[GretchenM]

Maybe it has to do with the fact that all my contemporary relatives who've gone into military service have joined the Navy ... I don't know, but something in me melts when I see a man in perfect dress uniform, and he's Navy.

[GretchenM]

But then, I am an absolute sucker for the sea. It's a good thing I live close to it. I think I'd go crackers if I had to be away from the salt air, sunsets on the Pacific, sea breezes, ships blowing their fog horns, the ocean's rhythms and how they speak to the cycles of life (to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens), the feeling of great expanse and freedom imparted when viewing the massive, incomprehensibly massive, waters ... ah, the sea!