Hilton Head Island: 14.1; the taste of women; a poem

I have said that the fastest speed I have seen GANNET make was about 13.7 knots.  I was wrong.  In rereading the log of the passage from Durban, South Africa, to St. Helena, I found that one night I was awakened by feeling that GANNET was going too fast.  She was.  Her SOG read 14.1 knots.  The tiller pilot couldn’t keep up.  I quickly went on deck and reduced sail.

Also in that passage log I read:

        The monastery of the sea was beautiful.

Waves as low as the sun.  Directly toward the sun was a narrow inverted pyramid of blinding white.  Elsewhere millions of constantly changing facets of light, shades of blue, some white crests, near the hull white bubbles and foam.  Pristine, untouched natural beauty.  I had heard no world news for weeks.  Those last two sentences are not unrelated.

I was standing in the companionway, sipping red wine and listening to my requiem playlist.  A line from Lucy Kaplansky’s ‘Scorpion’, “I’ll sting you with a taste of my skin.” 

        Women taste best fresh from the sea.  

I thank Larry for reminding me of this poem.

Hilton Head Island: the stages of life

 In AS YOU LIKE IT, Shakespeare gives us seven ages of man.

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

I have divided my own life into three parts:  longing; being; dying; and I have written that life is only forty years long in that our lives are defined by what we do from twenty to sixty give or take a few years.

Recently scientists have defined five phases of life as shown in changes of the structure of the brain with significant transitions at ages 9, 32, 66 and 83.

They are childhood, adolescence, adulthood, early aging, and late aging.

I, who am 84, smiled at the statement that there is less data about late aging because researchers had difficulty in finding sufficient healthy brains at that age.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgl6klez226o

I have no particular memories of age 9, but what I call the being of my life began at age 32.  I believe that had less to do with whatever changes were taking place in my brain than that it took me that long after college to buy and prepare a boat and save enough money to make the voyage and free myself.

The transition to the third part of my life came between observed transformations.  I was 77 when I completed the GANNET circumnavigation.

Now at the beginning of late aging I am aware of changes.  New information that is not reinforced is often lost.  Connections in my brain are sometimes not made.  Words sometimes come less easily.  Memory is less reliable.

All these could be signs of something more serious, but i don’t think so.  My vital signs are still good.  I take no prescribed medications.  I use my body hard.  I am writing a book.  I sail.

There is a cliche, ‘Finish strong and show no weakness’.  To an extant it is good advice, but it can become delusional.  No one at 83 is what he or she once was and without weakness. 

To life.

Hilton Head Island: worked out and two poems

 

My calendar for this past week.  This has been the first week in two months since I started being chopped that I have done all my workouts.  X100 is the extended workout going to 100 push-ups and crunches in the first set, and 50 each in the next two sets.  W is my workout with two ten pound weights and two minutes of planks.  X is my standard workout doing my age, 84, of push-ups and crunches in the first set and 40 each in the next two.  B is a bike ride.  R my resistance bands workout.  Dr. McKinley is a dentist who added to my chopping by removing a bridge and an abscessed tooth.  This was much less painful than I expected.  I was told to take Tylenol if needed, but I took the universal panacea, Laphroaig, instead, slept well, woke without discomfort, and did my usual early shift at the factory.

I hope that the removal of parts of me has come to an end for a while.

HOJOKI:  A HERMIT’S HUT AS METAPHOR was written by Kamo no Chomei, 1155-1216.  In his 60s he built and lived in a hut 3 meters/10 feet square and 2 meters/ 6.5 feet high.  Almost like living on GANNET.

Here is the prologue:

And Cavafy’s ‘Second Odyssey’.  I like the poem but I think Penelope deserved better from Ulysses, though as I have observed you can never judge a marriage from the outside.

A little while after posting these, I was struck by the antithetical divergence of attitudes they express.  I encompass them both.

Hilton Head Island: the right way and a small boat to Antarctica

In rereading the journal entries for GANNET SIX I came across this originally posted on September 1, 2016.  I was impressed then by Mark’s and Ian’s phenomenal elapsed time.  I still am.  

