A Pirate Looks at 50

photo by Paul Bates

HERC celebrated a birthday recently here at the Hideaway and just to be clear he is not 50 years old.  Life continues to be good and there are those that for whatever reason seem to care about the old guy and he is grateful for that.  HERC has fought the passing and marking of time his whole life and he continues to feel younger than what his driver's license states his chronological age is.  How many of you are in the same boat?

Each sunrise is a glorious gift, a do-over, an opportunity to do what wasn't done yesterday or the gift to be able to do it again because it was so good the last time.  Each sunset is a peaceful easy panic that the day has gotten away and the unsettling fear of what if tomorrow never comes.  As the heavens give their most spectacular light show - an exploded rainbow of pinks, reds, oranges and purples - HERC's mind races as he conducts an inventory of what he did and what he has yet to do.  He checks emails, text messages and the old mailbox down the road.   The sun sinks and the fear subsides.  A sense of accomplishment, no matter how small, is enough motivation to look forward to the next daybreak and its multitude of possibilities.

We all have people who either willingly or against their better judgement participate in our waking dreams.  These people are our partners in life, our friends and our family - people who were given no choice but to be in our lives.  Then there are those strangers who try to out Samaritan us each day and, finally, our arch-nemeses, our self-proclaimed sworn enemies, those people whose every thought, action and word seems only to exist to reduce our existence to a miserable drama rather than the wonderful life it was destined to be.   HERC gives thanks for each and every one of these souls every day.

Until the next sunrise finds us together again, I am HERC and we are gonna need a bigger boat.