John and Jean's Bloghttp://jsilverwood.com/Sat, 04 Sep 2010 23:21:49 GMThttp://backend.userland.com/rssRSS.NET: http://www.rssdotnet.com/<p>Well, I'm happy&nbsp;our friends at CBS&nbsp;thought so highly of our "LIVE TO TELL" show that they're running it again tonight (May 29th). Memorial Day reminds me every year of the huge though absolute indirect benefit I've recieved from veterans I run into at the V.A. hospital in La Jolla, or the C-5 (Comprehensive Combat and Complex Casualty Center within the Naval Medical Center in San Diego. The loss of limbs of our combat troops in Iraq and Afganistan was met by greatly increased funding of new engineering and design in the field of prosthetics, and while I don't have the latest and greatest in the experimental devices out there, my prosthetic leg is a BIG LEG UP (yeah, funny I know) on the remedies from even the late eighties, which hadn't evolved much at all since WWII. So my admiration and prayers are with those who served, suffered and survived or perished in defense of the U.S.A. Hell, I lost my leg doin' and bein' exactly what I wanted, not servin a higher cause...</p> http://jsilverwood.com/RSSRetrieve.aspx?ID=609&A=Link&ObjectID=146493&ObjectType=56&O=http%253a%252f%252fjsilverwood.com%252fBlogRetrieve.aspx%253fBlogID%253d419%2526PostID%253d146493http://jsilverwood.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=419&PostID=146493Sun, 30 May 2010 03:37:00 GMT<long />Well, John here - I had the pleasure of being made a guest at the nation's largest in-water sailboat show, The Annapolis Sailboat show recently at the kind invitation of Mr. Richard Switlik, President of Switlik liferafts located for three generations in Trenton New Jersey. Richard and his boat show manager, Steve Jaekal made me feel right at home, providing a great display area for me and our BLACK WAVE books. You see, I was nestled in between a number of the rafts the Switlik Co. have on display, but the irony is that this was not the first time I was so cossetted by inflatables...no, the last time I lay down in a Switlik raft, I was dragging my severed leg behind me three hours or so after having lost it in the South Pacific. So...The lovely Mrs. Silverwood and I were at the Oakland Strictly Sail Show the preceeding April, autographing books (and really, really trading sea stories with great people - yeah, SAILORS!) - when up comes this smilin' gent shaking my hand with the greeting, "I believe you found yourself in one of my raft's a while back". BINGO! That Switlik raft absolutely played a huge roll in my quioxtic quest to stay alive. I couldn't believe I was face to face with this legendary third generation Richard Switlik!<br /> Well, Jean and I got to know him and Steve over dinner that night with Ernie Delli Gatti, who works at Coast Guard Island, home to PACAREA 11, which merely covers&nbsp;all the salt water from&nbsp;the North Pole to the South Pole and the entire Pacific and Indian Oceans!! Ernie happens to be the guy who oversaw and intervened often in the seach for my family and our shipwrecked, lovely sailing ship, "EMERALD JANE". Whew, I'm done! http://jsilverwood.com/RSSRetrieve.aspx?ID=609&A=Link&ObjectID=89667&ObjectType=56&O=http%253a%252f%252fjsilverwood.com%252fBlogRetrieve.aspx%253fBlogID%253d419%2526PostID%253d89667http://jsilverwood.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=419&PostID=89667Sun, 30 May 2010 01:52:00 GMT