Sometimes these are famous people; others are known in a narrow field of endeavor, but no less deserving of some recognition. Some are not well-known at all. Each brought some point of grace, favor, industry, creativity, or cleverness to our world and left it a better place. That's true even when their gift was shared with only one or two others.
The Coracle began a series in the summer of 2012 that posted every Friday for a year and highlighted the life of a particular individual. A second series began in the fall of 2014. Below is a list of the people profiled thus far with a link to their stories. They really are worth getting to know.
As we have only four left, here's a look at what's been done over the past few years. While I will write occasionally of some personality should he or she occur to me, the regular Friday biographies will conclude on September 25th.
Series One:
Howlin' Wolf, blues musician and rock and roll influence
Bob Manry, small boat sailor and adventurer
Yukio Mishima, Japanese novelist, playwright, short story and film writer, and military adventurist
Jacques Cousteau
Duke Kahanamoku, the father of surfing
William Augustus Muelenberg, unlikely innovator of the 19th century Episcopal Church
Jane Scott, rock and roll's grandmother
Paul Bigsby, guitar innovator and motorcycle mechanic
Max Perkins, mandarin of the 20th century American novel
James Harold Flye, the quintessential Episcopal priest
Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, Bible translator
Alan Watts, Episcopal priest and Buddhist educator
Charlie Parker, jazz innovator
Thomas Merton, monk, hermit, and writer
Rell Sunn, The queen Of Makaha
Raimundo Panikkar, priest, philosopher, and chemist
Lou Kallie, jazz drummer and saloon keeper
Barbara Crafton, Episcopal priest and homilest
Jim Steranko, comic book artist and innovator
Art Pepper, jazz survivor
Bruce McLaren, racing car driver and builder
Cliff Young, farmer and ultra-marathoner
Sun Ra, space case
Matti Moosa, scholar, translator, deacon, and mentor
Debbie Harry, New Wave chanteuse
The Hippie Who Sat Next to Me at Tony Mart's
James Magner, poet and mentor
Swein MacDonald, Highland seer
Waldo Peirce, artist and inspiration
John Fitch, racer and innovator
Malcolm Lowery, poet and miserable human being
Max Hardberger, modern-day pirate
Richard Race, landscaper
Hiram Bingham, historian, explorer, discoverer
John Watanabe, failed kamikaze pilot and bishop
Kathleen Kenyon, archaeologist
Captain Sir Richard Burton, fencer, explorer, translator, soldier, diplomat, and madman
James Agee, screenwriter and novelist
Madeleine L'Engle, writer and dinner guest
Robert Crisp and Tommy MacPherson, unlikely war heroes
Peter Scott, cat burglar
Wilfred Thesiger, the last of the explorers
Peter Marshall, preacher and chaplain to the U.S. Senate
Dingo, Mexican entrepreneur
Bruce Brown, documentarian and surfer
Joshua Slocum, solo circumnavigator
Mr. A, soul surfer
Thomas Edward Lawrence, archaeologist and adventurer
"Cool Breeze" and the Lyrical Gangster, an islander and his boat
Series Two:
The Waterman, just some guy
Harvey Pekar, unlikely folk hero
Bernard Moitessier, Zen sailor
"Holy" Grail, old school D.I.
Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, industrial artist
Gerry Lopez, surf pioneer
Ted, Ricardo, and Curtis, three men I knew
Carol Kaye, ubiquitous bassist of pop
Ernie Anderson, Ghoulardi
Patti Smith, she does the rock, herself
Jacques Piccard, explorer of two atmospheres
B. Traven, international man of mystery
Carroll Shelby, Texas cobra
Lucien Aigner, he captured the world
Frank Miller, re-newer of myth
Kiyoshi Aki, he knew how to fall
Bob Simmons, hydrodynamisist
Igumen The Iconographer
Anita O'Day, jazz singer
Alfred Pierce Reck, the proto-editor
D.A. Levy and the Cleveland Beats, poets
The Voices on the Radio: Freed, Franklin, and Dee
Eugenie Clark, the shark lady
Dick Dale, king of the surf guitar
Dorothy Fields, Broadway and Hollywood's favorite lyricist
Hart Crane, the voice of new poetics
Rocky Colavito, baseball idol of nine-year-old boys
Bruce Meyers, fiberglass artist and professional dust-eater
Doc Pomus, blues mouth