Ruminations in a Kayak XV

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Aboard USS McFAUL (DDG-74):
On days in my kayak when my mind is not cluttered with the multitude of world problems, our amply shared human foibles, or other depressing thoughts, I’m able to relax and entertain pleasant ruminations such as my last assignment with the Program Afloat for College Education (PACE).

In July 2008, I accepted an assignment aboard USS McFaul, DDG 74, a Guided Missile Destroyer. A Destroyer is quite a bit smaller than an amphibious assault ship such as the Kearsarge (my previous teaching assignment). There are normally only about 23 Officers, 24 Chief Petty Officers, and 291 sailors on a Destroyer, and McFaul was undermanned.

Central Texas College (PACE) flew me to Odessa, Ukraine, where I went aboard McFaul and set about preparing to teach four writing courses. This time, I was the only PACE instructor on board, and I was lucky to have the Executive Officer (X.O.) offer the Commanding Officer’s At Sea cabin for my berthing and work space. It was very compact, but it had a sink, toilet, pull down bed, which provided a large worktable when stowed and, best of all, privacy – something almost unheard of on a Navy ship. I immediately became a part of the crew when a female officer, Lt. Nicole Valentine, invited me to join a group of officers and sailors who were going, with the X.O., to run the infamous Odessa Steps. We left the ship and ran the mile and a half to the steps, ran up and down the steps three times and ran back to the ship. Since I have been running steps since 1979, I had no problem with the run and that fact played a large part (especially in view of my advanced age) in my being accepted as part of the crew. We did the same run again before departing Odessa for the Eastern Mediterranean, and did a similar workout a few times during stops at Souda Bay, Crete. On those workouts, we would run a mile and a half up and down hills to a tiny beach on the Aegean Sea, swim out about 500 yards to an island, swim back to the beach, and run back to the ship. It was a good workout. – especially for a 69-year-old English instructor.

The most memorable part of the trip (aside from my classes and group work-outs) was the selection of McFaul to be the first U.S. Warship to go to the aid of Georgia after that country was invaded by Russia. We were one day away from Haifa, in the Mediterranean, and were looking forward to a tour of the Holy Land, when the Captain informed the ship’s company that we were turning around and going back to Crete to pick up supplies to take back into the Black Sea to assist Georgia. The disappointment caused by missing a probably once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the Holy Land, gave way to the euphoric news that my son, Tim, would be at Crete (Souda Bay) on the day we would be there picking up the supplies. Consider this: McFaul was supposed to be in Haifa, Israel, but the Russian invasion of Georgia caused a need for critical supplies, and McFaul was tasked with returning to Souda Bay to pick up the supplies and once again transit the Turkish Straits into the Black Sea to deliver them to Georgia. My son, Tim, was supposed to be in Louisiana where his ship (USNS Benavidez) was undergoing maintenance, but the Captain of USNS Fisher was unable to make a scheduled trip, so Tim took the Fisher on the trip to Kuwait. Tim and I had joked through E-mail, as soon as he set sail on the trip he was not scheduled to make, that we might end up being on two ships passing in the night somewhere in the Mediterranean, but McFaul’s X.O., Tim Gibboney, tracked USNS Fisher and learned that she would be arriving in Souda around the same time we would arrive there. An agnostic would no doubt attribute all that to just one of life’s coincidences, but I wouldn’t. God is good. To make a long story short, the X.O. arranged for me to be taken by one of the port security boats out to Tim’s ship for a two- hour visit. Tim’s ship did not come into the dock, because he was only picking up a security detail for his transit of the Suez Canal and passage through the Gulf of Aden (pirate country). Had it not been for the X.O., I would not have been able to meet with Tim, but only wave to him as he sailed by. The port security guys came back to Tim’s ship at the end of our visit and transported me back to McFaul, and both McFaul and Fisher left Souda Bay one behind the other: Fisher for the Suez Canal, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf and Kuwait; McFaul for the Turkish Straits, the Black Sea and Georgia. Although unplanned, McFaul, while I was aboard, transited the Turkish Straits three times, and each time was special.

The Turkish Straits are two narrow straits: The Dardanelles and the Bosporus. The Dardanelles lie on the Aegean Sea side of the Sea of Marmara; the Bosporus, on the Black Sea side. A ship going from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea will pass through the Dardanelles, sail through the Sea of Marmara, which intersects the city of Istanbul, and then enter the Bosporus to sail into the Black Sea. The Straits are considered the boundary between the continents of Europe and Asia. They’re under the control of the Turkish military, and governed by the Montreux Convention of 1936.

The Dardanelles are historically significant as they relate to the First World War Battle of Gallipoli, also known as The Dardanelles Campaign, which temporarily ended the political career of Winston Churchill who, as England's First Lord of the Admiralty, pushed the plan to capture Constantinople (now Istanbul) and secure a sea route to Russia. The battle was extremely bloody with heavy casualties on both sides. The Turks, under Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later Ataturk), won the day and, eventually, their independence. Churchill, to the benefit of the entire free world, recovered his career prior to World War II or we’d all be living in a vastly different world today.

Here's a good depiction of the Turkish Straits:


For someone who considers himself a Churchillphile, sailing through the Dardanelles (three times) on a U.S. Navy Warship was an almost unimaginable experience.

