i can’t wait to see Bill’s new book….the coffee-table book about our 2014 season….if you scan the archives, you’ll see that that’s a good season to start the tradition of making these books every year: that season was absolutely outrageous! Plymouth Pond came in…..then Chickawalkie and Megunticook duked it out as favorites….until queen Darmiscotta played her trump card….and…just as we were thanking our stars: South Twin near Millinocket zapped us…. and then…lightening struck: Moosehead!…. Bill even jetted off to Siberia for ultimate bragging rights…..and I….I heaped my cornpone ever higher on the plates of ice-starved cyber-prisoners…. so, all in all…….it will be interesting to see it in print…..maybe having that book will help with this agrivating two month count-down…

At 74, I’ve been surgically patched-up for another go…..and….since holding a sheet under tension for long periods is part of my challenge, I’m installing a little jam cleat which should give me some shoulder relief….ah aging…..I think of Lloyd trotting his quiet reaches in Cheapskate, in a boat he carries under one arm from the truck….

(Inaugural sail on windless Monmouth)

a quiet prayer comes to my lips: dear Higher Power, please give me serenity with aging….that letting go…..that patience….help me to follow Lloyd’s wise leadership……..but…..but….not quite yet!

sooo….as the weeks tick by, I wonder: can lightning strike again? can this amazing passion somehow be sustained?

if health should hold, in this dying year
we’ll chop the holes, we’ll launch the gear

we’ll do our sit-ups, check our knees
burden gods with hearty pleas

then spread again our borrowed wings
and hear that song
–that wondrous song–
a runner sings!