Weekend after Christmas 2008

I had better blog a bit while I still have easy Internet access. It would be odd to go back to writing in a clandestine paper book, perhaps never to be seen or read again. Not that these are widely read as to the boring routine of my life, and my painfully journalistic style. So be it. In fact I really do tell most all on line, making my life an open book. My immortality on this world.

Joey called around noon on Saturday morning. I had run out to look at a house in Pinetown Friday morning, and it rained overnight. The house may work out, but the truck hated the cold damp rain and fog and stubbornly refused to start. Joey arrived here around 1 to get me. We loaded the fishing gear and a few things and went back to the Bradley Drive house to spend the weekend. Rhonda had gone to West Chester to be with Ed and we had my old home to ourselves. We ate, talked. Alexis is going through tough but predictable teenage relationship issues, both with her NJ boyfriend and with her needy friends. Joey admitted he was stressed by school, work, his car, and his mother. Thrust into the world without all of the pre-training and support I had, he is scared at times.

I need to show them all the love and support I can-too little too late, to be sure. But required of me as much as anything Ever has been, and probably much more. Some of Joey's friends came to jam in the basement. I had live music for a bit. Guitars and drums experimentally as only lonely teenage boys play. It brought back memories of those years. They are good kids. We watched Star Trek and I think those young men were surprised. They got it, at least some of it. We were all up to late. Sunday, everyone planned to go to the Colonial Park Mall. I wanted to go fishing, and it was 60 degrees, but Joey wanted to meet his girl and her son there. So we went there, ate mall teriyaki chicken, and socialized. Alexis and I went off to shop as she wanted to get a sexy outfit for her trip this week to New Jersey. I must admit some unusual and new emotions taking my 16 year out for a skimpy red dress and VERY high heel black shoes. Lord, she must be 6 foot three in them. She has lost weight and is so skinny she could easily compare to the ultra thin models everyone oohs about. I am concerned, but at this juncture can only give all of my support and advice when I can, or invited too. It is a new world. But not altogether unfamiliar.

I felt out of sync at the mall. The culture, people, glitter odd to me. This bustling glamorous place so reversed from our sad little mostly empty mall in Summerside. As a prisoner newly released to the real world after years in a solitary cell I was. The quiet quaintness of my other "home". The manners, the soft lilt of my Mary's island accented voice. I might have been scared, as if in a bad dream state that comes during a fever. Bright unhappy images of excess and loss, then the dark, restless sleep after a waking sweaty feverish flash of images.

The time is moving past so swiftly now its visceral. I feel the moments clicking by, like an old camera.

We were all tired after the mall day. I watched "Iron Man" with the kids at home and we had pizza. I felt fed, loved, and relaxed. Maybe even as the kids agreed for the first Christmas in many years.

This morning we got up late again. I sensed tension in Joey as it was the day to pick mom at the train station and clean before her return. I could feel the fear. But he made time to get gas, stop in Dauphin for worms and head on out to Clark's Creek. It was cool, sunny, and serene in our woods. I had forgotten my boots and heavy winter shirt. My feet were wet and cold and I loved it. Joey has been trying to film our adventures, but the camera battery is intermittent. We fished an hour or so. I caught a fall fish and a small wild brook trout a la Thundershower Run-Westline. Joey's reel fell off his rod (my rod of 35 years, now his) and he was a bit upset. We took a time dragging the stream, successfully, with a stick for the reel. An old Mitchell 408. I wasn't leaving that antique gem at the bottom of the creek, even if as it seems, we are the only fisherman ever there.

We went back home and I fried the small trout in butter and the three of us shared it. That was good.

Finally, I helped Joey clean up as Alexis got ready for work at her costume-shop mall job. She thinks she may get fired. She has been late and they are unhappy. I told her to find another job. She has to work as mom won't share any of the child support money with her. The girl hardly eats and has to buy her own clothes-you see, that is why I resisted support payments all those years. Yes, exactly.


Joey brought me back and all was OK here on Canterbury drive. My hostess announced that "the police are coming". I asked, "for me?, jokingly. No she said. During her cruise (last week and then some), someone broke into her safe and stole 5000 in cash and her morphine supply. I felt bad for the officer. The young ex-marine took the report, searched my room, shook my hand and left. It really was a bit much. Obviously, the kid who "takes care" of her who had all the keys would be my suspect. I always knew something was wrong after the "pot pie" incident and the trip to New York and the gas money caper.


All is calm now and it will be good to go to the other house-the serenity peace and welcome boredom of Pinetown. We will see.


I talked to Mary for a long time. She was emotional, sweet, upset and lonely. But strong. Strong as pain loss and faith make a strong woman. She is counting the seconds until I walk into the Wing, her house, or her arms. I honestly told her I just don't know if and when. Both children are asking me to stay here, this home, this universe. I must wait and see if it is still valuable to them after they return to school work, and the relationships.
For me the decision is do I make the sacrifice of a chance with a truly great lady on the island to be here. I sure sacrificed everything for Shel, not without pain , as I thought it was the right thing to do, and eventually we would all be a family again.



I must stabilize here and hope the decision on whom to hurt will appear. Perhaps its time for me to be there for them on their terms. But what of my Mary, and my island. That could be my most and final chance at peace and love in paradise. But what of the hearts of my own blood? I hope time tells me the truth this time.

Christmas 2008

Well home for Christmas-the first time in 2 years. I won't say that it was a joyous day. No time with my children as mom in a rare turn of events stayed home this year. I did spent part of Christmas eve with the kids. Joey and I went to Giant so he could buy the dinner trimmings for Rhonda. Alexis gave me a present. The book "Buddha" by Chopra. It was the first real gift I have had for a time, and it was a very nice gesture by my wonderful children.

After having lunch with my sister, who was very sullen and always seems about to rage at me, I returned home. Actually Kelly did decide to have some people over. She invited me to watch "Its a wonderful life", her family tradition. Kelly is tense and sullen most of the time too. Tomorrow I am meeting a guy about a house in Pinetown, very close to the Chimney house, along Stony Run. It might be a good place to be for a time.

Yes, I do miss the island, my home and friends there-the frozen sea and the music, dancing with my Irish Mary, and the piles of snow. Well maybe not so much the snow. The weather here in the Lower Susquehanna valley is as I remember it. Mostly cold, gray, and damp. But markedly warmer than PEI. But yesterday, Christmas day was bright beautiful and warmish. My heart wasn't too warm. I feel a little displaced away from home, even being farther away from absent Shel. I do miss Mary.

So its a matter of settling here for a time and waiting to see what is the best course of action. About a week ago I asked the kids if they really want me to stay here at home in PA for a longer time. They were emotional, especially my daughter, and the answer was a fervent yes.

For a time I just thought it might not be the best place to be after the holidays, and I would push on to home to Arizona and try and re-enter that universe, sans a wife. Somehow Arizona without Shel seems like a void space. But that may change. I thought about a return to the island soon, but I just can't really face returning there in February-although I had arrived there to stay back in Feb 2006. That was a mild winter there. This past was not as the wind howled and there were 3 storms a week for months. Not flurries either. Rooftop blizzards.

