Monday, November 21, 2011

peekaboo


I was sitting on the lawn between the King House and the library on a warmish morning a few weeks back ... doing nothing in particular except sipping coffee and taking periodic bites of one of those ginormous, super-healthy (I presume) muffins from "A" Market ... just minding my own business, basically, while looking out over the gentle downward slope and sleepy late-fall scene with no more than the occasional car rolling/bumping past on Spring Street below ... when someone pulled up behind me in a pick-up truck.

The driver got out, moved to the back (the bed?) of the truck and started tugging on a large, limp, lifeless bag. At this point I recognized him and got up to help. It was a sail bag, of course, and as we hauled it onto the grass I learned that this local captain had purchased a new (to him) boat — an 80-foot ocean racer of some sort — with another captain/friend and sought to check out the condition of the spinnaker.

So we stretched out the bag, slid out the sail (it took some doing), tied head and clew to two trees, and let the wind do the rest ...