Had one of those perfect-moments-in-time the other night.
I was sitting in the stern of the boat smoking my pipe and watching the sun set over the cabin tops of the other boats moored on C-dock. There was no one around. Tracy and the animals were tucked away in the cabin enjoying the cooling air from the conditioner. The other boat owners were where ever they go when they are not on their boats. It was just me and the setting sun. A warm breeze was blowing a full moon in to the darkening sky to the South East. Somewhere out in the channel, a passing boat had sent a gentle swell into the marina. The boat was rocking ever so slightly. Around me, the loose halyards on the other boats tapped rhythmically against their aluminum masts. It was like listening to the heartbeats of the boats at rest against their moorings. It was peaceful. I mean, really peaceful. I leaned back in my chair and looked up at the sky and realized that for the moment… for that particular point in time, I had completely let go and let God.
Whatever problems I had were tomorrow’s problems and had nothing to do with me just then. Whatever problems I had in the past were gone. Sitting in the stern of the boat I was at peace. I had just had a good meal. I was wearing one of my Hawaiian shirts, smoking a bowl of Baker Street, a medium-to-strong English Blend featuring generous portions of Latakia and Perique tobacoos, along with a variety of Virginias and burleys in an old, well-used, Calabash pipe that I had had for close to 40 years. The Bible said it: with food and raiment, therewith be content. And I was.
There were clouds to the north and from them came the low, distant rumbling of summer thunder. Suddenly the words to an old Bob Seger song popped into my mind:
I woke last night to the sound of thunder
How far off I sat and wondered
Started humming a song from 1962
Ain’t it funny how the night moves
When you just don’t seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves
With autumn closing in…. (Night Moves)
It seemed so perfect… autumn was closing in… the distant sound of thunder played at the edge of my hearing… the warm breeze blew over me… and I began to think about 1962… I would have been in the 8th grade… what songs would I have been humming from then?
And that’s when the mood broke. I couldn’t think of one song that I could have hummed that would have sustained the mood Night Moves had just evoked. Mashed Potato Time by Dee Dee Sharp, The Stripper by David Rose, The Twist by Chubby Checker were just not going to cut it. What song could Bob Seger have been thinking of? I Can’t Stop Loving You by Ray Charles or even Roses are Red (My Love) by Bobby Vinton have some mood capabilities, but listen to Night Moves and then hum either one of them and… no way. Maybe the slow, much later version of Neil Sedaka’s Breaking Up Is Hard To Do has a shot at the Night Moves mood, but not the 1962 version.
Ray Charles
Neil Sedaka
Bobby Vinton
So with the mood gone and my pipe finished, I climbed out of the cockpit and reentered the main cabin. Tracy was up on the main berth wearing nothing but a smile and getting ready to watch one of her favorite TV shows. As I watched her fiddling around with the rabbit ears (we don’t have cable) to insure the best HD reception (you can get HD reception without paying for cable) I couldn’t help from breaking out with Dion’s The Wanderer and dancing across the cabin.
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