therapy did not work. I think she has forgiven me by now.

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  7. Wonderful pictures, Tom. Escher birds indeed and boats named with bits of poetry. Fears have changed for me through the years. In childhood I feared my fellow humans less than I do now but we must be brave, all of us.

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    1. Caring is a form of courage, Onward to the future, with compassion.

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  8. I was afraid of myself, doing the wrong thing. The folks had something to do with that. Now, I don't care and mess up less. That may be called growing up.

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    1. As Mr Dylan said, you "were so much older then, (you're) younger than that now."

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  9. How glorious is that sight though.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for the kind words and for your inspirational blogs.

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