Redart Workboats

Last Friday, when the thermometer hovered near 80 degrees, I took advantage of the warm sunshine and went on a little photo spree starting at a dock down Redart.

Before I arrived at this dock, I had pulled over on the side of the road about a quarter mile away to take pictures. I've been down here enough to know this particular dock is plastered with No Trespassing signs.  And who am I to argue with a sign, or at least so many signs?

(I might put up a little argument with one sign. But when the signs outnumber me and start giving me the hairy eyeball, I tend to back down. There's nothing worse than the hairy eyeball.  Where did that phrase come from anyway?)

Back to the topic at hand, in the car I hopped and drove slowly towards the multitude of No Trespassing signs that started to snicker the closer I came. As I approached the dock, a man crossed the road in front of me. Rolling down my window, I explained that I just wanted to take some pictures of the boats.   

"Well. I wondered what you were doin'," he said.

He had seen me a quarter of a mile away pulled over on the side of the road.

Desperately trying to get a picture legally.

Without trespassing.

After we went through the Mathews Checklist of Sizing Up a Stranger  (which includes discussion of family, length of time in the county, exact location of residence, what you do for a living, the maiden name of your maternal grandmother, and at least one bit of evidence over and above all that which puts the other party at ease once and for all), we launched into a discussion about these boats and about the gentleman himself. 

He's still trying to eke a  meager existence out of the water.  A little oystering and crab potting are all he's up to these days.

He's 70 years old.

70.

Seventy.

Seven. Tee.

It's hard enough for a younger person to survive in this fading industry. For a 70-year-old to still be at it is admirable, to say the least. Astonishing, if you want to know the truth. There's nothin' easy about workin' on the water.

Why I didn't get his picture is beyond me, although after he told me to go on down to the dock and take as many pictures as I wanted--any time I wanted--giddiness set in. So I neglected to take his picture in all my euphoria.

I plan to take him up on his generous offer again soon.  So maybe next time.

Next time I'll also be taunting those haughty No Trespassing signs.

Thanks for reading. Have a great weekend.

Three Things

Once again Thursday is upon us, and it's time to share three thoughts even if a person can't think of a single thing to say.

Signed,
That Person

I'll take a stab at it anyway.

1. Above is a seriously zoomed in shot of a boat docked down Redart. Several closer shots of this and other workboats were taken at the dock, but a gentleman there told me to drive down Thus and Such Lane for a better angle.  He was right about the better vantage point; only problem was to get that shot I would have to traipse across someone's back yard. I really wasn't in the mood to trespass traipse that day, so I sat meekly in my car on the state road and zoomed in.  (Those other shots from the dock will go up in the next few posts.)

2. My son is going to a party on Saturday that starts at 3 p.m. and ends at 11 p.m.  In 10th grade, if I had told my mother that I was going to a party for 8 hours, the answer would have been, "Not as long as I'm drawing a breath," or "Go ahead.  Make my day," as she polished her pistol.  Or something similar. (She didn't really have a pistol, but she did brandish a BB gun on occasion. Also a fly swatter.)

2b. It's important for me to note for social anthropologists' records, however, that in these times "party" is--or can be--defined as "a group of teens gathering at a parents' house, and the parents are at home, cognizant of the fact that teens are gathering, and generally aware of what they are doing. For the most part." It's a party even if only three or four people are gathered.

2c. Compare that to my definition of a party as a teen: House PAR-TAY, y'all! Mass numbers (as in waaaay more than 20) of teens (often from surrounding counties when word spread far enough) descended on a house or a yard or both. The parents who owned said house/yard were out of town--faaaar, far away--and had no earthly idea what was going on in their absence. The theme of these parties was very simple:  Reckless Abandon.

Note for the record: I never once held such an un-chaperoned party at my own house and only participated in about two of these in high school  (one of which was graduation night in 1982 at Alda's house in Port Haywood); and maybe two more during my summers home from college. I'd like to think I was a little less reckless than most. The fact that I'm still here, alive, contributes to that theory, which has been formed primarily by hindsight, perspective, old age, parenthood, and fear.

2d. Reconciling the past with the present is exceedingly difficult when parenting teenagers. The End.

3. It's supposed to get up to 75 degrees today!  I'm looking forward to a long run, as in more than six miles, to prepare for the 10K at the end of March. Never in a million years would I have guessed the words looking forward to a six + mile run would ever come from my mouth.

Now it's your turn.

Please share three thoughts. Tell me what's happening in your world.

Whatever you do, though, please don't tell me what teenagers are really doing these days. Let me live in my sheltered little county world for a while longer.

Serenity now.

Welcome to March.

Across the creek there is where the first picture was taken, from the back of that house.