Sunday, September 18, 2011

Daily Vocabulary

pier: a structure leading out from the shore into a body of water. If ever you're lived in a harbor town, river or lake or sound or ocean, what have you, you have seen piers.When I was young I saw this movie Orca in which, so far as I recollect, Bo Derek lived on a pier, in a house out over the water. After her father (played by Richard Harris) killed a pregnant mother orca causing a spontaneous birth of the baby which did not survive, the father orca sought revenge. Said revenge involved knocking the supports out from Bo Derek's pier, so that she fell into the water. Well, not all the way. Just enough to get her legs eaten off. Or so I recall; I was about 8 when I saw the movie, and it made me terrified of piers for a long while. Seattle being full of them, and my stepfather at the time working on boats, it made for an awkward year or so until the movie faded into hazy memories of terror, rather than actual fear. Perhaps it was replaced by the long period of Jaws II when there are many children on rafts and boats being picked off one by one by the shark. In any case, I now rather like a pier, any old pier. I like the nautical nature of them, the slap of water between them and boats, the seagulls, the rough wood. I just enjoy them terribly much. 
(Note: I almost listed Farah Fawcett as the daughter. How embarrassing that would have been, right?)

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