So I am just waiting. If this house works out tomorrow I am just going to take it and wait for spring, seeing my kids and sister as best I can and they want too. It was the right decision. I need alone time to work on my writing. The block is slowly dissipating. In some ways I am still looking for the conclusion. As with my life with Rhonda, my life on the island has so many unresolved issues. I mean emotional ties that are weakened, but not entirely absent. Perhaps that is normal or a characteristic of my bizarre journey through life.

Time has passed swiftly here already. It is hard to believe After almost 3 years on the island, at first with lovely Shel, then alone but in our home, it has ended. I sometimes worry that the Yellow Breeches, my family, and my writing won't be sufficient to fill the voids. This "time heals all" is just a falsehood. But perhaps once more I can attempt to put together at least part of this broken home. Numerous previous attempts have failed due to money issues, jealousy and selfishness (on every bodies part, except the children). My audio recordings continue. My entries here go on sporadically. I even did a long hand entry is my regular diary, a journal Shel gave me sometime ago.

Kelly just stopped by and told me I could eat the steak that was in the fridge. She put an incense in my room and I guess she thinks I had the window open due to odor. In fact this is a very clean house, except for Shane's muddy paws. She seems to sleep all day, and clean all night. Maybe she wants me to hang around for a while. I will have to see how that goes.


The journey continues.

Home for the Holidays

Well it has been a few weeks since I left my island home to return to central Pennsylvania to visit my family. It is ashame no one here has the ability to travel, or I may have remained on PEI forever. It is very unclear when and if I may return to my adopted island home. I left a tearful Mary on Water Street on the afternoon of December 3rd, to arrive here in Mechanicsburg late on December 4. The journey was tough as I drove nearly straight through. My old warhorse truck did well this trip and fuel costs were much less than in the summer.

My accommodations are comfortable but temporary. My hostess, Kelly Bingamen, is disabled and a bit erratic. I hope in a few weeks I can find a more permanent apartment until I decide if I am staying here, going back to PEI, going on a pilgrimage to Arizona, or something totally new.

It has been a real joy to see my children. They are both grown, beautiful-tall-strong, working and responsible. I have ostensibly missed their childhood during my ill-fated attempt to reconvene my illusive marriage. I am glad I made the effort. It is unfortunate that Mary got entangled in it all. At least sad that I am gone and we miss each other.

No good words from Shel. I assume she is still working at the Best of PEI market in Charlottetown. She has her dream. I am glad that I could help her to get there stay there and remain there. I am given no credit-she is only angry as she wasn't repayed for my last summer trip expenses and other matters.

I wish she would remain friendly until I can assist her when I can. The bitterness from someone that I am the closest to on earth is very disturbing and sad.

My place here is decorated with my items of tradition. The ship's wheel. Photos of Arizona and Shel, PEI, the kids-my big salmon from the Trask River in Oregon. Also are the paintings. The few I have have travelled far and wide. I hope to put some images on a Manduke family art blog. My mother and sister deserve some legacy. Their art is an excellent explanation of their minds and lives.

I visited Aprille at first. She became very angry when I couldn't take her shopping at an exact time. Joey was with me and we need all the time we can get. In any case, holiday plans here are unknown as everyone is pretty involved with boyfriend/girlfriend stuff and my sister hides on the holidays.

It may be that I may again spend another holiday season alone. Its sad as Mary wanted me on PEI to be with her family. The priorities of my life direct my often misery. But I made the decision to come home to the Susquehanna Valley and for now I am sticking to it.

It is a harsh cold reality compared to even the worst of the island. The true value of travel. Knowing truly where you want to be. Its where you can be and must be that are at issue. I rather think I will move on once the kids are back in school. But winter will end, trout season begin. Joey spoke of spring turkey hunting near our stream Clark's Creek. We saw turkeys there several times.

But there are Salmon and sea-run brook trout on PEI in many streams minutes from Summerside. There are fall mackerel at my wharf. But what of Big Lake and Crescent Lake in Arizona's high eastern mountains? Can I even go to Arizona and face that blond ghost that waits there for me by the palm tree and lake. Will the smell of spicy roasting ancho chili's on a warm evening, the warm soul-filling smell of fresh corn tortillas crush my heart?

But there is the prospect of a good tan and never-ending salsa music! Time will tell. Probably quite a bit of time. Once again I wait for the signs. My 4 year vacation continues...but is it permanent? What is.

Summerside Santa Claus parade

It is all pretty amazing. I went to visit Mary last afternoon and she mentioned the parade last night. A frigid Monday night on this snow-bound island and there was a parade planned. I recalled from previous November's vaguely a parade involving Christmas. I had never really participated or really cared, as the holidays are not in recent years that joyful. Perhaps since my fathers death that cold winter day after New Years in 1972 is the time it became so much less a joy for us all.

But here we drove up to the mall and parked near the post office. The street was clogged with all the town, bundled children and the old too. Well below zero and it being an impromptu decision to see this quaint site, we shivered as Mary with childlike twittering and glee watched the parade. My Air Force cadets were in front, followed by our tiny local news rag the Pioneer-Journal. The hugely rotund cheery be mustached mayor went by, not unlike the mayor in the munchkin land of the" Wizard of Oz". The famous tale of greed and evil written by my Great-Grandfathers (David Chamber's) best friend, Frank Baum.

To my amazement even a septic tank suck truck was in the parade. Only here or somewhere deep within the spine of Appalachia. Our local radio station's float blared Christmas music and the children in the parade threw candy at the crowd. I even caught a pack of peanut M and M's. That was the first time I seen such a thing.

Long ago I journeyed as a teenager with a hunting buddy into Northcentral Pennsylvania. It was a cold November day there, above the place where the mapmakers place the compass. A sparsely populated land of mountains and moonshine, deer and pain. There coming into the dying railroad junction called Renovo, we observed a crowd playing baseball in the icy streets. It was 2 AM on a Tuesday night before deer season and we were scouting a campsite. Baseball at 2 AM in the snowy mountains of a dead town. I had never seen such a thing.

We followed actually "in" the parade down Granville Street. Huge snow piles made grandstands for most of the town on this cold dark winter night. Only here. Only in the quaintness of this and what is this place, at the surface. Above the poverty and howling winds and ice. But such weather and life, the sea, the snow, binds a people. It is a maritime camaraderie. It is unique in its cold and its pain, its warmth. My Mary childlike as we parked at the parades end, the Waterfront Mall close to my soon x-home, off Water Street. The huge potato ship the "Tasman Start", in port still as the harbour is now solid ice. There cookies and Cocoa are served free with colorful marshmallows and a live singer of Christmas tunes maritime interpreted with an acoustic guitar. The ship will plow out of the ice away with island potatoes bound for some near or far place. As I shall plow and pull away back to another time and a whole new world. Old in its memories, new in its loneliness.


Mary's fat cousin said nothing as she piled on the sweets. Mary, proud of her height, strength and by island standards, lithe form , scowled in disapproval.

I amazed my lady and the entire town by dancing with Mary on the mall floor to "Silent Night". She was amazed and the rather rag-tag bundled crowd looked on. I wanted Mary to have a special memory-I am not sure when I shall return to this place. My De facto "hometown".

