david j strasser

Sunday, February 05, 2023

Post #3162

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
—John F. Kennedy

Thursday, February 02, 2023

Remembering Robert Douglas "Doug" Badger of Long Beach, California

March 30, 1951 - January 16, 2023

Doug Badger, devoted dad, husband, friend, mentor, shipmate, and sharer of knowledge, "crossed the bar" on January 16, 2023. I was on the phone speaking with a vendor out in California yesterday. I brought up Doug in the conversation. The vendor said "I guess you haven't heard". Right then my heart sank and I wept.

If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others.

—Tryon Edwards

I guess it was around 1996 when I first contacted Doug. We traded a few old sea stories and it was like I'd known him all my life. I'm sure a lot of other people got the same impression. Over the next 25 years or so I'd ring up Doug on occasion to see if he could help me with some material, or just to shoot the breeze with him. But every single time, without fail, I'd end up picking his brain. Because he knew his business. And that is a fact. I made a trip out to see Doug once. I'm glad I got to meet him, thank him, and shake his hand.

The best conduct a man can adopt is that which gains him the esteem of others without depriving him of his own.
—The Talmud

Today my thoughts are with Doug's family. Celebrate his life. The last time I spoke with Doug he was happy and well, and loving life and family. That's how I knew Doug, and that's how I will always remember him.

Character gives splendor to youth and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rest In Peace, Doug.

Dave

Sunday, January 29, 2023

Post #3161

We do not imitate, but are a model to others.
—Pericles

Sunday, January 22, 2023

Post #3160

Life is a long lesson in humility.
—Sir James M. Barrie

Post #3159

There is no sin except stupidity.
—Oscar Wilde

Sunday, January 15, 2023

Post #3158

The trouble ain't that people are ignorant: it's that they know so much that ain't so.
—H.W. Shaw

Sunday, January 08, 2023

Post #3157

Those who lose dreaming are lost.
—Australian Aboriginal Proverb

Sunday, December 25, 2022

Post #3156

You know what the three most exciting sounds in the world are? Anchor chains, plane motors & train whistles.
—George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life

Sunday, December 18, 2022

Post #3155

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
—Mike Tyson

Sunday, December 11, 2022

Post #3154

Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.
—William Cowper

Sunday, December 04, 2022

Post #3153

Never try to walk across a river just because it has an average depth of four feet.
—Martin Friedman

Sunday, November 27, 2022

Post #3152

In many ways, the ocean is the great equalizer. Egos diminish in the face of a forty knot wind and fifteen-foot waves.
—Dennis Conner

Sunday, November 20, 2022

Post #3151

I am a part of all that I have met.
—Alfred Lord Tennyson

Sunday, November 13, 2022

Post #3150

Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs a step at a time.
—Mark Twain

Sunday, November 06, 2022

Post #3149

Experience is a name everyone gives to their mistakes.
—Oscar Wilde

The Penalty of Leadership

In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. ¶Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. ¶In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. ¶The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction. ¶When a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. ¶If his work be mediocre, he will be left severely alone – if he achieve a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a -wagging. ¶Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a commonplace painting. ¶Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build, no one will strive to surpass or to slander you unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius. ¶Long, long after a great work or a good work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious, continue to cry out that it cannot be done. Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank, long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius. ¶Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all. ¶The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by. ¶The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy – but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant. ¶There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as human passions – envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. ¶And it all avails nothing. ¶If the leader truly leads, he remains – the leader. ¶Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages. ¶That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. ¶That which deserves to live — lives.
written by Theodore F. MacManus