Precious Cargo Quotes

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This right here—every single piece of you—is very precious cargo to me. If anyone mistreated it, I’d lose my shit. You’re not just my best friend, you’re my sanity. You’re priceless, Sarah.” Closing
Linda Kage (Priceless (Forbidden Men, #8))
Being in a state of denial is a universally human response to situations which threaten to overwhelm. People who were abused as children sometimes carry their denial like precious cargo without a port of destination. It enabled us to survive our childhood experiences, and often we still live in survival mode decades beyond the actual abuse. We protect ourselves to excess because we learned abruptly and painfully that no one else would.
Sarah E. Olson (Becoming One: A Story of Triumph Over Dissociative Identity Disorder)
I can’t help that I’m precious, dangerous, volatile cargo.
J. Bree (Savage Bonds (The Bonds That Tie, #2))
My ship finally came in and I saw the precious cargo was me.
Tosha Silver (Change Me Prayers: The Hidden Power of Spiritual Surrender)
Because you, you are precious cargo, Marwan, the most precious there ever was. I pray the sea knows this. Inshallah.
Khaled Hosseini (Sea Prayer)
In today's culture we take the package for the content, the vehicle for the precious cargo. We attribute reality to physical phenomena while taking their *meanings* to be inconsequential fantasies. By extricating 'reality' from mind, materialism has sent the significance of nature into exile. With the pathetic grin of hubris stamped on our foolish faces, we carefully unwrap the package and then proceed to throw away its contents while proudly storing the empty box on the altar of our ontology.
Bernardo Kastrup (Why Materialism Is Baloney: How True Skeptics Know There is no Death and Fathom Answers to Life, the Universe and Everything)
You and I are cobbled out of carbon cells that were once other things entirely. We could have a carbon cell in one of our elbows that was once part of a trilobite's tail. Or a cell from Atilla the Hun's moustache in our eye. Or an ancient lotus petal in our tonsils.
Craig Davidson (Precious Cargo: My Year of Driving the Kids on School Bus 3077)
Even among Sedlacek's own small cell, his Viennese anti-Nazi club, it was not imagined that the pursuit of the Jews had grown quite so systematic. Not only was the story Schindler told him startling simply in moral terms: one was asked to believe that in the midst of a desperate battle, the National Socialists would devote thousands of men, the resources of precious railroads, and enormous cubic footage of cargo space, expensive techniques of engineering, a fatal margin of their research-and-development scientists, a substantial bureaucracy, whole arsenals of automatic weapons, whole magazines of ammunition, all to an extermination which had no military or economic meaning but merely a psychological one.
Thomas Keneally (Schindler’s List)
She’s unconscious.” Cyrus hopped down after him while I took it slowly, mindful of my precious cargo. “No witty banter is required. Hell, no banter at all. Right now, she’s perfect for you.
Tessa Cole (Wolf Desired (Ensnared by the Pack, #3))
The odyssey of the Precious Cargo continued. The clouds remained threatening, and now and then there would be spells of rain, which the purposive wind would whip spitefully against the narrow boat.
John Dolan (Adventures in Mythopoeia)
For some of the kids on my bus, the deviation is so small: an imperfection in the DNA strand so tiny that an electron microscope cranked to 100,000X magnification shows but a shadow. A knot of rogue atoms. Weightless. A body forms itself around that anomaly, and next comes a life, and the lives of that person's family.
Craig Davidson (Precious Cargo: My Year of Driving the Kids on School Bus 3077)
than usual with the boy snuggling against my back. He’s precious cargo, the son of the man who was my sun and my moon. Who was with me as I breathed and slept, a fount of desire and tenderness. My greatest failure. My greatest love.
Nina George (The Book of Dreams)
The balloon felt like nothing, like a handful of fog. She handled it delicately, caressing the orange latex. It seemed even more vulnerable now. Only the thinnest of layers kept her mother’s soul from mixing with the morning air. Juniper gently tied the balloon to her wrist for safekeeping. Beneath the orange shell was precious cargo indeed.
M.P. Kozlowsky (Juniper Berry)
How many ships, with precious lives and cargo, had wrecked because mariners hadn’t known precisely where they were?
