This Morning's Walk

It occurred to me this morning, just as the sun was rising and I was walking the beach with my dogs, this blog needs to be more alive. It has to exist with daily observations rather than intermittent ones.

I have seen it so far as a place to offload stories from my brain. To share information that can help others. And to provide links (which will be updated this weekend) to free public records searches. All good, positive objectives.

The challenge for me comes in the offload.
The stories take time in the telling and even more in their editing.
This coming public... this writing of true cases without violating any confidences... is all new to me and a very time-consuming process.
There are days I  miss writing the  true case stories here because I need to investigate all  day, do the day's case notes at night and catch some zzz's and calories  between it all.

So, back to what occurred to me as I was walking my dogs on the beach this morning.
I decided to make this blog what it is. The Diary of A Private Eye...  a true diary with a post every day to fill in the gaps when I haven't got the hours it takes to write a decent case story, edit and post it.

Like most Americans who are lucky enough to have a paycheck, I live paycheck to paycheck.   I travel hundreds of miles many days, going  to injured people who can't get out of their homes, hospital beds, or head-states to get to an attorney.

I photograph people and their injuries, accident scenes, damaged vehicles and other damaged property. I find and interview witnesses. I do surveillance. I build case files, hand them to attorneys. Occasionally I go to trial to testify about what I saw. I am the eyes and ears of the attorney in the field.

But this morning I was the eyes and ears of one just person, me,  walking the beach,  waking up, planning my day. My cases across the water begin late, 3:00 pm and go into the evening.

So walking that  beach as the sun was rising, then heading back to our house, I observed three things.

First, a group of oyster pickers. I counted nine, bent over in the low receding  tide, their black rubber books, rain slickers, harvesting oysters on a  bed a long ways down the beach. The people who own those tidelands and hired the harvesters, told me they are sick of their oysters because they draw the geese and the geese poop all over their yard. The proceeds to the homeowners from the harvest will be used to pay property taxes.

The second thing I observed was what I call the death mound.
A baby seal had died a while back and washed up on the beach. It looked like it had been hit by a propeller. I figured between the tides coming and going, it would wash back to sea, as all the dead things do here on this wild beach.

This one was different. Instead, the baby seal was pushed a little closer to the shoreline by the waters of the bay and  and covered, with every  tide coming and going,  by more and more seaweed, sea grass and  green stuff until it formed a green cacoon around the seal. Now there is nothing but a big, long mound. Nature's very own version of a grave. I thought of decomposition. I thought of compost piles. Then I thought I'd better  lead  my dogs away from the death mound and head back.

It was when I arrived at the sliding glass back door of the beach house when I made my third observation. My  little dog, Bubba, a rescue pup from the wrong side of the tracks, had something in his mouth and dropped it to the ground while he waited for the door to open. 
I looked closer, it was hideous and at first glance, primordial.
Like a giant snake head and long spiny,skeleton body.
It turned out to be a long dead fish...  red, dried, hardened. I grabbed  two big leaves off the ground  and used them to pick up the dead little sea monster and unceremoniously tossed it into the wetlands.I  figured the soul had long left that hardened corpse.... and admittedly,  I felt more disgust than reverence towards it.
Bubba was heartbroken, though I suspect,  he will live through it.

So that's it for  this morning. From this point forward, I'll  do a journal entry a day and see what what happens.
Some days there will be late postings of  reasonably well-crafted stories here.
Some days there will be random observations and thoughts like now.
This space will become a diary... albeit a public one from a private person.
If it works for you, it works for me.
The truth always comes in the telling.