TR: 911, a day at the beach

It's that time of year. The leaves are mostly off the trees, the sky is
half filled with low, scudding clouds, the air is brisk, and the birds are
heading south. As a newly liberated bachelor I return to old habits, old
haunts. I've spent one day of each of the last three weekends at the
Horicon Marsh state and national wildlife refuges, looking with a renewed
keen interest at staggering numbers of Canada geese and a bewildering
profusion of ducks.....big ducks, little ducks.....dabbing ducks and diving
ducks.....true ducks and duck-like allies. Huge rafts of coots (though
nothing like what they were during the madcap peak years in the 80s), armies
of teal, green-winged and blue, flotillas of mallards, and odd and
unpredictable contingents of widgeon, pintails, ruddies, redheads, ring
necks, pied billed grebes. Shovellers are everywhere, a pair here, two or
three pair there. There are battalions of sandhill cranes. I've missed the
new (relatively) resident breeding pelicans by a week or so.....no problem,
they'll be back next year. Squadrons of ring-billed gulls fill the air
incessantly, a constant distraction. They are easy to identify and dismiss
at half a mile with the spotting scope, but each identification eats
precious seconds in the search for juicier prey. Great blue herons and
great egrets abound. Black crowned night herons, usually a rare treat (not
because they aren't there in significant number, but because they are shy
and nocturnal), are so plentiful along highway 49 (which cuts a three mile
swath through the northern end of the marsh) that one soon learns to tick
them off and continue searching for juicier prey. A few procrastinating
woodies remain, but most have already headed down. Over here, a moor
hen.....over there, a great horned owl.....huh?.....in the middle of the
marsh?.....well, he's confused, not me.....here and there a lone pair of
canvasbacks. A surprisingly large flock of killdeer zoom in and take
several turns around the large pond at the Interpretive Center. Moving,
fast, low and erratically, they would have been tricky to identify.....if
they had kept their mouths shut. Red-wing black birds, brown headed
cowbirds, grackles and starlings in numbers that are truly
staggering.....flocks that sometimes take nearly half an hour to fly over.
Numbers that hint at what the passenger pigeons may have been like.

Early in the morning, starting before first light, the geese begin to leave
the march to feed in surrounding fields.....they fan out for
twenty.....thirty.....forty miles in every direction. Depending on
conditions, they may start to return to the marsh by early afternoon, but
the greatest number typically come back toward sunset. Sometimes great
numbers will stay out all night. When the population reaches its annual
peak, typically just about now....but it varies from year to year....there
may be as many as three hundred thousand geese in the march at one time.
Back in the 80s, when the Wisconsin DNR (and everybody else in the state)
realized that their intensive program to save the Canada goose by captive
breeding at the marsh (surprisingly, perhaps, not historically a favorite
stopover for them) had been a stunning (literally.....ask the local farmers)
success, there might be as many as seven hundred thousand. Some days, but
not many, there are brief quiet periods around midday when not a bird is in
sight in the air. The pounds (those few that can be seen from vantage
points open to the public in this immense, 32,000 acre cattail marsh) will
still be full, but the noise level is considerably reduced and the activity
is down to a crawl.

It is at times like this that one has time to reflect that sheer numbers
notwithstanding, this IS a marsh, with an average open water depth of some
six to eighteen inches, and therefore many of the bay ducks get short
shrift. No scaup here, no golden-eyes, no hoodies and few of the other
mergansers. No horned grebes, no buffleheads. One has to go elsewhere to
find these.....at least in significant numbers. So, that's what I did
yesterday.

In fact, I've made several trips to the Lake Michigan shore in the past
couple of weeks. Most of what I remember as choice locations were nearly or
entirely deserted. A few odd mallards here and there. Coots. Actually, a
surprising number of coots.....more than I remember on the big lake. Not
even a cormorant to break the gull monotony. Shore birds are mostly gone.

