A sad day and a happy day

It’s sad because something has ended. My very close friend, Don, was my inspiration to buy a fishing boat. He always shared the operation of his boat. He always made me feel welcome to use his boat at any time (except for that first week when he was in Oregon see “Don buys a boat”). I have often written about Don’s boat as a disaster, but it was always an enjoyable experience. Many were less than successful, but none of them were anything less than fun. Being with Don made any fishing trip the highlight of the day or week.

Fishing with Don isn’t ending. We had several trips already this spring and summer. However, most of them were shake down trips. This is the annual practice of bringing a buddy to help discover what you screwed up while trying to work on your boat to prepare for fishing season. The buddy can run the kanewter valve while you try to repair the bat stretcher. There was always something not functioning correctly and this was often because we are the furthest thing from competent mechanics since the invention of a floating log raft.

This spring the shakedowns were to make sure Don’s boat was functioning safely so he might sell it to someone and they would not die using his boat. Why multiple shake downs trips? Let’s just leave that to your imaginations. If you can’t imagine anything see any of the posts “Adventures in Don’s, Rick's, or Paul’s boats”

Why the “happy day”? The old adage is the happiest days in a fisherman’s life are the day he buys a boat and the day he sells it. Boats are a pain in the ass. Something is always breaking. No matter how careful you may be some part works loose, breaks, needs replacement etc.  In the 13 years I have owned my boat I have replaced the trolling motor, the trolling motor lift rope (3 times), the fish locator, locator transducer ( twice), 2 anchors, four anchor ropes, both batteries (3 times), the winch strap, the trailer hitch, the trailer tires, the trailer lights (twice), the fuel tank, the fuel connectors, the wheel bearings (twice), rewired the running lights,etc., etc, etc. There is almost no paint left on the sides and there are more dents than found on a Tobin's Pizza delivery car.

With all of us owning some type of watercraft, Don simply wasn’t using his much. He decided it was too big an investment to keep in his garage to store lawn chairs in the winter. (He really does that. One winter I offered to let him keep it in my garage while we were in Texas, so his truck wouldn’t have to sit out. He declined because he had no other place to store his lawn furniture.)  

So he put it on the market this spring. By the way, “On the market” for a guy from Dupo means he put a For Sale sign on it and set it in his yard. More precisely, since the town of Normal prohibits putting something for sale in your yard, Don pulled it out in his driveway whenever anyone in the neighborhood was having a garage sale. I don’t believe he helped pay for the neighbor’s garage sale ad, but he isn’t cheap. He put up a regular "store bought" sign, not the typical southern Illinois “4Sell” version written in crayon on a pizza box.

After multiple weeks of garage sale advertising, he found a buyer in Kentucky! Don’t ask me to explain that, but I suppose there is some red neck communications pipeline (like the internet, but without typing, or words)

So for Don it is a happy day and for me a sad one.

Thanks buddy for including me in your happy days