Daring Rescue at Sea

Sunday was our "Second Annual Neighborhood Pontoon Party" and we all had high hopes for a day of fun. Like the fateful trip the passengers took on the Minnow, ours was to be a three-hour tour. (A three-hour tour.)

As you may recall on their voyage, "The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed..."  In our case, it began gently sprinkling and gradually turned into a light rain.  The weather didn't dampen our spirits though - largely because our spirits were in coolers.

Then...disaster!  Overboard and into the murky waters of Lake Wylie!  Tension was high.  Someone turned off the party music.  Our Skipper (brave and sure) maneuvered the behemoth boat around with precision and speed - which is difficult in a pontoon - and, just at the perfect moment, The Mate (a mighty sailing man) leaned far, far out over the water, reaching farther than he'd ever reached before. He finally grasped ...

...Keith's hat.  Waterlogged, but otherwise okay. 

The men were jubilant!  The Captain and The First Mate high fived each other.

The Captain and The First Mate

Music blared again, spirits lifted, the women danced, the men smiled.  And then...the unthinkable.  The angry wind whipped and Mary's yellow ball cap was airborne.

If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the yellow cap would be lost.  (The yellow cap would be lost.)  The men ignored Sweet Mary's protests and, with a battle cry of "No hats left behind," they sprang into action.  Again, for the second time in mere minutes, they executed another successful rescue mission.

Jerry, the HERO!

The big reach

                 










During the debriefing, someone remembered hearing Jerry remark, "We train for this all year but we hope we never have to use it."

If any ship I'm ever on "sets ground on an unchartered desert isle," I could do worse than having these guys with me.    

Manners

"Ain't no excuse for bad manners," my daddy would say. He would say that.... he has made a bunch of pronouncements like that since he arrived three days ago. Right now he is sitting in my dining room. I am hiding in the basement.

"Who's gonna tell Charlie about the hat?" my husband whispers to me. I have zero idea what he's referring to, so I just adopt my normal puzzled look and he takes the lead, walks in and says to my father (who has just spent two long days riding in his car to get to our house), "Charlie, you have to remove your hat at the supper table. My father was adamant about this rule: Shirts have to be worn, hats have to be off at the table." 

"Shirt?" Dad says in response. "Your Dad made you wear a shirt to the table?"

The question bouncing like a tennis ball around my mind is this: Which one of these guys is ruder, the one who wears the cowboy hat to the dinner table, or the host who tells him to take it off?