(Back From) On Walkabout

Bob Muggleston, seen here at his second gig as a canvasmaker, is back at the helm of Points East. Photo by Robert Ramsdell

May 2023

By Bob Muggleston

I just looked at my last editor’s log: May of 2021. Two years ago! While the OCD part of me loves the symmetry of leaving and returning in the same month (yes, it’s true . . . I’m back), another, incredulous, part wonders how it’s possible so much time has passed. Two years? Really? Where did the time go, and what have I been doing?!

The Urban Dictionary’s definition of “walkabout,” the term introduced to us by Paul Hogan in the 1986 movie “Crocodile Dundee,” is “A spontaneous journey through the wilderness of one’s choosing in an effort to satisfy one’s itchy feet, a need to be elsewhere, the craving for the open road, that space over the horizon.”

My departure from Points East didn’t start as a walkabout, but it kinda turned into one.

First things first: Yeah, well . . . I did go to another magazine. I mentioned this in my 2021 piece, so I should probably start there.

Have you ever been offered a job you knew wasn’t right, but you took it anyway? That’s what happened. At the time it seemed like pennies from heaven (more apt in publishing than you know), and because of this I allowed the fear of regret to trump common sense. Things didn’t work out. I joined, in short order, that phenomenon during the pandemic called The Great Resignation. I’m not blaming the pandemic, per se, but decisions at the time had a certain heightened awareness around them.

So what does a former boating magazine editor, frustrated with the state of his industry, choose as a follow-up act?

Marine canvas.

I’ve always been fascinated by this profession, and for years now, even before my dermatologist got involved, I’ve found myself when outdoors seeking that secret, shady spot. It’s not that I don’t love being outside. I just don’t enjoy feeling like a piece of bacon. So, what started out as me filling in for staff who were sick with COVID-19 has turned into a full-time gig. Every day in the summer here in Connecticut I’m on boats between New Haven and New London installing Biminis, dodgers and cockpit enclosures. In the winter I’m behind an industrial sewing machine, fixing stuff. It’s a seven-person shop where things are frigging bonkers – the canvas industry has fewer and fewer players in it, and you might have noticed that a lot of people turned to boating in the last two years – but I really enjoy it. Regardless of what happens, I’ll take the skills I’m learning forward and apply them to both the boats I have now and the ones still yet in my future. In fact, I like what I’m doing at the shop so much that I’m keeping that job while also doing this one (cue the nervous breakdown).

It occurs to me that some folks might be new to the magazine, or not remember me, so I’ll give you a brief bio specifically related to Points East. I was here previously for about seven years, five of those as an associate editor under Nim Marsh, and two as editor. I live in Deep River, Connecticut, and I’m married and have a son in high school and a daughter in middle school. I have a fleet of small boats – we call the apple orchard they’re parked in “The Anderson Lane Yacht Club” – and I’m a member of a small, community-based yacht club on the Connecticut River where I’m actively involved. During the pandemic I became obsessed with mountain biking, and once pandemic restrictions lifted enough to make things less crazy, I got back into skiing.

And now I’m here at Points East, which to me has the most amazing community around it of any periodical. Putting this issue together has been such a hoot. I feel like I never left, and that’s a good thing. It’s been great getting back in touch with people and feeling like they’re genuinely happy to be re-connected. We’ll see how long this lasts when I start asking them for stuff and harassing them about deadlines.

Bottom line: I’m back from being on walkabout.

It’s good to be home.