Ship John Light. Guardian of the Cohansey/Delaware Bay.
Went out there one day. We were maybe 21. In a twelve foot Boston Whaler. Guy who had the con told me it was the dumbest of innumerable dumb things we had done together since teenage, including driving at 125+ speeds on the roads, shooting pistols with no adults around, and water skiing on an eight foot diameter, eighth of an inch thick piece of plywood that could have, and probably should have, sawed us in half like a saw blade. Ship John Light was there because the waters are dangerous. To well rigged eighteenth century sailing ships. Worse for dinghies with two idiots on board.
We survived all of that. We both survived everything.
Except life. Now we’re both recluses. Even from one another. No better friends through our elementary school years — and after an interruption for boarding school — in our late teens and twenties. WE WERE AWFUL. If it had a motor, we would drive it. If the motor was dead, we would revive it with ether. We were monsters.
We always had different talents. He could do anything mechanical. Which is not to demean him. He had an 800 Math board score. I could do other things. You could say we were each other’s friends when no one else would be, and you’d be both right and wrong.
In most ways, we were opposites. He married the most persistent woman, which was — well, isn’t it? — the American Dream. Like the way Jimmy Stewart kept marrying June Allyson. I remained the screwed up romantic, falling for one after another of the wrong women. He had four children. I have had none.
He stayed in the house he was born to, and I travelled widely. He remained the pillar of his father’s business. I did something altogether else.
Yet we both experienced the same kind of pain upon the death of our fathers. He told me his father turned bitter at the end, which I’d never have expected. Just wasted away. Mine wasted away too, from cancer, but I don’t think that was all of it. More. Deeper. And sadder.
We haven’t talked for a long time. He doesn’t approve of me. For oh so many reasons. His reclusiveness is different from mine. But exactly the same.
I think I can guarantee you all now, we both drive like little old ladies these days, and if we had our preference, we’d let our wives do it for us. If they knew what they were doing. His always had a tendency to ignore the speed limit in residential zones. Mine still tailgates on the Turnpike. The Two-Second Rule does not compute with math majors. Go figure.
It’s much much better to stay home.
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I think it’s a Scottish thing. Born to the highlands, rugged terrain, rugged animals. A tough tribe.
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Have you all watched Outlander yet?
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Which Outlander? Connery or Caviezel? Haven’t watched the latter.
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The new show on the Starz network. English WWII nurse is transported back through time to the 18th Century and must live amongst Scots (the how & the why don’t matter). Still too early to pass judgment but so I far I think you all may like it. Not as heavy on the romance novel stuff as I thought it’d be and no graphic sex & f-bomb every five minutes like HBO.
And the guy playing Jamie the Highlander would wipe the floor with Matthew McConaughey. Just saying.
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And sorry, I didn’t mean to ignore your post. I feel like a recluse these days myself. Most of the times I go out these days is taking my kids to some activity. We pulled out of one such activity last year b/c other parents rubbed me the wrong way and their kids were little shits. Come to find out my instincts were pretty good. One guy was revealed a doped-up, pathological liar, another chick was flat-out nuts with a crush on someone else’s husband, two other couples were having affairs, etc. Not that I’m a saint but if you’re nominally doing something “for the children” maybe you could at least keep your shit together during activity functions?
Forced interactions with other families has been the worst part of 21st Century parenting for me. Some are perfectly fine. More often than not, though, it’s heavily medicated children and their heavily medicated parents behaving badly with the excuse that they are heavily medicated and what can you do? All the types of people I knew who were taking Ritalin and stuff when I was a kid are still taking Ritalin and stuff, but now they have kids of their own also taking Ritalin and stuff and additionally are allergic to gluten and whey. I’d rather stay home.
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Why I’m a recluse. People I like want to talk about what they want to talk about, not what is moving me. Which they never get.
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