by Judy Handley | Apr 30, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 120: Double Booked
Date: Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Weather: Mostly Sunny; High Temp 70, Low 43 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Today at 5 pm my wine group met for the first time since December. The date was set months ago before I knew that tonight was the League of Women Voters’ Candidate Night for our upcoming May 20 election in Falmouth. So, I decided to do both. Our wine group gathered at 5 pm, so I had a little more than hour to say hello to everyone. Then I hurried home to take Shadow out, feed him, and get to the library for the 7 pm Candidate’s Night. I got there at 6:40 and found a standing-room only situation. With a little maneuvering, I did find a seat. The two big races are for the School Committee and the Select Board, but I got my one minute to introduce myself as an uncontested candidate running for Trustee on the Public Library Board. Why am I doing this? When I found out no one was running for this position, I felt compelled to fill the spot. I grew up in a home with the only book being a bible and in a town with no library. It was the bookmobile that came every two weeks that introduced me to the world of books and changed my life. Those books led me to a lifelong career as an educator and a lifelong learner. I look forward to sitting on the Falmouth Library Board to do what I can to assure the very well established and wonderfully run Falmouth Public Library system grows into the future.
Tomorrow is May Day, a time for a nationwide protest against the ‘war on working people’ that is being called May Day Strong. The big protest on the Cape will be up by the Bourne Bridge, but there are smaller protests in towns and cities on Cape Cod and all across the country. Please join us.
by Judy Handley | Apr 29, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 119: The Never-Ending Story
Date: Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Weather: Mostly Sunny and Windy; High Temp 59, Low 52 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
I am now calling the search for a boom for Ardenna the “never-ending story.” I did find a boom today that should work, but Heather and Jed will have to decide if they want a new boom fabricated to be just like the one they lost in the fire or whether they are willing to go with something that will work but might not be perfect. And if they want a new boom fabricated, we have to find the original plans and it is unclear who currently owns those. They must exist somewhere in this world. We just don’t know where.
by Judy Handley | Apr 28, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 118: Still Looking for a Boom Solution
Date: Monday, April 28, 2025
Weather: Sunny and Warm; High Temp 71, Low 48 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
Today I traveled back across the bridge to the Mattapoisett, Marion, and Wareham area in search of a solution for replacing Ardenna’s boom that was destroyed in a fire at the end of February. The deeper I dig into the problem, the more complicated it seems to become. It is like the ‘one step forward, two steps backwards’ adage. But I am meeting some very interesting people and truly enjoying this dip back into the marine world. The search continues tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | Apr 27, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 117: Boats and a Sunday Sermon
Date: Sunday, April 27, 2025
Weather: Mix of Sun and Clouds; High Temp 57, Low 46 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
This morning I went to Woods Hole with Heather, Jed, and Ollie to the Marin Sale at the Woods Hole Maritime Museum. There were loads of people and lots of sale but not a dinghy the of the size that Heather and Jed need to buy. But Ollie found some things for free that can help him adapt one of my kayaks to a sailing kayak. One of the women helping from with the sale overheard him talking to Jed about this and interrupted to tell Ollie that he sounds very serious about his boat project. She pointed out that he can come to the museum any Saturday morning to work with the boat builders there. What a great opportunity for him. I hope he will take her up on the offer.
Then this afternoon instead of working on the photo project that needs to be done ASAP, I ended up working on Ardenna’s needs. The welder who I found yesterday to weld a crack in one of the stays called to tell me he had completed that task, but he also had more information for me about finding a boom. We must have talked for an hour and then I went about gathering the information he suggested I try to get from Heather and Jed about the boom that was destroyed. I will meet with the welder tomorrow morning, and then go back to look at the booms I found on Friday to see if they will really do the job. I did end up spending a couple of hours on the photo project, but I really must focus on that this week.
What I did not do today that I had planned to do was to attend some of the town of Falmouth’s kick-off celebrations for the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution. The event was called Lanterns & Lyrics and it included everything from watching a film about Katherine Lee Bates to learning about the bell made by Paul Revere found in our First Congregational Church on Main Street to an evening musical performance. I hope there are more events coming up that I will be able to attend.
