Second Arc of the Great Circle: Letting Go

By Peter B Cannon

While the First Arc covered ages 21-33, during his search for answers to life, the Second Arc of the Great Circle is about "Letting go" and letting God. This book brings us up to the present, with yacht deliveries out of Fort Lauderdale to Key West and to Lake Michigan. After meeting an instant friend there in Grand Haven, and then flying out to Bellingham WA, he feels led, after a summer of exchanging letters to hitchhike across Canada to see her. There's a life time of adventures there already. But God isn't finished with him yet. There are plenty more to come until he is happily married and raising his family in North Carolina. There thay have lived in the mountains, near the ocean and now on a top secret dirt road in between. This book is dedicated to his friend Frank who he sailed with from Bermuda to Majorca, Spain and back to Grenada. Two months each way as the Lord weaved this whole Great Circle with mercy and grace. Perhaps you will recognize that in your life as you travel with Peter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491821633

Peter B Cannon

Peter was born to not fit most molds since the beginning of his time. While he is a grateful grandfather, revisiting his life has been an exciting adventure causing laughs and tears. Much is said by the subtitle of “First Arc of the Great Circle”, which is “How to Do 1001 Stupid Things and Still Be Covered by Grace.” He was reminded how by no reason of his own, he is still here to tell of these truths, and you are still here to see them. He was given amazing recall of events as he wrote on his old Mac for almost five years, and then five more years on his ‘new’ Mac. The First Arc is what we all go through and by God’s mercy and Grace we hopefully reach the “Second Arc,” subtitled “Letting Go.” His hope is that where ever you the reader now stands in your ‘Great Circle’, your story will be brought alive. May God Bless your reading of these two works. Born in New Jersey, he has lived in a dozen states and the American Virgin Islands, but North Carolina has been home for his family for a few decades. He has had 64 careers from Wall Street, Insurance and manufacturing, delivering yachts and sailboats, to flying with and marrying on the Good Year Blimp out over the ocean. The rest is secret for his readers only. Peter “Hopes to meet you ‘down by the riverside’.”

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© 2013 Peter B Cannon. All rights reserved.

Cover photo credit: William D Cannon

Edited by James Glasser

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  10/28/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-2164-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-2163-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013917532

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This Book is Dedicated to my

Friend and Brother

Frank Mullen

1941-2011

Table of Contents

Prologue

From the Oceans

Lauderdale Life

Let’s Go Sailing!

San Salvador

Tortolla Awaits

Revisiting—Never the Same

Power Boating

The Last Voyage?

My Uncharted Waters

Living History

Great Lakes

Ranger’s Homecoming

To the Prairies My Homecoming

The Great Northwest

The Connection

Summer Solstice

Glacier and More

On the Road Again

The Home Stretch

The Grand State

A Grand Reunion

Grand Haven

Her World Expands

The Prodigal Son, Again

Retracing some Memories

A New Trail

To the Forests

The Pacific Northwest

Settling In

‘Krazy’ Characters

Employment

Tennis Pro?

And Back Again

Time to Get Serious

The Honeymoon

Migration Instincts

C B Newbies

Moving on Down

Movin on Out

From Crawfish to Gatorland

Movin on Down, Again

Another Circle Completed

Stalking the All Mighty Dollar

Movin’ On Up

A New Life

Tis the Season!

Life Changing

Down the Aisle

The Honeymooners

Yahoo!

Movin’ on Up

Nothing Could be Finer

The High Life

Show the Plan

Sapphire Valley

Seeking the Rut in Asheville

Life Comes Fast

From the Mountains to the Capitol

Flipping Out

Home Sweet Home

In Memorial

Prologue

Rediscover your story as you journey through the great circle of life with Peter, who goes through the valleys and peaks of existence searching for what he did not know, until he found it.

Many of us can look back and remember some incident we could label a close call, a coincidence or just lucky, without which we could have died. But Peter has found another word that through 20/20 hindsight fits perfectly. It’s called Grace.

