Evanston: the eye of the gannet; Dr. No and me; a decision

I thank Tim for the above striking photo of the eye of a gannet who was rescued after being caught in plastic.  That wide open pupil is like looking inside him.  I wonder what he was experiencing at that moment.

A few evenings ago I rewatched the first James Bond film, DR. NO.  I remember clearly that I first saw it when it was originally released in this country fifty-seven years ago  It was near Memorial Day of 1963.  I saw it with Mary, my first wife, and her younger brother, John, in Dubuque, Iowa.  Mary I were were married the preceding December in our senior year in college.  We saw DR. NO a few days before graduation.  The day after graduation we set out to drive to San Diego in my first car a very used 1955 Chevrolet station wagon towing a uHaul trailer of stuff.  Mary and the stuff have long since fallen away.  I was twenty-one and filled with hope and happy that I would soon see the ocean again.  It had been five years since my last summer at my grandparent’s house in Mission Beach.  I wanted then the life I have led, but I did not know how it would happen.  I had never even been on a sailboat.  I had never had a word published.  At times in coming years I doubted it would, but it did.

Being the first of what would become a multi-billion dollar franchise, DR. NO’s budget was limited.  Sean Connery drove a Sunbeam Alpine in a chase scene, not an Aston Martin, but Ursula Andress was as desirable as I remembered.

Measured purely by distance I have not come far.  Almost six decades later I am only 180 miles east of where I was in 1963.

After considerable consideration I have concluded that the variables of getting needed work done on GANNET and the risks of the virus are incalculable.  Therefore I can either do nothing or something, and I prefer something.  So I am going to fly to San Diego on July 29 and figure things out from there.

I will be considerably more exposed in San Diego than I am in Evanston.  I am in the age group of greatest risk, but I like to believe I have some reasons to think I am not an average 78 year old.

Here is the GANNET to do list:

I don’t know how much of it will get done or needs to be done in San Diego.  I could just haul the little boat, have her bottom pressure washed, and put her on a truck east.  I am flying on a one-way ticket.  I don’t know how long I will be there.