Meanwhile, all
around me, people at different tables were cooing over Square Knots and Figure-Eight
knots. A large group of women at one
table was clucking like a bunch of hens about how good the Clove Hitch was for
tying fenders to lifelines. I could hardly believe it. Who has to be shown how to tie fenders to
lifelines for goodness' sake? Where have they been all their sailing lives? Who has to be shown how to tie a Clove Hitch?
And to top it all, they were praising their lady instructor as if she'd just
discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls or figured out that the earth goes round the
sun and not vice- versa, as they had obviously previously been given to imagine.
Of course, I
should have been manning the Running-Emergency-Bowline table, but there wasn't
one because it isn't an official knot. I had been practicing the Running-Emergency-Bowline
knot for weeks, ever since I saw it demonstrated at a Coast Guard Auxiliary
meeting. It's not a proper bowline,
actually, but it looks very much like one at first glance. What it's all about is this: When someone falls off the end of a pier and
seems to be drowning, you run as fast as you can along the pier toward
him. You run with a coil of rope in your
hand, and as you run you give two deft flicks of the wrist and Voila! the end of the rope suddenly has a loop that
will not come undone, a sort of instant bowline. The drowner simply inserts
himself into the loop, leaving you, the daring, gallant rescuer, to drag him
ashore.
It looks
quite magical and manly when you do it, even when you're not running down a
pier, and I'm sure a lot of ladies would be attracted to a man who can do the Running
Emergency Bowline, if ever the stupid club would allow a man to show them how
he does it.
If ever I
become a club commodore, I'll make sure there's a Running-Emergency-Bowline
knot table on Knot Night. Never mind the
dumb Sheet Bend. Never mind the wimpy Clove Hitch. Manly knots is what we want. Knots that make
the ladies swoon. Even if they aren't real knots.
Today's
Thought
I say that I
am myself, but what is this Self of mineBut a knot in the tangled skein of things where chance and chance combine?
— Don Marquis, Heir and Serf
Tailpiece
Two little
American Indian boys were sitting by the entrance to the reservation with a
small puppy when a white man in a priest's robe drove up in an SUV."What are you doing?" he asked.
"We're telling stories," said one boy. "Whoever tells the biggest lie gets to keep the dog."
"That's terrible," said the priest. "When I was a little boy I never told lies."
The boys looked at each other with big round eyes. Finally, one said: "Okay. That's it. The white man wins the dog."
(Drop by every
Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)
1 comment:
When I was a boy we did not tell lies either. We told whoppers. A whopper is a lie that we told for the truth, but everyone knew it was a lie.
Post a Comment