Spring has arrived on the Delaware River. Last night, we took Bluebird's mooring ball out and shackled it to the anchor chain, ready to hold our little boat's bow into the current whenever she's ready to be launched.
During the winter, the anchor chain was tied to a long section of yellow polypropylene line. The other end of the line was tied to a five-foot (about) section of PVC tubing, capped at both ends, with a ring at one end. This "winter stick" floated above the mooring but, unlike a mooring ball, was too thin to get tangled with all the debris that storms wash into the river, particularly during the winter.
Bluebird's mooring was the farthest offshore and upstream from the club dock. We had tied the polypropylene line only long enough for the stick to be visible at dead low tied. We actually launched the stick at low tide back in the autumn
So yesterday we waited until we thought the tide was low and went out in the Boston Whaler to look for the stick. The temperature was in the high 40s but there was a wind blowing over the cold river water. The three of us -- Del, Jim and I -- rode back and forth across the area where we knew the stick should be, but it was nowhere in sight.
The sun went behind the trees on the Pennsylvania side of the river and still there was no sign of the stick. So Del drove the boat on one more slant toward the far shore. No luck, so we decided to turn back to the dock.
Just then, off to port maybe 100 feet away, I saw the cap of the stick, only inches above the river surface.
We circled toward the cap. Leaning over the bow, I grabbed it and pulled the stick aboard. The chain was stuck in the riverbottom mud, so Jim, who was wearing work gloves took over, getting the chain aboard.
Now the white mooring ball, it's bottom half stained brown from spending last season in the river, it's top half lettered with "Bluebird", floats in its designated spot. Spring has arrived.

The phone rang last night just after we had sat down for dinner. It was Lindsey, and she was calling to tell me she felt GREAT! I could hear her ear-to-ear grin over the phone, her giggling excitement. It was wonderful.
I had called her Saturday and Sunday to ask how she was feeling, and she'd answered just as I'd hoped she would. But then I decided to lay low to see what happened.
Her call last night proved to me that she got the message, and that she's enjoying feeling GREAT!

Your life can be changed in the most unexpected ways. Al Jacobson changed mine ten years ago, and now I'm working to help him change the life of my granddaughter, Lindsey, 8.
Al was one of the eight survivors of the US submarine Flier that hit a mine and sank on August 13, 1944, in the Philippines. When I was asked to take on the job of writing a book about the Flier survivors, I flew to Michigan to meet Al, at that time one of only two remaining Flier survivors.
Al was a top executive in his family's industrial firm, a company that made enormous profits on such things as bathroom faucet valves. He was semi-retired at the time, although he maintained an office at the company headquarters.
Except for his brush with death on Flier, Al's life had been a combination of hard work and great fortune. Born into the Jacobson family, a pillar of the Grand Haven, Michigan, community, Al had been a success at almost everything he did.
By the time I met Al, however, the insults of aging were begining to take their toll on his body. There was no shortage of ailments about which he could, if he wished, complain.
But any time Al was asked how he was doing, his response was a resounding "GREAT!"
He found no reason to complain about the discomfort or disability he might have been enduring. He was, after all, alive and in many ways quite fortunate.
Over several years, Al and I became friends of a sort. And in that time, I grew to admire his attitude. And I adopted his simple verbal affirmation of life.
I had a friend who, for example, might respond to an inquiry about his health with: "I'm okay, but it's early yet."
Comparing that with Al's "GREAT!" explained why Al might be the happier person of the two.
Thus did I begin to employ the same response in my daily life, and I've never regretted it. For one thing, it makes the people around you happier than if you'd listed all your ailments, over which they had no control.
Lindsey was sick on Thursday and on Friday, when I was to take care of her and her brothers, Richie and Justin, she was on the couch, still home from school, when I arrived. She and the boys came with me, and when we reached my home, Lindsey got on our couch, a truly pathetic invalid.
And there she stayed, until I'd had enough. I told her she needed to get out of her footsies and dress for a walk down to the river. She did, without complaint, but when we got back, she dove into her footsies again
That's when I began telling her about Big Al's reply. I suggested she should tell me she was "GREAT!"
It took some work before she finally, with the cutest grin on her face, allowed, in a very soft voice, that she, indeed, was feeling great.
Over the weekend, I phoned her twice, asking how she was. And to my great reward, both times, she said: "GREAT!"
Al has now touched a life very important to me. I hope Lindsey continues to feel GREAT and passes along that attitude to those close to her, regardless of how she feels.
Coincidentally, August 13 is the birthday of my daughter, Joy, Lindsey's mother.

To keep from doing harm to others, I've taken up a project.
Joy, my oldest child (and the mother of three) has in her home a toy box I made for her, Nancy and Ted almost 40 years ago. It's a red and yellow fire truck.
Amber, Ted's wife, apparently liked the idea that it had been passed along to grandchildren, and she asked me to make a toy box for Zoe, their 2 year old daughter.
I was delighted, and I went to Home Depot right away and got the lumber.
Amber wanted to paint the "treasure chest" toy box herself, and it is about ready for her. Just some final sanding and touchup and the paint can go on.
Here's hoping the treasure chest lasts as long as the fire truck has.