I shall point the old red truck south in less than a week. My 52nd birthday is today. I talked to my son and we made plans. The valley of the Yellow Breeches beckons. To leave behind the pain, love, anger and the cold, wind blown Northumberland Strait. The forever winter, the snow.

First Snow

So the first snow came to my island paradise last night. The wind howled from the North as rain turned to driving ice pellets, then a hard wet snow. Its all frozen now. The trees coated in sub-arctic white. My hands almost numb cleaning snow from the blazer, doors frozen shut tight under a leaden grey sky and strong North wind. The island to be for the next 6 months.

Soon I drive South to Mechanicsburg of all places. I have rented a home close to the chimney house and the Yellow Breeches of my youth. My son seems concerned that he cannot spend much time with me there. With his new and very busy life, the parents fade to less importance. This is as it should be. My Mary would rather bind me and keep me in her coat closet than to see me leave. I think Shel is also concerned. Perhaps mostly over money, but in my heart I hope its more than that.

My return to this paradise is uncertain. It is a long road-not the 1000 miles, but in the open hole that is where my heart is. I may decide to drive home here in January. To face an island winter. Or I may winter fish with my son along our streams-Clark's and the Breeches. I am not sure.

So a new adventure takes hold from a place where I know the Arsenaux's and Gallant's, the MacKenzie's-Oh, my Mary MacKenzie. Strong and tall and gentle and sweet. A body forged from winter walks and hard work. Quite a woman. Krinly eyes from having seven more years than me and from a life of many tears. Maybe I will return and marry her. I could and have done much worse.

So I sit her writing this blog...Oh, some read it. But all in all its for me and my beloved and far away children. Even my sister..she may never read these entries, but I know she will be happy to see her far travelled and often absent brother.

Most of all I am sad I can't see my mother. She visited me, I like to think, on the gossamer wings of that summer hummingbird that brushed my adorable wife's arm. The summer at Cape Traverse. Shel's paradise has become my place of reclusion. I write and dream and visit with now old friends. My Yankee accent gone, I am often asked if I grew up on the island. No Philadelphia university graduate twang remains. I hope it stays away. After all, I can speak idiomatic maritimes English now. Yes, it is a dialect unto itself. Will I always say "supper" not "dinner?. I am not sure.

I shall miss my little place near the harbour of both joy and pain. A big ship is in port today. White with bright lights against the angry red strait and the icy land. It is among the most beautiful places and feelings I have had in my journey. Yes, I have been all over this world. But this, and here, and there in central Pennsylvania are home home's.

I do miss my desert. The palms. The pool. My pretty young very spiritual voluptuous blond wife. The grill. The sound of spanglish and the pretty dark skinned girls that made me smile in the past dream of tacos and roasting chili's scented air on a mild winter night along Glendale Avenue. I think I will return there. But not yet. Not just now.

Heart strings tug against the lure of the palms. My river in Yuma. My pretty Apache girl bonnie and fishing with her in the Colorado River. Yuma is a dream spot too. Shel loved the downtown. Once I stood by one of her trees by Lute's casino there. I wept. She was with me in the little shops, at the organic date farm we loved on the California side. Sweet dates. My sweet girl. My love.

I won't find her there. My army job is gone. The ordnance expert. That was me. I walked away to come here that 3 years plus ago. I found much more. I know what love is now. I wonder how many really know?

Warm Rain to Cool Blast

The cliche that time rushes past seems apt today. I was thinking of nearly flying along the highway in my corvette between Grover, Colorado and Carpenter, Wyoming. It was the fastest I had driven a four wheeled vehicle then. We hit about 135 MPH. My then young brother-in-law was with me. The low prairie hills seeming to rush up and into a clear sky, the other side uncertain. Up and down. The Vette's fiberglass body seeming to float as the sixth gear could pull no more speed with that gear ratio and horsepower. What a rush.

Now I prepare to leave my island home for an undetermined time-perhaps for always. That seems unlikely but I can't see over the hill as the wind rushes past beyond the now security of my little harbourside apartment. There is a woman here who loves me deeply. There is another lost to the world beyond my reach who I love eternally but in vain.

Shel has said she is coming to get her remaining things soon. I have given my notice to my patient landlord that I must head South with the flocks now ahead of me to see my teenage children and sister. Leaving the women behind, my new social group-as flawed as it is, as well as the ocean vista, is painful. I feel I could relapse anytime and await the winter blow and snow piles-The driving maritime ice storms and warm hearts.

But all illusions end this way. Passage into and out of this torrent of time is but for the memories taken as are the breaths of fading lilac-scented breezes and the hint of deep true long lasting joy and suffering. Life is about loss and how it is dealt with in the turmoil that is a human soul. Grounded in my loves and stories of past glory-that fleets and ebbs with my harbour tides.

But what an honest and beautiful effort that has been made. In no way do I regret my awfully early retirement and mission to the island. Now after all it is home. I dance with my Mary each weekend. She makes island fishcakes as lovingly as my mother baked bread or taught me to love what is real and natural. Somewhere along this road of years I became a romantic dreamer. Lost in that which is the finest to hold and the most painful to lose. But what a driven glory.

I know now the deep sadness and rural hardships that shape the lives of those who feel imprisoned in this paradise. In the telling of life journey to my friends here I see the blankness of longing-the unknowing as if the words and images of my life are so strange that they are sometimes unsure and afraid. I have learned the dialect. I have learned the food and the joy of an ocean harvest and the bounty of of a place that is an Eden. So my wife was right to fall so far and deeply in passionate embrace to this place in the sea.

In my own heart the wanderlust of a thousand journeys takes root again. The long path back to reality and another country to the rush and crowds that toil for that which I have lost or simply left behind as worthless trappings of a vacant life.

So times sweeps on with me as the unsettled passenger. As across the prairie grasses in that angry red chariot of my overfunded impious youth. Look forward and not to the rear says the driver. She has no need for the luscious safety of the past. Its soft security darkened as the red-mud surf of my beach at Green's Shore is during the unrelenting harsh January blow across the ice filled bay.

No time to waste now. Only to collect the fragments that remain of here and her, and her. I only hope at full throttle someone hasn't just pulled out ahead of me over the next rise. I won't be able to stop.

Crisp Night of the Full Moon

It has been almost two weeks since my last entry. I have continued my audio logs. The march of fall progresses as now we have the first frosts, red maple trees, and can see our breath. Not a whole lot of news from Shel. She is still looking for a place in our "big" city and says she will have her stuff out around November 1. I have missed her greatly but my girl is lost in her own fantasies-some about how truly awful I am and others about how truly wonderful she is.

I am still planning on leaving the island at some point. The details are a bit difficult as there is really no way to select a home on the other end-I really need to go there and look around. This will mean some time in a motel. I just hope I do really get some time with the kids or I might just as well stay put here.

At least the Canadian dollar has crashed along with the US stock market. This adds a few dollars to my pension on this end-actually discounting my rent by about 40% should the loonie stay down until the end of the month.

I spent a lot of time with my lady friend Mary this weekend. It is nice to be pampered by a lady again. She is a good cook and very spiritual and feminine. We went up to North Cape today to see the wind farm. She, born and raised on the island, had never been there. Its 60 miles from Summerside.

