Sometimes the complicated mathematics of choosing what to write about in my weekly column bogs me down, and I have trouble getting started.
I am currently spending a lot of good golfing or fishing time working on my biography.
When you have lived a “one-day-at-a-time” kind of life, as I have, and lived as long as I have lived, it is mathematically difficult to pick out something that you folks will enjoy reading.
Life changes even as I look out my window at Pole Pass and watch the occasional southbound boat that cruised an extra week, or 200 more miles north. The weather has been as close to perfect as possible for almost two months straight, and the fortunate retired people who aren’t worried about mowing the lawn in front of their condominium have really been enjoying the extra time on their boats this summer. The weekend loads on the ferryboats that come to our island are some of the largest crowds that I have ever seen.
Laurie and I are very fortunate because we live on this island and have a dock right in front of our house. Last week we had some good friends from Boston and Montana come and stay with us for a few days. A trip around our island included a visit to a great pottery place. Then we drove by the only lumberyard I have ever seen without a fence around it.
I can go there on a Sunday, fill up my trailer, and leave a note listing what I took. Next stop is one of the three best skateboard parks in the world, and then off to the summit of Mount Constitution.
This was followed by lunch at the cooperative art gallery, and a visit to the golf course where I play as often as time permits, but not as often as I want to. We didn’t even have time to put out the crab pots to get fresh crab for everyone, but, with a 15-mile trip in our boat to Sidney, British Columbia, clearing customs, and then an overnight stay at Forrest Island, I knew my friends from Montana would have a fresh crab dinner!
Sitting by a campfire and watching all the boat traffic haul a lot of people back to reality in whatever large city they live in always gives me a real dose of reality, when I know how lucky I am to live where I do. No smog, and very little crime, because, “where would you go and hide after you commit your crime?” It would be at least a two-hour ride on the ferry to get there.
The primary business in this part of the world, of course, is tourism. Unfortunately, the word is getting out about what a great place it is. For example, a national magazine declared it as one of the 10 best places in America to get married. I personally think you can eliminate the other nine places and save looking around for a better place.
Years ago my daughter got married in front of our house with the ferry boat giving a toot as it glided by in the late afternoon sun. Laurie cooked all of the food for the reception and my neighbor, Mike Brown, was the preacher.
As I sit on the front porch in the late afternoon sun, I watch it disappear behind Pole Pass. Before I know it, Laurie and I will be packing up our stuff for our annual migration to Montana to live on the side of a ski hill at the Yellowstone Club. The top of the chairlift goes right by our bedroom window.
The ebb and flow of politics is uppermost in everyone’s mind right now, but let’s not forget that this country is all about freedom and anyone of us is free to work as hard or play as hard as we want to. I am glad I have followed this philosophy for most of my life, because doing so has given me the ultimate freedom to live exactly as I choose.
For more of Warren’s wanderings go to www.warrenmiller.net or visit him on his Facebook page at www.facebook.com/warrenmiller. For information on his Foundation, please visit the Warren Miller Freedom Foundation, at www.warrenmiller.org.