Wisdom about marriage and raising children from Captain Fatty Goodlander

Those of you listen to NPR’s sunday morning, ‘Weekend Edition’ will be familiar with the remarkable saga of Captain Fatty Goodlander.  According to the broadcast and a wealth of other web materials, he has lived at sea on a relatively small sailing yacht for 48 years.  Many of these have been shared with his wife Carolyn and they have raised at least one child, a daughter.  She recently completed graduate school and is now married.

I wondered how Fatty and Carolyn could live happily in the close proximity for so many years.  During a segment, two weeks ago, he provided his prescription.  “We look for an opportunity to something nice for each other each day.”  Not a bad guideline for any marriage.

On yesterday morning’s program, Captain Fatty described his daughter’s urban lifestyle, noting how different it was from the one he and Carolyn had chosen.  “If you raise children to have their opinions, you must expect them to have opinions that are different from yours,” he observed.