She has never been in a plane. She has been off island twice in 50 years. The tragedy of her island life-especially her childhood and marriage is a horror. But it is all too common a tale when individual lives here in the Maritimes are examined. There is pain and human suffering beside the red cliffs and pastoral beauty of the planted fields.

I really am not sure what will come of it. All I know is this chapter closes. Shel fades to a tragic memory, among the joyous glimpses of our storybook romance and marriage. The travels. The foods. The love-making. Her beauty. Washed away in a sea of red clay tears on a foreign beach-sunk deep into the red mud of the old clay roads.

Mary to give me solace in her maturity and simplicity. Mary to be hurt when I leave the island as she and a few others are quite in love with me. The enigmatic Yankee. A romantic warrior tossed on a exile shore.

Crazy Germaine is back. I have been gone all weekend. Jerry let him in. Its OK-but he can't stay here forever without paying rent. He rather takes over the living room and smokes in there. His English is so bad its hard to communicate. Hopefully he will make some fertilizer, sell it, and go back to the Magdalen Islands. Somehow I doubt it will all be that easy.

I had invited Shel over Sunday as I had some oysters and quahogs left over that Manny Gallant gave me. I never heard anything and continue to get cold, unfriendly mails. She claims to be coming over to organize this week. I am not sure why. So I asked her to give me a little warning. There is no way that she doesn't miss her life. She thinks she has improved, reinvented herself. She is now just another young girl with nothing, working a minimum wage job, uneducated, with a hollow future. It is a far cry from Arizona palm trees and a pool , no responsibility and no cares.

She will miss that as the years swiftly pass. I can reinvent all that rather easily. But there will be no Shel. Actually now I am unsure that we will remain the promised friends we agreed to be. It is really tough to lose a loved one. Death is an eye opening. I still miss my dad after 36 years. My mother, my rock and guide gone now just over 4 years. My beloved wife, gone on lies and tragedy now almost 5 years. But my best friend-alive and unrepentant, still breathes an easy breath while the tears of our souls rain on the lost hollows of the broken heart.

But I will still make the effort. I will email her with news of the travels. She shall be a central character in the novel. I hope she gives me an address so I can send her magnets and postcards. Perhaps she doesn't care. Never really did. Now I know why Germany lost a war they should have won. No quarter. No forgiveness. The savagery of the Hun. Blue eyes flashing, Blond curling. Blood flowing. Defeated.

Letter To My Wonderful Son

Son,

I was very moved and a bit surprised at your mail regarding my fantastic mother. I know from the first time she held you as an infant that you had a close spitirtual bond. She was a very private person. I had always hoped you would have had the time to know her life. Especially the real powerful love she felt for my father, your and my namesake.

If you think of her, much that she wanted to tell you was blocked by the ugly situation you found yourself in. I mean the tension between your mother and me. She truly loved you and your sister. She was handicapped the the silly and unnecessary issues of the day.

I am most glad you knew this fine proper lady. She was the light of our family in her simplicicity, appeciation of beauty, and of life itself.

Only with much time will you know this gift.

I miss her greatly, as I do my amazing father, now and forever.

Just know that her blood flows in your veins, and she remains with you forever. She was most proud of her heritage, as founders of of our great country. Our people founded all that we love, and she stood as a beacon of that that is good. She had flaws. Often some sharpness, but always meant to build you high and to remind you of who you are.

That we both knew her, and are both products of the immense love she had for my father, your grandfather are gifts beyond earthly value.

My smile and pride brims in you and you lovely sister, my children.

When in doubt or sadness remember her. She has immortality.

Fear not.

Dad

Mail From My Son

THE DAY SHE DIED

You never truly expect death to happen until it finally occurs within your life. When your young, you are so wrapped up in the present that you never truly consider the possibility you may die some day. However, when someone close to you finally goes, it can change your perspective on many things. This experience is usually not the most pleasant. For me, I’d say my worst experience was when my grandmother died. It was this event that caused to see the true value of life and the relationships we have with others. My views took such a drastic change since I saw the sadness death causes in others, the fragility of life, as well as my own regrets regarding my relationship with my grandmother. I hope that Readers’ Digest will help to honor her memory.

The most obvious revelation I had did not occur while my grandmother was dieing. I suppose I couldn’t really comprehend someone I had known all my life was truly leaving us. Rather, the revelation came the week following her death. Never before had I felt such an emptiness within myself and in others. My mother and father barely spoke to one another for days. My grandma May, as she had been known, was my father’s mother. For him, I suppose the tragedy was the worst of all. We had been through hard to times before, but nothing like this . My father would often sit alone in his room, usually crying, sometimes just staring into space silently. Being close to my father, this was difficult for me, I simply did not know what to say, so I left him to his thoughts. It was the saddest day of my life.

My mother and sister were also so affected by this in different ways. My mother seemed to be shut away from the rest of the world, getting lost in books or her cooking. My sister, like myself, seemed to have difficulty understanding grandmothers’ death. She and I would talk about it, neither one of us truly knowing any truly comforting thing to say to the other. Never before had I felt so alone.

Secondly, my grandmothers’ death made me truly aware of my own mortality for the first time. I had thought about death before, but never with this amount of clarity. All I could do was think about my own eventual demise. How, when, where would my life end? What would happen when I died? Would I simply fade away into nothingness? These thoughts and others plagued my mind. Never before had I realized how fragile life is or how brief a time we occupy this little planet. I would like to say these thoughts no longer linger within my mind but, my grandmothers’ death has an effect on me to this day. I shall never forget the fear and doubt which haunted me that week following her death.

The most difficult aspect of this event I was forced to overcome was the regret I felt for not appreciating my grandmother while she was still alive. We had gone to visit her every Sunday over the years. To me it was simple routine. In all that time I never really asked her any questions about herself or her experiences. She had lived for Eight-five years and I never took the time to find out anything about her. Now that she is gone, all I have are my memories of her. I still often think of our visits to her little house. I remember her dog which barked at anything that moved and the beautiful paintings she made. I miss her kind demeanor and her soft voice. I will never forget them. My grandmothers’ death was difficult, but it made me understand something. Life is precious. We must treasure our lives and the people we care for most. In the end all we have are our memories, so we might as well make some good ones while we can.

Strong winds, Angry sea

So October arrived yesterday very gently. The warm afternoon and a glass calm harbour made for some nice relaxing fishing. It really wasn't my day. I only caught a few small smelt and 2 scrawny mackerel. But they cooked up nicely with island tomato-cucumber salad, farm fresh carrots and potatoes, and quahogs and oysters courtesy of Manny Gallant.

Manny is a soulmate fisherman and friend, perhaps business partner to be of mine. He pines away for his pretty wife. He opines that he is illiterate as he has been in a boat since age 12 to help with the family fishing business, and never went to school. I explain that I find it rather charming. This soulful man is healthy and prosperous. He glows with what I now identify as "Island Health". They have that here. Fishing. Can't read or write much. Oysters. Never been off island. Mackerel. Neat little farm. Artist wife. Never been in a plane. Inbreeding. Fresh quahogs. Big tomatoes. Healthy kids. 4 wheel drive. Divorce. Blizzards. Strong island moonshine. Hurricanes. I am in total complete envy. West Virginia on the Sea.

