The Christening

[Riley Smith]

You cannot view this attachment.

Recently I ran across some floppy discs in an old desk in the Labrot House. Yes, I KNOW they're basically defunct but what was ON them was a few dozen pictures. From 20 years ago. Having no way to get TO the data prompted me to order a floppy reader ($15) from Amazon, and I've been combing ancient pictures and articles. The recent post about B.E.E.R. was one of those and there are others. It's been fun seeing how young we once were in the old pictures. I found a couple of my ancient articles to the TSBB in all the data too. My how time flies.
 And in recognition of that, I thought I'd post the scene that came before. Before the boat, and the writing, before knowing many of you, with the Christening Ceremony we performed. The boat is brand new, only in the water once to check for leaks. I've never sailed a boat in my life in this picture. We chose Krebs Lake because it was in the DNA of this place and a perfect place if things went sideways the way I half expected them to.
  I don't remember what words we spoke upon that bow but I do remember giving her a taste of the bubbly. And I remember Sonya and I taking a good shot ourselves. As it turned out, the north wind we launched into wasn't exactly geared to make it the best launch available, but adventure called and it had to do. We paddled out a ways against the wind, and hoisted the sheet. And promptly ran into trouble with it hung up half-way up and then, yeah...we were sailing for the FIRST TIME. We had to get headway and then round up so I could get the sail all the way up, but when we did it was ON!
WHOOPIE!
I learned I had a lot to learn. First order is learn how to hoist the sail. We did a short sail and tacked a couple of times. Only one of our friends was there and an old man running around on the lake in a small shrimp boat. I couldn't keep the smile off my face. Yeah, it was a beginning. So I thought I'd raise a glass to a nice lady and think back how much she has meant to me all these years.
And the sailboat has been with us almost as long!

[Timm R Oday25]

Thank you for sharing the memory .Thinking back ,perhaps I should have stopped and taken a picture or two .