Charles and I are two grandparents who guard our perspective on life. While we haven't experienced the tragedies that some people have experienced in this life to date, we've had just as many head-aches and concerns and in many ways, life has been good, but not easy. We look to God for everything, do not believe in coincidences, (but "God-incidences").... and some people would call us naive in that respect. Maybe we are but we don't see it that way where spiritual matters are concerned. This thinking isn't new either. Our marriage is 40 years young and so is our perspective on spiritual things... at least 40 years, so I think we aren't naive there.Boating is different. We fit solidly in the "naive" category.
The people around us on this dock have been doing this for most of their adult life and several spent their childhood on this lake. After years, they've finally caught on. Not Charles and me. We just "jumped in" (no pun intended) at age 55 with a little brown boat that is now a flower planter.... It shows how much we didn't know about buying a runabout. Purchased the deck boat a year later @ age 56 and 57. After we found ourselves with two oars paddling our way back across the lake when the motor quit two summers ago, we heard the age-old dock-worn sentiments:
"The happiest day in a man's life is the day he buys his first boat. The second happiest day is the day he sells it."
and
Acronym for BOAT:
Bring
On
Another
Thousand
Both fit like a glove.
Walking through the marina yesterday, our friend and neighbor Vern commented to Charles that our deck boat is "settling in the water".... Nah... don't you mean FLOATING in the water? "No. It's sinking."
Long story short, we took a look and sure nuf, this thing has been taking on water for months. THAT'S normal we've learned, and that's the reason it has a bilge pump to pump the water out - they ALL do.... however, our bilge quit working and sure enough we're sinking just like the man said.
So.... at midnight last night Charles is out in 19 degree weather hooking up a new submersible pump to pump the water out of the hull (deck boats have solid hulls and are very heavy - pontoon boats have two or three bullet shaped hollow aluminum pontoons underneath).
All I can say is that God has just LOOKED AFTER US with this HOUSEboat. We've had no suprises.... EXCEPT when we drop valuable things in the lake (like the bottom of my vacuum cleaner and I'm still waiting on the part) and measure to see how deep it is and we're sitting on 105 feet of water.
We're doing nearly the unthinkable to start boating at our age.
Life is an adventure!
