Rainy night after glorious days

Cool rain now falls and the splatters make music along my leaky gutters. It has been a great stretch of days that I have spent with friends at Chelton beach. The place is one of those places.
There I cooked hot dogs and hamburgers, fries and sold ice cream at the little canteen there. That was the summer that Shel worked there and I went with her there to help out and enjoy the beach. That was the summer of 2007. In those days, Shel and I still lived together off and on between her various "relationships", always some kind of despiration, a feeling that I have never known. I didn't mind so much, as we were getting along as well as could be expected and I knew one way or the other our time together was concluding. I still enjoyed immensely, even the fights. She became my oldest daughter at the end.

She had to find an islander to eventually marry to stay here, as she knew my financial support had to end. I got her here, that was good enough. I transported her so she could date, which almost destroyed my poor truck. Funding ended, wife GONE.

Her pal Elwood who works at the park recognized me right away. He had helped Shel get her little car, and he asked about her. I told him that we were finally divorced in January this year, and that she had gone home to Colorado and family. He is a very nice, awfully poor man with an ill wife.

So now days pass without a concern that Mary will be calling, or wondering where I am. In a final conflict, she left in a huff Friday night mad that I had met my fishing buddies for a beer without telling her. Everyone says that I am better off, but after 2 years I do miss her many positive attributes. I am also very glad to lose the bad ones. The gulf of backgrounds was just too wide and we had been pushing it for months-but I will miss my Mary. Very much.

Perhaps some fishing this week and more swimming in the very warm sea. Its been an amazing July thus far. Summer is so short here each warm sunny day is a treasure. A far cry from Phoenix, where cloudless skies may persist for months.

I ordered a bunch of amateur radio equipment to replace the station that I sold here long ago to help Shel with her Colorado trip. It may help the long nights pass, talking to people around the word on shortwave.

My social circle evolves and most here have forgotten that I am not an islander. My children are very busy, so I may as well stay until I must leave, for whatever reason.

My little place here is humble, but convenient. I watch the property and show the vacant units as a favour to the landlord. Its his first property and he is a nice, hard working young man. His father saved my life in February, finding me very ill and non-responsive in my old apartment.

This is a very intimate place. A very small town with all the good and bad that that means. For now its home.

For today.