Tuesday, April 05, 2005

“Adventure – heh. Excitement – heh. A Jedi craves not these things.”

The Movie: Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, 1980 (Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, screenwriter; George Lucas, dir.)
Who says it: Frank Oz as the voice of Yoda, the Jedi master
The context: Yoda chides Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) for his impetuous nature.
How to use it: To counsel against recklessness.

Yesterday's flood was not as bad as it might have been, but it did take a victim: James McCann, 48, who lived just up the street from me. He took a kayak down the Cobbosseecontee at high tide, right in the middle of the day, and got caught in a stand of trees in the heart of town. He was struggling against the current when the rapids swept a large tree branch into him, and he went under. Anna was one of dozens of people who saw it happen; she tells the story on her blog.

Dizzy and I walked down to the Landing this morning, and walked back along the Cobbossee. The stream and the river are both still swollen, but the waters have receded, leaving a skin of mud behind. We passed the stand of trees where Mr. McCann died; it's painful to see, because the stream is not very broad there, and people yesterday must have felt that surely, somehow, they could save that man.

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