David Grann (The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder)
We heard you were bringing in precious cargo," Ben said to Lorcan. "Amelia needs Quinn, and Keelan... I don't think anything can be done for him. But I promised Aiden we'd try," Lorcan said. The blond pulled out a walkie-talkie. "Gamma Kitten One, this is Adonis, have Foxy Boy on standby to receive Big Sister-Cousin, over." "I really fucking hate that you got Adonis and I got Gamma Kitten One!" a male voice complained. "Take it up with management," the blond said flippantly. "Over and out." "Ben, who's Foxy Boy?" Lorcan asked as they ran. "Quinn, that's the name Meryn gave him because his last name Foxglove." "Gods, I can't imagine the call sign she's given me," Lorcan said. "Lorelei," Ben said with a grin. Lorcan grimaced. "I had to ask.
Alanea Alder (My Savior (Bewitched and Bewildered, #4))
Squished between my grandparents and moving at thirty miles an hour is a small price to pay to get to the vet's office, but today Luke begged to come along, so Papaw is driving even slower than usual. With Luke hunched don behind us in the bed of the truck, obviously without a seat belt, Mamaw keeps her eye on the odometer and yells about "precious cargo" every time the needle nears twenty.
Alecia Whitaker (The Queen of Kentucky)
Once Mamaw's eased her body onto the seat, pinning me in so tightly that a seat belt would just be redundant, we head out of the parking lot and onto the open road. Mamaw and Papaw have agreed to take me shopping for Mackenzie's birthday present, and we're heading out to The Square at the breakneck speed of thirty-four miles per hour. "Slow down, Frank," my mamaw commands, patting my knee. "We've got precious cargo." He eases up on the gas and I throw my head back and close my eyes, anxious and frustrated.
Alecia Whitaker (The Queen of Kentucky)
How many seconds separate Jake or any of us from those burdens of fate? Three? Five? At some point in our lives, the cut may have been that fine. Who can say, and perhaps it is not worth pondering. But we do, don't we? We gnaw on that bone of possibility until our teeth are dull and our skulls throb. There are other life-lines than the one we landed on, and we can taste it.
Craig Davidson (Precious Cargo: My Year of Driving the Kids on School Bus 3077)
As I continue to sip at the chest-warming liquor, entering ever-deeper states of inebriation, a mauldin thought begins to take shape in my whiskey-addled skull. My notion is this: We are each of us our own container ship, transporting our various cargoes through the ocean of life. At ports along the way, we may stop and pick up a new lover, a spouse, a child. At other ports we unload precious items - friends move away, relationships end, parents die. Even when we’re lost in the deepest fog, we must try to keep our watch, not be the cause of any tragic collisions, and to do what we can to keep our cargo safe. In the end, of course, your ship rusts out and is not longer seaworthy. So, I suppose, in this analogy, the afterlife equates to being bought by a Greek shipping line.
Seth Stevenson (Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World)
After four years, he stumbled from the steamy jungles exhausted, his clothes in tatters, trembling and half delirious from a recurrent fever, but with a rare collection of specimens. In the Brazilian port city of Pará, he secured passage home on a barque called the Helen. Midway across the Atlantic, however, the Helen caught fire and Wallace had to scramble into a lifeboat, leaving his precious cargo behind. He watched as the ship, consumed by flames, slid beneath the waves, taking his treasures with it. Undaunted (well, perhaps just a little daunted), Wallace allowed himself a spell of convalescence, then sailed to the other ends of the Earth, to the Malay Archipelago, where he roamed ceaselessly for eight years and collected a staggering 127,000 specimens, including 1,000 insects and 200 species of birds never before recorded, all of which he managed to get safely back to England.
