Sanibel Journal

For three weeks now, the Cooley household of two has been in strict, self-imposed isolation.   As we isolate, I strive to maintain my sense of place in the world.   That place has changed a bit lately. What I do and decide affects others.   I think about that.   JS normally cleans our house once a month, but I decided not now – not until the pandemic is over.   So I texted her (that’s her preferred mode of communication) to ask if she was okay and if she needed money; I said I could pay in advance for cleaning to be done next Fall or whenever.   She texted back that she is good, no worries.   A friend later told me that JS is more concerned about being able to stay away from the virus than she is about money.   She was frightened when she saw careless people still vacationing on Captiva.   I will check back with her again soon. I was concerned about my younger brother who lives alone in Tampa, because I had not heard from him or...

Last weekend, I finished my most favorite volunteer job ever:  a one-year term as moderator of the Congregational Church on Sanibel Island.  The moderator leads the church council, the governing body of the church.  In our church, one prepares for being moderator by first serving a year as vice moderator.  So this was really a two-year stint. My first thought, when it came time to prepare my “Year in Review” comments for last Sunday's annual meeting, was to do what I’d done before when I’d led nonprofit organizations:   go through the year’s reports, minutes, news releases, calendar, etc., and write a summary.    Tillandsia thriving in a safe place on a tree trunk. But the church annual report already had brief and informative reports from each of the committees, the deacons' board, and the church council.  I urged church members to take them home, read them, and think about how they’d like to be involved with the church in the years...

June 21, 2016 -- "One year ago," Pastor John said on Sunday, "during the sermon I read the list of names of the victims of the shooting in Charleston."  This time, in the aftermath of the massacre in Orlando, he wanted help.  He had asked Paul and me to share the reading of the names during a prayer after the sermon. I thanked him for the opportunity to do something to help the families of the victims. Lifting their loved ones' names up in prayer was something we could do. After researching and practicing the pronunciation of the names given to me to read on Saturday, I was ready.  I speak French, not Spanish, but I tried. I wanted to give the respect of saying these young people's names correctly. That was Sunday.  The next day was Monday, yesterday, the longest day of the year.  The full moon rose in the sky.  Monday evening was also the time that most of our night-blooming cereus bloomed.  These glorious, strange blossoms burst out exuberant...

I was raised in suburbia, but when I went away to college, I was suddenly living in the middle of a city.  Oddly, the land-grant university with agricultural roots was in an entirely urban setting.  I could only stand three months in the on-campus dormitory; soon I was in a rooming house, then another rooming house, then my first apartment – in a building owned by a bona fide slumlord. At the same time, I was becoming increasingly aware of the city’s problems, many of which were caused by the middle-class flight to the suburbs.  The middle-class was fleeing the diversity resulting from court-ordered desegregation of the public schools.  People feared the diversity that I craved as a teenager. By the end of my Freshman year, I vowed to live in the city, not the suburbs.  I lived that promise for thirty years.  During those decades, I also did what I could to help attract some middle-class people back to the city by supporting the fledgling historic ...

April 23, 2015 – Dick, who is one of our neighbors on Pine Avenue (a neighbor to the land we own that we had planned to build upon), had graciously offered to take us out in his boat so we could see the house we are buying from the back – that is, from the water.  On Tuesday, Tom and I took him up on his generous offer. Our soon-to-be-home, from the rear. We’d just had lunch with my mom at Cip’s.  Back at our house, we donned hats and sunglasses; then the three of us went to Dick’s place on Dinken Bayou. The bayou is a super-slow, no wake zone for boats because manatees like to be there – and so do dolphins.  We didn’t see those creatures on Tuesday, but we saw plenty of interesting houses from the water. We pulled out into the bayou from the end of the canal that parallels Pine Avenue, then proceeded north, passing the houses of Harbour Lane and Coconut Drive on the bayou side.  The second to the last...

April 15, 2015 -- I’m taking a class on the history of Florida, taught by John Danner, who happens to be the pastor at my church.  He is quite the scholar, and a darned good teacher.  At the end of this morning’s session, I, and several others, were feeling shocked at the bloody violence of Florida’s tale. Much of the horror had to do with the Spanish.  As John pointed out, the Spanish flag has flown over Florida for 30 years more than the American flag has.  After the Spanish repeatedly tried to establish a permanent settlement in Florida, and after settlements repeatedly failed, a guy named Pedro Menendez de Aviles finally succeeded by founding St. Augustine – the first permanent European settlement in America, pre-dating Plymouth and Jamestown. It was in March 1565 that he started St. Augustine, and you’d think that given the apparent difficulty of the task, he would have had his hands full.  But no, in September of that first year, Pedro had to go a...