My soft tired educated body. I will miss this special place. Its rotund incomprehensible females. The shine. The bootleggers. Lobster at 4 bucks a pound. My wife.

I was sure that the last time I caught smelt I smelled something familiar-from a long ago dream-time. Yesterday I caught the scent when I landed the angry smelt-it was the smell of thyme and cucumber, that I had smelled long ago. The arctic grayling I caught in Alaska yarens ago smelled that way. Hence the scientific name of grayling, Thymallus. The arctic grayling is a sport fish somewhat like a trout. It has a huge very beautiful dorsal fin, almost like a sail. They are silvery gray and have tiny black and blue spots, as I recall. The fish used to range into the Northern US, but was extinguished long ago along with most good things during deforestation, pollution, greed, and mortal sin.

I have heard there are grayling stocked in the Arizona rim mountain lakes. To me, since I have spent a lot of the prior 15 years at those lakes fishing (for trout), I am unsure about any Arizona grayling. Maybe Montana or the U.P. of Michigan, but I can't confirm it. But in Alaska, grayling, like eagles are or were then (my last Alaska trip was in 1993), everywhere.

On the Internet I looked up smelt as the odour and even taste of these fish was grayling. Indeed they are closely related fish. The grayling has two distinct memories I will share here. When I took Rhonda to Alaska to go camping before we got married we fished grayling. I think I caught a bunch in a ditch by a culvert along the Denali Highway. It was probably 1985.

I took out our trusty little stove and cooked grayling along the road. Rhonda and I had fish together there, it was great. It is a very fond memory of my first wife before the dark times.

On the first trip to Alaska with Shel, wife 2, I fished grayling again in nearly the same spot. Actually, Shel only went to Alaska with me once. She was truly a child bride-barely 20 at the time of our trip.

I caught a truly impressive grayling, the largest I had seen. I wanted to take a photo of it. I asked Shel to hold the writhing fish up so I could take the shot. She, terrified of live fish to this day, refused. So you will have to take my word that that fish was 25 inches if it was a foot-thats a big grayling. (Alaskans consider grayling trash fish, pronouncing the name with a long A sound, ahhhhh, instead of the vowel-arctic graahhling.)

Here today as October begins the leaves are turning and falling very quickly. Very hard rain and hurricane force winds today made my evening walk difficult. The harbour was a froth of mud-red swells and shiny whitecaps, wind-whipped so salt can be tasted strong in the air in my living room.

I saw Cindy, but I didn't tell her I am moving out yet. The decision came painfully, slowly, but today I started to clean a bit and pack. I really have little to take south-just what I arrived here with 3 1/2 years ago.

Today 2 years ago I had been living on PEI 9 months. Shel asked me on this date back then, in 2006, to move out. It was then that the 6 month imbroglio with EIC and the Gustafson's began in Ottsville. It was really a wonderful experience and I had real quality time with my kids-even on the holidays. I know now that is why all that happened-it had little to do with business.

I will state for the record that both my Child-Centered Assessment and my E-Petz patents are great ideas. But I will have to do it myself or with family, without greed.

My pal Germain is back off to North Lake in search of Donnie Rose and Russian fish plant girls in Souris. I for one am about complete in my unpaid consulting services to Mr. Fougere. In fact, my friend Manny Gallant stopped by today. He has concerns about the business idea.

I told him I was glad to help, but that I am probably leaving, and that like the Gustafson's the chance of our colleagues (Fougere) business being a success were slim. Not because the idea is bad, but because of him.

Tomorrow I look forward to a calmer day and perhaps some fishing, and a call to the kids.

I guess I didn't record here that Shel stopped by Monday. She had said that she wanted to organize things. She still has no place and is living with Kathleen. There is much that both of us will have to leave behind-not the least of which are our hearts.

She was pretty angry at first. The issue of money and what bills are due being paramount. We settled that and she calmed a bit, looking stunning with bright blue-green eyes blaring and an adorable short-curly blond hairstyle-my Shel, my child-wife, who can't bear children. Tragedy within a tragedy.

She ate some of my cucumber salad and muffins. I had made cold coffee for her with creamer and sugar as she likes earlier in the day. I had to substitute honey for sugar, and I don't think she liked it so much. I thought it pretty good.

We actually parted on good terms. The one thing that sticks with me during her tirade was that she "wants her husband back". As if I am so different. so far, so much a distant memory. Oh save but one last chance to be a couple-she feels the loss too, but now moves into a new world.

Her world will not be the blissful days of lounging by our pool under the palms, with the smell of ancho chilies drifting on the wind. It will be 6 days a week of work without me.

It seems as Shel as an immigrant here has ended up a bit like my beautiful Russian fish plant girlfriends in Souris. 6 days a week of work and little money, in shared housing, praying for some escape after buying into the dream to live and work in Canada. To some of the girls, if not all I met, Kaliningrad is sounding better and better-to go home. That's a scary determination.

Maybe someday Shel will miss the palms, the chilies, and a real home too. She is part Russian, after all.

Up West and Real Work

So since I met the "Doctor" of organic landscaping Germain Fougere from the Magdalen Islands, I have been involved in a new and fascinating business venture. Involved originally only to set-up a web site and be a general business and entrepreneurship consultant, I am now actually getting my soft hands dirty.

We take a similar trip in the big Ford Diesel truck of "Fougere Organic Landscaping" about twice a week. Again today we went to the "Old Man's", a very pious anglophone gentleman named Loren near Richmond. Loren has clear bright intelligent blue eyes and is nearly deaf. Fougere has been storing equipment and supplies there. We loaded the trailer with what I imagine was close to a ton of plants, rocks, gardening stuff, shells, and one very heavy ( about 600 pounds) cast iron crusher. It had been a while since I worked that hard and I felt alive again. Loren lives in a homemade hut that is sinking into the boggy soil. It is filled with interesting but valueless things accumulated over his long life. He gave me two religious books, one called"I Need A Miracle" by Pastor Benny Hinn. I think he knew exactly what I needed. He had preached as a young man in Appalachia. I was somewhat envious, perhaps the smallest of my sins to date.

He carves amazing images of geese from huge pieces of wood and carefully paints them as to life. His wood stove is rusting through the floor. He has no insurance as his home is not "insurable". His phone was cut off. The company putting the power lines from Summerside to North Cape's new windfarm is coming across Loren's fallow sad land. He hopes they will pay a fair price for the easement. Maybe 6000 dollars. Perhaps this 85 year old man will not have to freeze alone in the cold this long and soon to arrive sub-arctic winter. His son distant and somewhat of an ass I am told, away in the "real world" and business.

It was a great clear sunny day. The sea was beautiful up west along the "lighthouse trail", route 11. We stopped as always to see Fougere's and now my friend Danielle. We need a motor and PTO ( Power Take Off) to run the lobster shell crushing machine. They talked Acadian, which I am starting to get a bit of, thanks little to my long forgotten high school Parisian French.