When we finished in Georgia, we played cat and mouse for a few days with a Russian Frigate in the area. While I was enjoying the show from the bridge wing, Captain Tim Schorr came up behind me and said: “Bet you thought the Cold War was over.”

Mention must be made about the students I had aboard McFaul. They were truly a delight. Some were exceptionally bright; all were willing and eager to become better writers – and all did. Many of them I will never forget. The students in my advanced class will all be welcome additions to any college campus should they choose to leave the Navy and pursue their degrees. In the event they choose one of the all-too-many universities ruled by the Left, they will at least have three college credits on their transcripts from a course in which they read, discussed, and attempted to imitate the style of, columnists never even mentioned on Left-wing campuses: Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Daniel Pipes, Mark Helprin, Bret Stephens, Charles Krauthammer, Tony Snow, and others.

My classes ended shortly after leaving the Black Sea, while returning through the Turkish Straits toward the Eastern Mediterranean. It looked like I would not be able to get off the ship for at least two weeks (probably in Bulgaria), but another change of plans called for us to make a short visit at the Turkish Naval Base of Aksaz. I was able to arrange flights from there to Istanbul, JFK in New York, Charlotte, N. C. and thence to Jacksonville, ending quite an odyssey that I will never forget.


Here is a Photo of USS McFaul (DDG-74)


And here is a photo of Captain Tim and his proud Dad taken aboard the USNS Fisher anchored off Souda Bay, on August 20, 2008.


Finally, here is a photo of The Odessa Steps.


(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one-person kayak miles out in the ocean - closer to God.)

Ruminations in a Kayak XIV

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Aboard USS Kearsarge (LHD-3)

I spend a lot of time in my kayak reliving my days at sea as part of the PACE Program, run by Central Texas College. The program offers college level classes (and credits) to sailors assigned to ships (afloat). Becoming a part of that program was one of the better decisions I have ever made, and, as of this writing, I have been on two deployments: one, on an Amphibious Assault Ship (helicopter and harrier jet carrier); the other, on a Guided Missile Destroyer.

Since becoming a part of the P.A.C.E. Program, which acronym stands for, Program Afloat for College Education, I ruminate a lot about my time spent aboard ship with the young sailors who are trying to better themselves by acquiring some college credits while defending their country. I must say that all such memories are more than pleasant, and I have a new appreciation for the young men and women who choose to go “down to the sea in (U. S. Navy) ships” to preserve our dominance of the world’s oceans. My first deployment was in November 2007 aboard the USS Kearsarge, LHD 3, an amphibious assault ship. It is the fourth U. S. Navy ship named for Kearsarge Mountain in New Hampshire. The primary mission of amphibious assault ships is the embarkation, deployment, landing and support of a Marine Landing Force. While aboard Kearsarge, I was in the company of 3,000 Marines and 1300 sailors, and there was not a heck of a lot of room to move around. I slept in a small “stateroom” with three other civilians (one of whom was another PACE instructor), and there was not even enough room to have an original thought. My four classes all dealt with writing – from very basic stuff to more advanced levels, including poetry, drama, and the short story.

The other PACE instructor and I arrived in Bahrain in early November only to learn that Kearsarge had left the area to head for the East Coast of Africa to chase after the Somali pirates who were menacing commercial shipping in that area. They were somewhere near Djibouti when we left Bahrain aboard the USNS Lewis and Clark to find her. We spent eight days on the Lewis and Clark (a re-supply ship operated for the Military Sealift Command by a civilian crew), and during that time we did underway replenishments (refueling & re-supplying) with three Navy ships in the Indian Ocean, one of which was the USS Ponce, LPD 15, on which oldest son Bob had served as Executive Officer in 1998-1999. Given the number and types of Navy ships at sea on any given day around the world, what were the chances I would find myself on a ship I was not scheduled to be on, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, meeting up with a ship on which one of my sons had previously served? On the eighth day, we finally rendezvoused with Kearsarge and were flown to her deck in one of the two helicopters of the Lewis and Clark. We started our classes immediately since we had only six weeks to complete them before the next courses were to begin (so each of our class sessions would be extended, and classes would be held six days a week with tutoring on Sundays).

Living conditions could have been better, but they were not bad. Privacy, of course, was non-existent. The Ward Room Mess was a huge room filled with round tables that sat eight to ten people each. The Marine Officers tended to sit away from the Navy Officers, but even they (the Marines) segregated themselves (ground pounders in one area, aviators in another). The Navy guys blended much better with each other, although the pilots did seem to gravitate toward each other.

The time went very fast, and each day was more or less a blur. It seemed like all I did was eat (breakfast), teach, eat (lunch), teach, work out, attend Mass, eat (dinner), correct and comment on that day's essays, prepare the next day's classes, and sleep, because that is exactly how the days went. We were lucky to have a Catholic chaplain aboard, Fr. Fix, who said Mass every night (except Saturday, for some reason), even though it was attended regularly only by a small group of Marines, the Navy dentist, and me. Sergeant Major Tom Hall, USMC, acted as Lector and Eucharist Minister at every Mass. We became good friends.