Yesterday was better. A very light offshore breeze.....maybe three to five
knots out of the northwest.....kept the waves down and the temperature in
the warm late autumn sun comfortable. Still not a lot of birds inside the
breakwater (one horned grebe, soon chased off by the ever present boats
leaving and returning), around the harbor, or at McKinley marina, but I got
to chatting with a couple of people and, between bouts of downtown Milwaukee
architectural history and the shameful state of elementary and secondary
education (none of which I could find reason to disagree with) I got the
lowdown on what was alleged to be primo bird watching just a mile or so
north along the shore at Lakeview Park. Cool. Have to go check that out.
Meanwhile, walking out along the breakwater and then again on the bay back
in after getting the tip, I slowly saunter along with my eyes on the water.
Fish. BIG fish! LOTS of BIG fish! Not all of the erstwhile spawners make
it up the streams (not that it matters.....they never succeed in these
waters anyway). Many of them end up milling about in various places along
the shore, especially in calm refuges like the harbors and marinas, till
they die (in the case of the salmon and the older trout) or get bored or
something and eventually head back out to deeper water (in the case of the
steelhead, the browns and the occasional brookies in their prime). The last
roundup, as it were, is rapidly approaching. Two weeks ago say combat
fishing conditions in all the popular spots all along the lakeshore. The
mouth of the Pike River in Kenosha, for example, had a rod (or two) every
three feet for a hundred yards along the lake shore on either side, and up
the stream to the bridge, a couple hundred yards from the beach. The Root
River in Racine would have been the same, only more so. I know this despite
the fact that I haven't been there if fifteen years or so. I haven't been
there in fifteen years or so because I know what its like. No same person
would eat anything that had spent as much as a minute in either of these
streams. Fish that come out of these waters can be identified by their
smell upwind against a strong breeze. People eat thousands of these toxic
waste receptacles each year. I tasted one, once, not knowing where it had
come from. Spit it out immediately. This was at my favorite aunt's house
(her son had caught it and brought it home). Normally, I do not spit out
things onto my plate at my favorite aunt's house. Normally, I do not spit
out food.

Yesterday, the wardens checking licenses (three of them, wearing the now
regulation sidearms and vests) very nearly outnumbered the fishermen (no
women) on a half mile of jetty. As I got back to the beginning of the jetty
at the marina, I saw a young man trying to wrestle in a fairly large
salmon.....fifteen pounds or more (not counting the mold).....that was
putting up a surprisingly good fight for one so ragged and bedraggled. Not
surprisingly, it turned out to be foul hooked at the anal vent. Oh well,
there would have been no point in keeping it anyway.....unless one were
planning to put in a late season crop of corn and beans ala Squanto.

So, finally, I made it over to Lakeside Park. I didn't bother going to look
up the ravines (as advised) for all the woodland species my loquacious
benefactor mentioned. That's for another time......spring.....during the
riotous inbound migrations. This day, the shore looks MUCH more promising.
All I can identify without magnification as I walk from the road across the
lawn to the edge of the riprap along the shore is the ubiquitous and
expected geese, mallards, and a few coots.....the latter are once again a
surprise.....this time because it is a wide open and unprotected shoreline
here. Not at all the kind of thing they like. But as I sit down and set up
the scope I can see that there are things off shore that are too small and
too bright to be mallards or coots. Things are looking up!

Mallards are cosmopolitan birds, in both senses of the word. They are
urbane and increasingly urban. They adapt well to the presence of humans.
Even in large shallow waters where the pickings are good throughout, they
will tend to stick closer to shore than others simply because they are not
as shy. One needn't bother to look closely through the flocks around the
shoreline or, especially, on the beach.....they're all mallards. If it
weren't for the fantastic iridescent green (sometimes blue.....sometimes
black.....depending on how the light hits them) feathers on the drakes'
heads, they would be a complete bore.....a nuisance. The coots are a bit
shyer but becoming less and less so.....they'll generally be in close as
well, near the mallards. Loot out at the little black dots in the distance.
That's where the fun stuff is happening.