We then stopped at Manny's place to drop the trailer we will unload tomorrow. Manny is a soulful, sorrowful outwardly cheerful man, an oyster fisherman who built his own solid boat and at 55 could probably pick me up at 180 pounds like a feather. It was a great cold night, the milky way bright along with the planet Jupiter embedded in it like a bright white luminous gem. Manny lives on a neat little farm near his oyster beds in the Northumberland Strait. The farm is very neat and cozy and Manny is one of those people you instantly knew if you had to leave a thousand dollars cash with him to hold, it would be there when you return. He gets a few crates of oysters each day after 10 hours of back breaking work raking the bottom of the sea in churning swells under blistering sun or freezing winds.

Manny gets about 50 dollars a crate for his oysters. The shells are infested with shell worms this year. They cut tiny perfect holes in the shells but don't harm the delicious meat inside. Despite that, only one oyster buyer on the island will buy Manny's "ugly" oysters. Oddly enough its the oyster wholesaler across the way from George and Brenda Henderson's cottage in Freeland. That is where Shel and I stayed long ago when we were first coming here each summer. Long ago, so it seems, when I picked the wild mushrooms in George's little pine forest and steamed them with edible jewels from the sea (to the locals terror and amazement). I had learned, being self-taught, mushroom collecting in the high pine and aspen mountain forests of Arizona. Also dimming into that past.

He grows nice tomatoes and a few other things in a small garden. He shared tomatoes with us-a real luxury this far north when the incredibly short growing season ends. Manny is finalizing a divorce after 10 years with the artist wife who his feelings for are well concealed but to a fellow sufferer glow in that slight moistening of eye with a glance towards her primitive oils hanging on the old wall, or with a little deepening of the fisherman's sun and wind-worn brow. The artist wife. How well I know.

Manny is quite the artist himself. He crafts beautiful decorative items from driftwood and large, ancient white oyster shells. He built a little gift shop near the road that is quite a nice cottage in its own right, matching the perfect yellow Victorian farmhouse. He cries inside. Artist wife gone and the tourists far and few between. Gone now until summer returns-a truly distant and abstract thought. As goes the artist wife.

I know I'll be sore tomorrow-that's OK. No news from Shel, but I got a nice email from my son. Tomorrow we unload the ton of stuff and I hope my back holds out. Then to the beach for seaweed collection to make the fertilizer product.

You really never know whats around the next corner. I just wish it was spring instead of fall, as winter looms and I have decisions to make about my home and life on PEI. Quite a change in paradigm in a couple weeks. Maybe work therapy is what I need. I am really back in the environmental field in a very physical way. I also obtained oyster shell chemistry data for product labelling. Fougere needs my patent and trademark help too, but that comes later as orders are filled and I create an Internet presence. Its pretty exciting.

I have my desk work, legal work, computer, and even outdoor physical labour in one of the most beautiful places on earth. How about that? Retirement? Maybe, but it beats the button-downs and smog and office politics of the big city, in the "real world".

Sundays with Mary and the PEI "question"

So the first day of autumn is here. The day started cool, breezy and cloudy. By evening the sky cleared and it warmed the quiet town ever so slightly. Last night was my usual Saturday night at the "wing" as the air force legion hall is called here. I guess to distinguish it from the regular Canadian Forces "legion" that it sits beside. I met my friends Mary, Eva and her husband. Judy, Joan, and Rebe didn't show last night. There may have been a band elsewhere, and they are not big fans of Karaoke. Nor am I, but there are a few good singers and its better than sitting in my place waiting for emails from Shel or Joey. We sip water and dance rather badly I think. The attitude and music the very same as my nights spent in small taverns deep in the mountains of Appalachia during my years on the road.

Mary has become my special friend, after my very short relationship with Judy. Mary is a mature woman, tall with dark curly hair. She has lived her whole life on the island, born up the road a few miles in St. Eleanor's. She left the island once many years ago to go to her nephews wedding, I think, in Brampton, Ontario.

Her life has been a typical island, if not maritime tragedy. Her abusive mother kept her from her father who died, like mine, when she was 15. After a marriage that left her unable to remarry save she lose her support, she has had several variously awful romances. The last was with a trucker who was seemingly seeing another woman the whole time, 15 months, he was with her. This story is repeated in some form or another by almost everyone I meet here.

Mary and I dance and have been somewhat cuddly and close on the dance floor. We "waltz" as they call any dance to a slow song here, even when its rock and roll twist music. We often stay in embrace after the music stops and the dance floor empties-to the astonishment of everyone. Its good in some ways, but I doubt Ill get another date at the wing as I seem "taken". But it is a pure friendship and I suspect it will remain so.

I meet Mary Sundays and we talk for hours about family issues, good, bad, and ugly. Finding some comfort mutually in trying to discover why our relationships are so failed. It is quite sad. But the talks help. Today I showed her photos from my past lives-the big house, kids as babies playing at the New Jersey shore. My airplane, Mercedes, Chimney house-my red 'vette convertible with Shel lounging on the hood seductively somewhere in the mountain west years ago.

These are things as alien to her as a walk on the surface of Mars. I am attracted to her simplicity, lack of bitterness, and good church-going heart. Hours past and I just got home a bit ago. I missed my Sunday call to Joey as I had lost track of time. We sat today at the yacht club, as the mall was closed this Sunday, as it will be now as the tourists are gone away home, back to school, jobs, and the reality of the outside world.

One thing we discuss is my leaving PEI. Forever? For a month? Never? She overflowed like a happy teenager at a prom when I suggested I may not leave at all. It breaks my heart as I fear I may have to break hers. She won't be the only lady here that will miss me. And I will miss each and everyone of them.

No news today from my wayward Shel. Divorce now is imminent and I will have to file the papers soon. Shel wouldn't be able to, and she seems to think that we just go to the courthouse and sign a paper. It is , of course, more complex. I find the whole process distasteful and although I love my island, all those times I could have just stayed in PA with the kids makes me feel embarrassed. You see, I had three chances to stay in PA and chose each time to return to the island. Either to be with Shel or to try and get her to come home. As recently as August 5th, Shel was moving back in with me and/or going to Calgary with me. But no. It didn't happen.

So the three years I have been here seem a bit wasted. I mean that I could have had a little time with the kids as kids. But they have grown up, suddenly while I was here trying in vain to recapture a marriage that as I realize now was over in 2003. I guess.

I read Shel's journals from the 90's and she tells page by page of he unending love for me. Well it seems ended. One way or the other I must escape that bind. A new life-here on the island of dreams and sorrows, or back in harsh reality down south, in the states, my home home in Harrisburg to be near my beloved children.

Mail from an old friend, associate, and student at HTS

Please don't conclude that I believe everything Brian Feeney or Rhonda ever said. LOL

I acknowledge that you were among the very first people to advance the very same environmental assessment protocols in use today. In fact, our company's Phase I ESA uses a checklist very similar to the one HTS used in the late 1980s. I might have an old HTS Phase I ESA somewhere around. I never present myself as self-educated in this work; anyone ever asks, I was originally trained by you. When I say this, it actually drives Roni nuts. Many Manduke-isms that were true remain true today. Sometimes I tell the staff things even today that I recall you saying to the staff almost 20-years ago.