Kearsarge made only one port visit during my time on board, and that was in Jebal Ali, the port of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and we were only there for three days. That stop was really the highlight of the trip, though, as the other PACE instructor and I got to ski at the indoor ski resort in Dubai – twice! Other than that mini ski vacation (which amounted to two half days), I will always remember spending every available minute (and there weren’t many) watching flight operations – many at night. There was a deck on which was located the flight tower, that Sergeant Major Hall showed me during my first week aboard. I probably never would have found my way up there had Tom not shown me. I spent as much time as I could on that deck, watching the show as the helicopters and harrier jets took off and landed on the short, moving, and swaying runway.

I should mention the first man I encountered aboard Kearsarge, after deplaning from the above-mentioned helicopter, was Chief Jay Schimke, who was the PACE liaison. Jay was the electronics go-to-guy on the ship, and was very smart and very competent. I’ll never forget how he managed to get me home for Christmas. I finished my courses on December 21st, and had only to distribute grades and have the students complete a course evaluation form on the 22nd. The next opportunity to leave the ship would be on January 3rd, in Haifa, Israel, so I would miss Christmas with the family – a fact I was aware of when I accepted the assignment. On the evening of December 21st, Jay contacted me and asked if I could leave the ship the next morning to fly to Bahrain and thence to the USA. I would have to be on the flight deck at 0830. I told him I had to meet with all my classes, distribute grades and have the evaluation forms completed, so I didn’t think it was possible. It was about 8:00 PM, on the 21st. Jay said: “let’s get it done.” With his help, I contacted all my students and requested them to meet with me in the classroom at 0700 the next morning. Jay and I worked quickly to complete all the administrative forms for the Navy and Central Texas College, and he helped me complete all the paperwork in the ship’s administration office so I could be properly checked out. Later that night, LTJG Kelley Fitzpatrick, USN, knocked on our stateroom door behind which I was feverishly completing last minute preparations for departing. Kelley, whom I had met in Bahrain and spent a lot of time with on the Lewis and Clark (he was a helicopter pilot joining the Search and Rescue group on Kearsarge), had a huge smile on his face, and said: “Guess who’s flying you off this boat?”

The next day, Jay insisted on carrying my bag up to the flight deck and stayed with me until I got the signal to approach and enter Kelley’s SAR helicopter. We took off headed for Bahrain, making one stop on the USS Carr, a Frigate patrolling in the Persian Gulf, to drop off some supplies. I really was not surprised that all my students came through, and all showed up at 0700 sharp to get their grades and fill out their course evaluations.

I got to the international terminal at the Bahrain airport at around Noon, on the 22nd, and had to wait until 0200 the next morning for my flight to London. From London I flew to Miami and thence to Jacksonville. I really owe that Christmas with my family to Jay Schimke, who went out of his way to get me a seat on that helicopter and then helped me well into the night to get everything done. I was absolutely delighted to learn later that Jay won the Admiral Zumwalt Award for Visionary Leadership, on January 12, 2008, and that he had been nominated for the award (nominations must come by way of an essay from a sailor who works for the nominee) by one of my students, Tony Milbut. Tony had been in my advanced writing class, and was one of the best and brightest.


(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one-person kayak miles out in the ocean - closer to God.)



USNS LEWIS & CLARK (T-AKE-1)


USS PONCE (LPD-15)


USS KEARSARGE (LHD-3)

Ruminations in a Kayak XIII

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On Modern Parenting

“The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children.” King Edward VIII (1894-1972).

One of the things that modern parenting has brought us, in addition to “time out” for unruly and out of control children, is the attitude that the parent is to be the “best friend” of his or her kids. In order to fill that newly created position, many parents have slipped into what can only be described as a second childhood – or worse – a second attempt at being a teenager. To hear (and see) some parents dressing and talking exactly like their teenage progeny is enough to make a mature adult want to paddle out to sea in a one-seat kayak. When I hear adults end every sentence with a question mark, or start every sentence with “like,” I want to send for help. The sight of middle aged women clad in low slung jeans and too short tops exposing inches of waistline flab walking on the beach with tattooed daughters dressed exactly the same way could easily bring on severe nausea. The lower exposed backs of such women often are decorated with “body art” (a new sophisticated term for tattoo) that can mirror the disfiguration on the same part of the daughter’s body. It’s all simply too much for an old man who grew up in a time when adults were adults and actually advised and supervised the children God had given them. Adults in my day did not talk like or dress like their children, and they certainly did not make any attempt to curry favor with them or tell them unceasingly that they loved them (their love for their children was manifested daily by their actions). They guided them and tried to keep them from going through life lemming-like, following every crazy fad that came along. Those days, though, are long gone it seems, and probably never will return

I‘m willing to bet that most of those mothers who act in the way just described work outside the home, that the children attend schools where discipline is nothing but an anachronistic concept that long ago was trumped by diversity, and a prioritization of self-esteem, and that there is a lot more TV watching than reading going on in their homes. I’ll bet further that those women are quick to disparage stay-at-home Moms, and that virtually none of those kids are home-schooled. There probably are no studies extant that would prove my contentions (such studies would be considered politically incorrect), but maybe as Casey Stengel used to say: “You could look it up.”

All this might seem not to fit in with my usual ruminations in my kayak, but it is something very close to my heart because I have grandkids, and even though they are lucky not to have such mothers I still think about how this new world of ours will affect their futures, and shape their values – and I get nervous.


(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one-person kayak miles out in the ocean - closer to God.)