Sure enough, when I get the scope set up (I was using the cumbersome
tripod.....the gunstock is for places where I'll be moving a lot and sitting
or lying prone. Besides, Milwaukee is NOT a good place to be walking around
with ANYTHING on a gunstock!), the first thing I spot, about two hundred
yards out is a line of six pied-billed grebes. Interesting. Usually, I see
a single bird of a pair hanging out together. There may be a few spaced out
widely on a larger pond or lake. Half a dozen swimming in line is unusual.
A flash of white attracts my attention off to the left, to the north.
Spotting a small group of something that appears and disappears at intervals
through the binoculars, I pan across with the scope and see a head with a
large white spot on the cheek! Ah! It's got to be a hoody or a bufflehead.
36x is good. Hoody. No doubt about it. There's about a dozen of them out
there, males and females. In the next five minutes, panning slowly from
left to right, from north to south, I see a few more.....dozens
more.....scores more! Three hundred yards to the south there must be a
hundred of them spread out over half an acre or so. Suddenly, as I watch,
thirty more drop in from the left. And then another twenty.
Hm.....something is kicking them up over there. Probably a boat. Pan left.

Yep, there's a sailbo.....wow! Fifty more birds zoom across. I follow with
the binoculars as my spidey sense suddenly starts to tingle. The birds
land. Now, what the.....bam! fifty more! I scan quickly to the
left.....tingle.....tingle....what the.....

The boat! I quickly train the binoculars on it. A thirty foot sailboat
with a single mast, carrying only the foresail. What's wrong with this
pic.....too close to shore.....WAY too clo.....lurch! Lurch? Wind is
offshore at a steady three knots or so and mostly blocked by tall bluffs a
quarter mile back from the shore. Boats DON'T lurch under such conditions.
Son of a bitch! The morons have run it aground! Each small wavelet that
hits the boat causes it to heel to starboard, the spar slams to the side and
the cables smack against the mast resulting in a pair of clangs that I heard
without the sound fully registering till I turned and looked closely. I
missed seeing the grounding by a few seconds.

O.k., THIS is going to get interesting!

The surf zone, the zone in which the bottom feels the effect of waves
passing over it, includes everything where the water is less than two or two
and a half times (I forget exactly.....it's been a long time since I
consulted Bascom) the wavelength measure from crest to crest. This is a bad
place to sail through. I'm not a sailor. You don't have to be a sailor to
know this is a bad place to sail through. The other edge, ore or less, of
the surf zone is easy to identify; this is the break where the churned brown
water meets the clear, deeper, blue water. On this day, in this place, with
wavelets maxing out at about a foot high and three feet apart, the break is
about three hundred yards from shore. This is a shallow, rocky beach.
These guys were cruising along shore, about half way into the surf
zone.....a hundred fifty yards out. Stupid. Very stupid. Noting this
subconsciously was what lifted my hackles as I first noted the boat while
intent on the birds.

There are at least two people on the boat.....continued observation quickly
confirms that there are just two (assuming no one is lying dead or
unconscious in the cabin), two males somewhere in their late twenties to
maybe forty or so. The bald guy (well, not completely bald, but he shaves
what little hair he's got left.......36x is GOOD!) is hastily trying to drop
the sail, while the one who looks like Tommy Chong is wrestling the
tiller.....and having a bad time with it; the rudder is slamming against the
bottom each time to boat dips. I can only guess, but it looks to me like in
the brief intervals when the boat is upright there is about a foot of
freeboard below what I assume is ordinarily the waterline. These guys are
hung up good and solid. I watch for about twenty minutes while they work,
abortively, to free themselves while also trying to keep from getting
themselves smashed in the rocking boat. Prop wash clearly shows when they
are trying to move forward, and it's absence presumably means they are
trying to back off. Neither budges the boat at all. As mentioned
previously, the wavelets are small, but with the boat already heeled over
the larger or them sometimes cause it to list far enough that water
threatens to come over the gunwales. O.k., this isn't going to work and if
they keep ****ing around long enough one or both of these guys is going to
get hurt. Time to take action.