Maybe you have survived a car accident, a fire, or a perilous ski run or a violent storm sailing at sea. Or maybe you have gone through breaking up with a loved one and felt less than worthless. Or maybe you just know there is more to life than waking up, digging the rut, and going to bed. If not, you need to read First Arc of the Great Circle. and escape to Freedom! How to do 1001 Stupid Things and Still be Covered by Grace will open new horizons for most of us.

Peter, in the "First Arc," left his future on Wall Street, went Down to Florida searching, and then Out to California so that in the first two chapters he is already ‘down and out.’ This story should encourage those who have had their downs, and those who have lost their jobs and can not find another. Writing this book is Peter’s 64th career. Be prepared to laugh and almost cry as life is traversed with sensitivity and adventure.

The First Arc (of Life) starts when Peter remembers his meeting Albert Einstein at Princeton; and his war hero, General MacArthur, whom he almost killed at the ticker tape parade in New York City. There are other flashbacks but the real adventure starts when he finally leaves home at the age of twenty one to go see the world, and encounters on the road excitement which anyone can identify with. But can you imagine having your first wife leave you to marry Chevy Chase? Can you identify getting over that with Miss Sweden and a Norwegian beauty. And encountering one occult after another looking frustratingly for answers to life’s questions. And traveling from Maine around the country and back again doing whatever to survive, including doing a TV show in Las Vegas, gambling for the house and almost being done in for winning $7,000 for the casino.

The rest of the story will take you into business in NYC, into the Army’s boot camp where he died, into divorce American style, cruising past his apartment on a 63 foot Chris Craft and delivering her from New York harbor to the Miami Racquet Club where he was paid to live aboard for six more months. Then moving to the Caribbean having been hired as Executive Beach Director at Caneel Bay Resort on St John. Later, while teaching Spanish in St Thomas, he lands a sailboat delivery to Mallorca, Spain from Bermuda. Rather than trace all the steps he was led through to bring him to finding his and anyone’s answers to life, just know the excitement never seems to end. Travels with God. A Great Read!

And now, enjoy the traverse through the Second Arc of the Great Circle!

From the Oceans

Lauderdale Life

Forward! forward!, I signaled to Richard on the bridge of this 58 foot Hatteras luxury fishing boat. We were just taking her to the Fort Lauderdale gas dock before delivering her to Key West for the owner. We had a few friends on board just for the short ride, and they were not expected to help, just have fun. But Richard was depending on me to work with him on this delivery. I had a bow line out as we came into the dock against an unusually strong current. I leaned out over the bow rail to throw a line over a piling so I could use a cleat for him to work with, and just as I threw the line Richard gunned the engine in reverse allowing my forward momentum to flip me right over the rail and heading for some pretty scummy water. I am not sure how, but as I disappeared over the side my hand just caught the stainless steel railing and I held on with a super charge of adrenaline. Richard never saw it as he had looked astern when he put her into reverse. So hang on I did with one hand until Rich started the forward motion allowing me to get a second hand on the rail. Ultimately he discovered my apparent demise when he saw me just able to pull myself up and onto the deck. He apologized later, but seemed impressed with my dexterity. I was just glad to be alive, again.

In a flash back I remembered getting run over by our outboard motor boat when I was about ten. That may have caused the saving grace of adrenalin. Only a part of my life passed before me as I flipped and held on for dear survival. I thought if I go into the drink and he comes forward right over me I could be needing to dive very deep. This had happened in my youth when my brothers friend, Sam, obliviously ran me over with our outboard motor boat. He had the bow so high he couldn’t see me swimming and just ran over me despite the yells of my friends and family. Seeing it coming I dove as deep as I could and felt the propeller go just between my legs. Only this time the propeller was a bit bigger.

Even the guests commented that I must be in really good shape to have clung on as I did. Fear is a powerful motivator, and grace is still alive and well.

