Opus Vida – An Individual Life
I learned to sail in Key West
About midway in my Key West stint in the Army, a new quartermaster clerk arrived. E2 or E3, not sure. Young guy. He "discovered" that the company had a 14' Hobi cat and a Sunfish in "officer country," or at least where the NCOs and above lived with their families, and nobody knew about it. So, he let the rest us know about it.
Oddly enough, I was the only one who took advantage; they were always available.
Welcome to My Life – 72 Years and Counting
An individual is born, lives a life accumulating things, ideas, experiences, and then dies. Where go the artefacts generated through that life? Family is first on the scene, going through the remains, but family have only so much space so the pickings are small. The individual's life is forgotten except for photos kept and reminiscences among themselves. How many generations of photos are kept? How many stories remain? The experiences and ideas. Who gets my stuff when I'm gone? Who really cares? My guitars, songs, writings, stories, essays, drawings – the stuff of my life – furniture I've made, wood that I've worked, things fabricated.
We chronicle the lives of "important" figures throughout history. Very few of us warrant a gander: the hopes, loves, dreams, ideas of the rest of us. What's your story? What's your song? What have you done? We are Tom Hanks when he made fire in "Castaway" - "look what I have done!" Lest we forget ourselves, let us say "look what we have done!
– Thom Barrie