Island Life
Islands set the stage for heaven or hell and anything in between. A Hawaiian paradise or the desert island of Robinson Crusoe. A Jimmy Buffet-hipster way of life or the prison fortress of Alcatraz. Islands have been manageable microcosm for authors through the ages--Shakespeare created Prospero's Island for the Tempest, Homer stranded Odysseus on an island as a prisoner of Calypso. My experience with islands started as a kid traveling to the islands of the Great Lakes. A thirty minute boat ride from my hometown was Kelly's Island Put-in-Bay the next stop. On Michigan's Mackinac Island, as soon as you set foot on the island, it seemed to be in separate world with its own rules. Mackinac had no cars--only horses, which reinforced the feeling. My daughter began to walk on Beaver Island in northern Lake Michigan. More recently, I traveled with my father to the island paradise of Bikini in the western Pacific. He was statione...