I had first met Richard at one of the Sunday services Frank was holding at the Marina. Then he and I would see each other by chance at several of the fun spots of Fort Lauderdale. One day at a marina restaurant we reminisced about the day he threw me overboard. Surprisingly he asked if I’d do another delivery with him. I said sure, what, when and where? It would be a new sailboat which we would deliver to the British West Indian island of Tortola. Why that was back near my favorite island, St John, so I gladly signed on. My apartment rent was about to be doubled because of the tourist season coming on, and my heart said it needed to go to sea again.

Richard said he had chosen me because I had proved I was in good shape the day he flipped me off the bow. Maybe he just wanted to make up for his botching up the landing. Or maybe he was trying to say that at thirty something he hoped he’d be in that good shape ten years from now. Well he too was in his prime. You know, some people never are, or slip out of their prime way too early. I hoped to stay in mine until I go under. When that would be was not up to me. I had learned that much in my Christian infancy.

The delivery was a couple of weeks off, and Frank had asked me if I would go to a week long seminar with him hosted by Bill Gothard. Needless to say I was not in the stream of academia, but I figured that if I went for a day or two and didn’t like it I could always cop out early. But as it turned out the series was so interesting I didn’t miss a session and took copious notes which I still refer to.

I learned about sin, which the Bible says: All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God. At least I wasn’t alone in this. That’s why people used to make all those animal sacrifices, in order that they would not be separated from God now and in the life hereafter. But God said He didn’t need sacrifices of a sheep or a bull, as he owned them all. What He wanted was our heart. And to end the worthless sacrifices, He sacrificed His only begotten Son, Jesus, for your sake and mine, and laid all the sin of man on him and had Him tortured as we should have been. Can any father imagine watching their son do for others what Jesus did for us? He was innocent, and we are not. Yet a loving Creator of all, cares enough about you and me to offer this ultimate and final sacrifice, and if we choose to accept this gift, which we can not earn or buy, then we will enjoy being with our Heavenly Father forever.

It gave a new meaning to my life to see it as His and not mine, and that I am just here for a small time compared to forever. So much was opened up to me in the seminar that books could be and have been written about these revelations. I practically wrote a book full of notes.

But one thing struck me as I came to know the Christ. That He was either totally crazy, or He truly was the Son of God, the Creator, and was with Him forever before and after. Jesus said: No man comes to my Father except through me. Not through any other means. And yet all the other religions which have a different god which is either dead or of gold or wood, proclaim some sort of heaven or nirvana. And all are socially accepted by those who deny Jesus is God, while many of those who have Jesus living in them are still persecuted around the world.

Just as Jesus was persecuted, so I may be by friends and strangers alike. But this life is but a short breath for us to discover this truth: that eternity is a very long time, and Jesus was either crazy or is what He said He is, our personal loving Savior. He has given life for you and me to learn about Him and His Father through the Holy Spirit and from His Word the Bible. All in the hopes that we will not spend eternity totally separated from God as did Jesus the day He died in our place. We deserved the punishment Jesus received. The cost of sin is high. And We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. But God in His infinite wisdom has given us a choice. Receive the free gift of Jesus’ passion for us, or die and suffer forever without Him.

Have you seen some of the incredible pictures from space by the Hubbell telescope? They look like gems beyond our imagination. We value our little gems here. But in our home where Jesus said His Father has prepared many mansions for us, a diamond has been discovered through the telescope which is a billion trillion carats. Now tell me which is more significant to enjoy. A three carat diamond or God’s gifts awaiting us all. That’s the decision still facing some of my more materialistic friends.

And so we spend lives chasing crumbs under the Creators table, and are blind to the riches He has set before us on His table of plenty. I am so fortunate that the seed was planted in me at the beginning of time to search for the truth where it didn’t seem to exist. In my upbringing money spoke. In my age of discovery, not money nor anything else proved itself to me. People let me down. Business proved its disloyalty. Religion let me down. It really came down to me after it all. And when I tried to rely on me, there was a cry within me, Is that all there is? There was still that vacancy within me that kept me searching, and It was there all the time. Right there. But for years my pride and my needing a complicated answer blinded me from the simple truth.