Bill Bryson (At Home: A Short History of Private Life)
When she did, her mouth fell open. The vivid glamour of the world outside paled in comparison to the world within. It was a palace of vaulting glass and shimmering tapestry and, woven through it all like light, magic. The air was alive with it. Not the secret, seductive magic of the stone, but a loud, bright, encompassing thing. Kell had told Lila that magic was like an extra sense, layered on top of sight and smell and taste, and now she understood. It was everywhere. In everything. And it was intoxicating. She could not tell if the energy was coming from the hundreds of bodies in the room, or from the room itself, which certainly reflected it. Amplified it like sound in an echoing chamber. And it was strangely—impossibly—familiar. Beneath the magic, or perhaps because of it, the space itself was alive with color and light. She’d never set foot inside St. James, but it couldn’t possibly have compared to the splendor of this. Nothing in her London could. Her world felt truly grey by comparison, bleak and empty in a way that made Lila want to kiss the stone for freeing her from it, for bringing her here, to this glittering jewel of a place. Everywhere she looked, she saw wealth. Her fingers itched, and she resisted the urge to start picking pockets, reminding herself that the cargo in her own was too precious to risk being caught. The
Victoria E. Schwab (A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1))
Israel, and you who call yourself Israel, the Church that calls itself Israel, and the revolt that calls itself Israel, and every nation chosen to be a nation – none of these lands is yours, all of you are thieves of holiness, all of you at war with Mercy. Who will say it? Will America say, We have stolen it, or France step down? Will Russia confess, or Poland say, We have sinned? All bloated on their scraps of destiny, all swaggering in the immunity of superstition. Ishmael, who was saved in the wilderness, and given shade in the desert, and a deadly treasure under you: has Mercy made you wise? Will Ishmael declare, We are in debt forever? Therefore the lands belong to none of you, the borders do not hold, the Law will never serve the lawless. To every people the land is given on condition. Perceived or not, there is a covenant, beyond the constitution, beyond sovereign guarantee, beyond the nation’s sweetest dreams of itself. The Covenant is broken, the condition is dishonoured, have you not noticed that the world has been taken away? You have no place, you will wander through yourselves from generation to generation without a thread. Therefore you rule over chaos, you hoist your flags with no authority, and the heart that is still alive hates you, and the remnant of Mercy is ashamed to look at you. You decompose behind your flimsy armour, your stench alarms you, your panic strikes at love. The land is not yours, the land has been taken back, your shrines fall through empty air, your tablets are quickly revised, and you bow down in hell beside your hired torturers, and still you count your battalions and crank out your marching songs. Your righteous enemy is listening. He hears your anthem full of blood and vanity, and your children singing to themselves. He has overturned the vehicle of nationhood, he has spilled the precious cargo, and every nation he has taken back. Because you are swollen with your little time. Because you do not wrestle with your angel. Because you dare to live without God. Because your cowardice has led you to believe that the victor does not limp.
Leonard Cohen (Book of Mercy)
My dear Marwan, in the long summers of childhood, when I was a boy the age you are now, your uncles and I spread our mattress on the roof of your grandfathers’ farmhouse outside of Hom. We woke in the mornings to the stirring of olive trees in the breeze, to the bleating of your grandmother's goat, the clanking of her cooking pots, the air cool and the sun a pale rim of persimmon to the east. We took you there when you were a toddler. I have a sharply etched memory of your mother from that trip. I wish you hadn’t been so young. You wouldn't have forgotten the farmhouse, the soot of its stone walls, the creek where your uncles and I built a thousand boyhood dams. I wish you remembered Homs as I do, Marwan. In its bustling Old City, a mosque for us Muslims, a church for our Christian neighbours, and a grand souk for us all to haggle over gold pendants and fresh produce and bridal dresses. I wish you remembered the crowded lanes smelling of fried kibbeh and the evening walks we took with your mother around Clock Tower Square. But that life, that time, seems like a dream now, even to me, like some long-dissolved rumour. First came the protests. Then the siege. The skies spitting bombs. Starvation. Burials. These are the things you know You know a bomb crater can be made into a swimming hole. You have learned dark blood is better news than bright. You have learned that mothers and sisters and classmates can be found in narrow gaps between concrete, bricks and exposed beams, little patches of sunlit skin shining in the dark. Your mother is here tonight, Marwan, with us, on this cold and moonlit beach, among the crying babies and the women worrying in tongues we don’t speak. Afghans and Somalis and Iraqis and Eritreans and Syrians. All of us impatient for sunrise, all of us in dread of it. All of us in search of home. I have heard it said we are the uninvited. We are the unwelcome. We should take our misfortune elsewhere. But I hear your mother's voice, over the tide, and she whispers in my ear, ‘Oh, but if they saw, my darling. Even half of what you have. If only they saw. They would say kinder things, surely.' In the glow of this three-quarter moon, my boy, your eyelashes like calligraphy, closed in guileless sleep. I said to you, ‘Hold my hand. Nothing bad will happen.' These are only words. A father's tricks. It slays your father, your faith in him. Because all I can think tonight is how deep the sea, and how powerless I am to protect you from it. Pray God steers the vessel true, when the shores slip out of eyeshot and we are in the heaving waters, pitching and tilting, easily swallowed. Because you, you are precious cargo, Marwan, the most precious there ever was. I pray the sea knows this. Inshallah. How I pray the sea knows this.
