I suppose all of us have places we would rather be than where we are right now (assuming you are not currently in one of your happy places!) I have been thinking about my life and the things in it and realize that I have certain places I just love to be. Here are my happy places, in order of importance to me:

1. Church. Yes, there is simply no other place in the world I would rather be than my current parish. The Protection of St. Mary Orthodox Church is a wonderful place filled with good and friendly people. Our priest, Fr. David, is a

regular guy. By that, I mean that I don’t get the sense of clericalism from him that I sensed in some places where I went to worship. Confession with him is not a frightening thing. And he does the full Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, not the abbreviated ones I saw where I was previously going. In addition, I have made many wonderful friends, and there is a full schedule of services to attend, including Vespers twice a week, Orthros on Sunday morning, and all the feast day liturgies. What is so very special to me is that I am privileged to sing in the choir. Church is like a little slice of heaven on earth to me.

2. The fishing pier in Avon, NC. A warm, slightly breezy day, the whiff of salt water, the sun shining down. This is, without a doubt, other than church, the place where I would most like to be on any given day of the week.

Built by two local brothers from the village of Kinnakeet (now known as Avon Village), the pier took two years to construct. It opened its doors in the summer of 1963 and has been in continuous operation since then. The pier stretches 665 feet out into the Atlantic Ocean. Its visible crooked bends are testament to the forces of Mother Nature over the many years. Today the Avon Fishing Pier is the only pier remaining in operation in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The pier is world famous for its many records, especially with giant Red Drum that frequently school just off the end of the pier.

Most of what I have caught are small fish called croakers, the occasional crab, some horseshoe crabs, and a few baby sharks. In the water below, you can often see giant rays swimming lazily just beneath the surface. You meet a lot of nice people as well. Watching a small child catch his first fish, and the excitement in his eyes, is a great treat. Yes, Avon Pier is a great way to kill a summer’s day!

3. The Ocean. Any ocean. Any beach. Anywhere. Any time. I have loved the sea from the first time I saw it as an eight-year-old child visiting my grandmother’s house in Daytona Beach. I was born and raised in Decatur, Georgia. My milieu was the woods around our house. My father owned

a small inboard boat that he had meticulously restored. I often wondered if the four-cylinder Gray Marine engine that powered it was going to simply stop one day and leave us stranded. It always sounded like it was laboring, seconds from simply coming apart, but it never did for all the years my father owned it. We would, from time to time, take it up to Lake Alatoona, about an hour’s drive from where we lived. There we would putter through the water, enjoying ourselves before having a picnic on the shore. I liked the lake, but when I first saw the ocean . . . it was love!

There is something wonderfully mystical and beautiful to me about waves that have crashed onto the shoreline a thousand years before I was born. I am mesmerized by the beauty of it all. Honestly, if I had my life to do over, I would become a marine biologist. There is so much interesting about this world of creatures we hardly ever see or experience. At night, in Avon, far from the bustle and roar of the city and its lights, the night sky is a wonder of stars for as far as you can see.

4. Bowling Alleys. Bowling is my game. It is my one sport that I am very good at.

Good enough to have three perfect 300 games to my credit. Good enough to have carried a 200+ pin average in league for over ten years. Yes, that good. But what is even better than all that is that over the years, I have learned how to be a good sport. I have learned to lose with grace and even to congratulate the other team after they put a whuppin’ on us. Twenty years ago, that was not me. I was the sorest loser you could imagine. I once smacked a rack of bowling balls in disgust and a couple of them dropped on the floor. I got called out on that one by a member of the other team and he was right to do so. Ed, it’s a stupid game, not life or death. Yet, for reasons that I have come to understand now and overcome, I used to treat it like life or death. Now . . . I kid around, laugh, and have fun, no matter what is happening. It’s just a silly game. Enjoy it! Life is too short and too serious to make a deadly business out of things that are supposed to be fun.

5. Driving on a country road You may think this to be a bit odd until you understand that I was raised in a rural area of northern Georgia, near Stone

Mountain. My childhood was spent running through the woods with my friends, swimming in a creek, climbing tall pine trees and sitting in the topmost branches, letting the wind gently rock me back and forth. The woods were filled with interesting critters, including a baby cottonmouth that bit me on the finger. Somehow, it did not invenomate me. My neighbor shot the snake, I went about my business of being a kid, and nothing happened.

I just don’t have any use for cities. I don’t like the hustle and bustle, and in these times especially, I for sure do not like the crime and the concerns one must have that something weird might happen to me at any moment. Too much noise, to many crazy people. I remember seeing a picture of a homeless person taking a dump on a sidewalk in San Francisco while people in a restaurant just yards away either looked on uncaring or kept on eating. Yuuuuuck! Why anyone wants to live in a city when you can have

fresh air, lots of space, peace and quiet, is beyond me. Driving at a moderate pace, deeply taking in the woods and fields, the variety of flowers and occasional wildlife that appear — that’s life to me. Cities? You can have them.

So here’s a little something different for anyone who wants to read my blog pieces. I was just thinking the other day of things that make me happy and I thought to myself that I should write these things down. If you have read this, what are your happy places and why? Hope to hear from you.