BALLAD OF BERME ROAD

By way of introduction,  here’s an interview, excerpted and edited, from the book “Chopping Wood” by David Bernz. I was a part of a...

[ Dave and Sarah, the nautical nomads, have just returned from a three year sojourn of cruising around Europe in their sixteen foot open...

notes on a future post/place holder With heartfelt thanks to Allan Goldhammer, Paul Tobin, and Chief Vincent Mann October 15, 2021 [ this...

The further adventures of Manzanita and Crew INTRODUCTION: Rounding Lindesnes The day we sailed around Lindesnes, the cape on the...

Dave getting ashore from "Sea Gull", Andratx harbor. The cat is not pleased. Foreword, 1992, Ulster County, NY: I remember that the sea...

Foreword Summer 1982. The title Dave suggested for an account of our travels, "Rowing Against the Wind" was meant to be ironic. Not...

Autumn, 1981 Introduction: [letter to a friend, Virginia Sands] Dear Gini- Here it is, October on Mallorca, a fair sized island off...

Why did we do it? What blend of nihilism, recklessness, whimsy and angst motivated this journey? One might call it a blend of Jack...

[Warning: this message is unabashedly pro-Christmas, in a Pagan sort of way.] Growing up in an informally Secular Humanist but culturally...

"Oh, Baby, Baby, it's a wild world It's hard to get by just upon a smile. Oh, Baby, Baby, it's a wild world And I'll always remember you...

Jan. 13 Letter home: Dear Dad- This is another quick "I survived" message to let you know that David and I are safe on shore in St....

[ To set the scene, we were young. I was 21 and David 33, and we had known each other for barely a year. Casting our lot together, we...

Prince William Sound, Alaska June-July 1979 [age 20] [Wilderness kayaking course with NOLS, the "National Outdoor Leadership School"....

July 5, 1978. Prince William Sound, Alaska. Travelling by kayak. "Four killer whales intrigued and terrified us at Point Nowell- so close...

[An episode from “The Wonderbread Kids Play Cowboy”. Our protagonists, teenaged lovers “Jenny” and “Bruce”, are sharecropping on a...

[This chapter of my life took place in the fall of 1979. I had been crewing on the environmental educational sailboat “Clearwater”,...

Hitchhiking Through Europe with a Half Ton Lifeboat Introduction (from a letter home): When I last scribbled you that card, we had found...

A Memoir of Hope, Forlorn and Otherwise Jan. 2016 I had really planned to go to Albany that weekend. A prepaid musical weekend with old...