Durban: the right way

Above you see Mark English and Ian Rogers.

While I was crossing the Indian Ocean in GANNET, they were using another Moore 24, MAS!, as the boats were intended to be used:  to go fast.  

In the Pacific Cup race from San Francisco to Hawaii they went very fast indeed, covering more than 2,000 miles in ten days, fourteen hours and thirty minutes.  They won; but that pales beside their sailing a race for the ages.  If not perfect, and it may have been, then inhumanly close.

If you have read the passage log of GANNET from Darwin to Durban, you know that I have said that GANNET is capable of 200 mile days, but she won’t do them unless I am willing to hand steer more than I care to.

Mark and Ian did hand steer; and every day after the first two, when they were breaking clear of the coastal weather, was a two hundred mile day.  Mark tells me that their best twenty-four hour run was 240 miles.  That is a ten knot average.  Their highest speed was around fifteen knots.

If you have ever made an ocean passage, you know that the key to making a good average is not so much going fast as avoiding going slow.  Obviously Mark and Ian never went slow.

Standing watch and watch is tiring, but they kept MAS! moving to the end.

I think I can imagine what it was like, and maybe someday, sometime I will push GANNET as hard as I can for as long as I can.  I am filled with admiration for what Mark and Ian have done.

In one account of the race I found their boat described as a “humble Moore 24”.  I think not.  Small, unquestionably, but is a Stradivarius violin humble just because it is not as big as a double bass?     

I’ve said it before, the Moore 24 is a masterpiece.  What other forty year old design simultaneously blasts across the Pacific and goes six thousand miles across the Indian Ocean?

In preparing for the race Mark made substantial modifications to MAS! and I inherited his old carbon fiber tiller, so he had part in both passages; and I am honored to have a part of MAS!.

I thank William for bringing to my attention a voyage to Antarctica by a Japanese sailor, Kataoka, in a boat the size of GANNET.

While I find the voyage remarkable, I do not find the writing compelling.  I think there is a good story here, but it is not clearly told.  Still you may find it to be of some interest.

https://en.aomi-sailing.com/index.html

Hilton Head Island: a night on board

 

I spent last night on GANNET.  

Temperatures have returned to normal.  Highs around 70F/21C.  Lows around 50F/10C.  One day of winter was enough for me.

Music, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, and chicken and bacon sliders in the cockpit during a lovely sunset.

I went down earlier and scrubbed mold from the underside of the spray hood and the overhead.  A solar light disintegrated in my hand.  I have others.  Device charging cables had corroded.  I have others.

I slept well in the heavier sleeping bag with a lighter one on top as a blanket.  Woke at 5:25 and walked home just before dawn.

  

Hilton Head Island: record cold and a very small boat

 

A screenshot taken of the Apple Weather App on my iPhone this morning.  I realize that it is cold in most of this country, but it is more unusually cold in the South.  I believe the previous record low for this day in Hilton Head was 34ºF.  Fortunately as you can see this is not going to last long and soon the island will return to paradise.

I don’t often watch sailing videos, but I thank Mike for a link to this one about a very small boat, which despite its size, with a gimbaled stove, plumbing, and a few through hull fittings, is in some ways more complicated than GANNET.  In the video she sails better than I would have expected and I particularly enjoyed the father and son sharing the experience.  

Who knows how I would have turned out if I had good parents?  Perhaps less.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MB5fNIyq4I&lc=Ugy3ZLiKpO_mnpavJGB4AaABAg

Hilton Head Island: a solution from GANNET

 

As regular readers know for decades my breakfast on land and sea has been ½ cup of uncooked oatmeal, ⅓ cup of trail mix, a scoop of Vital Whey protein powder, berries, milk.  On land the berries and milk are fresh.  At sea the berries and milk are dried.

Recently I have been adding to the mix.  Two dried figs, a dried Medjool date torn into small pieces, another half scoop of protein powder, and more berries, usually blueberries, blackberries and raspberries, but sometimes strawberries, and more milk.  This has resulted in filling our cereal bowls to spilling level.  The solution was obvious:  do as I do on GANNET.  So I ordered another Oxo 4 cup measuring cup from Amazon and spill no more.

