Living Life Outside The Box
by
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As soon as we entered the warm tropical pacific waters, we no longer required clothing to keep warm so we abandoned the practice altogether. Being nude creates an indescribable sense of freedom that cannot be achieved by any other means. Initially there is a feeling of being “Naked” which very soon fades and the loss of this naked feeling can be an embarrassment if it results in forgetting your condition in inappropriate places. The best quote I know in regard to this condition is “If God had wanted us to run around naked; we would have been born that way.”
Our days were filled with warm gentle winds and an unbroken deep blue world surrounded us. In a setting like this, how could anyone avoid falling in love. We were reveling in each other; often spontaneously making love where ever on the boat we happened to be. Lying completely open and unfettered in the sun is uniquely rewarding.
The boat was doing a masterful job of steering itself so we had no reason to be in the cockpit all the time. We would limit being on deck during the middle of the day because protection from the tropical sun was always needed to avoid a severe sunburn. After dark, we would often lie on the cockpit seat gazing up at the mast slowly drawing circles in the millions of stars that defined our ceiling. When the moon came up, it would only add to the already mystical feeling of being at sea at night. Lying there with music softly playing on the radio, there was something surreal about our little universe with everything needed for survival all alone in an unbroken expanse of darkness.
At other times, the wind would create snowdrifts across the roads so the school bus couldn’t make it through. These times were always a welcome break in the school routine. Snowdrifts were nature’s gift to snow cave builders like Janet and I. We would hollow out large enough cavities in the snow to hold the two of us and just huddle inside and pretend to be Eskimos. Our barnyard would routinely be filled with snow forts. These were built by rolling large snowballs into a continuous wall behind which we would hide and throw snow missiles at each other. Eventually the cold would drive us indoors to the heat of our coal-burning stove. That stove was the center of all activity during the winter. Sitting just inside the front door it was the sole source of heat for our entire two-story house. Our upper floor contained two bedrooms accessed by a steep enclosed stairway with a closed door at its base. Only the larger of the two upstairs bedrooms received a little heat through a small grating in the floor. This was of course Janet’s room. My little brother Richard and I shared the smaller totally unheated room which at times would have snow accumulate on the windowsill next to our bed.
Except for the area immediately around the coal stove, the rest of the house didn’t get much heat either. A typical routine in getting ready for bed in winter was holding a blanket up close to the stove and let it get as hot as you could without setting it on fire. Then, after wrapping the warmed blanket tightly around your body, run at top speed for the bedroom and jump in under the cold blankets while still wrapped up. Doing this, one always initially lay in a fetal position but after awhile when this position became too uncomfortable, one needed to straighten out. The shock of the body encroaching into the unheated areas of the bed made this a choice of last resort.
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About the Book
Told with humor and candor by the one who lived it, this is a story of one man’s long and diverse journey through life. Unafraid of trying new directions and challenges, he was always ready to take advantage of fate when it offered a helping hand. From a humble beginning hoeing weeds on a small
About the Author
The author of this work is the inevitable result of a life bridging the Great Depression of the thirties and the technological explosion of the sixties. A high school dropout at sixteen, he joined the Navy at eighteen and after serving seven years, he let life happen without any real direction or purpose. Possessing unbounded optimism, good humor and confidence, he participated with ease in a wide variety of life’s games. Finally retired at seventy four, he now presumes to author his own Biography.