Posted Wednesday morning, April 7, 2021.
A view from the beach at Halibut State Park in Rockport, Massachusetts, Sunday afternoon around two, April 4th, 2021. Copyright Thomas Levenson. Posted here by permission.
Just when I’m beginning to resign myself to the probability that thanks to the debilitations and declining competencies of creeping old age I won’t ever get to look out at the open ocean again, author, historian, science journalist, and, as he puts it, sometime documentary filmmaker---films he's worked on have won awards, including a Peabody and a local Emmy---and longtime online confederate Tom Leverson posted this photo looking out at the open ocean from the beach at Halibut State Park in Rockport, Massachusetts. Rockport was a regular stop on our travels when Mrs M---the Blonde as she was then known---ventured outside of Boston and Tom’s postcard has made me homesick and desperate to return and sad that I can’t.
Tom, whose latest book “Money for Nothing: The Scientists, Fraudsters, and Corrupt Politicians Who Reinvented Money, Panicked a Nation, and Made the World Rich” will be out in paperback in May (it's available in hardcover now), reports that the air temperature when he was out there Sunday afternoon was in the high 50s. He didn’t say what the water temperature was, but it’s the North Atlantic in April, so...not warm. Or how hard the wind was blowing and from which direction. (It was 17 mph and from the northeast. I looked it up. Also, the average temperature of the water off Rockport in April is 44 degrees. I looked that up too.) But still a fine way to spend a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.
That rock at the center with the waves breaking over it looks like a stranded walrus, doesn’t it? Makes me want to go to its rescue, which would be going to my own rescue. Ah, well.
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In addition to his other accomplishment, Tom teaches science writing at MIT. His bio at his department's web page features samples of his writing, including this essay he wrote for the Atlantic last spring: "Stop Trying to make 'Wuhan Virus' Happen". You should visit his personal website to read more about his books and watch one of the documentaries he worked on.
Make sure to follow him on Twitter.
Friendly reminder: the photo of Halibut State Park is copyrighted.
Yes, I too have realized that extensive travel is not in my future, not anymore. So the trips we were always going to take to Paris, and to New Orleans, and to San Francisco, aren't going to happen.
Even the three-day drive to the west coast is unlikely now, unless one of our kids does the driving and we carefully plan the route and the stops. There is a chance this could happen someday, who knows -- and it might happen for you, too, when your boys are a little older.
But if not, I guess there's always WindowSwap, and Drive&Listen, and Radio Garden.
Posted by: Cathie from Canada | Thursday, April 08, 2021 at 01:28 AM