DEATH DIDN'T TAKE A HOLIDAY

PEACEFUL SCENE (TURNED DEADLY)

Tuesday, 9:00 AM,  53 degrees F at the ferry dock, 50 on the back porch.  Wind mostly variable and calm, but picking up.  The sky is overcast and rainy, the humidity 79%.  The barometer is rising, now at 29.89".  Highs will be around 60 today and during the week, with mostly overcast skies and chances of rain.  It should warm towards next weekend, with clearing skies.
   Tragedies occur in every community, whether large or small.  Having lived in both I can say that they often seem out of place in the small community, even though they occur all the time.  Perhaps it is the expectation that tragedies will occur only in the larger community, or that the smaller seems more ideal; but be it automobile accident, work accident, family violence or drug related murder, all these terrible things happen in small communities just as hey do in big cities.
   But some scenes just seem too benign, or too tranquil, to cause tragedy, and yet they do; the deadly tree accident in the beautiful fall woods, a hunting tragedy, an ice fishing drowning or snowmobile death, all are familiar to small, rural communities.
   Even a sailboat, the very picture of peaceful pleasure, can be deadly: On Friday, August 31, a 68 year old sailor was trying to free a tangled line on the jib of his 42' sailboat and was pulled into the water and drowned.  The inexperienced person with him on the boat was unable to rescue him.  He was not wearing a life jacket.
   The accident happened off Houghton Point north of Washburn, Wisconsin.
   Life is uncertain.  Some survive long and serious illness to live another day, while the robust and healthy die unexpected deaths.
  It may have been Labor Day weekend, but death didn't take a holiday.