Taking Fog to NANTUCKET
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Taking Fog to NANTUCKET ¨ By, Michael Mosier I dedicate this book to Roland Marsan, Patty’s father, who loved Cape Cod and the Islands, offering his famous creations, through the lens of a Nikon, to the world and giving the unconditional love that his daughter showed me. TABLE OF CON T EN T S Chapter One: Energy, Movement, Tides ................................................................................ 29 Chapter two: Nantucket’s Fog ............................................................................................... 48 Chapter three: “San Francisco’s Fog” .................................................................................... 84 Chapter Four: ‘The Miracle’ ................................................................................................ 118 A thought ..................................................................................................................................................150 Epilogue............................................................................................................................... 157 Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—an addendum ..........................................................................................159 An Addendum on Alcohol .........................................................................................................................167 Alcohol—Facts and Fictions ......................................................................................................................168 *Congeners ................................................................................................................................................170 BAL—Blood Alcohol Level ........................................................................................................................171 Alcohol and the effects on the human body ...............................................................................................173 Process of Alcohol Elimination ..................................................................................................................175 Alcohol—stimulant or depressant? .............................................................................................................176 Alcohol and Tolerance ................................................................................................................................177 Addiction ...................................................................................................................................................178 Alcohol’s energy .........................................................................................................................................179 Acetaldehyde ..............................................................................................................................................182 Ethnicity and Alcohol ................................................................................................................................184 The three stages of Alcoholism ...................................................................................................................186 Adaptation .................................................................................................................................................188 Withdrawal Syndromes ..............................................................................................................................191 Delirium Tremens (DT’s) ..........................................................................................................................194 Malnutrition ..............................................................................................................................................197 Craving ......................................................................................................................................................199 Cirrhosis ....................................................................................................................................................204 Ascites........................................................................................................................................................206 Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................. 208 ook at that guy across the street.” Jennifer asked, “where?” “Right there!” Kelly exclaimed, “Lpointing out of the window at two figures in the gathering dusk. As Jennifer looked out of the window of the Atlantic Café, dressed in the gray and white clapboards that define the village of Nantucket, she could clearly see a young man standing in front of them outside of the window. He could not have been more than twenty feet from their vantage point. He looked like an athlete, with short brown hair and a tanned face. He was a good-looking guy, what had he done? His demeanor seemed calm, as he stood with his hands in his pockets, talking to a police officer. Or the police officer was talking to him. The Nantucket Police had always given Jennifer the chills, as she had heard many stories of abuse, harassment and worse, as she drove her A1 taxi around the small, exclusive, super rich island, thirty miles off the coast of Massachusetts. The man seemed to be in fear, as the officer, whom she recognized as Officer Chretian, continued talking. The man would not look at the officer, as his head looked down, with his hands in his faded blue jeans. Chretian, continued his interrogation for a few minutes longer, as Jennifer could feel the tension build from across the narrow street. “Oh my God, they’re arresting him,” Kelly said. The man’s face appeared tight, as if it were carrying the weight of the world. The officer’s face was red, agitated and angry, as he pulled out the handcuffs. Reading the lips of the officer, she could make out, “you’re going down, Michael”. As Jennifer continued to watch with intense focus, she saw Chretian grab the man’s right arm, place the silver handcuff around the wrist, take the left arm, repeat the action, and then holding the back of his upper arm, shake his entire body. She noticed the grimace on the man’s face, as he appeared to be in pain. She made out a few expletives coming from the officer. As she computed what sentence he was trying to construct, her curiosity quickly turned to horror, as Chretian spun the man 360 degrees and put his right foot forward, effectively tripping him. At the same time he was doing this, Chretian’s right hand grabbed a portion the man’s hair and with the force of an NFL football player taking down an opponent, threw all of his weight onto the man’s back, hurdling him towards the ground, face first. With the aid of gravity and the officer’s 200 plus pounds of weight on 9 Taking Fog to Nantucket top of him, the man went down. His face hit the sidewalk directly, with the officer holding the man’s head, handcuffed hands and arms that were useless to break the fall. With Chretian’s hand grasping the man’s brown hair, and his right knee in the man’s back, it was hard for Jennifer to contain her emotion. “Oh my God!” Kelly screamed under her breath, “they just killed that guy!” “He’s bleeding! Look at the blood pouring out of his head! We have to do something”, said Kelly, adding, “We should call the police!” “They are the police,” Jennifer said with a hint of scared sarcasm. At that moment, Kelly ran for the exit of the café, running across the street to the police station, catty corner to the Atlantic. Jennifer sat for a moment in stunned silence and looked at the young man lying in a pool of blood, something you don’t see everyday on the fair island of Nantucket. What struck Jennifer as odd, was the fact that the now two officers, were doing nothing to help this man who may or may not still be alive. They were ignoring him, as they spoke in hurried words that she could not make out by reading their lips. They were obviously aware of his presence, but were interested in something else. Cover up? As she thought those words, one of the police officers ran across the street to his cruiser, bringing back some yellow crime tape, as they began roping off the area, with the man still laying in a prone position on the cobblestones of the sidewalk. Kelly’s absence brought the reality of the situation to light, as her alerting the rest of the police force as to what just transpired, brought several officers into the Atlantic Café asking questions of the patrons, namely, whether or not they had seen anything. She found it odd that the main concern was finding any witnesses who saw the brutal action taken by Officer Chretian. Her instinct was to vacate the premises as quickly as possible. As she quietly slipped out of the bar, her racing thoughts picked up on one central theme, what could this guy have possibly done to deserve that? “We will be arriving at Logan International Airport in about twenty minutes, so please return your seats back to their original upright position, fasten your safety belt and just sit back and relax. On behalf of Delta airlines, I want to thank you for flying with us today, as we know you have a choice with who you want to fly with and we sure do appreciate your choosing Delta. Have a safe journey to your next destination.” The captain turned off the radio and I looked about the cabin. I always felt safe in an airplane, I thought to myself as I sat back and thought about the bittersweet feeling