I know who to call (I used to work for them) but I don't know the number
and it wouldn't be wise to leave the scene. So, I call the Milwaukee police
department. Surprise, the Milwaukee police department (like pretty much
every other ****ing organization in the world these days, doesn't answer
their phone. Instead, I get what promises to be a long recorded message, in
English AND Spanish, detailing an endless list of incomprehensible options.
**** it. I hang up. Only one option left. I decide to make my first ever
911 call. Luckily, I've recently memorized the number! Blessedly, someone
actually picks up the phone! I outline the problem. The nice lady asks me
if I know where I am. Surprised, but eager to please, I answer that I am
indeed aware of my location on the planet. O.k., she says, I'll connect you
directly to the Coast Guard. Good idea, thinks I.

Petty Officer somebody or other answers the phone. The nice lady informs
the petty officer that she is with the Milwaukee County sheriff's department
and she has someone on the line with an emergency. She then tells me to go
ahead. It IS a bit of an emergency, I muse, and you COULD have just shut
the **** up and let me talk to the nice young petty officer......but I don't
say this because I know that she now has my phone number and that there is a
representative of the Department of Homeland Hallucinations listening at the
other end.

I explain the problem. He asks a couple of questions. Where are you? I'm
on Lincoln Memorial Drive, north of Bradford Beach, directly in front of
Lakeview Park, about a quarter mile south of the water treatment plant.
O.k. What kind of boat. Single masted sailboat, about thirty feet long.
White hull, carrying no sail at the moment. Two people aboard. How far is
the boat from shore? About a hundred fifty yards. Do you know how deep the
water is? [how the fu.....] um, no, not exactly. I mean, the boat is
aground, so I assume it's not real deep. I don't know how much water a boat
like this draws.....um.....six feet, maybe? Yeah, if that. [well, if you
already ****ing knew that!] Do you have a phone number where you can be
reached? Um......yeah, I think so. I give him the number. Is this a cell
phone [no, you ****ing moron, I've got a ****ing phone booth on my back and
it's getting really ****ing heavy.....could we please hurry this the **** up
here?] um......yeah. O.k. we're going to send one of our auxiliaries out in
a truck. A truck? Yeah, he'll be able to assess the situation and spot for
the boat. [assess? assess what? there's a boat. it's grounded. there's
people on the boat. it seems to me they might find a way to get into some
kind of trouble or something. spot? spot what?] um.....o.k. Hey, I got
transferred to you by the 911 people.....can you give me your number so I
can call you back if anything happens you might want to know about? Oh,
yeah. He gives me the number and I recite it over and over as I scurry over
to the first of what will be many small groups who will stop over the course
of the next three hours to ask whassup? boat stuck? I ask for a pen or
pencil so I can write the number down before I forget it.

I sit down.....and watch.....for twenty minutes. I call the Coast Guard.
Um......you said you were sending a guy in a truck.....right? Yeah, he's on
his way. Where did you say you are? On Lincoln Memorial Drive, north of
Bradford Beach, directly in front of Lakeview Park about a quarter mile
south of the water treatment plant. Oh yeah. Um......do you have GPS
coordinates? I slap my pockets in a hasty search. [gosh, no, I seem to be
fresh out.....can't ****in' understand it.....I had a boatload of them here
just a minute ago.] Um.......no. O.k., he should be there pretty soon.
O.k., he shouldn't have much trouble finding us. There's several vehicles
parked right here and a bunch of people standing around. Thanks [pretty
soon?].

I sit, one eye on the boat and the other on the road. All this time (about
an hour by now), there are many other boats on the water. Nothing unusual
about that. What IS unusual is that many of them stop briefly at the break
and look at the sailboat that has captured my interest. I am forced to
assume that some of the folks on these other boats have somehow sensed that
something is up. One of them will stay for the denouement......the others
all go on their merry way. Hundreds of pedestrians walk by.....some stop to
look. A couple stay a while and ask me what's going on. Thousands of cars
go by.

