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5

December 1st was a Sunday and having taken the children to the Unitarian Sunday School, I drove to the Public Dock, parked, and sat there for a while enjoying one of my periodic renewal periods with Nature. Already, in characteristic Erie fashion, we were having the preliminaries of winter. It was a bleak scene but still a beautiful one with water and sky painted in somber colors. A commercial fishing boat cut through the cold, green waters of the Bay with a flock of seagulls following it hopefully. The boat was painted black but the red hull below the water line flashed brilliantly as she wallowed through the choppy water, furnishing one of the few bright spots of color in the entire scene. Long undulations of pearly gray clouds hung low over the deep reddish-brown band of Peninsula trees while lines of white snow fringed everything. Beside me, the spunky tug TEXAS rocked at the dock, her green hull and red superstructure dulled by a summer of work. Freighters were assembling in the harbor for the winter layover. One long maroon ship with an orange stripe on its black stack, was lettered in huge white block letters CANADA STEAMSHIP LINES, bringing back our memorable trip to Quebec and the Saguenay the previous year. The gusty wind was shooing around and throwing drafts into the Plymouth. A storm seemed to be approaching from the southwest from the ominous looks of the sky and the Bay was getting choppier by the minute. There were three or four other cars on the dock sheltering people from the weather, but otherwise the place was deserted, a marked contrast to the swarms of people on hand on summer days and nights. But I fully enjoyed it all as a beautiful scene. The dull colors of water and sky harmonized while here and there was a bright flash of orange or white or red that brought life and contrast to the picture. After an hour of very appreciative watching, I drove back up the hill to pick up Bab and Rog and head home for Sunday dinner.

The following day, upon the recommendation of Gordon McDonald, I secured a copy of James Hilton's "Lost Horizon," began to read it, and was so fascinated by it that I completed it the next day. I thought it was one of the most beautiful stories I'd ever read and I'm sure it helped to keep kindled the fires of my desire to write someday although at the time I found it difficult to write a line-a-day diary. Actually I completed reading the book the next evening while Willie was attending Book Club, the same that is still functioning today. I felt at the time that to most, it would appear to be a weird mystery story. To me, however, it had a deep significance which I'm sure was written into it. For those with courage and insight and faith, there is a quality of life and way of living that can be not only very wonderful but also vastly removed from the ordinary run of living, so much so as to be almost unbelievable. But for most of us, this way of life is impossible and we soon find ourselves back trudging along the familiar old paths, with the vision gone--lost horizon of beauty. I remember thinking how simply marvelous it would be to have created such a book.