Ruminations in a Kayak XII

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On Choosing Politicians

(This was written after a short paddle in the summer of 2008)

On a day when it was simply too hot to paddle out to the sea buoy despite the favorable current and wind conditions (virtually no wind), I decided to just paddle straight out for an hour and return to my beach, hopefully ahead of serious dehydration. The heat and some other things going on in my life had me in a foul mood so naturally my thoughts turned toward politicians. I had been reading about the earmarks won by the usual subjects in Washington, and my favorite quote about politicians popped into my thoughts. G. K. Chesterton, back in the 1920’s said: “It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.” Now we all know that such quotes are always considered hyperbole, but given the absolutely treasonous statements by some politicians while our nation is at war perhaps some of those bastards should be hanged.

The synchronized swells over which my kayak guided smoothly and almost effortlessly did nothing to assuage my anger at being faced with two poor choices, once again, for president of the United States. I would hope that were “none of the above” placed on every ballot in the country, that “none of the above” would carry 49 states – Massachusetts being the only exception since those people would probably write in “Kennedy,” and by that they would mean any Kennedy still standing.

Sometimes I think our form of government, because of its dependence on elected politicians, just simply does not work, but then I’m always reminded of what Winston Churchill said about it: “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Of course his remarks were meant also to include our Democratic Republic.

Sir Winston, the Man of the Century, was not often wrong, and I’m sure he knew what he was talking about when he spoke those words about democracy. We do, though, have to find a better way to vet our candidates for public office. If an applicant for a federal job has to go through a detailed background check by the FBI or some other federal investigative service before he can be hired, why can’t we mandate such background investigations for anyone who has declared himself a candidate for public office? Why do we leave something so important to the media, where definitive evidence of bias has been painfully obvious forever? Of course, in addition to the media, we can also rely on the materials produced and distributed by the candidate himself. Now that’s really reliable. In addition to requiring a background investigation on those who have declared themselves ready to “serve the people,” why not require them to take and pass closely monitored detailed written examinations on Economics, History (especially the history of war), and Philosophy (with an emphasis on Logic)? The results of such examinations could be made public so everyone could see exactly how intelligent these people are. Some might say that the so-called “debates” are the equivalent of oral examinations. Sorry. The next time one of the candidates answers a question put by one of the “debate” moderators honestly and completely rather than using well-practiced obfuscatory skills to look intelligent while evading the question, will be a milestone in American politics.


(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one-person kayak miles out in the ocean - closer to God.)

Ruminations in a Kayak XI

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On Miracles

According to G. K. Chesterton, “The most astonishing thing about miracles is that they happen.” I think it was Evelyn Waugh who added: “Miracles happen, but it is presumptuous to anticipate them.”

I often ruminate on those two quotes when alone in my kayak. It sometimes seems that the miracles we pray for just don’t come about. For instance, a number of us recently prayed very hard that God would spare the life of a five-year old grandchild of a friend. We were all, as we said, praying for a miracle. When the child died, our immediate feeling was that the miracle had been denied us, but in retrospect we came to believe that God might have granted us another miracle rather than the one for which we prayed. It was apparently God’s intention to bring that child home very early for reasons known only to Him, but before He took the child another one was already growing in the womb of the mother – unexpectedly. That’s certainly something to think about.

I have prayed for miracles - major and minor – all my life, because of my strong belief in the miracles performed by Jesus in the New Testament. In fact, if not for the greatest miracle (the Resurrection), there would be no Christianity. If Jesus had not risen from the dead, and caused the Holy Spirit to come upon His apostles and confer on them the gift of tongues, the apostles would probably have gone back to being fishermen, and there would be no New Testament as we know it.

C. S. Lewis, in his book, Miracles (in which he deconstructs the arguments against miracles by Hume and others), declares The Incarnation (God becoming Man) the most important miracle for Christians (he calls it “The Grand Miracle”). He probably reasoned that had Jesus not been born, the rest of the miracles would not have happened, but surely the miracle of His birth and all the other miracles would have been questioned and doubted by the many who feared Him (and called for His crucifixion) had He not risen from the grave in three days as he promised. It was not until He rose from the dead that the people of that time (except for some, but not all, of His Apostles) recognized his Divinity. My opinion here is not meant as an argument against the view of C. S. Lewis (a fool’s errand if ever there was one), but merely as another view that evolved from other readings.

Anyone can pray for a miracle, but anticipating miracles as a result of our prayers is not a good idea, because God is in charge of miracles and He does as He sees fit. The miracles we pray for have to fit into God’s plan, and it is “presumptuous to anticipate them” whether they do or do not. That is exactly why the Nuns always taught us to pray that God’s will be done – not ours. We can, though, pray that the will of God will be what we pray for.


(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one-person kayak miles out in the ocean - closer to God.)

Ruminations in a Kayak X

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On the Word “WANT”

On days when there are no submarines appearing in the channel, no whales giving birth to calves, and no large pods of dolphins or ancient sea turtles to keep me focused on the here and now, my mind often wonders to things that have either always enthralled or always bothered me. On one recent day, after completing my daily afloat rosary, I thought of something that has always attracted my ire: the incessant use of the word “want” by children and even some adults. If I could, I would totally ban that word from our language. When I mentioned that desire recently to a friend, he defended the use of the word in circumstances where someone would say something like: “I want to help you,” or “I want to be a good person.” The use of “want” in such contexts, I told him is unnecessary, i.e., if one wants to be good, he need only be good. If someone wants to help me, he need only get to work helping me. The meaning of the word “want,” to which I object, includes a perceived need, a craving, a demand, or desire for something – usually something not really needed, or something to which the petitioner is not entitled, or has not earned. Wanting is something that comes naturally to everyone, but most of us learn to stop wanting “things” once we come to realize the unimportance of most “things.”