I had been made aware down in St John on that peaceful New Years Eve of a voice. The one that gave me those resolutions of: To Be, to Do, and to Have. They meant so much and so little. I had to discover what they meant in my life. Be myself, do what I am, and I will have everything. That was just the opposite of how I was taught growing up. I had learned #1 was to Have, then to Do what it took to get ‘it’, and then I would Be a somebody. But with my blinders taken off by the grace of God, I finished the formula: To Know, to Be, to Do, and to Have. Ah ha! That completed the formula! To Know that I (and you) am a child of God. So simple, yet until I (and You) could see and believe that, the rest of the formula of life was incomplete.

So for those of you who endured the First Arc of the Great Circle, I am blessed to relate the rest of this good news to you. I knew the formula was true and worth pursuing when it was first given to me on that special night in St John. But knowing that we are a child of God is just mind blowing. Because without that knowledge all else is turkey trot. Meaningless! I will leave it up to you to ponder the meaning of all this for yourself, while I continue on my way. For I still have a lot of going and growing to put behind me. So come on and lets go sailing! And we will see what all this means to you and me!

Let’s Go Sailing!

It was early on a Tuesday morning when Richard called and said to meet him on the marina dock at 06:00 Friday and we would finish putting on stores and be shoving off soon afterward. Sounds great to me, I responded groggily. I had not even seen the yacht yet, but I was ready to go sailing. The sea has its ups and downs, but once it has a grip on you, it will never let you go. I guess it is the salt water in my veins which maintains the affinity that possesses me. In any case it was going to be great to be sailing again.

I called Frank and he was happy to hear of my escapade to Tortola. After all, it was there in St Thomas that we met, and now we are here in Fort Lauderdale. He still had at least three more years before graduating from Florida Bible College. His Father in Heaven was paying his tuition as he had little to no money. Just what he could make working on boats in the marinas. The Lord provides the rest, he would tell me.

I had moved everything I owned into a duffle bag and gave the rest away to my little neighbor Debbie who was getting married soon. I felt as light as an early summer breeze when I walked out on the dock and met Richard and his buddy, Ken. We were the crew to enter the unknown on an unknown boat. This brand new yacht was so new it didn’t even have a name. So I threw my bag down below on Miss No Name and proceeded with a quick once over to see what my new home would be like.

To be honest I was not too impressed with the layout nor the smell of ‘new boat’. I really preferred the smell of aged wood rather than new fiberglass. But this was it, and with some apprehension I shoved off after loading and storing the food in the fridge. There was a medium sized fridge, no freezer and little drawer space for long cruising. So we would just have to make do. Richard had taken ‘her’ out for a test run the day before and said all seemed to be fine. This was the first hull of a new series that the Moorings had ordered for their new rental fleet out of Tortola. Apparently it was a big deal, but to us it was just another delivery with which to get paid. And of course we were all of the same mind to do whatever it took because our lives depended on each other.

Actually the weather was perfect for a good start heading out of Fort Lauderdale for the Bahamas. But as the day passed we noticed some funny clouds coming in. By night fall we had all the wind and waves we could handle. Richard was up on the bow with the portable Loran trying to get a reading so we would know when to make the turn to start heading south along the Bahama chain. This is the critical point of the whole trip as any miscalculation here could mean real trouble. The two crew were getting a bit anxious as we were getting mixed signals and no signals. So in other words we didn’t know where we were.

Have you ever been there? Not a good feeling, especially where we were. It came to mind that Frank told me he would have us in prayer, so I added my prayer and a sense of calm came about me and a foreknowledge that all would be fine. I cannot explain the peace within me, but it was very noticeable to me especially when I thought of other times of distress when sailing some rough seas. My stomach would be in knots, but then Frank always seemed to have a special peace about him when all heck was breaking loose. Maybe that is what I was experiencing. The verse came to mind about when fear knocked, faith answered and no one was there. That must be it. My faith had erased the fear as I had put all my trust in the Lord. I was new at this, so bear with me as I grow.

I had met Richard, as I mentioned, at one of Frank’s Sunday services at the Marina, and he too