Hilton Head Island: unsmooth; LIBRA; countdown

A great writer has observed that life is the process of turning baby smooth skin into scar tissue.  I now have more.  What I hope is the last of this year’s crop of skin cancers was removed Wednesday leaving a two inch diagonal scar on my right bicep with impressively neat and even stitches.

This was done by a female doctor.  I believe she will be a satisfactory replacement for the beautiful skin cancer doctor in Chicago.  She, too, is attractive, which is not an essential medical quality, but pleasing.

During our conversation while she was slicing and stitching, she asked what I did.  I corrected the tense and learned that she and her husband own a 51’ catamaran that is operated by one of the bareboat charter companies in the British Virgin Islands.  They use it a few weeks twice a year and the charters the rest of the time pay for the boat.  When it is paid off, they plan to sell it.  She asked if I like sailing here.  I hesitated, but said as I have written in this journal, I like living here, but I don’t like sailing here.  To my relief, she said she doesn’t either.

I just finished reading LIBRA, a novel by Don DeLillo about Lee Harvey Oswald and the Kennedy assassination.  DeLillo is quite clear that it is a novel and that he has taken liberty with the facts.  I am not given to conspiracy theories, but the novel offers one that is interesting and internally coherent.  I also find interesting the statement made in the novel that the CIA file on Oswald now runs to 144 volumes. 

I remember where I was when I first heard that Kennedy had been shot and when a few hours later I learned that he had died.  I saw Jack Ruby shoot Oswald on live television.  I was twenty-two years old.  Carol was six.  She remembers where she was too.  Some others I have asked who are about her age do not.  

Carol and I are sixteen and a half years apart.  We met when I was in my early 50s and she in her mid-30s.  The difference in our ages meant considerably less then than it did in 1963.

The marina offers a 10% discount on slip fees if you pay for a year in advance.  My contract expires at the end of this month and yesterday I paid for the coming year.  In doing so it occurred to me that I will do that only one more time. In October of 2026 I will start paying by the month because when the hurricane season ends, I sail.  A very pleasing thought.