#93. or, about a boat

  It's raining again off and on here. I'm two long days from being done seeding. I had really hoped to be finished before the tenth but i'm getting a little doubtful that's going to happen now. There's showers forecast, off and on, through the rest of the week and as wet as it is now, i'm going to need two good days for it to dry enough just to get back on the field. Guess we'll see what happens. I've got cows to take to pasture and a truck in the shop to paint, so i guess i can work on that.

  I like the rain. Rain is a good thing. I'm not a big fan of working out in it though.

  It stopped raining for a bit after lunch and i started work on the rock wall flower bed, then it started again so i went and sat in the shed, hoping it would pass. Luckily, or maybe good planning, my beer cooler is in the shed. I keep a few emergency cigars in there as well, so i dug out my lawn chair, propped open the door, had a beer and a cigar, while i watched it drizzle.......and i though about holidays in the rain.

  When i was a kid, we just about always went on holidays with my uncle. He's only about  six years or so older than i am. My mom and dad, my brother and myself, and my uncle. Five of us squished into a eight foot camper. This wasn't so bad when my brother and i were a little younger but when i got to be about sixteen, with my brother two years behind, it could get to be rather tight quarters.

  Now we used to have a boat. Really, it was only a boat in the loosest sense of the term. It was boat shaped.  It had what appeared to be a decently large outboard motor clamped to the back. It had seats and a steering wheel, and it was on a trailer. Except this was only a poor excuse for a boat. Of the times that we used that boat, we had to row or be towed off the lake more times than we were able to look, bad-ass cool, driving up to the dock. Rest assured, if people are lining up on the dock as you come to shore, your boat on the end of a rope, it's not to check out the guys trying to look cool in it.

  The previous owner, for some reason painted the trailer bright blue. Blue is nice but if your boat is bright red, it's hard not to hear circus music playing in your head at the boat launch. The steering was the old cable and pulley system and it was inevitable that if you tried to pull a water skier, all the turning would cause a cable to jump off or a pulley to pull out of the wall, making it impossible to steer. I tried to make the motor run. Sometimes it would, sometimes it would just die. One time at the lake, because we had limited supplies, i  made a temporary starter bushing from the tin of a beer can to try keep it going. It was terribly unreliable. Really, the best thing about that boat were the seats. Somebody had done a fine job upholstering them.

  The only time you could look cool in that boat is if you put it in the water, rowed over to the dock and tied it off. Then, busied yourself looking impressive doing boaty things like stowing gear and tying knots in ropes.

  So, we were on holidays, in the rain, with my uncle, and the boat. (see how this all ties together.) We were on holidays in the rain and for some reason the boat runs perfect. The steering is hanging on and seats look awesome. (the seats never ever let me down!) Not to be deterred by the rain, we decided to take advantage of the boat actually running and go water skiing. I was driving the boat but because of the rain in my eyes, i had to wear my sunglasses. My brother is hunched in the back of the boat spotting and trying to keep warm and my uncle is skiing.....in a full yellow rain suit to keep from getting wet. At least i think that's why we was wearing it?

  I can only imagine, as we roared around the lake, people huddled in their trailers to stay dry, wiping the fog from their windows, to look out onto the water to see the guy driving the red boat in sunglasses, pulling a man sized banana across the lake on water skis in the rain. That those, are some pretty awesome dudes!

  .............at least we had the lake all to ourselves.