I have just come from having my eyes glued to a browser window from which reams of information dealing with the proper usage of the elements of grammar was pouring out. I was amazed at the erudition of the mind behind the programme, but the manner in which said erudition was being presented was what truly involved my attention. Everything you might want to know; certainly need to know; should know, and have - quite clearly as in my case - forgotten that you knew about grammar was there before me. Presented in a comfortable and natural manner, it was as though a kindly and caring teacher wished the student to learn the tricky ins and outs of grammar with as little hair tearing as possible. Free from pedantic mannerisms, it was a pleasure to engage in; even though it meant I would be acknowledging and working on my blatant deficiencies.
Now I have to get myself together, gather up my errors of grammar, sort them out, clean them up and place them where they belong. Goodness, gracious me, what a task lies ahead! Of course, and Happy New Year! I’ve just made a resolution! In print! Oh, my God! Oh! Well. Carry on regardless, and all that. Maybe I’ll be shot at dawn. Now that’s dramatic!
Before I’m accused of ranting and the rambling is lost in verbiage I’ll put down the name of the site that won me over, in case there is another somebody out there who would care to have a look see.grammar.ccc.com.net.edu
Put the URL in your browser and a page will come up redirecting you to the Guide to Grammar & Writing site.
The writer who neglects punctuation, or mispunctuates, is liable to be misunderstood for the want of merely a comma, it often occurs that an axiom appears a paradox, or that a sarcasm is converted into a sermonoid.
Edgar Allan Poe
1809-1845, American Poet, Critic, short-story Writer
A very
“Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of
grammar”.
E. B. White JANUARY 1st, 2001, was a glorious day. It was cool but warmish in the sun, and the sea was only slightly restless. Wandering down to the edge of the garden, and moving onto the beach, I sauntered a few yards along the sand and gravel, enjoying the scrunching sound coming from beneath my feet, then stepping around the bend of the small cove I paused. I had come to visit again an old, very old ruin of a wharf; storm tossed onto the shore in an earlier time. As I gazed along its ruined length I wondered why I had never taken a photo of this forgotten giant. Having my handy camera handy I proceeded to rectify that error.
The wharf, 150 feet long (measured), and about 25 feet wide (guessed), lies high on the beach, right on the high tide mark. Broken and gray from relentless rains, burning summer suns, and the cruel battering ram of storms, it still bears a sense of its former majesty. A brave and ruined relic from a previous period; holding within itself the memory of an earlier time when it was the pride of some long ago - now vanished - coastal community. In its massive timbers, joined together by countless iron bolts, well rusted but forever thrusting their twisted and bent forms uselessly into the sky, can be read the immensity of the trees that once towered along the shores of this Strait. How their height and enormity must have thrilled the early settlers who had longed for such a world as this on which they now gazed. But others who stood with them had also dreamed, but theirs were the dreams of wealth. Their imaginings pictured not the beauty and wonder of the ancient trees, but the uses to which these forest giants could be put.
I climbed onto the w
harf and walked along the massive, torn and broken timbers that had held so tightly to their original form - a walk made difficult by the deterioration of the wharf itself and the accumulation of detritus from land and sea layered over it. The afternoon tide was beginning to draw up to the section of the beach on which my giant lay. Standing on its ravaged sea side edge I watched as the new tide pushed gently into the base of this sleeping titan. Small pebbles and foam born bubbles lapped at the black charcoaled areas of the wharf’s timbers - timbers scorched from years of beach fires built to chase away the chill of sea washed summer nights. Successive decades of swimmers, bathers and beach combers had used the old wharf for a back rest or protective wall against wind and sun; countless fires set beneath its shadow had left their charred signatures on the ancient wood. 
A combination of age, weather and fire and the scrubbing of endless tides had polished sections of the old wood to a marvelous sheen. The mahogany richness of the colour, remarkable. It is warmly reminiscent of the surface of a highly polished and treasured desk. To play my hands across its surface borders on the sensuous; closing my eyes I imagine the fine exquisite texture of some early romance that had once tantalized my touch.
To know that this tragic, dethroned old wharf might still be here long after I am gone, is a treasure to hold. I keep the promise of this to myself, knowing it will be waiting, unhurried, just a step around a bend, along a sandy sea kissed beach. So, whenever I have a longing to return to its side and share a radiant sunrise, an inspiring sunset, or just a simple, beautiful sunny day in its company, I stroll along the ageless sands, follow the shorelines edge and true to its promise, find it waiting.
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