Khaled Hosseini (Sea Prayer)
I’m so absorbed in my thoughts that I haven’t seen the flash of sunlight on metal that means a car is coming up the winding drive, working its way around the switchback bends. I don’t notice the other girls stir, sit up, because a car approaching at this time of day is very likely to contain precious cargo: i.e., at least one boy.
Lauren Henderson (Kissing in Italian (Flirting in Italian, #2))
There’s that old saying about the people you meet in life. You can’t take everyone with you. You’re probably discovering that now, if it wasn’t clear before. Time gets away from us. It rips some of our friends away. People come together, they fall apart. But what I’ve realized, and what I hope you understand too, is this doesn’t mean the memories go anywhere or are any less essential. They are more essential than ever, maybe, because you’ll never build new ones with that particular group of people. My deepest fear now is that I may have underestimated you in some critical way. I realize there’s so much that I do not, and cannot, know about you. Not only about you personally, but about your possible futures. You’ll run into many overly sympathetic boobs who don’t expect anything exceptional from you. I don’t want to be one of them. I hope to God I’m not.
Craig Davidson (Precious Cargo: My Year of Driving the Kids on School Bus 3077)
Although cargo shipments of precious metals as described here seem quite fanciful to modern ears, archaeologists recently excavated a shipwreck at Uluburun with a shipload of copper and tin ingots that dates from the Canaanite Late Bronze period hundreds of years prior to Solomon’s activities (Brody, 2002, 65). 
Charles River Editors (King Solomon and the Temple of Solomon: The History of the Jewish King and His Temple)
with more bombs being dropped on Malta in two months of 1942 than were dropped on London in a year. It was a time of fear and fatigue and disease, and jubilation when a convoy, bringing its precious cargo of food and ammunition and fuel, did get through. Now there was nothing here apart from the huts to serve as a reminder of those days. The aircraft pens had gone and the runway, which had been like the long handle of a warming pan, had become a road leading to the National Stadium. For me, searching into the past, there was nothing: this is not the Ta’ Qali that Peter Anderson would have seen. But not everything had changed so drastically. Mdina, the old capital of Malta, would be much as he had seen it, and the barracks where he and Tom had lived were still standing, so the young man at Ta’ Qali had said. There were some things I could see, some places I could visit. My spirits rose. I turned the car around and headed back, past the cemetery, to the roundabout; a signpost pointed to Mtarfa. The road was bumpy and full of potholes; it didn’t look as if it was much used nowadays. It wound up and up, between rubble walls which divided the road from the fields on either side. Over the tops of the walls and through gateways and gaps I could see maize growing, and prickly pears, and huge pumpkins drying on the flat
Mary Rensten (Letters from Malta: A secret kept for 50 years)
Once every few weeks, beginning in the summer of 2018, a trio of large Boeing freighter aircraft, most often converted and windowless 747s of the Dutch airline KLM, takes off from Schiphol airport outside Amsterdam, with a precious cargo bound eventually for the city of Chandler, a western desert exurb of Phoe­nix, Arizona. The cargo is always the same, consisting of nine white boxes in each aircraft, each box taller than a man. To get these pro­foundly heavy containers from the airport in Phoenix to their des­tination, twenty miles away, requires a convoy of rather more than a dozen eighteen-wheeler trucks. On arrival and family uncrated, the contents of all the boxes are bolted together to form one enormous 160-ton machine -- a machine tool, in fact, a direct descendant of the machine tools invented and used by men such as Joseph Bramah and Henry Maudslay and Henry Royce and Henry Ford a century and more before. "Just like its cast-iron predecessors, this Dutch-made behemoth of a tool (fifteen of which compose the total order due to be sent to Chandler, each delivered as it is made) is a machine that makes machines. Yet, rather than making mechanical devices by the pre­cise cutting of metal from metal, this gigantic device is designed for the manufacture of the tiniest of machines imaginable, all of which perform their work electronically, without any visible mov­ing parts. "For here we come to the culmination of precision's quarter­millennium evolutionary journey. Up until this moment, almost all the devices and creations that required a degree of precision in their making had been made of metal, and performed their vari­ous functions through physical movements of one kind or another. Pistons rose and fell; locks opened and closed; rifles fired; sewing machines secured pieces of fabric and created hems and selvedges; bicycles wobbled along lanes; cars ran along highways; ball bearings spun and whirled; trains snorted out of tunnels; aircraft flew through the skies; telescopes deployed; clocks ticked or hummed, and their hands moved ever forward, never back, one precise sec­ond at a time."Then came the computer, then the personal computer, then the smartphone, then the previously unimaginable tools of today -- and with this helter-skelter technological evolution came a time of translation, a time when the leading edge of precision passed itself out into the beyond, moving as if through an invisible gateway, from the purely mechanical and physical world and into an immobile and silent universe, one where electrons and protons and neutrons have replaced iron and oil and bearings and lubricants and trunnions and the paradigm-altering idea of interchangeable parts, and where, though the components might well glow with fierce lights send out intense waves of heat, nothing moved one piece against another in mechanical fashion, no machine required that mea­sured exactness be an essential attribute of every component piece.
