2022 Life Logs, Day 142: Kwame Alexander Presentation; Sailboat Search Update
Date: Sunday, May 22, 2022
Weather: Sunny; High 76, Low 60 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Wikipedia says Kwame Alexander is an American writer of poetry and children’s fiction. His verse novel The Crossover won the 2015 Newbery Medal recognizing the year’s “most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.” 
My grandson Jonah would say Kwame Alexander is his favorite author. One reason for that is that the author often uses sports and a lot of humor to get his ideas across to kids, and he tells his stories through poetry. This afternoon Heather, Jonah, Ollie, and I went to see him in person.
He is a dynamic personality that totally involves his audience in a question-answer type presentation that was truly inspiring. One of his missions is to get children to love writing as a way of making themselves heard in this increasingly complex world.
Heather returned from her sailboat search in Maine less than hour before we had to head to Hyannis to the presentation. I complicated the afternoon by directing us to the wrong location. It was sponsored by the Cultural Center of Cape Cod located in South Yarmouth, but the presentation was at Barnstable High School in Hyannis. I missed that last part and caused us to be late for the presentation. Thankfully, we missed only ten minutes. Heather had spent her whole day yesterday driving and drove home from Boothbay, Maine this morning. So causing her to drive almost twice as far as necessary to get to the presentation was not a feel good moment for me. But she remained cheery and drove on.
Yesterday Heather went to see one sailboat in Boothbay which is a four-hour drive from here in the best of times, and then on to see another sailboat in Brooklin, Maine which is another two and half to three hours from Boothbay. Then she drove back to Boothbay for the night and back home this morning. Whew! But hopefully it was all worth it. The Cape Dory 36 in Brooklin, Maine that she and Jed had already made an offer on, sight unseen, seems to be the best choice. It is structurally sound, has a brand new Yanmar engine and many new electronic updates. The downside is that there are some cosmetic issues that need attention. But then, don’t we all!!! Trying to make this decision with Jed in Sweden has added to the stress, but as I listened to her talk about meeting with the owner and going over all the details, I agree that this is a great choice for them. There is still the going and back and forth to reach the final price and then the survey before it is a done deal. But Heather is hoping that things will work out and they can have their first family sailing vacation in August.
My fondest memories of sailing are from the days when when we first started sailing on a Cape Dory 25 when Heather and Justin were about the ages of Jonah and Ollie. Heather and Justin would take their boom box out on the deck and blare Kokomo while drumming on the deck. I think Heather also has those same fond memories and hopes to make new fond memories with the Goldpebbles. Something Heather has heard since she was very young are the words from Kenneth Graham’s children’s book The Wind in the Willows. “There is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”
