This is from another radio e-mail sent to friends over the ham set. Far cry from Baltimore and the Washington Beltway, yet strangely familiar to this former (well,,, present in many ways) mountain man. The picture is of me shaving with my 50 year old Rolls Razor. This is a great invention inthat it's self sharpening (you provide the muscle) and I"ve carried it since my father gave it to me just before joining the U.S. Army, so long ago...

It's good for mountain men and sailors. When I am Emperor of Earth (soon...) I'll decree that they once again be manufactured!

RadioRay
Emperor of Earth
(pending)

----- Original message -----

Dear Friends,

The journey here by sail was filled with situations both mundane, some would say 'boring' and at other times, heart racing, while using fundamental technology thousands of years old - the wind and water- to travel self contained, carrying months of provisions, almost 200 miles in linear distance, yet thousands of miles in lifestyle. I could have stayed for days in the wildlife sanctuary formed because of the unexploded 'ordinance' on the ocean floor there (not used much because it is remote and there are no departments of motor vehicles, tiki bars or condos to build on the 'bomby beaches"... ha ha

What I find here on the 'Northern Neck' of coastal Virginia, is an 'island' of kind, self-sufficient, friendly and soon-to-warm people just as I found in my mountains of Idaho that I love so much. These people may be wealthy, as is John, a local ham radio operator I shared a few hours with on his family's plantation estate, or as with Captain Charlie, who looks to be a former 'Coastie' or Navy man, now making a living in small charter/sport fishing business, occasionally living aboard his small boat, like me.

Possessions? ,yes, some things are necessary, such as the rigging on my boat, the materials for building and repair, but what DOES this have to do with Brittany Speers' hair (or lack thereof?) ha ha ? "Things' are sometimes necessary, often fun and bring some extra 'spice' into our lives, (this from a fanatic short wave radio restorer and user...) . However, we all know - really - that things are often a chain, binding us to shore, place and payments and in most people's lives, they are the chain by which we are bound to shore. The 'happy ending' being that some day, life insurance will solve these troubles for us. Nonsense! Go live NOW! Who told you that you will have a tomorrow?

Sure, there are cares which are genuine, and children who need to grow-up, but imagine how interesting those children will be if well traveled, multi-lingual and if they know that 'things' and politicians are there to serve then, never the other way around. Better to simply walk away and let the world rage and the TV anesthetize others, not you.

You can tell the city people; 'up for a day or two' -(and nothing wrong with that)- but often, they will not say 'good evening' cannot seem to look you in the eye and they duck inside of their boats as soon as the sun goes down. The locals? We talk with each other freely. I'm firmly convinced that tonight's hot dogs and local wine in the cockpit of my Po' Boy's yacht under the open sky is far superior to all the chateau briand and Dom Perrion '68 in Baltimore/DC. The open sky for my ceiling, the nearly full moon in place of "security" lights of the over controlled cities, while I listen to Cuban Salsa music from half a hemisphere away on an old and tiny short-wave radio which is entirely solar and hand-crank recharged.

Earlier, I talked with a friend several states away while he prepared for the same scene while camping under the open sky by an isolated inland lake. Both of us are using home-made Morse code radios with a wire 'in the air' as an antenna.. How can I explain the invigorating joy of simply being? Of the quality of place and 'station' in life, rather than the false importance of status vending possessions of the day, as told to us on TV? I own this tiny yacht, with great hull & sails and no engine: my piece of tierra libre' free and clear, despite what the Stalinists down that the department of Blah-Blah may think.

Tomorrow I could as likely be on my way to Annapolis for rum and crab cakes at Pusser's as casting off for Argentina to learn to speak Argentinean Spanish like a local and personally tour the various tango milonga. I'm probably as close to not being 'owned' as any American can be today. If 'they' told me that I was not allowed to drive my car (also paid for) without YET another significant bribe, I'd likely remove my ham radios, break the keys off in the ignition and simply anchor closer to work so that It would be easier to row to work for the day. This is not a problem.

Why do I pay taxes? Other than navigational buoys, what do 'they ' do for me? It's food for thought. However, as Ayn Rand stated: "I pay then not because they have the right to collect. I pay them because they have the -power- to collect." Ah! So, extortion under the false flag of authority I understand, after all, I was operational behind the Iron Curtain for most of nine years. This is not new to me, but at least the eastern Europeans understood that their politicians were liars. ;^)

The moon is now bright enough to cast a shadow. The only 'noise' is the fishing fleet's processing plant at the far end of the estuary, but even that is natural in that it feeds us. I suppose that what I am saying, my Dear Friends is that I am happy, though living in perhaps 180 square feet of enclosed space, plus the deck, and sleeping under an open hatch at night, This is such a good life for me. Sure, I'll likely always be questing for the ultimate Martini and that single, tall , northern European woman, but a man needs something to quest for, because -at least according to RadioRay- unless a man is striving, he is decaying.

There is a world class sail cruising couple, who's books I love to read. They said it best when they said: "Go simple, go small and go NOW!" .


Your Friend,

Ray
Sv. Milenka
Fair Port, Virginia - USA

Ps. This is coming to you via short-wave radio from my little sailboat.