The down side if your occupation relates to transportation, medical, law enforcement, military, infrastructure, hospitality, agriculture . . .  might be that you work on holidays.  I say might because as a farm kid,  I enjoyed having to work those days;  in fact, I believed my father many years ago when I asked why I had to work on Labor Day and he responded . . . “Labor is what you do on Labor Day.  Everybody else has it wrong.”

The up side if you work in some of these fields is to see wonders like those below.  What’s it?

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I’m deeply thankful to Joel Milton for sending these pictures.  I’ll let Joel’s own words explain:  “These were taken in the Atlantic Ocean off the Jersey shore, about 50 miles south of NYC, near Barnegat while we were towing an empty oil barge back to Philadelphia about a week ago. The icy-blue light in the sea foam is a type of bioluminescence that isn’t all that common here. Usually it’s the green sparky kind. It completely surrounded the hull below the waterline, and was most pronounced in the bow wave and the wake behind us. When I turned off all the deck lights we were positively glowing and these shots don’t even come close to seeing the real thing for yourself. (Above) see the lights of the City and the navigation lights of the barge behind us, and the brighter stars in the sky. A beautiful night.”

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Joel continues: “I’ve been working and playing on, in and under the water since I was a little kid, and I still never get tired of this stuff…”  Neither do I.  Nor do some kids who saw these pics.  And I hope neither do you.

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Although I’m not inclined to dogmas, my religious upbringing leads me to respond to these pics by dredging up the words of the ancient poet in Psalm 107: “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;  they see the works of the Lord and his wonders of the deep. . . .”    Best wishes for the holidays, and may all our eyes be open to all the wonders.

Thanks to Joel and all my other friends who have sent fotos, comments, explanations, encouragement, corrections, etc    this past year. Thanks for reading the blog.  Feed your wonder and be safe.

Two “unrelateds:”   Check out the new blog on the left . . . Underthenorthernstar. And I caught and channeled in another transmission from crazy Henry you might want to check out; thanks from Bowsprite and me for reading that.