Youngs Bay Wine Shop Notes

A morning dove glides overhead. I drink a glass of white wine and watch the bay roll not an inch in either direction.

In the distance, I hear the sounds of my former life as a high school teacher—the marching band is practicing. I had a good run. I made a unique difference in the lives of many of my students. I can live with that. I can die with that.

I busted ass on the grounds of the wine shop. I still love to do this kind of work. It is tangible.

Clouds barely move. I see white, silver, gray, brown and black clouds. I once taught an entire cloud-themed writing workshop to my students. We just waited for the right moment and then strolled outside and reclined on our backs on the football fields. I shouted out prompts and they wrote in their journals with their arms upraised. The writing always floated into beautiful unknown areas of imagination and reflection.

Okay, I miss doing that sort of thing, I admit that.

Some more people from my former life have recently emerged. So far it has been a tricky proposition, to determine motives and discover agendas when this occurs.

Two morning doves are walking on the floor of the wine shop. I read they mate for life. These two are a couple, for sure.

Salmon is cooking. The wine shop serves incredible meals.

Over in a far disused corner of the shop, I see a statue of mermaid that I once stole from an abandoned vacation home. I had an accomplice in that mission and I would like to see her again.

Labor Day came and went. Labor Day always makes me think. It’s hard to believe Congress and a President once passed such legislation, to honor the working man and woman, and provide a day of rest. Working class men and women once voted for FDR. Now most of them support Trump. Where did it all go wrong in their minds and wrong with my country to see that happen? Historians can perhaps settle it out. Or maybe novelists or poets. Forget rock and rollers, and of course, the streaming shows will never touch it.