Although I wake early, I do not eat my breakfast until around 10 AM and usually I eat only half or two-thirds then and put the rest in the refrigerator, eating it in midafternoon or sometimes the next morning.

Other than finishing off the oatmeal in the afternoon, if I do, I no longer eat lunch.  

I was never a big eater and in my old age eat even less.

Hilton Head Island: hurricanes; poems; Cape York

As you may know so far this year no hurricanes have made landfall on the United States coast.  It could still happen but the season is almost over and no activity is expected for the next seven days.  

I had the impression that this was rare.  I was wrong.  2025 is thus far the first year for a decade when there were no landfalls on this coast, but if we make it through, this will be the seventh year since 2000 and the seventeenth since 1951.

Those are years without hurricane landfalls.  During some of them landfalls were made by tropical storms.

I expected that AI will greatly improve weather forecasting and read an article this morning which indicates that it already is.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/11/googles-new-weather-model-impressed-during-its-first-hurricane-season/

I did not know of Google’s Deep Mind Weather Lab site.  

https://deepmind.google.com/science/weatherlab

I visited and am impressed and have added a bookmark to the list of sites I check each morning.

Unlike the government I do not shut down and am still going to the factory seven days a week.  I do not like Daylight Savings Time which has never saved anything and find my body has yet to adjust to the time change.  My shift now begins at what the clock says is 5 AM rather than 6.  I am 73,000 words along and have just sailed from Darwin for Durban.

The photograph was taken at Cape York when I anchored there in CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE in 1981.  I have not gone ashore on my three stops there since and am using it in GANNET SIX.  Cape York has not changed in forty years.  Or probably four thousand.  The pinnacle is an ant colony taller than I am.

Six poems.

The first was written by Liu Zongyuan  773-819.

This by Zhu Shuzhen  1063-1106.

Zhu Xizhen whose dates are uncertain, but about who lived about 1000 A.D.

And three by the Greek, C.P. Cavafy  1863-1933.

Hilton Head Island: active; fall; a lock-in

 

A sunny windy day in the marsh welcomed after three days of solid low overcast.  The Spanish moss seems to be reaching out for me.  

Carol and I walked to GANNET this afternoon.  The little boat is fine and clean.  The birds have been remarkably polite.  I wiped up a little water in the bilge with a paper towel.

Fall has come to the island.  50ºF/10C when I woke and went to the factory at 6:15 this morning.  In the first draft I have just reached Darwin.  Shorts have been replaced by Levis and we wore jackets during our walk this afternoon.

Most of the trees here remain green year round, though a duller green in winter.  There is a quarter mile long line of maples along a nearby street whose leaves turn yellow and fall.  The flaming colors of New England and the upper Midwest are missed.

The stitches in my shoulder are not due to be removed until a week from today.  The ones in my temple and ankle are dissolvable.  I don’t know why they used the different types.  I will ask.  However I am tired of being inactive.  My ancient body wants to be used.  So yesterday I carefully did my standard workout.  I did not believe the stitches in my shoulder would be stressed by push-ups and they weren’t.  I think they might be by my weight workout and so will not attempt it until they are removed. I will do my standard workout again tomorrow.

Carol and I have not been much affected by the government shut down.  A few websites I usually visit are not being updated.  Fortunately the National Hurricane Center site is.  But the shut down is unconscionable, especially when members of Congress are still being paid when most government employees are not.  Clearly they are not doing their jobs and I have a solution:  a lock in.  Assemble them all in their capital chambers and lock the doors until they come to an agreement.  Provide mattress for them to sleep on the floor.  Provide food, but no drink beyond water.  I doubt the shut down would have lasted thirty days as it already has.  I doubt it would have lasted two.

 

Hilton Head Island: Band-Aids; a good ad

I had my third and hopefully for a while last chopping yesterday.  I am now officially a piece of Swiss Cheese held together by Band-Aids.

Böcker, the German firm that manufactured the lift used in the Louvre robbery, has run ad extolling its virtues, among them “when you need to move fast” and that it is “as quiet as a whisper.”  