Simon Wincheter
Tira said. “Yes,” Zeke said. His head bob was careful and slow, not disturbing his precious cargo. “Yes it did.
Alex Raizman (Wrath (Dinosaur Dungeon, #1))
We’re not driving fast, but my track record with safe driving leaves something to be desired of late, and Nadia is the most precious of cargo.
Elsie Silver (A False Start (Gold Rush Ranch, #4))
There were protocols to meet for the historic occasion. On the lunar dust they placed mementoes for the five-deceased American and Soviet spacemen, Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee, Vladimir Komarov, and Yuri Gagarin (who died in a plane crash in 1968). They unsheathed a metal disc on the descent stage with engraved messages to future moon visitors. As Neil Armstrong read the plaque’s words, his voice carried throughout the world. “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon, July 1969, AD. We came in peace for all mankind.” There was yet another small cargo—private and precious—carried by Neil Armstrong to the moon. It was not divulged at the time, but he carried the diamond-studded astronaut pin made especially for Deke Slayton by the three Apollo 1 astronauts and presented to him by their widows after that dreadful fire.
Alan Shepard (Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America's Race to the Moon)
I had fun tonight," Kane said. Avery reached down and linked their fingers before using the space between their palms to push the gear in place, apparently unwilling to let go of Kane for any length of time. "Me too," Avery said to Kane's snore. He drove slower than normal all the way home, taking care of his precious cargo that apparently had sinus problems tonight based on the soft snores growing in intensity.
Kindle Alexander (Always (Always & Forever #1))
The denim lovingly cupped his manhood as if it were precious cargo. Effie elbowed her. "Oh, the man saunters like walking sin, doesn't he?
Vonnie Davis (A Highlander's Passion (Highlander's Beloved, #2))
I haven’t seen you in a day, with how long these freaking cycles are, but you better have gotten some rest.” She pointed to herself and said, “Because this is precious cargo you’re transporting.” “I know, that’s why I’m trying to make sure everything is right before we leave.
Mychal Daniels (Ravished by Jalek (Olodian Alien Warrior, #3))
the lame response of the world’s navies to the pirates of Somalia attacking and hijacking hundreds of billions of dollars of ships with precious cargoes. The pirates were nothing more than a water-borne mafia tolerated by a nation of warlords and anarchists who the world’s leaders had failed to deal with in any convincing manner.