I might be a harsh critic, but I am also a fierce defender of yours. I gave you superior recommendations for your job interviews.

I am still wondering why you aren't at the helm of one the largest ESA companies in the US. Someday I might figure that one out.

Jim G.

Mail from my fine son

Dad,

Keep enjoying your fish. You sound a little lonely up there. I was thinking that if you came down we might not see each other that much but it would certainly be more than it is now. I've been seeing lots of homes for rent around here. There are definently places to stay. Even a place by the library caught my eye. Well, life has been good. Beautiful down here. Starting to cool off a little though. Been hearing about more hurricanes so I expect some rain. Everyone seems ok. Lexi got a job at Party City (costume place), started Monday. She enjoys it. It's cool. Mom transferred to another Dept. too. She also enjoys it. I still work at YP but I lowered my hours and have been enjoying it more lately. You would be proud, I'm attending church with Andrea and her folks now. There is a sermon and a parenting class I'm taking with her. I've been getting a great deal of postive messages lately from professors, the pastor and even my therapist. I'm trying to take your advice and live in the moment. Really happy at the moment. I'm looking forward to going fishing ,Star Trek, and good conversation again. Seeya dad. Love,Joey-----Original Message-----From: joe manduke To: Joey Sent: Tue, 9 Sep 2008 4:43 pmSubject: Tuesday Sept 9
Bink,

Just an update note-I won't call you until Friday or Sunday if you are around. Lots of rain here in and out as summer ends. The tall (sailing) ships are in town this week along with a parasailing meet-so big ships by where I fished docked-kinda cool.

I guess I said Shelly is off to Charlottetown to start her new life-obviously done in many ways so she can start a new life away from our town here. She is doing well and I guess I will just have to be happy with her friendship, if that survives-I hope so. OH, she sends her regards and love to you both..it is all exceptionally unfortunate and I have had some dark days pal, but it is time to try to come home. Any help you can offer I humbly accept.

Fishing has been slow due to wind and tides. But I am still munching on fish I have frozen. I have a french speaking guy, a fisherman from islands north of here who is staying with me until he gets his business going. Its ok but his english is weak and I am totally immersed in french for the moment-lol.

So there it is. The truck still needs work but I am confident it will come home. November 3rd is prob my departure day as most practical-we will see. Check the army location near the house and ask if they could help me for a month or so after this imbroglio-lol You can prob just stop by.

I am homesick as hell now, and want to try and make this happen as painfree as possible...any thoughts are appreciated...I know..just drive away..lol

Love you much

Dad

Finding a conclusion

Just a short note. As a writer I really wanted some dramatic conclusion to my biography. The potential journey to Calgary with Shel for example, which never happened. Or her return to Summerside to make up and try and rebuild our lives. Never happened.

Now she is off to Char'town and I remain fishing mackerel and writing these snippets. Not so much drama. Perhaps my time with some of my new Arcadian friends will add spice. Then I am almost sure now that I return to home to assist my children and sister. What an experience! Almost 4 years retired at age 51-living here and the travels-not too shabby. Sorry, but I have had a blast.

Especially this summer in Banff, Lake Louise, and with my son at special family places herein written. Of course there have been some hard times being retired. Greatly reduced income. Avoidance of buying unnecessary material things. People looking askance at a 50 year old retiree who has really been retired much longer than 4 years. Go figure?

A good friend-actually someone I trained in the environmental field said that since I live on a remote island in a foreign country, write poetry, and go on about my love of Michelle, that I am now persona non grata in an industry I helped build. So be it. If that is the colourless case of my fellow engineers and scientists (which I do not fully buy) then I shall remain a retired writer and fisherman and let them all be envious.

Labour Day 2008

So the end of summer finally on the island. Of course there will be a few more warm days. But in weeks the leaves will change and fall away. A bright red carpet of maple leaves will give way to perhaps again incredible snow piles and the driving winter winds-for 6 months. It sure makes me think of a return to Arizona at this time of year. Shel is off to Charlottetown soon to work in the "Best of PEI" store. She is very excited and will find a place to live there.

Her cottage will be closed in two weeks and she said she may move in here again for a time. That is fine, as I miss her company.
The kids are doing well. Alexis is looking for a part-time job now that she is 16, and Joey seems to be enjoying college.
My sister still wants to visit me here-but the two round trips seems daunting now, and she is hard to predict.

Joey wants me back for Christmas and to just move back to PA. This is now finally a real possibility at long last. It is clear, at least today. that Shel will not be coming home. I was amazed when she said she would be going with me to Calgary when I went back to work. When that didn't come through and Shel decided not to move back in here in Summerside I was pretty crushed. So these next two weeks will assist me in rendering a decision as to stay or go from the Island. It will be tough in any case and I may just decide one more winter here will be fine.

I have been fishing at the wharf almost everyday day. Its raining today and I was going to go but the truck is pretty moisture sensitive and i have to wait for drying weather now.
People have instructed me on Mackerel preparation and I have enjoyed the endless supply of fresh fish.

It is amazingly quiet today. I will probably take a walk in the rain down to the closest pier and take in the storm over the harbour. No matter what I will miss this place as home, but with waning Shel and a needy family, perhaps time along the Yellow Breeches is long over due.

Sunny day after 3 weeks of rain

Finally the sun appeared in Summerside today. I have been fishing for mackerel at the city pier. It was nice to sit out in the rain yesterday and fish. It reminded me of a cool spring day during Pennsylvania trout season on the Yellow Breeches long ago.

I had thought Shel would be moving back in after her job at Frenchy's in Borden ended in the fall. But she did get a job at the "Best of PEI" store in Char'Town starting September 8. She lost her purse and all of her ID during her move from Elayne Lord's place in Cape Traverse. I attempted to assist her in getting another drivers licence. but there are Arizona paperwork problems and I may have to take Shel to Halifax to resolve them.

Since nothing seems to be coming out of my Canadian job search, I am looking south again. I did enjoy my trip to Calgary and my short visit to Banff and Lake Louise. I am short listed on an Army job at the Red River Depot-but I am not sure about Texas.

In talking with the kids it may be time to bid goodbye to my place on PEI and go back to Pennsylvania. I know Joey would like that, and with no roommate again this winter, a long period of frozen ocean seems less appealing than ever.

It would be nice to go to Halifax with Shel. Maybe we can stop by our Port Dufferin house and share that moment one last time. I am sure the path will be shown to me, but it seems my time here with Shel is finally ending. It was my best effort in something I felt was most important for us both. Some battles cannot be won, no matter how true the intentions.

The weather looks good for a while now after 3 weeks of gloom and cool winds. The fish are in and the sun warm. If this is my last summer on the island, I want to make it as good as I can. The issues and realities of family down south are somewhat daunting after this idyll. But I have to do what is best now for Joey, Alexis, and my sister.

Sunset

I see nothing as the golden sunset over the harbor of my exile paradise. So the job out west seems as it willl take a w hile. I was unhappy that my Shel didn't come into today from Borden. I danced ny heart out with some truly athletic ladies-quite happpy I can still move with them. My own former athletic abilities helped

July 19, 1979

Nice today, warm and sunny. In the morning Ann came over and I took her back to the train. Now I will work on her car for a while. Dave and I got parts at the Penn Jersey. Later, we went with his friend Ed to Jersey to pick up a race car frame.