The ad has received widespread approval including from me.  My favorite of the comments on the ad:  ‘Your messaging takes the crown.’

Hilton Head Island: message; mosquitos in Iceland

The statue is of Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet who is considered one of the most significant writers of the Twentieth Century.  It is located outside the Cafe A Brasileira, his favorite coffeehouse in Lisbon.   Carol and I have seen that statue.  There is another of him in the central plaza of the city.  Not bad for a man who died expecting he would be forgotten, as will I.  Pessoa also happens to be one of the modern poets I most admire, along with the Greek, Constantine P. Cavafy.

During his lifetime Pessoa published four books in English, but only one, Mensagem (Message), in Portuguese.

I had read several of the poems from MESSAGE at various times, but had never read all forty-four until I recently found a translation at Amazon. 

The poems are mostly about Portugual’s epic seafaring and empire building history.  Here are eight.

I read this morning that Iceland now has mosquitos.  I had not known that until recently Iceland was one of the few countries on this planet mosquito free.  That it is no longer scientists attribute to global warming, but our government tells us that there is no global warning so that can’t be true.  My personal belief is that some species of mosquitos have evolved fur like polar bears to survive the cold, but then what do I know.  I’m not a scientist or even a politician.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/21/mosquitoes-found-iceland-first-time-climate-crisis-warms-country

I wonder how soon it will be before tourists to Iceland are advised to take anti-malaria pills.

Hilton Head Island: A Slice of Life Revisited

A great writer has observed that life is the process of turning baby smooth skin into scar tissue.  I can report that scar tissue production is booming, a true growth industry.  I had my second of three chops this morning.  The third is scheduled for a week from today.  My beauty is temporarily compromised by a large bandage on my right temple.  Therefore it seems appropriate to post again ‘A Slice of Life’.  The doctor here unfortunately  is not beautiful, but he is a good surgeon.

A Slice of Life

2018

        Once not so long ago there was a sailor who crossed oceans alone in small boats.  He did this for many, many years and became a legend.

        He found purity and joy alone in what he called the monastery of the sea and loved sailing toward the setting sun or toward the dawn.

        When as a young man he departed on his first voyage, three tantalizing sirens kissed him good-bye and waved until he disappeared over the horizon and then, as sirens often do, forgot him.

        He suffered hardships, not eagerly but inevitably.  Sometimes he starved.  Twice he almost died of thirst.    He learned that thirst is much worse than hunger.  Eight times he survived the great storms that are called hurricanes and cyclones.

        People often told him he was brave because he made voyages that not only had no one else ever made, but that no one else had even thought of.

        He did not consider himself brave.  He did not fear the sea and he knew that men do not conquer the sea or mountains, they only transit them.  Still he was at home at sea as few others have ever been.

        He did fear thirst.

        After every voyage he made a pilgrimage to a beautiful sorceress.  Wise men told him he must do this and so he did.

        The sorceress dwelt in a high tower beside a lake so vast some called it an inland sea.  That lake was deceptive, sometimes as turquoise as the Caribbean, sometimes as black as the North Sea in a gale.

        The sorceress had coal black hair, a friendly smile, and a gay laugh. 

        Each time the sailor visited her she sliced small pieces of flesh from him.  Though the pieces were small, they did not grow back and over the decades they added up.  Each time the sailor returned to the sea he was smaller.

        The sailor lived far longer than anyone expected, including himself, and though he grew old he kept crossing oceans.  Sometimes he wondered at this.  He did not believe in the gods and never asked them to protect him. 

        Finally when he was very, very old, he sailed his small boat into port and made his customary way to the sorceress’s lair.

        The sorceress did not age.  She was still beautiful.  Her hair still jet black.  Her smile still friendly.  Her laughter still gay.  She welcomed him and cut the tiny remnant he had become into three pieces and he vanished.

      (I made my biannual visit to my skin cancer specialist, who is a beautiful woman, today and amused myself on the train ride in by writing this in my mind.  I typed it out when I returned home.

        Originally the title was a dull “A Modern Myth”.  Steve Earley in an email called it a slice of life.  Knowing a good thing when I read it, I stole it.  Thanks, Steve.)

