Block Island

Block Island, Rhode Island

This is where we are right this minute. We are  anchored in Salt Pond, the large bay area at the 'bone of the lamb chop,' as the land suggests.  In one of the last weekends of the season, boaters have come from all over to explore this amazing place.  We discovered a lovely old hotel, the Surf Inn, where we had mussels and clam strips overlooking east entrance to the island. This is such an amazing discovery we're staying an extra night (or more!).

First thing in the morning, a yell comes through the Block Island  anchorage: "Andiamo!" This means a boat with fresh baked goods, fruit and coffee is wending it's way through the mooring field. Very pricey,  but so is everything on an island

The Andiamo boat

Classic old hotel on the walk to town

Boat Names

Boat names are fun to observe.  Sailboats often have lyrical, soft, names like 'Windsong' 'Halcyon' 'Adagio' 'Anthem' 'Hymn' while power boats, especially the phallic designed monsters are named 'Bow Thruster,' 'Throbbin' Robbin,' 'Purely Pleasure', and my all-time least favorite, 'Wet Dream' ... then there are those for the white liars who can honestly say "I'm at 'The Office' or on a 'In a Meeting' when that's just what their boat is named. 

Here you see 'License to Chill.' 

Boat Name: License To  Chill

Boat Name: Private Reserve

Boat Name: Nauti Girl

Many more sunsets, please

View of the Atlantic from the porch of the Surf Inn 

This is the ocean side of Block Island (we are moored in the 'New Harbor' on the other side)

T-shirt culture on Block Island

Sadness in Paradise

Block Island, 8-23-2012

One electronic message can sure change a day.

Just 24-hours ago Richard and I were having breakfast in a small cafe on Main St. in downtown Mystic, Ct.

I was looking at Facebook on my iPhone and saw a note from Natasha Newcomb, whom I had met at Barbara Mack's house about four years ago at a woman's potluck in Des Moines. She wrote how sorry she was to learn of Barbara's death. 

'What?!!!" I responded. More Facebook updates confirmed the news. 

Richard and I both had histories with Barbara Mack. Mine tangential, Richard's directly when she was corporate counsel to The Register and Tribune Company at the time he was president. When the company properties were sold off and Gannett bought The Register, Barbara joined the faculty at Iowa State University.

Barbara Mack was two years younger than I am. Our first jobs at The Des Moines Register were as 'copy kids'.  As I drifted through my 20s and 30s, Barbara was focussed and driven in ways I better understand now that I read a feature story a former student wrote about her when she began working in the office of the president of Iowa State. An alcoholic and abusive father tried to thwart her college education, and as Barbara was quoted: "…Gave me the only broken bones I've ever had."

Phone calls started coming in from former Register staffers who knew Barbara. There's a primal need to connect when a member of 'the tribe' dies.  As the day unfolded, Barbara Mack's Facebook page was flooded with tributes from her former students, mostly, talking about how she had changed or shaped their lives. I learned more about Barbara Mack via this strange new medium than any obituary or sermon could ever capture. 

An unexpected and untimely death draws one inward and being on a seemingly limitless body of water, as we were traveling from Mystic to an island off of Rhode Island,  both of us were in a reflective, quiet mood. 

What kind of legacy are we leaving? What's left to do? Barbara apparently thought about her legacy a good deal. Without children of her own, she adopted those she taught and yesterday many of them wrote to say she was the best professor they ever had.  It's clear she had a direct impact on the betterment of these young lives. 

 This loss also underscores decisions such as buying and cruising Bel Sito. 

None of us know what tomorrow will bring let alone if there will be one. Apparently, there were shootings moments ago near the Empire State Building in downtown NY, not far from where we were just a few short days ago. News alerts are just starting to stream in. A Facebook post from a NY'er just says: It's mayhem in Mid-town.

Each day on this journey we marvel at the sunset and say to one another:

Many more sunsets.