None of this is to say or imply that we should not always be trying to better ourselves, and our lives, but at some point it is important to realize that “things” do not really make us happy, and can often tend to make our lives worse, rather than better, after acquiring them. All “things” are temporal and at some point in our lives (the earlier the better) we should be concerning ourselves with the eternal rather than the temporal. One of the most important lessons given us by Samuel Johnson in Rasselas came from the mouth of Princess Nekayah near the end of the book after she, along with Rasselas and their tutor, Imlac, had traveled the world in an unsuccessful search for the "Choice of Life" that would bring true happiness: "To me," said the Princess, "the choice of life is become less important; I hope hereafter to think only on the choice of eternity."


(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one-person kayak miles out in the ocean - closer to God.)

Ruminations in a Kayak IX

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On Contemplative Life vs. Society

In the 12th century, St. Bernard of Clairvaux (the last escort of Dante in Paradiso) was responsible for the spread of the Order of Cistercian Monks, the avowed purpose of which Order was a return to the literal observance of the Rule of St. Benedict. The Cistercians demanded an even more austere lifestyle for the Benedictine Monks than they had endured in St. Benedict’s time. The main feature of the new lifestyle was a return to manual labor – especially to fieldwork, which became the special characteristic of Cistercian life.

I often think of those Monks and their lifestyle when at sea in my kayak, and cannot help thinking of the story of the young novitiate in a cloistered order of monks who, upon entering the cloister, was instructed by the Abbot in the rules for all members of the cloister: Arise at 4:00 AM, chapel prayers for one hour, followed by a light breakfast, followed by six hours of work in the fields, followed by a meager lunch, followed by five hours of work in the fields, followed by a Spartan supper, followed by evening chapel prayers until 9:00 PM, followed by one hour of private meditation in one’s cell. The routine never varied day after day. No talking was permitted, but every five years each monk was permitted to speak two words.

The young novitiate went off to his cloistered life and dutifully fulfilled his tasks each day. At the end of five years, the novitiate was called in to meet with the Abbot, who congratulated him and asked him what two words he would like to say. The young monk looked at the Abbot and said: “Bed, hard,” and immediately returned to his routine for another five years.

Five years later, the young monk, who had continued faithfully fulfilling his prescribed duties in the cloister, was again called in to meet with the Abbot. The Abbot, for the second time, congratulated the young monk and asked him what now, after 10 years in the cloister, he would like to say. The young monk looked at the Abbot and said: “Food, bad,” and immediately returned to his routine for another five years.

After 15 years of strictly following the rules of the cloister, the now not so young monk was called in to meet with the Abbot, who, for the third time congratulated him and asked him what two words he would like to say. The no-longer-young monk looked at the Abbot and said: “I quit.” To which the Abbot replied: “Well, I’m not surprised. All you’ve done since you got here is complain.”

The question arising from the above to be ruminated on while paddling a kayak is: Which is the better choice of life: the solitude of the cloister or the daily hubbub of society? Is it better to dedicate one’s life to God apart from society, or to try to remain faithful to God while remaining a member of society? Is the man who forsakes society for the quiet contemplative life of the cloister nobler than the man who continues to enjoy the good life of society, while also abiding it’s evil, or is he simply taking the easy way to God by removing himself from society’s daily temptations? It would appear that a man cannot be a part of both worlds.

For people who are very sociable, the choice is easy. But there are some of us who could not be described as being overly sociable. I, for example, do not consider myself unsociable, but I do know for certain that I will always consider a tandem kayak as having one too many seats.

Mona Charen has admonished women who want it all: career, children, athletic accomplishments, etc., that they can indeed have it all – just not all at once. I see it the same with the dilemma faced by the man who is not ready to abandon society, but yearns for the peacefulness of solitude to pray, meditate, and even ruminate. I have the solution for such a man: get a kayak – a one seater.


(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one-person kayak miles out in the ocean - closer to God.)

Ruminations in a Kayak VIII

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On Making Judgments

The screensaver on my home personal computer is in rolling text. It reads "Be Judgmental." If that fact got out, there is no doubt I would never be confirmed by any U.S. Senate committee for any high government post, because even thinking one should be judgmental would be more than enough to disqualify any prospective appointee. Such a nominee would be considered divisive and not sufficiently in tune with diversity. I hate thinking about such nonsense when I should be relaxing and enjoying the splendor of nature that is the Atlantic Ocean, but some days it can’t be helped.

The other day, the infamous ninth circuit court of appeals in California ruled the ban, in California, against “same sex marriage” unconstitutional. By now, one would have thought the ninth circuit court of appeals would have been ruled unconstitutional. Jean Paul Sartre once said that all of French Existentialism is to be found in the contention that if there is no God everything is permitted, but being alone in a kayak far out in the ocean makes it impossible to believe there is no God. How else could such grandeur come to be if not from a loving God? But God made rules: they’re called the Ten Commandments if you’re a Christian. They’re called other things by other religions, but all people who believe in God believe in rules. We Christians believe God created man and woman to fulfill different roles in His overall plan. It still takes (and will always take) one man and one woman to make one new human being.

