Beach Tale: "The Butler Did It" a mini-mystery

          “It’s a classic case of the butler did it,” Jeffery said with conviction.

I suppressed a smile.  This was his first big case.  He had a stack of notes as tall as the Washington Monument that he kept thumbing through, checking facts, reports, statements, etc.  He was tackling this like it was a exercise developed for a first-level evidence class.  I hated to burst his bubble, but real life murder cases rarely come tied up in neat little packages. 

          I, on the other hand, was going on thirty years of street smarts.  I’d spent yesterday pouring over the evidence, trying to make some sort of crazy sense out of it all.  For lack of a better suspect, it did look like the butler had killed his employer, because he was the only other person on the grounds of the estate that evening.  But deep down something just didn’t feel right.  A puzzle piece was missing. 

Beach Tale: SPAT! A Tale of Life on the Chesapeake Bay

From the files of “Where Do Writers Get Their Ideas”

Sunrise on Hoffler Creek

Many years ago, we moved to a home on Hoffler Creek in Suffolk, Virginia.  That creek is a tributary to The Chesapeake Bay.  The prime attraction of the home was the marsh view to include an eagle preserve across the creek.  (We never spotted even one eagle the entire time we lived there, though.  Hence this tale is not titled EAGLETS!)  Our backyard teamed with wildlife, from blue herons and egrets (called long-legged fishy-things by Native Americans) to Merganser ducks that paddled their way up and down the creek daily. Along the banks there were crabs and frogs and snakes, oh my!.  And even deer (one spotted on Christmas Eve picking its way across the marsh at low tide—the kids thought it was one of Santa’s who didn’t make it into the sleigh-pulling line up that night).  But what captured our attention and tugged on our environmentally conscious heartstrings were the oysters.

Beach Tale: Origins of the Phrase "Fair Winds and Following Seas"

At a recent Hail and Farewell (a party wherein new reports to the command are welcomed and those departing are bid a fond adieu), the Lieutenant heading off to Norfolk was offered the traditional wishes of “Fair winds and following seas.”  Since I’ve been around the Navy world for almost 30 years, I’ve heard this phrase uttered hundreds, if not thousands, of times.  But (and this may be a sign of maturity on my part) this time it got me to wondering what exactly it meant.  So I let my fingers do the surfing through the cyber world, and I thought I’d save y’all from duplicating my efforts and today seems a good opportunity to share my newly acquired knowledge.

Wishing someone Fair Winds and Following Seas is a nautical phrase of good luck, a blessing as it were, as a person, group or thing (ie a commissioning ship) departs on a new voyage in life. 

But what exactly does it mean?