At last, a large black SUV slows as it approaches and pulls up to the curb
ahead of the other cars. Watching as it passes me, I see a Coast Guard
Auxiliary bumper sticker. Ah! thinks I, could this be the prodigal
assessor/spotter? I walk over and stand next to the ride side front window.
Inside, I spy an enormous blob of medium rare pork. The pork is on the
phone and has, presumably, not seen me standing there patiently. After
three minutes the pork hangs up and fiddles for another minute or two with
something beside it on the seat. It then keys the microphone on its chest
which appears to be attached to a radio on its Sam Brown belt. I find that
I am afraid to speculate on what the other mysterious appurtenances attached
to the belt might represent. It chats for a moment and then fiddles with
some stuff on the seat beside it. Apparently the pork has not yet become
aware of my presence. It opens the door and rolls/staggers out of the
vehicle and then waddles around the rear and starts to lumber toward the
water, resplendent is a spiffy black Coast Guard Auxiliary uniform
(presumably) complete with bloused cuffs and spit shine brogans. Hi, says
I, I'm the guy who called this in. It continues to lumber lakeward,
evidently unaware of my existence.

The pork stands at the edge of the riprap and slowly lifting a large pair of
binoculars it begins to assess.....or so I am forced to assume......I don't
know.....maybe it was spotting. By now, forty minutes or more have melted
away since I first placed the call explaining the situation. The Milwaukee
Coast guard station is in Bay View, at the end of the bridge to nowhere,
about five miles from where I stand, as the gull flies. Downtown Milwaukee
sits in the middle of a large bay. Think of an old style bow.....before the
days of recurve.....something like Robin Hood must have carried. Downtown
is where you would grip the bow. Coast Guard Station is at one end of the
bow, where the string is attached. Me and the grounded boat (and the
assessor/spotter) are at the other end, where the string is attached. We
are roughly equidistant from downtown, the Coast Guard station to the south,
and we to the north. As the gull flies (along the string of the bow) it is
probably just about five miles. The pork periodically leaves off assessing
(or spotting) and trains his keen eye to the south, presumably looking for
the Coast guard boat which, in an unguarded moment, he let me know was
indeed expected when he finally deigned to notice my existence and my
question. I looked too.

The Coast guard station can't be seen from the north because it is blocked
by other buildings. But even at this range I've got a pretty good idea of
just where it is. Another ten minutes reveals several boats in that
neighborhood but just a few heading in the right direction.....which is to
say, more or less toward us. 36x is good, but at five miles, not good
enough for a positive ID. We wait. The pork spots (or assesses).

Another ten minutes. I see a boat far off in the south, pushing a larger
bow wave than any of the others. Another couple of minutes and it is close
enough that I can make out a white hull and superstructure. This could be
our boat! Um......nah.....it's heading in the wrong direction.....toward
the harbor. Another five minutes. No other candidates in sight. I look in
toward the harbor. Yeah, there's that big boat I say earlier.....um.....and
it's got blue and red diagonal stripes on the bow on both sides. What the
****? By now I can see it's a Coast Guard 41 footer. That has GOT TO be
our boat. Where in hell are they going? The latter question becomes moot
in just another minute. They aren't going anywhere. They've stopped. I
address the pork. It looks. It appears hesitant. It appears unconvinced.
7x is not as good as 36x. I look again. No movement. What the ****. I
call petty officer what's his name. Um......that boat you sent? Yeah, it's
on its way. Um.....well it was going the wrong way. Oh, they know where
you are they're just moving carefully because of the shallow water.
Um.....they're still two miles from here and they aren't going anywhere.
They're dead in the water. Oh. Oh, hey, we're just getting a call about
this on the radio. [an hour and a half, and NOW someone thinks to call in a
mayday on the radio? Not our boys on the sailboat, by the way, turns out,
not surprisingly, they don't HAVE a radio!] O.k., thanks. Yeah, bye. I
watch. A minute later the 41 footer revs up and comes hard about in a turn
to starboard. The pork spots and assesses.

