Anatomy of a Culebra Favor and Other Bits

Need something. Hear of it being offered, on Pam's list. Not able to get to location of offered object on own (getting old, can't swim with 130 lb. marine battery). Dinghy not ready.

Ask for help. Get help. Engine of helper dies in the middle of the bay, must row back. Viewers from shore house notice rowing, come along in boat to tow helper's boat. People are good. Try again tomorrow.

Finish work, call helping person. Helping person is helping someone else. Offering people waiting, leaving on next first light. Waste time cleaning. Phone calls back and forth to waiting people, who decide to wait at Dinghy Dock. Helping person calls. soon roaring (at 15hp) over the bay. Battery, et al transferred, dinghy to dinghy, bread of thanks given. Must replenish fluids, enjoy social moment.

Back across the bay. More bread of thanks. Head home. Got something needed. Enjoyed friends. Life is good.

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I know this is probably old news to most, but I had something else for the day the news hit and beside that, it's taken a while to sink in. Slight nostalgic trauma and all that. The Encyclopedia Britannica has seen its last run in print, there will be no update of the books, ever again. A lot of articles have been written, opinions weighed and comparisons made, but at the end of the day, it was summed up in by the president of the company, Jorge Cauz. 

"Everyone will want to call this the end of an era, and I understand that," Cauz says. "But there's no sad moment for us. I think outsiders are more nostalgic about the books than I am." and "The print set is an icon. But it's an icon that doesn't do justice to how much we've changed over the years," Cauz says.

244 years, fairly obviously, might as well be two hundred centuries in cyber time and advances. The wealth of information zipping around the world has overwhelmed the two-year updates of the Encyclopedia and its online version is where children go to find their information on the life cycle of bats (flying and sport, either one) these days. Such is the nature of life and business in our world today.

Fess Parker knew! And if you don't know who Fess Parker is? Never mind.

But I'm in the nostalgic camp, along with many who recall the answer to the 'what' and 'why' questions of our childhoods often being answered, "Go look it up in the Encyclopedia."
Finding the correct alphabetical volume, perhaps drawn aside by some photo or bolder print article on native huts of New Guinea, that slight smell of must and paper and glue...

I'm glad I knew ye, fat old books! I hardly knew ye.

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Graceful? Awkward? Pelicans.

Have a who, what, where, when, why wondering Wednesday! Do something with our wealth of knowledge.