david strasser

Sunday, October 22, 2023

Post #3199

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.
—Albert Einstein

Friday, October 20, 2023

Sunday, October 15, 2023

How true Daddy's words were when he said: all children must look after their own upbringing. Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.
—Anne Frank

Sunday, October 08, 2023

Post #3197

There are so many hungry people that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
—Mahatma Gandhi

Sunday, October 01, 2023

Post #3196

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.
—Mark Twain

Friday, September 29, 2023

Pareidolia Mike

Sunday, September 24, 2023

Post #3195

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then say it with the utmost levity.
—George Bernard Shaw

Sunday, September 17, 2023

Post #3194

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.
—Mark Twain

Sunday, September 10, 2023

Post #3193

Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family: but to a solitary and an exile his friends are everything.
—Willa Sibert Cather

Saturday, September 09, 2023

Remembering Ben Akers, BTC - A Few Words From A Shipmate

Robert H. "Bobby" Akers Jr.

December 19, 1968 - November 28, 2018

He was "Ben" to his shipmates. We served together in "B" Division onboard The USS Dubuque between 1987 and 1989, stationed at Sasebo, Japan. Ben was ten years my younger and ten times the BT.

The self is not something that one finds. It is something one creates.
—Thomas Szasz

It's normal for us not to be able to remember everyone we ever served with, when and where. For me, Ben Akers was easy to remember because he was hands down the hardest working Hole Snipe I ever knew. He was strong, tireless, resourceful, and not afraid to get dirty. He had a kind of quick, dry wit about him, as I recall. Even tempered, he spoke with a Western Pennsylvania dialect. Akers was the last person I ever heard use "yinz" in a sentence. He was a 4.0 Sailor. Squared away. His "gig line" was straight. Pick your metaphor, but Ben Akers was born to be a BT in The US Navy. I was honored to serve with him.

So, since the last time I saw Ben Akers, a lot has changed. The introduction of the World Wide Web was a biggie. I tried to search him out many years ago, but nothing came back. I remembered him again just yesterday, so I sent out another search. This time I got the sad news of his sudden passing back in 2018. Condolences to his widow, and his family. Jimmy Buffett wrote;

He's somewhere on the ocean now A place he oughta be With one hand on the starboard rail He's wavin' back at me

Fair Winds and Following Seas, Shipmate.
―Strasser, BT2

Sunday, September 03, 2023

Post #3192

Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.
― Mark Twain

Saturday, September 02, 2023

Jimmy Buffett Has "Crost the Bar"

December 25, 1946 - September 01, 2023

Be good and you will be lonesome.

―Mark Twain

····

Be lonesome and you will be free

Live a lie and you will live to regret it

That's What Living is to Me.
―Jimmy Buffett

Son of a Son of a Sailor · The Captain and the Kid · A Pirate Looks at Forty · Cowboy in the Jungle · Havana Daydreamin' · He went to Paris · Tin Cup Chalice · Margaritaville · Come Monday · Tides · The Wino and I know · Trying to Reason with a Hurricane · Cheeseburger in Paradise · Fruitcakes · Life is Just a Tire Swing · Door Number Three

Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes

I've been listening to Jimmy Buffett's stories since The Great Filling Station Holdup. Inspired! I wanted to be a Sailor so I joined The Navy. I wanted to hang out on the beach so I spent a year in Costa Rica - on the bum. Everywhere I've been, the wit and wisdom of Jimmy Buffett was right there with me, and I thank God for that.

Breathe in, Breathe Out, Move On

Jimmy Buffett, The Sailor, Singer, Songwriter, Musician, Businessman, Philosopher, and Philanthropist will forever be an inspiration to people across the globe. Passed from this earth now, but not forgotten, his legacy is the gift that keeps on giving.

Fair Winds and Following Seas, Jimmy.

—dave

Sunday, August 27, 2023

Post #3191

Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sunday, August 20, 2023

Post #3190

The person portrayed and the portrait are two entirely different things.
—José Ortega y Gasset

Sunday, August 13, 2023

Post #3189

Few blame themselves until they have exhaused all other possibilities.
—Anonymous

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