Dorrier Underwood

The rain lashed the dock, wave after wave of it, while I remained safely moored in a covered slip. It is during these enforced moments of solitude that I enjoy tinkering with my boat, reading and dozing.     And that’s when I heard a couple--a man and a woman--two slips down from me.  He was directing her in no uncertain terms on how he wanted things done on the boat. And to hear him tell it, she was not listening very well.  The force of the rain in their exposed slip added pressure on this couple to cover up their boat quickly.   Even so, I thought the man’s language was insulting.  In the world of fair - weather boaters, unfortunately, men all too often show up as domineering know-it-alls.  And all too often the object of their unpleasantness is  women .    As I listened I thought,  “This is a great example of a ‘background of r elatedness’ disconnect!  He’s shouting and calling names and making demands, and she’s not resp...

I’m one of those “shower singers.” I sing along in the car to songs that I love and don’t want others to hear, for fear of scaring them off.  Singing creates something in my body that matches my thoughts and emotions – all of it coming together. When I heard Elise Witt was performing at Oakhurst Baptist, I knew Liz and I had to go.  Elise has a reputation for creating singing communities. What makes her so special is the way she engages the audience to join in so that everyone comes together as one voice. Liz and I stumbled into her a couple of years ago at a concert where she was co-performing with another musician. I can’t remember the other performer’s name, but I sure remember Elise.  Singing with Elise made Liz and me want to get up and dance.   And so it was again.  We danced to her new song, My Salsa Garden. There was a young schoolgirl who led us, quite spontaneously.  Hopping off her father’s lap, she took her place in the ai...

We walked into Marguerite’s, the quaint, if-I-hadn’t been in central Florida-almost Southern-like café near the bay in Dunedin, ready for the kind of meal you can only get in such a place – the “famous” homemade chicken salad on lettuce or in a sandwich, fresh coconut cake on a cake stand on the counter, beside a jar of homemade cookies. Evie wanted to sit under the butterflies that floated over the tables in the back, but those tables were all filled by “snow birds,” the older people who flock to Florida in the winter, or go there to retire. So we took the table by the window, across from two older women deep in a loud, hard-of-hearing conversation. Our waiter, a wiry, obviously stressed young man with a bit of a rush swirling about him, smiled, walking towards us, and asked the usual question, “What would you ladies like to drink?” Katie, who comes here often, mainly because it is across from the Dunedin library that she and Evie love, said “What is your special tea today, is it ...