I have this recurring fantasy of spending the rest of my life on an island and never leaving. In my fantasy I would be very wealthy and people could come and visit me, it's just that I would never leave. I would hopefully have my wife with me and have a small staff of people also living on the island. My island would be off the coast of Maine, roughly 5 or 6 miles from the main land, so that would be faintly visible during clear weather. It would be a rocky, hilly, heavily forested place with cliffs and ravines and rocky shoreline on part and a really nice beach on another. I would charter a boat to bring people and cargo to/ from the mainland. The boat would operate on a schedule, making the round trip once a week from April 1st to October 31st. I would charter a helicopter for a few trips for people at Thanksgiving and Christmas and St Patrick's. From January 6th to March 17th there would be no boat or helicopter service and most of the staff would be furloughed at this time for a nice 10 week vacation. There would be a small working farm on the island to provide milk, eggs and vegetables. A man and wife team would milk the cows, gather the eggs, tend to the garden, make bread and cheese. A butcher would come in the fall to slaughter a steer and hog for the season. I would brew my own beer. Some of the foodstuffs that would come from the mainland; flour, salt, pepper and spices, cooking oil, sausages (including hot dogs, Polish Sausage and Bratwurst), cured meats, cheese, olives, pickles, etc., nuts, patisserie, candy, distilled spirits, liqueurs and wines. I would place an order once a week and the order would arrive on the boat with whatever visitors. Obviously a lot of planning would be required to lay down adequate stores before the last boat of the year on 10/31. I would have 2 houses; the main house, which would be a veritable castle and would nestled up at the top of a cliff facing seaward. This castle would have thick walls to block out the wind and very few windows facing outward, except those facing East to the Atlantic. Everything about this house would be designed to ride out a cold, snowy, windy Winter. A massive amount of firewood would be accumulated constantly and stored for the wood stoves and fireplaces. Cooking and heating would all be done on the wood stoves, open hearths and fireplaces. Electricity for the island would be provided by wind turbines, solar panels and there would even be some tidal powered turbines. We would live in the main house from the September 17th until June 17th. During the Summer we would live in a beach house perched among the sand dunes behind the perfect beach which would face the mainland. The pier for the boat would be here also. From the pier there would be a service road to the main house. There would be a team of horses to pull the wagon to haul the goods up to the house. There would be no motor vehicles on the island. The whole year would revolve around a series of festivals with Christmas being the high point of the year. The entire Holiday Season, from Thanksgiving until Twelfth Night (January 5th) would be a continuous party of eating and drinking and celebrating. Other festivals would be St Patrick's Day, Easter, July 4th and Oktoberfest. All staff would be included in the partying. There would be a small church mainly used for Christmas and Easter but would otherwise be a good place to meditate and smell incense. I would spend the rest of the time visiting with friends, reading, listening to music,watching sports and movies. For exercise I would hike around the island and swim. (There would an indoor pool in the main house and an outdoor pool next to the Summer house, plus I would swim in the ocean also). I would have sattelite TV but only to follow baseball, football and hockey. I would never watch network TV or the news. I would have internet and hopefully cell phone service. The big house would have a decent sized library. When I died I would be cremated and my ashes taken to my birthplace of Chicago and scattered surreptitiously around places I would list in my last testament. So, that is how I would love to spend the rest of my life.
that would be pretty cool. i would have to get off the island sometimes though. change of scenery is good, even if it is just for a day.
