DON'T LET THE YEARS THUNDER BY . . .

Unless you've sailed . . . Moreover, unless you've sailed and skippered a sailboat you know not of the intoxication that's offered up by the sea.

Once baptisted, the sea, the water, it beckons constantly and lends no peace to those it intoxicates.

For those who find themselves landlocked and without a craft, it is torture. Torture until once again the wind fills the sails, the forward motion of the boat pushing it across the wind, halyards and forestays in chiming rhythm with the music loved by every sailor.

I am restless with the need to sail again, to feel the wind in my face, to sense the motion of the boat and to listen to the wind chime like sounds it creates.

I ask myself why it is that life is so very difficult that the next sailboat is oh so illusive. For whatever reason, it is not within my grasp today but surely it will be tomorrow. It just has to be.

Years ago I found interest in the book The Wander by Sterling Hayden. It's about sailing.

After recently reading again The Wander, I grow even more impatient in my search for the next sailboat, the one with my name on it.

A Quote From Sterling Hayden's Book, Wanderer

"To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise, you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen who play with their boats at sea... cruising it is called.

Voyaging belongs to seamen, and to the wanderers of the world who cannot, or will not, fit in. If you are contemplating a voyage and you have the means, abandon the venture until your fortunes change. Only then will you know what the sea is all about.

'I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it.' What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone.

What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense, and we know it.

But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade.

The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed.

Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?"

DON'T LET THE YEARS THUNDER BY . . .