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...

April 16, 2016 -- In April 2013, this is what I said about mangroves during the "mission moment" at church: When you live in this part of Florida, you know or you soon learn that native plants are important to our ecosyste m. Mangrove trees are true natives, and they are our most valuable coastal resource. Biologically, they form the structure for a complex ecosystem that is the link between the land and the sea. These mangroves stabilize our shorelines. Their root systems slow water flow, and that facilitates the deposit of organic material and sediment that provide nutrients that are the basis of the marine life food chain. Excess nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus are filtered from coastal waters by mangroves, and are incorporated into the leaves, branches and root systems of the trees. Mangroves are important to fish. About 85 to 90 percent of all local commercial and recreational fish depend on mangroves for food and shelter. Other marine organisms attach to...

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 ...