Five minutes later, the 41 footer arrives......sort of. It stops at the
break directly in front of me, 150 yards further out than the grounded boat
and, inexplicably, three hundred or so to the south of it. I take action.
I do what everyone else is doing. I sit. Meanwhile, the pork, evidently
bored with spotting and assessing (or, having finished both jobs for all I
know) opens up and speaks an occasional sentence or two. I glean the fact
that a commercial salvage operation has a boat on the way. The police also
have a boat on the way. The Coast Guard 41 sits and several crew members
sort of mill about on deck. Obviously they think the water is too shallow
for them to risk coming alongside the sailboat. All this time, the grounded
sailboat has had an inflatable dinghy attached to the stern by a short
painter. Someone on the 41 hails the grounded boat on the bullhorn and
suggests that someone should get into the inflatable dinghy and row out to
them. Tommy Chong unties the painter from the bow, and I bout **** myself
watching him trying to get into the dinghy without going over the side or
bashing his brains out on the hull of the sail boat. He takes in hand the
itty bitty oars and, pretty much prone on his back, begins a feeble
paddling, left oar in right hand and right in the left (honest to God, I am
NOT making this **** up!), toward the 41 footer.

Suddenly, from somewhere near the harbor, a small semi-hard
hull/semi-inflatable boat with a very large outboard motor approaches. It's
the commercial salvage boat. I laugh out loud. The pork scowls. That is
NOT going to work, quoth I. Yeah? The salvage surveys the scene and begins
to tilt up his motor. I glance away, back toward the dinghy. Tommy Chong
is about a third of the way to the 41 and pausing to rest after every three
or four strokes. The Coasties, clearly bored, lean against the
superstructure, shuffle around, scratch their asses.....Somebody gets on the
bullhorn again and says um.....could you go back and get the other guy?
Tommy has evidently gone deaf. He goes on as before.

I look at the grounded boat. What the ****? There's a guy in a wet suit
and on a surf board paddling out from the shore somewhere to the north of
us. Can't tell exactly where he came from because the view to the north is
blocked by trees. Says I to the pork, is the guy on the surf board Coast
Guard or just a concerned citizen? He mumbles something incoherent. Two
minutes later I say he's almost there. Huh? rejoins the pork. The guy on
the surf board.....he's almost at the boat. The binoculars come up so fast
I think he's going to jab them through his head. He gets on the radio and
talks to the skipper of the 41. Um.....just to advise you that there's
somebody on a surf board approaching the boat. He doesn't mention which
boat. I see bodies scrambling on the 41.

The surfer has got a rope. The guy on the salvage boat has finished his
preparations. He's got a rope too. He manages to get alongside the
sailboat and pass the end of the line to the remaining crew member, who
fiddles around with it for several minutes. Marlinspike seamanship is
evidently not his strong suit. I get bored watching him. Where's the
surfer dood? He's......um.....standing (yes, STANDING), next to the
sailboat. No, not standing on the board. He's standing on the bottom. The
water is a bit above his waist, and he doesn't look to me like a giant (as a
matter of fact, I saw him up close a couple of hours later just before he
was interviewed by the channel 4 news team. He's about 5'7".). I
try.....God help me, I labor mightily.....to suppress and involuntary
chortle, but something must have leaked out for, out of the corner of my
eye, I can see the pork's head snap around in my direction and I can feel
the baleful glare penetrate my heart, lungs and liver. Meanwhile, back on
the boat, Gilligan has finally made fast the line from the salvage boat.
the pilot guns the engine, the line goes taught and the Minnow jerks
upright. Five minutes the struggle to free her continues. She is twisted
around in both directions several times but I haven't moved the scope and
she is still in the center of the field. Gilligan is no longer in sight.
Presumably he has gone below and nailed himself to the bilges.

