Looking for God on the Gulf Coast

The need to establish a deeply reflective relationship at water’s edge has deposited me on many different shorelines over the years. Like a man in search for the right congregation, I’ve walked beaches from the Gulf of Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, looking for my purpose and position in God’s grand scheme. Currently my favorite place of worship is the stretch of ocean and sand at Easton’s Beach in Newport, Rhode Island. Their morning services consist of long contemplative strolls, afternoons are toes in the tide baptism, and evenings are spent raising a cup to creation from the choir loft at Flo’s Clam Shack.

Sadly, these waters in Narragansett Bay, like so much of our oceans, have been impacted by the misdeeds and miscalculations of mankind. As we embark on the celebration of a return to warmer days in our hemisphere, the staff at American Public House Review will keep in our thoughts and prayers our fellow citizens whose lives will be effected by the ongoing environmental catastrophe along our southern shores. 

And to those  who work to preserve and protect our beaches, marine life and sacred waters, we raise our glasses and wish them fair winds and following seas!

Posted by: Chris Poh

Advertisement

The Dim Light of Truth

 

In a recent episode of the HBO series,”John Adams,” Laura Linney in the role of Abigail Adams displays a deftness for diplomacy as she dines with Admiral d’Estaing, just after the French Royal Navy puts into Boston after their unsuccessful campaigns against the British Fleet at New York and Rhode Island. Meanwhile, her husband John is doing a less than admirable job of courting French favor in Paris. This brilliant production explores the powerful political and personal partnership of America’s first couple. It also presents an accurate accounting of the faults and frailties of the architects of this republic. Had these men been subject to today’s standards of  behavior and decorum we would still be paying too much for tea.

But alas, history tends to expunge the misdeeds and misgivings of great men. By most accounts even the French fare well in the telling of the American Revolution.  

 In the November issue of American Public House Review this author, after a few single malts at the famed White Horse Tavern in Newport, Rhode Island, expounds on the virtues of The Comte de Rochambeau and other assorted Frenchmen that aided America’s cause for independence. Hopefully this recounting holds up to the light of historic truth, or at the very least – the light of a dimly lit tavern.