Ken Rossignol (SIX KILLER THRILLER NOVELS - Marsha & Danny Jones Thriller Series Books 1 - 6)
Pray one for another.” — James 5:16 As an encouragement cheerfully to offer intercessory prayer, remember that such prayer is the sweetest God ever hears, for the prayer of Christ is of this character. In all the incense which our Great High Priest now puts into the golden censer, there is not a single grain for himself. His intercession must be the most acceptable of all supplications—and the more like our prayer is to Christ’s, the sweeter it will be; thus while petitions for ourselves will be accepted, our pleadings for others, having in them more of the fruits of the Spirit, more love, more faith, more brotherly kindness, will be, through the precious merits of Jesus, the sweetest oblation that we can offer to God, the very fat of our sacrifice. Remember, again, that intercessory prayer is exceedingly prevalent. What wonders it has wrought! The Word of God teems with its marvellous deeds. Believer, thou hast a mighty engine in thy hand, use it well, use it constantly, use it with faith, and thou shalt surely be a benefactor to thy brethren. When thou hast the King’s ear, speak to him for the suffering members of his body. When thou art favoured to draw very near to his throne, and the King saith to thee, “Ask, and I will give thee what thou wilt,” let thy petitions be, not for thyself alone, but for the many who need his aid. If thou hast grace at all, and art not an intercessor, that grace must be small as a grain of mustard seed. Thou hast just enough grace to float thy soul clear from the quicksand, but thou hast no deep floods of grace, or else thou wouldst carry in thy joyous bark a weighty cargo of the wants of others, and thou wouldst bring back from thy Lord, for them, rich blessings which but for thee they might not have obtained:— “Oh, let my hands forget their skill, My tongue be silent, cold, and still, This bounding heart forget to beat, If I forget the mercy-seat!
Anonymous
Cole, stop teasing.” “Hey, I’ve got to focus on the road. Precious cargo, you know. I can’t make you scream yet. That would be too much of a distraction.
Nikki Jewell (The Game (Lakeview Lightning #3))
When it comes to my baby girl, I’m very protective.” Channing chuckled. “I completely understand, sir. This is precious cargo.
Kimberly Brown (Rhythm's Blues)
The vastness of the house lent the sense of being confined. Ethan felt like it was a huge galleon, its cargo the piled, stacked, stuffed, heaped riches, the intricate, rarefied, exquisite treasure of people who would be like gods, riding out some flood with all the riches of their court, like in the history books Mr. Diamond had taught, the boat laden, low in the water under weight of gold and precious stones and armor and boxes and baskets and chests and bureaus and vaults and iron safes crammed with jewels and rings and pendants and sacrificial silver daggers and stone altars and bills of sale for continents and oceans and nations and human beings, even the moon, and the sunlight reflecting off it, in languages he could not read and it was all to his humiliation and he needed fresh air, to be outside because it was as if Bridget led him belowdecks, as if he could hear cross timbers flexing and bracing bolts shooting into their staples behind him and the ocean squeezing the hull more tightly and feel himself heading toward the deepest, narrowest, tightest, most airless space where he would be shackled and forced to lie on his side and pant for breath and alternately roast and freeze and rub against the raw planking until his skin began to strip away and the moans of all the other souls crammed into the ship became louder than the thundering sea as the ship thudded through a portless eternity.
Paul Harding (This Other Eden)
top of the pinnacle came the pilot, who plotted the ship’s route; the master, who supervised the precious cargo;
Laurence Bergreen (Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe)
predicted that it would take him at most two years to reach the Spice Islands and return to Spain with ships bulging with precious cargo.
Laurence Bergreen (Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe)
Attempting to sustain GDP growth in an economy that may actually be close to maturing can drive governments to take desperate and destructive measures. They deregulate—or rather reregulate—finance in the hope of unleashing new productive investment, but end up unleashing speculative bubbles, house price hikes and debt crises instead. They promise business that they will ‘cut red tape’, but end up dismantling legislation that was put in place to protect workers’ rights, community resources and the living world. They privatise public services—from hospitals to railways—turning public wealth into private revenue streams. They add the living world into the national accounts as ‘ecosystem services’ and ‘natural capital’, assigning it a value that looks dangerously like a price. And, despite committing to keep global warming ‘well below 2°C’, many such governments chase after the ‘cheap’ energy of tar sands and shale gas, while neglecting the transformational public investments needed for a clean-energy revolution. These policy choices are akin to throwing precious cargo off a plane that is running out of fuel, rather than admitting that it may soon be time to touch down.
Kate Raworth (Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist)
So I drove off that day with precious cargo in the back of my truck: three flats of Edwin Plank’s lovingly tended daughter plants—“my good daughters,” he called them—headed for Smiling Hills Farm.
Joyce Maynard (The Good Daughters)
It had struck me that most people‘s lives unfolded through a constant process of recalibration. Things happen, often unexpectedly, and a person‘s life adjusts to account for them.
