Downtown, where the button-downs run things, life gets a tad complex.
All those gut-knotted head cases give off stress like flowers pumping out pollen, and everyone's sneezing from everyone else's bad karma.
But out on the islands of the Delaware River, life tends to be simple: You've got water and you've got solitude, quiet and cleansing.
There are 62 islands in the long river, each with a story: Myths of Spanish gold and Captain Kidd. True tales of white men cheating Native Americans, of murder plots and hangings. Bad-boy Quakers who sneaked off to rock refuges to gamble and duel. Slavers who sold Africans on islands to avoid New Jersey taxes.
These days, river folk will tell you, more and more weekend admirals and ahoy-boy dinghy masters are chewing through the Delaware chop, searching for a cool place to put in.
Islands possess a mythic lure - exotic Tahiti, remote Nova Scotia. In the Delaware, many of the islands are tiny rock dollops of bushy wilderness, pristine as when William Penn swashed his boot buckles in river splash. They invite exploration and tweak fantasy.
Downriver, latter-day Balboas flock to Block Island, a half-acre party rock near the mouth of the Schuylkill. During weekends, it's weighted with beer-sodden river revelers. On Block you'll find a tiny beach, a screaming riot of day lilies and the Grave of the Unknown Fella, a well-tended burial site marked by impatiens, a seagull feather and a plastic sign with the curious admonition: ``Have a fun day.''
A few might prefer noisy Little Tinicum, just beyond the runways at Philadelphia International Airport, where cormorants vie with Delta jets for air superiority, and where Pennsylvania flotsam and New Jersey junk wash up on a long, sweet beach loaded with eyeless carp, an ``Allentown Recycles'' plastic tub, and a Kmart store's worth of damp, discarded stuff.
Above Trenton, a green necklace of 49 tiny islands sits cooling in the water, offering utter isolation. On one, a hot dog guy sells refreshments to passing canoers. Near another, a flasher shows the world what he's got.