I’m surprised that political correctness has not yet mandated the expunction of the definition of the word “perversion” from the dictionary. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, it means: a sexual practice or act considered abnormal or deviant.

As Dr. John Patrick told us in his famous lecture, entitled “What Hippocrates Knew and We have Forgotten,” and here I paraphrase: one does not tolerate truth, beauty, goodness, or love; one tolerates something that could be described as the exact opposites of those virtues. Some of us believe it is not being unfair, bigoted, or intolerant when someone chooses to judge good over evil, so how in the world did those who favor evil succeed in painting us judgmental people as intolerant?

It probably should be pointed out clearly that our judgment is being exercised about the evil actions not the actors. We love the actors; we hate the actions.


(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one-person kayak miles out in the ocean - closer to God.

Ruminations in a Kayak VII

On Making Decisions

Anyone serious about introspection has to have, on many occasions, second-guessed himself about past decisions involving, as Rasselas called it, the Choice of Life, or choice of mate (or even whether to have a mate), and the many other choices made during the course of one’s life. Being alone in a kayak in the ocean is the ideal place for such introspection since one in such a place is, as mentioned earlier, as close to God as one can get on this earth.

Before wondering about whether one has made the right choice regarding anything that demands choosing, one must at least attempt to establish whether there is any validity to the philosophy of Determinism, a good definition of which is provided by the American Heritage Dictionary as: ”the philosophical doctrine that every state of affairs, including every human event, act, and decision is the inevitable consequence of antecedent states of affairs” (often understood as denying the possibility of free will).

It would be very easy to buy into that philosophy and accept the specious defense of “the devil made me do it,” to erase any culpability on one’s part for poor decisions. One could also take the seeming high road and espy the hand of God in every personal decision, good or poor, as an attempt at self-exoneration, but either one is what we today call a cop-out. Foreknowledge of a decision does not necessitate responsibility for that decision, so the fact that God knows what our decision will be even before we know does not (some believe) cancel out the free will that makes us responsible for that decision. St. Augustine, who fought with himself arduously over this and other epistemological problems, never completely satisfied himself regarding Determinism, Free Will, or Predestination, and if the Bishop of Hippo could not find definitive answers to such complex problems, it is easy to say that perhaps we should not waste our time. Time, though, is never wasted by such contemplations, especially when kayaking alone in the ocean.

Those who would avoid responsibility for their own actions, and blame all their misfortune on fate, embrace the idea of Determinism, but on what do those same people blame their good fortune?

So, even if we are unsure about the idea of Determinism, should we blame ourselves for decisions that in retrospect have been determined to be bad ones? Yes, but we get over it and keep going. To quote C. S. Lewis: “What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.”


(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one-person kayak miles out in the ocean - closer to God.)

Ruminations in a Kayak VI

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On Making New Friends

There is more than one reason for my enduring preference for the one-seat kayak. Aside from an almost lifetime love of solitude (probably should have considered a cloistered monastery), there is my lack of desire for an abundance of friends. I have always been very careful in choosing my friends, and in extending my friendship to just anyone. The good Nuns at St. Timothy’s used to tell us that one could judge a man by the friends he makes. The corollary to that proposition, of course, is that one could judge a man by the people with whom he never became friendly. When one is so particular about close personal friendships, the loss of close friends is, of course, much more profound than it might be for one who does not place such high value on relationships. When close friends are lost late in life, replacing them is more difficult. It is more difficult, first of all, because the number of men with whom one shares the same life view has probably been dwindling steadily for some years. What, then, is one to do?

I have, as related previously, lost my closest friends in the past three years, and have not even tried to replace them. Frankly, I have no idea how to go about it. My father made one of the closest friends of his life after he took up the game of golf when he was well over fifty. I gave up golf many years ago when the boys started playing sports, so that’s out. It seems ironic that someone paddling all alone miles out in the ocean should ponder such a dilemma. The chance of meeting a new close friend out there (especially one my age) is probably not very good. On the other hand, should I come across another lone kayaker at the sea buoy, chances are we might have something in common (given the geographical circumstance of our meeting). With my luck, though, the guy would probably prove to be an eco freak, and a card carrying member-in-good-standing of PETA, who cherishes the life of the planet, the whales, dogs, cats, and every other animal known to man, in fact every life but the life of an unborn child. In other words, with my luck he would be a Liberal. Thank the Lord for one-seat kayaks.


(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one-person kayak miles out in the ocean - closer to God.)

Ruminations in a Kayak V

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On Losing Old Friends

This was written after a quiet day of kayaking shortly after returning home from the funeral of my brother in Philadelphia, in September 2008.

A missionary priest who was visiting our parish recently told a very funny story about our relationships with each other here on earth. To make a point that probably was missed by several in the audience, the priest told of having dinner with an acquaintance of his who happened to be a former Broadway actress. The now elderly actress, during their dinner, said to him: “It’s terrible that when you get old all your friends start dying.” The priest said his mind immediately went into high gear trying to come up with something very sage to say to her (after all he was supposedly a spiritual advisor), but before he could come up with anything, she added: “But on the other hand, so do your enemies.”