Craig Davidson (Precious Cargo: My Year of Driving the Kids on School Bus 3077)
Bundled up in my gloves, woolen thirteen-button bell-bottomed uniform pants, navy blue shirt and pea coat, with the flaps up, I negotiated the slippery steep incline of High Street. I knew that I was in Maine, known for adverse weather, but this was unreal. It was all I could do to hang onto this precious cargo with my cold fingers in my wet gloves, and put one foot in front of the other. Little by little, I made progress against the elements but, the longer it took to walk the distance, the more I looked like a snowman. Now the white stuff was getting heavier, and started to pile up. It stuck to my uniform, turning the dark blue to white. By the time I got as far as Congress Street, my feet and fingers were totally numb again, and my ears frozen. The box was getting heavier by the moment and I couldn’t even cover my ears with my hands. Finally I just put the box down into the snow, crouched down against a building, and pulled my pea coat over my head. Breathing into it, I managed to generate a little heat. I pressed the flaps of the coat against my ears until I could feel them again. Aside from my frozen feet, I warmed up enough this way to be able to continue. Picking up the box, I got up and once again faced the harsh elements. There was little sign of life, and with this cold wind, I could easily have gotten frostbite. Most people who lived in Maine had better sense than to be out under these arctic conditions. The plows had not cleared the streets yet, and behind me I could see a lone car spinning its wheels, trying in vain to make the steep grade. Once again I had to put down the box. I took off my gloves and tried to warm my hands by blowing onto them, as I did a little dance stomping my feet, but nothing helped anymore; my hands and feet were numb. When I picked the box up again, the bottom was caked with snow, making matters even worse! With only a short distance left I thought about Ann and the aroma from baking brownies, so I continued trudging on. I could now see the statue of Longfellow, slouched in his massive chair. “Hi, Henry. What do you think of this glorious weather?” Not getting an answer, was answer enough. I was convinced that his bronze butt was frozen to the chair, but in spite of the weather, he still looked comfortable!
Hank Bracker
I figured that it wouldn’t take me all that long to walk the steep incline from the docks, past the warehouses, up to Congress Street and then down to State Street. I was on my way, snow or no snow! Bundled up in my gloves, woolen thirteen-button bell-bottomed uniform pants, navy blue shirt and pea coat, with the flaps up, I negotiated the slippery steep incline of High Street. I knew that I was in Maine, known for adverse weather, but this was unreal. It was all I could do to hang onto this precious cargo with my cold fingers in my wet gloves, and put one foot in front of the other. Little by little, I made progress against the elements but, the longer it took to walk the distance, the more I looked like a snowman. Now the white stuff was getting heavier, and started to pile up. It stuck to my uniform, turning the dark blue to white. By the time I got as far as Congress Street, my feet and fingers were totally numb again, and my ears frozen. The box was getting heavier by the moment and I couldn’t even cover my ears with my hands. Finally I just put the box down into the snow, crouched down against a building, and pulled my pea coat over my head. Breathing into it, I managed to generate a little heat. I pressed the flaps of the coat against my ears until I could feel them again. Aside from my frozen feet, I warmed up enough this way to be able to continue. Picking up the box, I got up and once again faced the harsh elements. There was little sign of life, and with this cold wind, I could easily have gotten frostbite. Most people who lived in Maine had better sense than to be out under these arctic conditions. The plows had not cleared the streets yet, and behind me I could see a lone car spinning its wheels, trying in vain to make the steep grade. Once again I had to put down the box. I took off my gloves and tried to warm my hands by blowing onto them, as I did a little dance stomping my feet, but nothing helped anymore; my hands and feet were numb. When I picked the box up again, the bottom was caked with snow, making matters even worse! With only a short distance left I thought about Ann and so I continued trudging on.
Hank Bracker
Thus, from the Cargo of Days, having broken Eleven, precious, untranspir'd, for his Masters to use as they will, having withal conspir'd to deliver our Land unto these strange alien Pygmies, stands Bradley tonight, before the Lord's Assizes, his Soul in the gravest Peril, let us pray," and Revd Cromorne proceeds to what we in the Trade call Drop the Transom, voice falling to a whisper, Eyelids fluttering over Eyeballs of increas'd Albedo, Do excuse me, I'm talking to God here, be with ye as soon as we're done,—
Thomas Pynchon (Mason & Dixon)