Twenty five years ago, I knew this guy I’ll call Sam.  Yes, I am hiding names to protect the innocent.  Sam and I worked together and we became fast friends.  There is no one I can think of that could get me laughing the way Sam could.

Sam was a boat person.  He bought motor boats, fixed them up, and trailered them all over the place.  The thing is, most of the boats that Sam bought were fixer uppers so there was always some issue with a motor not running or something else mechanical not working.  Let me say here that boat covers and bilge pumps can be a wonderful thing.  Sometimes Sam’s boats would sink or get swamped from excessive rain.

There was one particular event where Sam had borrowed some of my tools, wrenches mostly.  He had the boat docked at a local marina.  Well, Sam was not good at returning things once they were borrowed.  After many weeks of pestering Sam to return my tools, I went down to his boat to get them myself.  It had been raining so of course the boat was swamped.  I jumped into two and a half feet of water and starting looking for my tools on the storage areas under the gunnels (sides of the boat).

Sure enough, there they were, all nice and rusty.

Sam and I parted ways, but not before I had given him some choice nick names like Captain Ahab (commandeering my tools) and Captain Nemo (for his boats being under the water all the time).  I even suggested he get a periscope installed so he could see where he was going.

Roll the clock ahead twenty years and I once again ran into my old friend Sam.  He was working with a company I had contacted to outsource some work for the company that I work for.  After all those years, I just could not help but to inquire of him if he had been doing any boating and more specifically if he had ever installed a periscope!

Twenty five years have changed Sam a bit.  He’s more reliable and I don’t lend him my tools.  He is still excellent at his job.  And he has a new girlfriend and seems to be doing quite well.  And he and the girlfriend are in the process of buying a new boat.

I certainly hope this boat floats.  But I couldn’t resist the old joke just one more time, telling him that Amazon had 10x periscopes on sale. 

There’s no moral to this story, except maybe that water and boats are great as long as the water stays outside of the boat.  So if I ever see your boat sunk or swamped, don’t be surprised if I call you Captain Nemo and suggest you install a periscope.