Hilton Head Island: NUMBER 24; a missed memo

NUMBER 24 is a Norwegian film based on the life of Gunnar Sonsteby, one of the leaders of the resistance against the Nazi occupiers during WW2.  I watched it on Netflix a few afternoons ago, thinking that Carol would not be interested, but it turned out to be an exceptionally good film.  Here is a link to what I consider a just review.  

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/number-24-movie-review

Carol and I went for our COVID and flu shots yesterday.  It quickly became apparent that I was the only one who had not gotten the memo that summer is over because I was the only one in shorts and t-shirt.  Everyone else was bundled up as though they expected snow.  The temperature was 64ºF/18ºC which is not cold.  Nevertheless the day was overcast and rainy and when we got home I went with the program and put on Levis and a long-sleeved shirt.

Hilton Head Island: two mystical experiences; a quote; two Portuguese poems; and a stupidity

I go to the factory, also known as our guest bedroom, within minutes of my waking every morning, usually between 5 and 6 AM, and work the early shift on what I am presently calling GANNET SIX.

In doing so I came across something I wrote long ago about mystical experiences.

And Tolstoy quoting Lermontov:

            He in his madness prays for storms

            And dreams that storms will bring him peace

The poems are from Fernando Pessoa, 1888-1935.

The stupidity I read at Apple News+ in a sailing magazine article about those who despise technology and claim that GPS stands for ‘General Paralysis of the Sailor’.  I am certain that Captain Cook would not agree with them.  He had no conflict about carrying an early chronometer with him on his voyages, John Harrison’s invention that enabled sailors for the first time to be able to ascertain longitude with certainty.

I am of the last generation who had to navigate by sextant.  On my first two circumnavigations there was no alternative.  I still carry a plastic sextant on GANNET and believe that if you cross oceans it is probably advisable to know at least how to take a noon sight for latitude.  But I have not taken a sextant sight in more than thirty years and I dare say that I have probably sailed far more in those years than the fools who shun technological advances.  I trust that they are still using cotton sails.

Hilton Head Island: chop, chop, chop; Imelda; a poem from a Holy Roman Empeeror

I was chopped this morning.  I will be chopped again two weeks from today and again a week after that.  I am swiftly getting smaller.  In the meantime the marsh is having perfect weather.  I’d rather be sailing.

Imelda considerately turned away and had no effect on us other than reported higher surf on the ocean side of the island.  The official rain gauge at the mouth of Skull Creek showed less than a half inch of rain.  I just visited that site and found a notice that due to the government shut down “it would not be updated except to provide important public safety information”. The highest wind gust recorded at the airport three miles away was 21 knots.  All storms should be so well mannered.

In rereading the journal entries from 2015 I came across a poem allegedly inscribed in chalk in a castle cellar by Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I.                                 

It occurs to me that an excellent anthology could be made of the words of others that I have shared in the now nineteen years this journal has been online.  If I live long enough, maybe I’ll do it.

Hilton Head Island: Nine; perseverance

 

Several of you have emailed about the depression still known as Nine.

A few days ago some of the projected paths indicated that Nine would make landfall on Hilton Head Island or very near.  I check the National Hurricane Center every morning during the hurricane season and was aware of this, but not overly concerned because meteorology is not yet an exact science and it is normal for projections to change as the time to the event lessons.  That is what happened in this case.  Yesterday saw Nine remaining offshore and making a to me surprising sharp turn to the east.  This morning’s projection above shows that turn being made even farther south than did yesterday’s.  At present I expect that we will have some wind and two days of heavy rain.  I have brought the furniture in from the deck and porch and checked GANNET’s dock lines and tied down the tiller.

I read in one alarmist article based on outdated information that people would have little time to prepare for the storm.  If you live in a hurricane zone you should have been prepared since May.

In a journal entry from 2015 I found the following.

I received an email from Brian:

A question please.  Apologies for being personal.  What has kept you going when you were at the brink of failure or defeat?  You seem to have persevered when many others backed away or threw in the towel.  How?  Pride, courageous heart, stubborn personality?  Have your thoughts on the matter changed with years and experience.

