Island in the Sun

No. Not the Weezer song. I’ve been thinking about islands lately. Maybe, and most likely, it’s because I am reading a book “Finding Moosewood”. It’s written by the newsman Jack Perkins, who chucked it all mid-fame to build a home on an island off the coast of Maine where he and his wife lived until he died. Maybe it’s because of the chaos of the world today and particularly in our nation. Maybe it’s because the older I get the less I seem to like people and just want to be alone. Maybe it’s all of the above.

So I have never lived on an island. But I’ve visited some, and loved every one. Tangier Island, especially. It’s a little island, of five hundred people, in the middle of Chesapeake Bay. Because of climate change it will be gone in just twenty five years. Go see it before it’s too late! Washington Island, off the coast of Dorr County, Wisconsin, in Lake Michigan! Martha’s Vineyard. Such a beautiful place. Cabbage Key off the coast of Florida, which is the reason Jimmy Buffet wrote Cheeseburger in Paradise.

Closer to home is the island of play of my childhood, Around the World Island in the middle of Trout Creek. Every summer, when I was a child, we spent a week at Lake Wallenpaupack. There was an island off shore, without a name, that made its way into family lore. It’s the island that my brother Gary paddled to, and slept on, after a fight with his wife, Nancy. I am happy to report, that over fifty years later, they are still a happy couple! There is a little island in Leaser Lake that is so fun to kayak around with an occasional deer sighting. Islands! Love them! I’ve lived in about thirty homes in my life. Maybe the last one will be on an island? Wishful thinking!

I’ll leave you with these lines from the coast of Maine:

You don’t know why and you can’t say how

Such a change upon you came,

But once you have slept on an island

You’ll never be quite the same.

Enjoy the beautiful weekend!