On the road…again!
Afghanistan to Zambia
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek

Post-It Note—Why The Boat May Be Drifting

OK, complete disclosure at the outset….this chronicle is a contrived attempt to make a point that is simple enough to put on a small Post-It-Note. So, as part of the contrived justification for the chronicle, the sometimes impetuous author known to some as the Footloose Forester, will put the message on a real Post-It-Note and then proceed with the narrative that prompted the chronicle, in the first place.

Dropping a boat anchor into water is not rocket science.  But getting an inattentive or disinterested fishing partner into accepting the explanation about why we might still be drifting in the current, despite the dropped anchor….is another matter.  It might as well be a lecture on rocket science. At least the disheartened Footloose Forester might be comforted into knowing that the reading audience is receptive to learning the plausible explanations about why we might be drifting.

Contrived Post-It Note

When the nominal captain of the 16-foot Carolina skiff asked the occupant of the bow seat (the Footloose Forester) to drop the anchor so that we could focus on landing some of the seasonal croakers, the bowman complied.  Unfortunately, we kept drifting closer and closer to the highway bridge that might damage the boat and tangle our lines.  There was initially plenty of time to correct the problem, except that the captain did not accept the fact that we were drifting toward the bridge.  In this case, the other person in the boat agreed with the captain that we were not drifting.  After attempting to offer a few simple reasons why we might be drifting, the Footloose Forester concluded that there was only one other way to convince them that we were indeed drifting, despite the dropped anchor. Aside from a Post-It-Note stuck to his clipboard, a real-time visual example might be convincing.

The Footloose Forester requested that they note our present line of sight to some parked cars on land about 300 yards away on our left.  He asked them to note that we were presently aligned to the left side of the cars that were parked parallel to our sight line.  In less than a minute, the sight line was between two cars; and after another minute, our sight line pointed to the right of all the cars.  We were drifting toward the bridge.

Don’t think that the others in the boat acknowledged the truth.  People don’t like to give credit to those with whom they disagree, so quite often they say nothing.  But we wordlessly and somewhat hastily hauled in the anchor before we smacked into the bridge abutment.