Good Morning Gloucester

  
From CNBC-  

Chick-fil-A: Ditch your phone, get free ice cream
Chick-fil-A wants you to put down your cellphone and enjoy a tech-free meal.
The restaurant chain is offering customers in some 150 stores a “Cell Phone Coop,” a box for families to ditch their devices while they chow down on waffle fries in-store.
Brad Williams, a Chick-fil-A operator in Suwanee, Georgia, who is responsible for the coop, said that Americans spend an average of 4.7 hours per day on their cellphone.

Families who are able to go the whole meal without picking up their phones receive a free Chick-fil-A Icedream cone.
The chain is not the first to offer incentives for customers to ditch their devices. Restaurants nationwide have given discounts to consumers who pledge to go cellphone free during their meal.

“The challenge has completely taken off,” Williams said. “We have families who aren’t successful the first time and come back to try again. We even have people asking to take the boxes home with them! Our whole community is talking about it.”

From Here to Flustuania, a live show comes to The Rocky Neck Cultural Center this week for three days only, Fri 03/4, Sat 03/05, at 7:30 and Sun 03/06 at 6:00. It is the “true story” of Hooglio’s quest to find his long lost daughter, Hooglietta.  

Master of Ceremonies is Roman Gadbois, starring Sofia Gadbois as Hooglietta, Gordon Baird as Louie DeRoach, and Hooglio as Hooglio, this twelve song musical is packed with local references and historical ‘facts’ about Gloucester.

  

Time to carfully take it off the drying racks and package it up for Sista Felicia’s 2016 St. Joseph Feast! 

   

   

  
A View from under St. Barry’s Drying Racks! 
   

   

Representing GMG atop Deer Valley Ski Resort in Park City, Utah on Thursday Feb. 25, 2016.

 

I am a huge fan of plaid.  Gosh knows my boys have worn a ton of it…as have I.  Plaid shirts, plaid shorts, plaid pants, plaid blazers, plaid flip-flops, plaid skirts, plaid dress, plaid headbands….but, never too much plaid all together.  Never.

So, as a lover of plaid, am I missing something?  Isn’t this just a little bit too much?  Jacket, sure!  Pants, why not?  But, together…yikes.

 

When I Visit The Docks at Night

 

When I visit the docks at night I enter a mystical realm;

what’s familiar in the daylight becomes a stage for a

pageant from another age –a reminder of what has been

and a plea from the past for us not to forget.

 

Work for the day has ended, the docks are empty.

The boats are all secured and the gulls are quiet.

It’s night and our vision is limited, but small sounds,

as from an unseen wind chime, render accompaniment.

 

The stage is set as the yellow glare from the tethered boats

is diffused in the mist that has descended across the harbor.

It offers a comforting aura to an audience of one

and a mellow atmosphere that softens the chill night air.

 

At night in the shadows cast by the pilings and the rigging

and the nearby buildings on the wharf, unseen and unheard,

I listen to the hubbub of the ancient crews as they gather

on these docks to lay in stores and ice and their very lives.

 

I see their dories nested on deck, the trawl tubs loaded

and the buoys and anchors assembled.

They await their voyage to the Banks and their

deployment at the proper time and place.

 

I see hope in those faces that their dories may

be filled with hundreds of thousands of pounds

of fish; that their payday is generous and their

return to this good port is swift and safe.

 

And, as I listen and watch this pageant unfold,

my wish is that all those whose voices I hear

and whose faces I see and whose hopes I feel, will return

to perform for me when I again visit the docks at night.

 

© Marty Luster 2012

Encore, first posted  June 3, 2012

Never before been so disappointed with the choices. But it’s done and it feels good to be part of it.