The Speedboat, Gun Rights, and Furthermore
by Barry Bauer
In the mid 1960s I bought a speedboat from a co-worker at Federal-Mogul. It was a 12 ft. fiberglass boat with a 35 horsepower outboard motor. The fact that they called it outboard motor and not an outboard engine always confused me. In my way of thinking a motor is electrical and an engine is gas. Even today I still lose that argument.
My friends, Joe and Karen Cartwright, lived next door to Lee and Sue Pederson who owned a cottage at Crystal Lake. They invited us to bring the boat up and try it out. I knew it started but how well it performed I didn’t know. Joe, Lee, and I launched the boat and I started the motor. At full throttle the bow of the boat was still pointing to the sky and you couldn’t see over it. I didn’t know where I was going! The wind through my hair and the water spray in my face was missing.
Lee popped the motor cover off and pulled a screwdriver out of his back pocket. He started adjusting the carburetor. The motor revved up and the nose of the boat came down and we were finally speeding along on the water at a pretty good clip.
I did learn how to water ski but not without ricocheting off the water a lot of times until I learned how to “play” the tow rope.
The last memory I have of that boat was when we went skiing on a lake down by Jackson, MI. There were five us in the boat and we took turns on the skis. The women started noticing water in the bottom of the boat but we kind of ignore it thinking it came from us when we got back into the boat. Then we couldn’t ignore it anymore, the women wouldn’t let us and yes, we were taking on water!
Apparently the drain plug had come out. It’s one of those stoppers they used on the old Thermos bottles. You just insert it in the hole and flip the lever to expand the plug and seal the hole. For some dumb reason I put it in on the outside instead of the inside of the boat. So much for that theory.
Joe was driving and I said to him, “Get this damned thing to shore.” As we gained speed the water was sucked out of the boat through the drain hole. We went to a marina and bought a new plug which I put in the proper way.
That was the end of my boat memories.
* * *
With all the shootings by wackos taking place the last few years there’s a lot of rhetoric from the federal government implying they’re going to ignore the Second Amendment and create new gun laws. Of course they’ve got the law abiding gun owners all upset over it. That includes me.
Chicago has tough gun laws and yet they experienced over five hundred murders committed with a gun last year. What, if any new laws can they enact to stop the killing. The real answer is none but they won’t tell you that because it’s the truth. That’s a word loosely used by government.
That’s like saying because we’ve outlawed drugs they’ve gone away and that’s just not true. In fact drugs and gun violence go hand in hand. Both of them illegal and both unstoppable and one usually brings on the other.
Tightly closing our southwest border would help a lot with the drug infiltration but the politicians won’t do that because those are future voters illegally crossing the border. Doesn’t matter to them whether they’re carrying drugs or not. That’s why we have a problem and that’s why they blame the legal gun owners. It’s a distraction by a government that fails to do their job.
Usually the Federal government sends out feelers to see how the people react to certain things and to prepare them for what government thinks they’ll really tolerate. So when they lower their ban to a few guns we say “phew” and accept it. The next time they’ll take away a little bit more until the day will come when they have complete control over guns and then the people.
* * *
And Furthermore:
Roger Goodell, commissioner of the NFL, is threatening to end the Pro Bowl because of the way it’s played. He doesn’t think the players are playing hard enough. Well why doesn’t he end the special rules governing how the Pro Bowl is played. They are pansy rules supposedly to prevent injuries. They can’t blitz, rush any kick, go into motion, etc. They should play the Pro Bowl as if it’s any other football game. Should they have special rules for the Super Bowl so nobody gets hurt?
January and February are my least favorite months. We’re a month and a half from St. Patrick’s Day and I always look forward to.
I know I’m almost three months away from the NFL draft but I’m just hoping that the Lions open their eyes and look at the draftee as a whole and not just part of him. Some of these college kids have some issues and we’ve got to take a look at that.
For the Super Bowl we’re fixing Buffalo Wings and having cheese, crackers, and cracker spread snacks.
Until the next time . . .