Michael Cunnion (1945 - 1966)

Mike Cunnion was the star quarterback at Mt. St. Michael's in Mt. Vernon, NY.  When he  went to Holy Cross on a football scholarship we lived on the same floor and were friends.  But then and there even a prime athlete could flunk out.  Mike did.  He joined the Marines and went to Vietnam.  With fourteen others he went down in a helicopter near the DMZ (the truce line between south and north Vietnam).  Mt. St. Michael, pictured below, memorialized Mike.
When I travel to D.C. I go to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to remember Mike and two other classmates - Bob Donovan, and Jack Martin who also perished in the war.
As President Obama's visit reminds us we lost 58,000.  The Vietnamese 1 million.  They too should be mourned. - gwc

Giovanni Soldini - sailor | An Affair With Italy

Giovanni Soldini's exploits as a sailor are legend.  Below are some highlights.  More pix and a good interview at the link below.

Giovanni Soldini - sailor | An Affair With Italy

Giovanni Soldini Achievements

• 1991 in his 50-foot Looping he took 3rd place in the La Baule-Dakar single handed race before taking second class the following year in the Europe 1 Star solo race.

• After losing his boat during the Quebec-Saint Malo race, he built the 50 foot Kodak which took him to second place in the BOC Challenge. Renamed Telecom Italia, he then used the same boat to win the Europe 1 Star solo race in 1996.

• With his Open 60 Fila he took the overall win the the 1998 Atlantic Alone, folowed by the 1999 Atlantic Alone, setting record times in both regattas. In 1999 during the third stage of the Around Alone, he rescued French Sailor Isabelle Autissier.

• In 2001, Soldini began his adventures with the trimaran 60 TIM Progetto Italia which he raced in three Transat Jacques Vabre races, one Route du Rhum, one Ostar and one Quebec-Saint Malo. In 2005, during the Transit Jacques Vabrew, his trimaran capsized off the coast of Senegal and he was forced to abandon the race.

• In September 2007, he launched Telecom Italia Class 40. He took first place in the Transat Jacques Vabre together with Pietro D'Ali. In 2008 he won the Artemis Transat Jacques single-handed race and took fourth place in the Quebec-Saint Malo.

• In 2009 he won the two-handed Transmanche race and the Les Sables-Horta-Les Sables and took second place as a crew memeber in the Rolex Fastnet race as well as second place in the two-handed Solidaire du Chocolate race.

• In January 2012, he began his adventure as skipper of the Maserati VOR70. After setting the time reference for the Caide-San Salvador route, Soldini attemtped to record for the North Atlantic crossing but he was forced to withdraw due to weather conditions.

• In February 2013 he and the Maserati's team set the new world record of the Golden Route: from New York to San francisco in 47 days, 42 minutes and 29 seconds.

• In january 2013, Maserati crossed the finish line of the 14th edition of the Cape2Rio, setting a new world record.

• In June 2015 the Maserati covered the Tea Clipper Trade Route in world record time, plied between San Francisco and Shanghai in the mid-1800s.

Jacob's Ladder | Issuma

Richard Hudson and Issuma have stopped at St. Helena.  the midsouth Atlantic island is most famous for being the place of Napoleon Bonaparte's exile.

Jacob's Ladder | Issuma

Mike Golding Rescue of Alex Thomson

http://www.yachtingworld.com/features/great-seamanship-a-dramatic-account-of-how-mike-golding-rescued-alex-thomson-in-the-southern-ocean-70475

Generations Change- Dodgers Numbers persist - George Vecsey

Billy Cox -Third Base                   Willie Davis Center Field

For George Vecsey - the great sportswriter - the Dodgers were a first love.
As he puts it - "fifty nine years after the Dodgers left Ebbetts Field, I am beginning to adjust".  My path led to the Red Sox and David Ortiz.  But my first heroes were the greatest - every player on the field.  Especially Sandy Koufax who went from Wingate High School in Flatbush to Ebbetts Field without spending a day in the minors.  I wish I had kept that rookie year Topps baseball trading card. - GWC
In this post he remembers Dodgers greats - most in Brooklyn, some in L.A.  I stuck with the Dodgers til the last man who wore a Brooklyn uniform passed away - the fine second baseman Junior Gilliam, one of Major League baseball's first Black players .  At the time of his death he was first base coach. - gwc

Generations Change- Dodgers Numbers persist - George Vecsey

This is the 59th season of the Brooklyn Dodgers out west; I think I am adjusting.

I’ve been staying up late watching the Mets and Dodgers, the two teams in my life, do battle in distant Chávez Ravine. The shock now is the familiar numbers on the home white jerseys -- with strange people wearing them.

High water mark - May 4, 2016

高潮线 (gaochou xian) 11 foot tide on the Back River - higher high water. Two days before the new moon we always get high highs and low lows.

"Zen Poem," by Daniel Berrigan - ReligiousLeftLaw.com

"Zen Poem," by Daniel Berrigan - ReligiousLeftLaw.com

How I long for supernatural powers!
said the novice mournfully to the holy one.
I see a dead child
and I long to say, Arise!
I see a sick man
I long to say, Be healed!
I see a bent old woman
I long to say, Walk straight!
Alas, I feel like a dead stick in paradise.
Master, can you confer on me
supernatural powers?

The old man shook his head fretfully
How long have I been with you
and you know nothing?
How long have you known me
and learned nothing?
Listen; I have walked the earth for 80 years
I have never raised a dead child
I have never healed a sick man
I have never straightened an old woman's spine

Children die
men grow sick
the aged fall
under a stigma of frost

And what is that to you or me
but the turn of the wheel
but the way of the world
but the gateway to paradise?

Supernatural powers!
Then you would play God
would spin the thread of life and measure the thread
5 years, 50 years, 80 years
and cut the thread?

Supernatural powers!
I have wandered the earth for 80 years
I confess to you,
sprout without root
root without flower
I know nothing of supernatural powers
I have yet to perfect my natural powers!

to see and not be seduced
to hear and not be deafened
to taste and not be eaten
to touch and not be bought

But you-
would you walk on water
would you master the air
would you swallow fire?

Go talk with the dolphins
they will teach you glibly
how to grow gills

Go listen to eagles
they will hatch you, nest you
eaglet and airman

Go join the circus
those tricksters will train you
in deception for dimes-

Bird man, bag man, poor fish
spouting fire, moon crawling
at sea forever-
supernatural powers!

Do you seek miracles?
listen- go
draw water, hew wood
break stones-
how miraculous!

Listen; blessed is the one
who walks the earth 5 year, 50 years, 80 years
and deceives no one
and curses no one
and kills no one

On such a one
the angels whisper in wonder,
behold the irresistible power
of natural powers-
of height, of joy, of soul, of non belittling!

You dry stick-
in the crude soil of this world
spring, root, leaf, flower!

trace
around and around
and around-
an inch, a mile, the world's green extent,-
a liberated zone
of paradise!

TG Lurgan and Seo Linn - Avicii Vs Lurgan - "Wake Me Up" as Gaeilge

Seo Linn is the group we heard at The Battery at the 1916-2016 centennial of the Irish Easter uprising.  TG Lurgan is the lead singer here.  I heard them again at Maguires Pub on Roosevelt Avenue, Woodside, Queens.  I don't know a word of Gaelic, but the people in the crowd evidently do.