I’ve thought of that story more than once while paddling my kayak in the ocean, and can honestly say that I have never taken pleasure in the passing of any so-called enemies of mine (we all have them, you know, and according to Norman Podhoretz: “It’s important to have enemies, because everything depends on the kind of enemies you have”), but I have experienced great pain at the passing of relatives and friends. Two of my best friends (Ed Dade and Jim Kelly) have already been mentioned elsewhere in these writings. There are, of course, others: no fewer than six fellow members of the Bank Robbery Squad in the FBI Washington Filed Office have preceded me, and I pray for them along with two of my former colleagues in the field of Insurance Fraud every day. Less than two weeks ago, we buried my brother Bill, who lost his fairly short battle with brain cancer, and only four months before that we buried his son, Billy, about whom I have already written.

It’s not easy, if even possible, to replace old friends. Older people meeting for the first time have already missed most of the great experiences and good times shared by old friends that make those friendships so special. Those memorable experiences, especially the good ones, shared by friends early in life cannot normally be matched by later-in-life events shared with new acquaintances. There are exceptions, of course, and experiences shared in certain professions (two of which are on my resume) can bring special meaning to relationships of later origin.

So what does one who has lost old and dear friends do? I wish I knew.

(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one-person kayak miles out in the ocean - closer to God.)

Ruminations in a Kayak IV

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On Living Up to Potential

Being alone at sea, one has lots of time for self-examination, and, of course, critique. In his Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language, Samuel Johnson opines that no man is satisfied with himself “because he has done much, but because he can conceive little.” Now that’s something to ponder while paddling alone in a kayak in the ocean.

Far too many people, myself included, are too quick to become satisfied with their efforts and the accomplishments brought forth by those efforts. Dr. Johnson is also credited with saying something to the effect that there is no good writing; there is only good re-writing (this from a guy who wrote Rasselas in one week so he could pay for his mother’s funeral). Most writers would agree that when they make a second attempt at a piece of writing it ends up both shorter – and better. The same goes for painting. I live with an artist, whose first attempt at painting a portrait never comes close to the quality of all subsequent attempts at the same portrait. Such examples, I think, are a proof in microcosm of the benefit of experience (especially the experience of failure). The oft-quoted Franklin P. Jones once said: “Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.” If we never attempt anything at which we are likely to fail, we’ll probably never fail, but we’ll never succeed at much either. Unfortunately many of us, in any given form of endeavor sometimes “can conceive little” and allow ourselves to be content with at best mediocrity. To paraphrase Socrates: The mediocre life is not worth living.

Parents who think the most important thing they can do for their children is simply to encourage them to be happy probably need to reassess their idea of what it is that makes most children happy. Too often, children (and their parents) mistake happiness as being able to go through life without stress or expectations. When parents do not encourage their children to compete, they actually do them a great disservice. Everyone is familiar with overbearing parents who push their children toward heights they can never reach. That such parents are trying to make up for their own deficiencies is obvious, but the opposite approach (never encouraging children to live up to whatever potential God has given them) is equally bad, and leads to the acceptance of mediocrity by the children. To paraphrase Alfred Lord Tennyson: it’s better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. Kids who never try to compete in anything, and the parents who never encourage them, could very well live to regret it, and spend their lives envying those who were willing to work hard and compete.

(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one-person kayak miles out in the ocean - closer to God.)

Ruminations in a Kayak III

Suffering Children

Perhaps the greatest conundrum for a thinking, believing, person is, and always has been, the attempt to understand why people, especially children, who are without moral blemish, are visited with catastrophic illness and other great tragedies.

Roman Catholics such as I have always been taught that God is omnipotent and just. Therein lies the conundrum: how can a just God, if He is also an omnipotent God, permit such undeserved suffering? If He is indeed just, He must be unable to prevent it; and if He is indeed omnipotent (and therefore able to prevent it), He must be unjust. The answer to all this, we are told, will be learned in the next life, and we Christians are totally unashamed to admit that we believe that. God is omnipotent and just, and we are simply incapable of understanding why He permits certain things to happen in our lives.

In The Book of Deuteronomy, in a formula that recurs throughout, the people are promised they will receive blessings for obedience to God and punishment for disobedience. Belief in the Deuteronomistic Theology is the reason that Job’s friends, who attend him after he has been visited with the greatest personal tragedies imaginable, are trying to determine from him what wrong he has done to incur the wrath of God, so sure are they that he would not have suffered such tragedies had he not brought them on by his own actions (some friends!).

Then along came the New Testament, and Jesus made “all things new.” We Christians do not believe (as did those friends of Job and their contemporaries) that personal tragedies, such as cancer in children, are the result of our (and certainly not their) actions. This, of course, is why we are faced with the mystery, and why we must take it on faith that God permits such things for reasons that we will not understand in this life. Contemplating problems that simply cannot be resolved to one’s satisfaction, without the benefit of deep faith, can make one’s mind race faster than one’s body can paddle a kayak in the ocean.

(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one-person kayak miles out in the ocean - closer to God.)

Ruminations in a Kayak II

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SUFFERING FOOLS

Some people are able see the glory in their own lives (even if there is none), and there are some who say that were they able to change anything in their lives they would not do so. I cannot place my self in either of those categories. One thing I definitely would change is the amount of time I spent suffering fools. There are a lot of people in this world who just simply are unbearable, and I’ve met more than my share of them.

