Yogi Berra: (When asked for the time) “Do you mean now?”

Yogi Berra:   “I take a two hour nap, from one o’clock to four.” 
You can believe it or not, but I do try to pick quotations that give you a hint about the subject matter of the blolumn they precede. Sometimes the quotes are more of a stretch than others, but this time at least, I think they make it pretty obvious what this post is all about. And I bet most of you are thinking “it’s about time.” Well, if you were, you would be right. It is about time! And with the autumnal equinox having come and gone, an early nighttime makes it the right time, and the prime time, to be about time. Because as Yogi Berra also said, “it gets late early out there.” Continue reading ‘It’s Only A Matter of Time’ »

Herm Albright:  “A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”

Mark Twain:  “I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.”

We’ve all been there. Teetering on the tightrope. Press on forward, and realize that feeling of exultation that comes with the completion of a challenging task; go sideways … and go “SPLAT!” It matters not how we ended up on that tightrope, whether we were chased up there by teachers, relatives, bosses, or (most often) ourselves; no, what matters solely is whether we can find a way to salvage success when the task at hand has reached that juncture where it can go in either direction … and one of those directions isn’t very pleasant to contemplate. Until five minutes ago, I found myself on just such a tightrope. I had assigned myself the job of doing a Malden Yacht Club Personality of the Month feature on Bullwinkle. At first blush, that prospective project projected a prospect joyous to behold, simply because of the sheer volume of material available. But after I had made the commitment, and had plunged giddily onto the high wire, I realized that it would be a near impossible task to distill all this info into an acceptable blog-length blolumn while still keeping it coherent. What to do, what to do? Continue reading ‘How To Abridge A Bullwinkle?’ »

Paris Hilton:  “All British people have plain names, and that works pretty well over there.”

Harrison Ford:  “You know you’re getting old when all the names in your black book have M. D. after them.”

For most of this year, my thoughts were focused on upcoming trips to Lake Champlain, and that provided me with plenty of ground to cultivate and fertilize with tiny bits of Creative ‘Ritin’ And Philosophizen. The result, if measured by quantity rather than quality, has been a bumper crop of blolumns over the last eight months, but alas, we have finished with Lake Champlain for the year. Now, that formerly fertile, focused field is too fallow to farm. Or is it? Could there be an overlooked, slightly withered grape still clinging to the vine that the Ol’ Philosophizer can pluck, stomp on, and ferment into yet more vintage ‘09 Champlain Campaign Champagne? Better yet, will the Ol’ P ever stop making use of agricultural analogies just so he can refer to crap, manure, and similar outhouse outputs? And most important of all, at least at the present time, does this post actually have a purpose? You know, folks, this could be the worst opening paragraph that I have ever written, but I’m much to lazy to re-write it, so you will just have to plow ahead (oh no … another agricultural allusion) if you want to discover what this post is supposed to be all about. I only hope that I make that discovery before you do. Continue reading ‘A ‘Yak With No Name Is A Boat With No Fame’ »

Winston Churchill:  “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”

Napoleon Bonaparte:  “What is history but a fable agreed upon?”

Last weekend, the Malden Yacht Club completed its Quadricentennial celebration on Lake Champlain, and this expedition was wetter than those that went before. No, it was not because we consumed 400 beers at the Magic Hat Brewery, although that number is probably not too far off. The real reason it was wetter was because for the first time in ten days of paddling on that majestic lake, we were rained on … for all of forty minutes. You would think that with all the preparations I had taken before launching this two year undertaking, at the very least I could have arranged for us to cover over a hundred paddling miles during double digit dry days. I take this failure as the perfect excuse for someone else to assume control of the conclusion of this venture … but I sense that the Champlain campaign is mine to maintain, come sunshine or rain. Continue reading ‘A Magnificant Chapter In The MYC’s Lake Champlain History’ »