       I find it an interesting question.  Not why do I sail, but why do I persevere.  

        I’ve been thinking about it intermittently ever since and regret that I haven’t come up with a good answer, so I’m just going to write and let my thoughts flow.

        One reason I persevered is because I could.  

        I believe it is quantifiable that I have an exceptional body.  It bailed seven tons of water from EGREGIOUS for months; lived on six sips of water and half a can of tuna fish a day for two weeks after CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE pitch-poled and, despite losing more than 20% of its weight, rowed the last several miles and through breaking surf to reach land; swam for twenty-six hours after I sank RESURGAM. 

        And not exceptional just when it was young.

        Those ordeals occurred in my thirties, forties and fifties.

        In my sixties it sailed around the world a couple of times and survived three or four more Force 12 storms. 

        In my seventies it sailed GANNET across the Pacific, physically demanding because of exposure and quick motion.  And, time and chance permitting, it will sail GANNET even farther next year.

        I take no credit for that body, other than that I have taken pretty good care of it.

        Not only can it go the distance, it recovers relatively quickly.

        So I persevered because I could when perhaps others couldn’t.

        I also persevered because I put myself in situations where I had no choice but to persist or die.  That I carried no means to call for help was deliberate.  

        That I am alive today is due to something else beyond my control.  We all have an animal inside us who does not want to die.  My animal is strong and has kept me going, particularly during the long swim, far beyond what I would have believed were my limits.

        I have persevered partially because of ego.

        We all like to believe we are special.  As I have written elsewhere, I like to quantify things.  I come from nothing and no where.  I had no encouraging parents.  No mentor.  I was a solitary child who created himself.  No one believed in me but me.  And that was not enough.  

        I read biographies of great men as how-to manuals.  (Today you could probably write a best seller, GREATNESS FOR DUMMIES.)  I thought I was capable of living as they had lived.  And so I set out to write and sail and love.  Not to have persevered would have been to fail to live up to my image of myself, to have been ordinary, and that was unthinkable.

        If I persevered in part due to gifts and instincts beyond my control, I also did so in part because I understand that persevering can shift the odds, however slightly, in your favor, while quitting results in immediate and permanent failure.

        I set off for Cape Horn forty-one years ago, had rigging damage near the Equator, turned down wind for Tahiti, made repairs there, set off for Cape Horn, got down to the Southern Ocean, had rigging damage again, sailed all the way back to San Diego.  I didn’t have much money left.  If I had quit then, that would have been that.  But as I expect you know, I didn’t quit.

        A common thread in the lives of men and women who are considered great is that they attribute their success not to brilliance, but to hard work and persistence.   This is not false modesty.  I’m sure they were aware of their talents; but they also knew that had they not persisted through failure and hardship, those talents would not have reached fruition.

        One could as easily ask not why I have persevered, but why others who did not, gave up?

        When I proofread the scans of some of my early books for the Kindle edItions, STORM PASSAGE was the one I was most tempted to rewrite.

        Back then I was like my contemporary, Muhammad Ali, saying “I am the greatest”, and I expect for the same reason:  we created images of ourselves that we had to live up to.  Or try.  And I also expect that we both believe that you are not what you say you can do, but what you actually do.  And if you do it, you are it.  

        Muhammad Ali took brutal punishment to become Muhammad Ali.

        I would have died trying to complete my voyages.  I wrote at the start of that third attempt at Cape Horn that it was victory or death.  Over the top?  Perhaps for our less than epic age.  But then I did live it.

        For a long time now I have not claimed to be great, only an original, and I have only competed with myself.  That is easy:  I always win.  And of course lose.  But I forget that side of it.

        I still persevere because my body is still (mostly) strong and likes to be used; because persevering becomes a habit:  it is what I do; because I still enjoy solving problems, overcoming obstacles; and because I still want to live up to the image I formed of myself long go.  

        I don’t know that I’ve answered your question, Brian, but I have considered it, and thank you for causing me to do so. 

        (I have not yet decided whether I will include this in the GANNET book.)