I don't know whether it was my inability to say what recent product discovery excited me, but something in my phone interview with Tracey, the Wegmans recruiter, determined that I was not a good match for any of their available jobs.
Nor have I heard back from Home Depot after my in-person interview there. Ditto with the gas-pumping job at the Wawa convinience store, which never even offered an e-interview.
Yesterday, I finished the latest rewrite of the youth novel. So now I'm free to go back out in the job marketplace. Perhaps I'll hang out in the Home Depot parking lot, where some folks apparently go to find work. But I sincerely doubt that I have the energy to compete with younger men trying to feed families in Central America, nor would I want to deny them just because I'm white and local. There should be better reasons to get work.
I saw a help-wanted sign in a diner. I didn't apply, expecting that it would be minimum wage. Even if that's the best I could do, I couldn't earn enough to pay for gas to get to the job.
I'd really like to earn enough money to be able to visit daughter Nancy in Hawaii and her family. I've tried in the past few years to do that once a year. This year, the air fare is at least 50 percent higher than last year and that has already caused me to postpone the trip.
I try to imagine the hardship that unemployment inflicts on folks less fortunate than I. I ran into a neighbor whom I seldom get to talk with. He had lost his job as a welder at a trucking company a few years back. He told me that while he was able to get another job quickly, he took a $5 an hour pay cut that he has never been able to recoup. His wife cleans houses, so she took on a few more jobs to make ends meet. They have twin daughters in college. Student loans and scholarships are easing the burden, but still.
So I have much to be thankful for, and while the job search continues, I'll avoid the threat of becoming stir crazy.
There's always yard work to do right here at home.

Last week, thanks to neighbors Pat and Ed Leaf, I had the opportunity to give a talk and sell some books. The event was an evening meeting of the Philadelphia Ship Model Society. It was held at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, and two dozen people attended.
This was the first time I'd had a chance to do a "reading" for Eight Survived. For my first book, The Sea's Bitter Harvest, I made several dozen appearances where I either talked to audiences or greeted passersby and engaged them in conversation, hoping for a sale. I set up my table at restaurants along the New Jersey shore, in libraries, at boating and SCUBA clubs, anywhere I thought I might find an audience.
And I loved the experience. I met some very nice people and got to tell a story that I'd spent a couple of years reasearching.
So I was elated when Pat and Ed invited me to talk to the members of their club.
For the event, I wore what for me is the high end of my wardrobe. I ditched the blue jeans and T-shirt and wore a button-down shirt, tie, Blue blazer and gray slacks. I felt pretty spiffy.
Once we arrived at the museum, I saw that I was a bit overdressed. Everyone was in casual clothes. So I started my talk with the announcement that I would be taking an informal approach.
How informal, I didn't actually realize.
First I told my audience -- men and women who build incredibly intricate models of a vast array of ships -- about the sinking of the US submarine Flier on August 13, 1944. (I let them know that I was humbled by their expertise and would claim no such quality for myself.)
Then I read one passage from the book -- about three pages -- where some of the most vivid action takes place.
After I'd wrapped up by telling of the cast of characters whom the downed submariners met in the Philippines, I took questions. As you might expect, the questions were thoughtful an numerous.
By the time the final question was asked, I really needed to use the head. And that's when I discovered just how casual my talk had been.
For the previous forty-five minutes, while my mouth flapped so did my fly, which had been unzipped the entire time.
I had to laugh at myself. I guess I've turned a corner that secures my place among the senior citizens of the world.

lDo we have a job for you?

There was one question during the phone job interview for Wegman's this morning that stumped me.
"Can you name a product -- of any kind -- you've recently discovered that excites you?"
I couldn't think of a single product, of the millions that are out there, possibly because I seldom go shopping and, whenever possible, I buy "pre-owned" and save a ton of money. Most pre-owned things aren't very exciting, and you don't actually discover them. You've probably known for some time that Levis makes blue jeans, for example.
So when the nice lady, Tracey, asked that question, there was a period of silence followed by my answer.
"No."
I don't know if failing to be an excited consumer disqualifies me to work in a supermarket. Perhaps it does. I will know by the end of next week, because I was assured I'd hear from Wegman's by then.

Unparallel house

Home Depot interviewed me today for an important position -- seasonal worker. I did not include this photo in my resume, so it can't be blamed for the fact that I was considered not for carpentry but for the garden section. I guess they were impressed with my brute strength, since that's where all the heavy lifting is done. My back aches at the prospect.
I've also applied to work in the bakery and the pizza shop at Wegmans supermarket, but they have yet to offer an interview. I've put my name in as gas pumper at Wawa convenince stores, as well. I'm getting a good look at Entry Level.