Pulchritude and opprobrium
by Anton Zuiker on April 12, 2019
Evening yesterday was warm and calm, everything coated by the yellow pine pollen that has covered North Carolina the last week. I stepped out onto the back deck to survey the grass that’s coming up around the house. Carpenter bees were buzzing about, bumping into the flashing above the screen porch and crawling up into their holes.
Today, rain. I got home from work as a deluge was flooding the road and yard, overwhelming the new French drain and rock path along the house.
We settled in for family movie night. Erin selected Akeelah and the Bee, which we’ve watched time and again though this was Oliver’s first. When Akeelah was at the state bee, I went out with the flashlight to meet Malia down at the park to walk her home. I tiptoed slowly down the path through the woods, expecting to meet a copperhead at any step. Thankfully, no serpents were in the shadows.
Back the bee, as usual, I cried. Such a sweet movie. But I was also crying from sadness, having read the short poem Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini, calling humanity to witness the flight of refugees trying to get across the water to some place, any place, of safety and hope.
And this on a day when news from the southern border of the United States is more and more dire, and our country continues its refusal to be humane, and the hopeless man who is president plays with fire.
Standing in the rain
by Anton Zuiker on April 8, 2019
A band of thunderstorms came across North Carolina this evening, and our home is drenched. This made it a good night to check the new French drain and gravel path that runs the side of the house. It seems to be working, though a lot of water that runs off the driveway and there’s some puddling still under the big white oak. The shed is leaking, too, even though we paid a guy to patch the roof last summer.
When it rains, I have this urge to go outside and evaluate the gutters, the gullies, the puddles, and the pools. As a boy, I would make dams in the mud, and redirect streams into small ponds of my making. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Vanuatu, stuck in our house for a week at a time while cyclone rains pounded the tin roof, I moved jars around the floor to catch water dripping through the nail holes in the tin, and I watched nervously from the door as rivers of water and mud formed outside.
The rain tonight was welcome, watering the newly seeded lawn all around this solid, dry, silent house.
This old chart
by Anton Zuiker on April 3, 2019
NOAA chart from 1966 showing the West End of St. Croix
When we visit St. Croix, we often start the day at Polly’s at the Pier, a restaurant in Frederiksted with good coffee and milkshakes and various breakfast items. As the name suggests, Polly’s has an amazing view of the long pier where cruise ships sometimes spend the day and where as a boy I often watched U.S. Navy destroyers and attack submarines tie up.
On the wall at Polly’s is a large print of a 1966 edition of the nautical chart of the west end of the island. (Sandy Point, which I wrote about last night, is the peninsula at the lower left.) Last week, I snapped a photo so I could search out a copy of my own.
I started my search tonight, and after a few dead ends, found the historical map & chart collection of the United States Office of Coast Survey, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That collection gave me a high-resolution jpeg of the 1966 chart, as well as versions from other years. Now I can print and frame a copy for my own wall.
March madness
by Anton Zuiker on April 2, 2019
I set out to blog each day in March, and to ignore politics. I stayed away from Twitter the whole month, and made it to about March 25 with a blog post each day, then fizzled out as the spring break activities tired me out early every evening. But I’m back home, catching up at work, and ready to get into the groove again.
Birthday and the beach
by Anton Zuiker on April 2, 2019
Joseph and Anton at Leatherback Brewing Company anniversary party, March 2019
It’s my birthday, and I’m back home after 10 days in the Virgin Islands, another wonderful return to the island of St. Croix to visit family, the gorgeous beaches of the West End and Buck Island, and the historic towns of Frederiksted and Christiansted. We also sailed on the Roseway schooner, strolled again among the ruins at Estate Mount Washington, and ate mahi sandwiches at Rhythms Bar at Rainbow Beach.
This year, instead of celebrating my birthday with the customary tour of the Cruzan Rum distillery (we had been to St. Croix for spring break in 2014, 2015, and 2016), we joined a crowd of a thousand for the celebration of the first year of Leatherback Brewing Company, a partnership led by my step-brother Aaron Hutchins. My father with his passion-fruit frozen lindy from Rosa’s Stand and I with a Leatherback brew sat in front of one of the food trucks talking, while Oliver played soccer with other boys and my daughters waited in line for delicious mango sorbet. That night, Dad and Dot would accompany Aaron and his wife to the St. Croix Chamber of Commerce awards dinner, where Leatherback Brewing Co. was lauded as the new business of the year.
We were back at Leatherback just before departing the island. I enjoyed the tasty CocoCacao Stout, and Erin and I shared a newly canned Bush Life saison.
In between the Saturday party and our Monday departure, we met Aaron and his sons at Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge for the final public day on that stunning beach before it closed for turtle-nesting season (April through September). Aaron had named the brewery after the leatherback turtles that nest at Sandy Point. Thirty-five years ago, I’d gone with my mother to join a group for a midnight vigil to watch as a massive turtle crawled onto shore, dug a hole in the sand, and laid her eggs. I vividly recall laying in the sand next to the turtle, catching and holding one of the eggs, and then gently placing it inside the nest. Aaron had brought a thermos of cold Backyard Guava IPA made with the juice of guava grown on a tree in his own backyard. We drank that vibrant brew, watching Oliver and Nico roll in the waves. That was a perfect day.
Erin and Anna still have a few days on St. Croix before they return, so Malia and Oliver and I went to dinner at Mercato Pizzeria. Malia drove us home, and they surprised me with a chocolate cake.