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IslandJack's Profile

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Last Sign in: 7/19/2008
Age: 55
Subscribers: 0
Topics Started: 7
Comments Made: 25

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About Me

I am a former midwestern farm boy that moved to the east coast, discovered the chesapeake bay and the pure ecstatsy that is called sailing. 7 miles an hour can be the most exhilarating ride of your life....especially with a margarita in your hand!!!
Due to a mostly wild former lifestyle, in '07, I had to have both knees replaced and I hate it. Damn things just don't work like the old boys. All my fault for getting these things. I was an extreme sports enthusiast before it was in vogue. Enjoyed the hell out of the sporting life but I'm paying for it now. Guess I don't regret it though .... got some incredible memories and a few unbelievable photos.
My work life has been a patchwork of sorts, ranging from bartender to chemist, with some carpentry, farming, operations management, and tax assessing thrown in amongst other things. I am the proverbial jack of all trades, master of none. Although, given the challenge, I can pretty much "make ice cream out of horse shit", as my old man used to say. Always liked that saying. In fact, the acronym of that saying, MiCoohs, became the name of the corporation I formed some years back.
I have 2 lovely daughters, one is an R.N., working on her Masters and my youngest is still in college with no god damned idea whatsoever what she wants to be when she grows up. She is so much like me I may never rest easy again. But I love 'em both.
Oh yeah, .... all the above? .... it comes with a wife, Popo. Been through all the shit and shinola with me and is still hangin'. In the world of angling they call that a keeper. I hate her, I love her. I can't stand being around her sometimes, I miss her when she's not here. A perpetual quandary of sorts. She claims the lion's share of the reason my back gives me trouble once in a while, sleeping on the couch. I credit her for most of my inspirations, but I don't tell HER that!!! You get the picture.
Which brings me back to "shit and shinola". An odd saying my dad used to use. Odd, because the definition of shinola is shit. Growing up on a midwestern farm, my young self's imagination would run wild, trying to picture just what the hell shinola could possibly be and the ramifications it was about to have on me, whenever the old man would invoke the dreaded "shit and shinola" reference. It wasn't until very recently, as I was perusing the deeply entrenched annals of my memories of Dad, that I finally had the afterthought, (be it 45 years too late), and fortitude to confront the 400 pound gorilla that manifested itself as "shinola" in my imagination, and actually look up the definition. After all these years of conjuring up unspeakable horrors and memories of stark terror at the mere thought of the word, you can imagine my surprise and utter dumbfoundedness (is that even a word?) as I discovered the true meaning of the word, the complete meaningless pairing of the two words, and the absolute audacity of the first guy to not only pair the words, but to sustain their use together until it caught on in perpetuity until ultimately, it found me and quite possibly steered my life in a direction it may have not gone had I not ever heard the saying. Maybe the guy worked for the Office of Redundancy Office and wanted to subtly live in infamy. I hate that guy. "Let not the proof of any position depend on the positions that follow, but always on those that go before." -- I. Watts. And so it goes .......

 

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