GOT BOAT?

To be honest, I have learned to value, well, not boredom exactly, but quiet, uneventful days and nights. I guess I never was one for a whole lot of excitement. And in my old age, I have learned the value of, well, boredom, or what passes for boredom for “other” people. Consequently, minor “disruptions” become events sometimes, and as long as no one gets hurt, it is OK.
I have always wanted a boat, sorta. Not enough to buy one, mind you, but if you have one and ask me to go out in it, just give me a minute to shut down the computer and I will be right there. Unless it is to go fishing, I can’t stand to kill anything with the exception of mosquitoes, fleas and TICKS! And I am working on making my peace with them…
They say possession is some important number of the law… guess it depends on what you are possessing, right? But we won’t get into that on this blog. Anyway, I briefly was in possession of a boat over the week-end. Just as we were about to sit down to dinner, a van pulled in my drive with a very upset young woman wrapped in a towel telling me something about a boat in my yard. Boat? In MY yard? What boat?

Long and short of it is – her husband’s boat popped off the hitch and came up into my yard! Now, I have 4 acres, and I know that is an area, not a length, but they are made up of about 8 lots side by side. That is a lot of roadside footage – lots of room to bounce a boat up out of the road and into my yard if that is what you decided to do. What I don’t understand is, this is the second something that has popped its hitch this month out front here. Neither trailer had any other means of securing it behind the truck other than being placed over the ball on the trailer hitch. Now, c’mon! Even I know better! It is a bumpy turtle back road out here! And this boat did not even have a strap on it! Geeeeeeeeeez! Did I mention the bald tires?

By the time I got back in the house to grab my camera, the husband had his truck up over the bank and was ONE INCH away from my baby trees trying to get his boat hitched back up. His wife and I stood and yelled and I held branches back out of the way as he maneuvered the truck and boat down off the bank and into the road. I could just see it falling off into the road.
Fortunately, it did not. The only victim was my bank and drainage ditch and some grass. Maybe his ego, I am not sure. He did not seem too happy about things, but then, I guess I would have been too embarrassed to be happy, too.
I had to be happy it did not hit one of our vehicles or anyone visiting and parked in our turn around – or go off into a vehicle on the other side of the road, injuring someone – or worse.