"Two Years Before the Mast"

       For approximately eight years now, each day, morning and night, I have pulled on the long loop of cord that raises and lowers our 7-foot-wide bedroom window curtain.  It's about ten big pulls if I get my hand high enough and pull to the bottom.

       That's at least 58,400 pulls, I figure.  And though I've never been a sailor nor even read this book, every time I run 'em up or down, I think of that book's title, Two Years Before the Mast.

       It's by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.   Published in 1840.  Memoir of a voyage from Boston to California, around Cape Horn and back on a trading vessel.

       I'm lifting and lowering, tightening and loosening those sails with every tug, onerous task no longer, excitement and adventure everywhere!