We stopped to eat on the way back. Carol and her sister took their mother to the doctor tonight. We all took a late ride to get gas in the mustang.

Modern note:
I think gas was about 40 cents a gallon then.The supply would last forever and always be cheap. There was an OPEC oil embargo some years before-which turned out to be prophesy. AH-the memories of youth!

Pretty typical summer day in the 70's. Ann was a classmate of mine from Temple Geology. She liked me and I worked on her 1967 mustang coupe. Being totally loyal to Carol, I never was with Ann. Her car was later stolen and never recovered.

Rainy Saturday

Alexis in Harrisburg June 2008


I am sure it is time to place a new entry here. Although I do have my audio recording back, and as usual have stopped writing in my paper journals. It can be a bit discouraging, having tens of thousands of words to transcribe from old text-letters, journals, manuscripts unfinished and finished. I have felt that all the paper will become obsolete-or already has.

The only really permanents records will be left on-line, on sites such as this. So, as a painfully slow typist you see my dilemma!

I have had some good chats with the kids. Both really want to move in with me. But this is impractical as I am in Canada and they have school duties down south. My relationship with Shel remains strained. We were doing fine, but have degraded due to silly arguments and bad tempers over the past few weeks.

It seems my work future may be Alberta. The money is good and there are lots of things to clean-up and investigate. If nothing seems appropriate, it may be that with great sadness I may have to leave my island to be closer to the children, who now are really missing dad. The decision will be made quite soon I think.

Tourist season is in bloom here and its been quite warm The harbour water is now bathtub warm and although shallow makes for a nice swim only a short walk away. How does one leave such a place. Only family and money issues can do that. Otherwise it would be madness to leave here.

So pressures mount and decisions must be made. In the mean time I will try to continue writing, although in an awful slump now, and visit the beach. Life could be much worse than that.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Son and daughter June 2008 at Bradley Drive House, Harrisburg, PA

It has only been a week after my last entry here. The week seems like a short lifetime as so much has happened during this eventful period. First, let me say it was a glorious summer day here on the island paradise. I grow to appreciate a life here on PEI more, especially when I leave it. I flew to Vancouver on Sunday to discuss some environmental opportunities with an excellent firm there. I stayed at the "Terminal Club". and was treated professionally and cordially.

The CEO is a really nice, truly self-made man of simple roots on the prairie.

They need an office administrator and salesman for a planned office in Saskatoon, in support of

a large mining project in the potash deposits. Not really my area of expertise, but having dealt with mining issues in Arizona, and even Pennsylvania long ago, I have no fear of the work. In fact, its a great upside potential and the future for now is in work based in the rapidly increasing price of commodities like potash for fertilizer and oil.

I flew on Westjet from Char'town to Vancouver, with a brief stop at Toronto's Pearson airport. PEI is a real garden from the air. It was nice to see the snow-capped Rockies and the coastal range of BC. I had never flown coast to coast in Canada before. It was my first flight entirely within my adopted country. If the job is a go, I will need a work visa. I will stay at the company apartment in Vancouver for training, and perhaps write a corporate health and safety manual, then go to Saskatoon to a new life and a new world. If not, I will continue to interview, and enjoy the island until my final destination for this cycle is demonstrated.

I tried to call the kids but got no answer today. Shel cancelled our dinner date, as it was her bosses birthday. I have fallen low on her long list of more important social priorities. So be it. I told her she can visit me in Vancouver, or Saskatoon, and she seemed excited. She is very much stranded on the island. I have also felt that way, but the trip and camping with son helped, and our dinner with Alexis and Katie.

I sent a postcard and letter to my sister from BC. She is probably still waiting for me to take her to Island Beach. Perhaps I can still do that if I can take a break this summer. In any case, I worked all day today sending the BC company documents about references and credentials. I realize I have lost touch with some close friends, co-workers and old bosses over the years. I am seeking my old mentor Dr. Lane Schultz from Dunn Geoscience days as a reference. So many people are disappeared or even dead. I supplied Dan Salzler as a reference. We worked together in various capacities for years and he has always been a good job reference for me, and a loyal friend.

Jim Gossweiler, my real true apprentice, Steve Rose, and Leigh Floyd are the remaining references I have used. The hiring manager wanted names of old managers, which can be a challenge when you have been self employed or a sub-contractor to a nameless Army unit for so many years.

The position is really almost the perfect one. The Halifax job was good too, but I think the job out west has better potential.

I was pretty lucky on confirming my credentials and getting them to BC today, even though most are misplaced or lost in the 2 moves. The folks at AIPG, Nevada, and Alaska all helped, knew me, and submitted confirmation. With hope Ill get an offer this week and plan on closing this place up and moving to Vancouver for the duration. Otherwise on the island I stay and continue the search...all in God's hands now.

My little audio recorder broke, so I will have to get another one next week. I miss having that and making the audio diary entries. I oft wonder who will ever listen to them anyway. I do find it useful to go back over the years, hear my tone and concerns, the growth, pains, and triumphs. But it does force me to write more. And maybe now I can finish the biography with a good conclusion, a full circle story ending with my son a man in college, and his father being there, and there for his sister. I can only hope!

June 18, 2008 Wednesday

Cool and drizzly today, with a little weak lightning. As last year, June is a cool gray month on the island of unused beaches.

I am actually feeling a bit guilty about not starting to write the entire tale of my holiday fishing and camping with my son. The project will require much more time and inspiration than I have right now. My trip notes survive, although sparser than I had hoped. A time in Appalachia, reliving my own youth. I mean the trip we took was a representation of my trips long ago, rod in trunk seeking fishing places and the colour of ruralia. We accomplished that. But the story begs far deeper for both of us in its revelations. The simplicity of the camp, stream, my old truck-camp food. Swimming the broad river, and fresh trout for a tailgate dinner in a remote place. It will wait a few days more to be told, as business looms.

I am flying to Vancouver Sunday to meet with a group that may need my skills in their enterprise. Two days in a new city, on a new harbour, far from this home. But yet not that unfamiliar, as my times in Seattle and San Francisco I suspect similar. We will see.

Talked with David at the Air force wing a long time tonight about the states and Canada. He is a retired teacher, and had many insights. We discussed the arcane "Aroostook" War. The conflict involving the Maine border long ago.

It was pizza day here, and I had many phone calls. It seems my draw into the world of commodity related environmental issues is where I am going. Well, its a new world. A lot of the problems I solved as a young man seem to be in good hands with the younger generation. I should be exuberant at the new chance-a new world, exotic places.

Still no word from Shel. I think she must be busy, or can't get on-line.

There is extra pizza for her here at home. I hope she comes back from the bush this week before my travels. In any case, I am prepared to send Vancouver postcard to Shel and my sister. The two lost souls in my life.

I did get an email from my son. He has a bass guitar now and he and a pal have started a band called "Rahal". It reminds me of my high school music career. Although short lived, it was fun. I also played the bass.