Skinning Cats

Out with the Old – In With ?

I suppose it’s a matter of perspective. – Today, I was headed to Jacksonville on A1A. There are now, “don’t bother the birds” signs, on the best beach, for flounder fishing. Another spot gone.

If you’re new here to Amelia Island, you are surely calling it paradise. Jetting around in your new car, that you bought from your northern sale, profit. Good for you. You also complain about the slow cars. You’re on an island. Slow the fuck down, dumb ass.

The picture above is, of a building; a place where we use to get our tires fixed. It’s being demolished. Now you can go to Tire Kingdom and get ripped off. I took my truck to them and said, no thank you. They just weren’t qualified to touch my truck. I have to go to Yulee for good service. But there’s a long wait.

One mile up the road, across the street from Winn Dixie are hobo camps. They hide by the CSX tracks and shoot fentanyl. It’s a sad world out there. But they too have discovered paradise. The word is out!

Everybody wants what they want. From high rise condos that are apt to collapse over time, to lost souls deteriorating amongst brown, fallen palm tree fronds. I just want to fish, and be in unpolluted ocean water. Sales and marketing didn’t bring me here. Neither did the whispers of the Jacksonville junkies.

I’m the kind of person, that runs ahead of the crowd. My good fortune has been my love of nature and dislike of pretentious bullies.

So, I will rely on my years of patience and perseverance.

I will skin this cat.

Meeeooowwww!

Now What ~

I woke up feeling heavy. I don’t write anymore. It’s too much. It’s too personal. It’s too prickly. It’s too opinionated. So I feel it inside. I don’t write anymore. I eat more. I don’t visit my friends anymore. I wonder what they would write about, if they felt like they lived in an ant bed. If they become volatile, at least once a week. If their family is something that they have to believe does not exist, to survive. I should say most of the family. Fuckers! If their daughter had died with cancer. If they had been married to a deceitful, manipulating, physically and emotionally abusive man, who had only married you to begin with, because you were the bosses daughter. If everyone around you wants to talk about illness and not wellness. If they lived by a mill, that when the west wind blows, it has an incinerator smell. If your whole body hurt, from seven minutes of wall balls and burpees. If someone had kidnapped their dog in Costa Rica. If their daughter had managed a meth lab, that seemed sanctioned by the county officials. If they see a man on a bicycle, who looks like an alien, because his being has been ravaged by chemicals, and he is on a mission. If you’re cut off from your fishing places, the ones you have enjoyed your entire life ~ now there’s a chain. Fuckers! If your husband gets hit by a car and has to pull the bike out of a bumper, only for the car, to speed away. If your last post wouldn’t upload. If a huge white truck, almost t-boned your little Toyota and your adrenalin shot through the top of your head and you jumped out of the truck, screaming, “Are you crazy!”. If you walk around wondering why are you so re-active. If you cry at a group function, appropriately explaining your feelings, concerning your daughter’s death and are told you should be on psychotropics. If Covid was here, but now it’s not. If that seems weird to you. If you can’t be vaccinated because you have a conflict of interest, concerning bouts with shingles. Fuckers! If you have to pull off the side of the road, approximately three times a day; sometimes once, sometimes, five times, because some fool is two inches off your bumper, and you are the only two people on the road. If your mind was recently tortured by your life, your parents lives and the lives of your ancestors. If you haven’t seen your friends, in a while.

Hello ~ Good-bye

I feel better now.

Cookies

Today, I threw away some cookies. They were vanilla and chocolate. They sit out on a counter, where people fix their coffee. I was hungry, so I grabbed two. They were awful. They were stale. I’m sure they would never be threatened by ants or roaches.

I need to replace the cookies. I would prefer, they were not there at all. They are processed and cancer producing. Who really needs that? But none the less, there they are.

Continue reading Cookies

Family History

Ancestors Ancestors and more Ancestors

Mary Frances Lowe Peterson was my great – grandmother. She lived on Blair Road, on the family farm. She was born and raised on the families land tract. She was there, when my mother woke up, as a five year old, smelling smoke and hearing a crackling noise.She alerted the family, saving their lives, from a fiery death. A night they never forgot! They lost everything, but themselves. The little, curly haired cherub, became an instant hero. Mary also lived with my Grandmother, Elizabeth Peterson McInarnay, on Phyllis St. The family had built a house there, following the farm house burning to the ground.

They rebuilt the farm house.

Continue reading Family History

I am Swimming

I am a Fish ~ In an Eye ~ In a House ~ On a Farm

The air is water. I am water. Protected and encumbered, by a roof and walls. I am here, on plastic. Red plastic. My fingers move on plastic squares, with a roof, over my head.

I see my future. Many people. Rules, lines, plastic cards.

Smile ~ don’t forget to smile.

A fish does not smile. A fish swims.

I am a fish.

Conscientious Objector

She has done things her way, on her terms. And she has loved people, and given, all along the way. She is one of my personal heroes. If you choose to be a whiner, and claim to be a genius – victimizing your entire generation, well, good luck with that. She is an ultimate, conscientious objector.

This term is generally associated with opposing violence. A person who seeks peace and refuses to participate, in military service. Some choose to take on other war services, such as being a medic. There are various outlooks; from fleeing the draft, to persevering, through the courts, with the conviction, their perspective, honorable.

We all have a different way of looking at things.

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Zen and the Art of Longboarding

I was browsing my now old and almost defunct web page, documenting surfing in Fernandina Beach, FL, and Avellanas, Costa Rica and a few other spots, as well.

As long ago, as it was, that I took this photo, I remember it. As I do every shot, that I take and keep.

Continue reading Zen and the Art of Longboarding