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Posted on Sat, Aug 27, 2011 : 4:24 p.m.

Paddle to the tavern

By Mike Ball

I am the proud owner of a Paddle Boat.

A Paddle Boat is a small lake-going craft that appeals to guys like me who shrugged off that remaining last shred of self-respect the first time we made the decision to wear dockers, flip flops, and an Aerosmith t-shirt to the mall. The only other people who really like them are young children who, face it, have no sense of dignity at all.

Paddle boats come in a variety of sizes and configurations, but they all have three things in common:

1. They float (more or less).

2. You propel them through the water by pedalling like a three-year-old on a floating (more or less) tricycle.

3. The odds are pretty good that your wife will not want to be seen paddle-boating around on the lake with you.

I’m willing to admit that my paddle boat would probably be considered even dorkier than most. A lot of them are low-slung and sleek (if you consider a sort of rectangular pudding tub with bucket seats and a paddle on the back “sleek”). These modern craft are aerodynamically designed to deal with speeds of up to 0.0003 knots.

Let’s take a time out for a learning moment; a “knot” (pronounced “not”) is a unit of speed slightly faster than an “mph” (pronounced “mph”). This relates to the term “Nautical Mile,” which is 1.15078 regular miles. Nautical miles originated with the early sailors, who came up with quite a bit of weird stuff like this, probably because they spent all their time out in the middle of the ocean playing with their sextants and drinking rum.

My paddle boat is pretty much the opposite of low-slung and sleek. It consists of a straight-backed wooden bench that sits about four feet above the water on small aluminum pontoons, with side-by-side pedals and a steering-stick thingy in the middle. Tied to the dock alongside our regular pontoon boat, The Party Barge, it looks like a floating (more or less) Mini-Me.

The word “floating” is always kind of theoretical when we’re talking about my paddle boat because one of the pontoons leaks a bit. This gives it a sort of rakish list to port - which means “left” (you can also blame this on the sextants and rum).

All the wood looks like it was recycled from the original picnic table at the Alamo, the one with Davey Crockett’s name carved on it. The pedals squeak because the bearings wore out when Truman was President. The rudder is so loose that steering is really just an abstract concept.

And I would not part with that little paddle boat for all the floating (more or less) tricycles in the world.

It once belonged to Harold, my late neighbor and surrogate father. He used it mostly for fishing, operating on the theory that in a boat without a motor he could just sort of sneak up on herds of unsuspecting bluegills. I never bothered to point out that when those pedals were going you could hear him all the way to Georgian Bay.

Harold bought the paddle boat from some folks on the other side of the lake. Over the course of that winter he painted the ancient wood with redwood stain, stuffed some grease into where the bearings used to be, and decided that a little bit of water in one of the pontoons actually gave the thing character. Then he enjoyed it completely until the day came, toward the end of his life, when he could no longer safely make it down the dock to use it.

So tonight I’ll hop on that paddle boat and head down the shore to the Tavern, where I can take a moment and hoist a pint to Harold. And I’ll smile at the memory of the old guy out there on the lake, squeaking back and forth across the bluegill beds with a fly rod in one hand and a can of beer in the other, thinning out the fish population.

And listing to port.

Copyright © 2011, Michael Ball

Mike Ball is the Erma Bombeck Award-winning author of "What I've Learned So Far..." and the book What I've Learned So Far... Part I: Bikes, Docks & Slush Nuggets.

Comments

Townie

Sun, Aug 28, 2011 : 4:35 p.m.

How about a photo of your boat Mike?

LarryJ

Sun, Aug 28, 2011 : 4:18 p.m.

Mike is trying hard to be the next Dave Barry. Sorry, I never cared more for Dave Barry's writing. Maybe you can surpass him. Good luck.

Trumpet

Sun, Aug 28, 2011 : 12:47 p.m.

Great story Mike. May you keep on enjoying that wonderful paddleboat for many, many years... We have a one acre pond on our property and we have an old paddleboat that we paddle around the pond. The sense of peacefullness we get from that little thing is just amazing... Life is good.

David Briegel

Sun, Aug 28, 2011 : 12:23 p.m.

Here's to Harold, still herding those bluegills! And a happy, smiley, sunny Sunday to you! Happy pedalling!