I will end with a bit of a Sunday sermon of sorts from Ronald Reagan. The following words of wisdom were spoken by Reagan in his last speech as President.. They are copied here from Heather Cox Richardson’s LETTTERS FROM AN AMERICAN, April 26, 2025
On the last day of his presidency, in his last speech, President Ronald Reagan recalled what someone had once written to him: “You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.”
He continued: “We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people—our strength—from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation. While other countries cling to the stale past, here in America we breathe life into dreams. We create the future, and the world follows us into tomorrow. Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.”
by Judy Handley | Apr 26, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 116: The Penguin Lessons
Date: Saturday, April 26, 2025
Weather: Rain, Rain All Day and Evening; High Temp 57, Low 46 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
These days in Falmouth, if it’s Saturday, it’s ‘Standout on the Village Green Day’. People come with their signs and American flags and stand on the village Green in protest of the Trump regime. So, for the hour between noon to 1 pm today, I stood in the rain with a few other hardy souls holding our signs to protest the arrest of a judge, the abduction of students on college campuses, the deep cuts to, and in some cases, total elimination of, science, health, education institutions, the disappearing of people to El Salvador with no due process, the financial chaos in this country, and the world, caused by unnecessary tariffs, a proposed budget that could mean drastic changes to Medicare and Social Security, and the elimination of Medicaid. And the list goes on and on and on and on. Even in the rain, it felt good to be taking a stand in the hope that more and more people will eventually join us. We have to remember Cory Booker’s words during his recent marathon stand on the Senate floor, “The power of the people is always greater than the people in power. We must use our voices to demand a government that works for and by the people.”
Then, tonight, I went to the Cape Cinema to see “The Penguin Lessons.” I really knew nothing about the movie. I went just because I love penguins and a friend asked me to go with her. But I got a lot more than a “feelgood” movie about a penguin. The basic story is centered around a disillusioned Englishman (played by Steve Coogan) who goes to work at an exclusive boys’ school in Argentina in 1976. Transport yourself to Buenos Aires on the eve of a political revolution, just as Isabel Perón is being ousted in a military coup. People on the streets were being killed or disappeared for no apparent reason. In the film, you see this happening at the same time an orphaned penguin rescued from an oil spill is transforming the lives of a teacher and his students at the boy’s school. It was the kind of film that had me on the verge of tears thinking about some of the similarities to tactics being used in this country right now, and then the next minute I found myself smiling at that adorable penguin. The overall message of the film was that the actions of one person can make a difference. It was definitely worth the drive to the Cape Cinema.
by Judy Handley | Apr 25, 2025 | 2025 Sailing Logs |
2025 Life Logs, Day 115: I Led Three Lives
Date: Friday, April 25, 2025
Weather: Beautiful Day; High Temp 62, Low 54 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
I remember a television program called “I Led Three Lives” from when I was in early elementary school. I only remember that it was about a spy, but when I looked up the program, I found the spy’s name was Herbert Philbrick and that he infiltrated communist groups for the FBI. This led to his triple life as a normal US citizen, a communist, and a counterspy.
Well, I am not a spy, nor a communist or a counterspy, but today I led three distinct lives … a student, a leader, a mother. I started out as a student by attending my weekly class focusing on what seven US Presidents did when they left the White House. Today we focused on Grover Cleveland from Chapter 3 of Jared Cohen’s book, “Life After Power.”
After class, I turned on my phone and was instantly transported to my role as a Newcomers-Encore activity leader. Early this morning, notice of a field trip that I am organizing was sent out. It is a trolley tour of Provincetown in early June. By noon, there were 15 people who had responded that they would like to go. So, I needed to pause for a bit to send individual email acknowledgements to everyone that had responded. I was using my phone to do this, so it was a bit slower than if I had been at home.
Now for the third life of the day. I drove from Mashpee across the bridge to Wareham, Mattapoisett, and Marion, to do more boat work research for Heather. This put me in my role as a mother. I was not asked to do this, but when you hear the frustration in your child’s voice, no matter how old the child, you just want to help. The visits today were follow-ups to visits I made on Tuesday. I had fun doing this on Tuesday and even more fun today. Plus, I was much more successful than I had anticipated, so I returned home a happy momma.
Tonight, I am back to just being me (Life #4) which seems to require spending an enormous amount time figuring out how to become an effective political activist (Life #5). This is getting too complicated, too many lives, so I am just going to go to bed!