The first FBI special agent-in-charge (SAC) for whom I worked in St Louis was a perfect example. He was possibly the dumbest (and pompous – but those attributes always seem compatible) man with whom I have ever spoken. J. Edgar Hoover, when asked during an interview what kind of man he sought to head his field offices around the country, said: “An idiot can run any of my field offices as long as he is an obedient idiot.” What he meant by that, of course, was that he and only he ran the FBI and anyone who was inclined to an original thought had better keep it to himself. There were, of course, exceptions, but in that particular SAC, Hoover found the paradigm.

Here's a glimpse: On the eve of the arrival of the infamous inspection team from Bureau headquarters (each Division in those days was inspected periodically to ensure it was following the proper procedures set out by the Bureau), the SAC actually came out of his office (where he spent most of his time hiding) to meet with all agents. He was particularly disturbed about the decline in the arrest and conviction statistics. He started by berating us because the statistics showed a 50 percent drop in kidnap convictions. When one of the older agents pointed out that while there had been two kidnappings in the Division the previous year, both of which resulted in convictions, there had only been one kidnapping during the current year, which also resulted in conviction, the "boss" glared at him and said he did not want to argue the point.

My first day as a new FBI agent was a good day until it ended with a meeting in the office of the SAC. My wife Cass, and our oldest son, Bob, had spent the day ensconced in a hotel room a few blocks from the office. Bob was not yet three years old, and Cass was four months pregnant with Tim. I remember putting in a long day looking for a fugitive outside the city with Eddie Moreland, the experienced agent who was shepherding me around the area. When we returned to the office, well after quitting time, the SAC (who had no family) called Russ Lafferty (another new agent who had been in my new agents’ class and had come with me to St. Louis), a recently arrived second office agent, Bob Hess, and myself into his office for a “get acquainted chat.” He kept us there for over an hour apparently hell bent on showing us just how stupid he was (which actually took less than five minutes). The gist of that one-way conversation was not enlightening; it mainly dealt with his greatness (in his own mind). I have always regretted not telling him I had more important things to do that evening, and leaving to take care of my pregnant wife and two year old son, who surely were tired of being cooped up in a hotel room all day, and hungrily awaiting me to take them out to dinner.

I don’t remember ever speaking another word to that idiot, until receiving a transfer to California six months later. Upon transfer, new agents were required to undergo what was considered an exit interview with the SAC before departing the St. Louis Division. While he was perusing my file and memoranda from my supervisor, during that interview, he couldn’t help noticing that I had made six arrests that had resulted in five convictions (with one pending) during my very short stay in the office. Considering the overall office statistics were, to say the least, nothing to brag about, his attitude changed dramatically and he picked up his phone telling me he would call the Bureau and quash the transfer in a second if that would please me. Staying in an office headed by a moron was the last thing I wanted to do, and our young family (Bob was then 3 yrs old and Tim was 3 weeks) was soon on its way to California.

That was neither the first nor the last fool I suffered during my various careers (he was probably the worst, though), and I still regret suffering any of them. We Christians are required to love such fools – not to tolerate or suffer them.

(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one person kayak miles out in the ocean – closer to God.)

Ruminations in a Kayak

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Readers of this Blog are by now aware that the Closer to God in a Kayak series ended, on August 31, 2010. Trips back to the sea buoy, although still proscribed by health concerns, should begin again soon. In the meantime, Tuesdays will, for the next several weeks, carry a post on my ruminations (written contemporaneously after kayaking trips that were otherwise devoid of reportable maritime incidents) while kayaking in the ocean. These thoughts or ruminations may or may not find favor with many readers, but thankfully there are lots of other things to read in the blogosphere. I’m hoping, though, that some will share my views and maybe take the time to let me know of their agreement – or disagreement.

SNOW DAYS

On completion of my daily rosary, which is always a part of my kayak trips, my mind is free to ruminate on many things – things that most of us fail to take the time to ponder amidst the cacophonous sounds of daily life and all those seemingly important things that dominate our time and attention. Florence King, in an article she wrote for National Review, entitled “The Examined Gesture,” called this failing of ours, “Americans’ war against the Socratic ideal of the examined life.” It was Socrates who declared: "The unexamined life is not worth living."

Since moving to Florida in 1973, I have lamented the absence of occasional “snow days.” Anyone who ever lived up north will recall how special a “snow day” was, especially when it caused the closing of schools. Those were the days when everyone was forced to stop and ignore all those very important things that were part of daily routines, and take a deep breath, relax, and realize that maybe all those things that regularly clogged our thoughts and actions were not so important after all: maybe we should think about, and even do, other things - at least while the snow piling up around us prevented us from continuing with those things that had seemingly become a part of our DNA. So my kayak trips have actually become my “snow days,” and I credit them with making me realize what is and is not important in my life and life in general.

My mother died when I was just about one year old, and my father’s mother, sister and brother all moved in with our family, which consisted of one brother, one sister, one father and me. Not given to reflection in those early days (even when it was snowing), not much is recalled about my early life. It was easy to stay busy, but being busy often prevents one from being overly inquisitive or introspective. Had regular solo kayaking been a part of my life much earlier, I’m convinced that today would find me a more intelligent and more interesting person. Maybe not.