A police boat arrives. The cops stand off a hundred feet or so and watch.
The boys on the 41 stretch and yawn. Where's Tommy Chong? Ah, there he
is.....just slightly more than half way to the 41, and looking more
bedraggled and disgruntled by the minute. Where's Moondoggy? There he is,
paddling toward the 41 with his big coil of what appears to be half inch or
maybe 5/8 three stranded twisted green nylon rope. In five minutes he's
gone as far as Tommy Chong, whom he passes as I watch. The salvage boat is
stilling tugging. Nothing is happening. Moondoggy talks to the Coast
Guard. There is waving of hands, shrugging, pointing, incomprehensible
gestures. Moondoggy turns around....with his rope....and heads back to the
foundered vessel. Another police boat arrives. Much bigger. THREE mammoth
outboards hanging over the transom. Moondoggy arrives back at the Minnow.
He confers with the pilot of the rescue boat. He walks over to the Minnow
where Gilligan, evidently cognizant of the fact that the earth has ceased
moving has reappeared on deck. There is much pointing and gesturing on the
part of Moondoggy. Everyone else watches. The pork essays an occasional
squawk into the radio and is evidently much gratified to receive a squawk in
reply. I'm staring to dance back and forth from one foot to the other and
feel like I've got to pee.

The line from the Minnow to the tow boat is cast off. Moondoggy and
Gilligan spend several minutes unsnarling a line (appears to be what we used
to call double braided Samson cord back in my days at see....pretty much the
same thing climbers call kernmantle) and making it fast to the stern of the
Minnow. Moondoggy eventually takes the other end to the tow boat, which
repeats its performance of a few minutes ago. The cops watch. The Coasties
watch. The pork watches. Moondoggy watches. a dozen or so folks on shore
watch. Folks on half a dozen or so boats watch. I watch. I am having what
those standing around me probably ( I hope) this is a choking fit. Tommy
Chong paddles.

Tommy has gotten close to the 41. One of the crew is standing at the bow
with a heaving line, nicely separated into two coils, one in each hand, just
like we used to do it back in the day. He is swaying back and forth, right
arm hanging at his side, and left in front.....just like it says in the
book.....just right. He waits. Tommy gets closer.....but he's not close
enough yet. I look back at the Minnow. Gilligan has once again
disapparated. The tug labors on. Moondoggy watches, the cops watch,
the.....well, you know. Back in the raft, Tommy Chong has gotten to within
about 80 feet of the 41. He is off the starboard bow. The deck hand sways
with more vigor, rears back, and with a mighty heave tosses the line fifteen
feet off the port bow. I hurt all over.

The salvage guy gives up. He swoops over to the police boat, chats briefly,
and leaves. I look back at the Minnow. Gilligan is on deck conversing with
Moondoggy. Back to the 41. Miraculously, Tommy Chong has appeared on deck
and has both arms raised skyward ala Sly Stallone on the steps of the
Philadelphia Art Museum. Back to the Minnow. The smaller police boat (the
first to arrive) has come alongside and Gilligan steps aboard. He is
whisked out to the 41 and soon rejoins Tommy Chong. They greet each other
warmly and I can see the gleam of smiling teeth on both of them as well as
on the crew members. The pork squawks, um, Coast Guard Station, I'm heading
BTB. Moondoggy stands alone next to the Minnow. My stomach hurts so bad I
think I'm going to vomit. I have to look down at the ground for a minute
and breath deeply. When I look up......everybody's gone.

Wolfgang

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...
It's that time of year....

Oops. Meant to go to ROFF. My Apologies.

Wolfgang

On Oct 30, 8:55 am, "Wolfgang" wrote:
"Wolfgang" wrote in message

...

It's that time of year....

Oops. Meant to go to ROFF. My Apologies.

Wolfgang

Thankfully it made it here too,

:-)

steve