Morning Audibles 6.2.10 - You Need Us

"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,' he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.'"

---

"The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and, turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone - fifty feet away a figure has emerged from the shadow of my neighbour's mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens."...
F Scott Fitzgerald - THE GREAT GATSBY


As the case may be... Little did CV know that the party-ers in the Hamptons over this past weekend might have been on the lookout for lifeboats...


Damn, If I'd have known, I'd have cruised right down the Potomac (with my boat)... But first, I'd have first had to get by "Staircase Rapids" (on the confluence of the Potomac & Shenendoah - about 2000 meters from CV's farm)...

Then a bit further down... (past Georgetown on the Potomac - or those other relics dedicated to "scriptors" of The Constitution of the United States [which seem idiotically UNIMPORTANT to present lawmakers] - what were their NAMES anyway?... I forget...)

Same river passes a few hundred meters by this old decrepit cemetery (I can't see why it's of any importance - even if I'm POTUS... Hey - I'd rather catch a plane out of town to visit some old cronies for an Old Style BBQ in Chicago)... Yeah baby!

Further (OTHER) of us would then travel down the mouth of the Chesapeake, round Cape Charles way & the Norfolk Naval Base (& thereby giving a salute to my departed father whom we'd laid to rest in the waters there), then, up past Assateague Island (where the WILD PONIES still roam to this day)...

And after... Past Cape May, then further to South Hampton and in to "East Egg" (where TWSWB & friends take turns passing the Grey Poupon around)...

Purpose for my visit?... Perhaps to offer my little vessel as a LIFEBOAT... Or you know... Play "Gilligan" to all the Thurston & Lovey Howells... Give them the "3 hour tour", so to speak... Or, just be simple & cordial like Nick (and soak in the atmosphere)...

Who knows what's going on in the minds of these people?... I know that polo games & Grey Poupon can be very distracting... But it would seem to CV that as far as WISDOM is concerned, they should cast an eye upon the warnings of the "tribe" of SURVIVAL CAPITAL...


In 3 words... "You NEED US" (Hell- Thurston, "The Wizaed of Wall St. himself would tell you)...

"Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes - a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder. 

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further... And one fine morning..."

"So we beat on, boats against the current... Borne back ceaselessly into the past"
(the final sentence of THE GREAT GATSBY by Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald)