Harbor lights in context

Quite a treat, actually, to be invited onto a 65-foot motor yacht, moored in berth No. 1, right behind the Raw Bar in the Old Harbor, for drinks.

Robert called me between hands from bridge, to see if I was up for cocktails with the couple who own the boat. It turned out that another couple were there too, as well as Edie.

So there we were, rocking gently as the sun went down, and the boat folks went down into the galley and conjured up salads and pasta that turned cocktails into dinner, and into a bit of magic.

I have to admit that the conversation while they worked wasn't magical for me.

There we were, sitting on a boat that cost maybe a half-million -- maybe a little less, maybe a lot more -- with someone (not the boat owner) complaining about the confiscatory taxes that small business owners pay (the owner of the boat owns convenience stores, which are sort of the poster children for small businesses to me).

The non-boat-owner then went on to blame the economic mess we're all suffering from on Freddie and Fannie, because they provide loans to low-income people.

And I feel shame that, looking around at the boat and the harbor, I didn't raise my glass and bellow that YES, this should be a BIGGER boat. Oh, only if we'd wrung the po' folk even drier!

That's the old Turtle Kraals on the right, by the way -- the shed where they brought sea turtles for slaughter and canning a hundred years ago when the robber barons supped on turtle soup.