INDIAN SUMMER, ANYONE?

Okay everybody! There are still a few more months of boating! All of October and all of November, or at least most of it!

Boating in the Fall can be awesome. Number one, we can catch some fabulous hot sunny days — also known as an Indian Summer. Let’s hope we have one between Thursday afternoon and Monday Morning!

The Upper Bay is teaming with great fishing action from the Flats to the Big Bridge. Those lunkers are still out there. Some of those big Stripers even come up into the secondaries and can surprise you when you least expect it.

When it is cool and brisk out on the rivers, a tour of the local waters with some hot chocolate (spiked or unspiked) is always a nice boating
day. The leaves have turned, a few are floating on the river, the ducks are around, and every once in a while, you can hear a little gunfire to break up the monotony! As the Fall wears on and the days are much shorter, there can still be some good action! Some of this action may even be out enjoying a Turkey Run, Lighted Boat Parade, or watching Santa attempt waterskiing! If we can’t get Santa up on skis, at least take him tubing! Let’s not give up any time early. One New Year’s Eve, I was at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, out on my boat, watching the fireworks. It was 60 degrees! So Happy Fall, Everyone, we made it through another amazing Summer!

A LESSON IN TIMING

The other day I was late for a very important meeting.

I was in the middle of a short haul that had run late, which made me late! (Thanks for waiting for me, Brenda, Ryan, and Jesse)

But it reminded me of Joe Bernard from Wye River Crab Seasoning and a lesson he taught me when I was 18 years old. I was working as a sales person for Wye River Crab Seasoning at the time. I was given a new van filled with product, and I drove from the seafood store to the grocery store, stocking and selling the various products. A few months in, I was asked to come to the main office down in Queenstown, and I showed up for my meeting 5 minutes late. Joe Bernard explained to me he was the head buyer for all of Safeway and saw sales people all day, every day on the half hour. If any of those sales people showed up late, they would set his whole day off! So, he would send them home!

He sent me home that day and told me to come back tomorrow.

Since then, and except for very rare occasions, I have tried to be on time all the time.

Thank you, Joe Bernard, for the lesson!

An Adventure with Pontius the Parrot

Parrots on boats can be very cool or very uncool! They are loud, nasty, cursing, squawking, hideous little creatures (sometimes).

And then there is Pontius.

Pontius is one of the cleverest I have ever seen. So, when Pontius’ owner shared his surveillance camera recordings with me, I wasn’t surprised. Late one night, a burglar climbed over a marina fence, walked down the docks, and broke into a huge houseboat. While he was sneaking around, he heard a voice say, “Jesus is watching you.”

He looked around and saw nothing.

He kept on creeping and again heard, “Jesus is watching you.” In a dark corner, he saw a cage with a
parrot inside. The burglar asked the parrot, “Was it you who said Jesus is watching me” The parrot replied,
“Yes.”

Relieved, the burglar asked, “What is your name?” The parrot said, “Pontius.” The burglar said, “That’s a stupid name for a parrot. What idiot named you Pontius?”

The parrot answered, “The same idiot that named the rottweiler Jesus.”

October 2022