Chapter 5: More to My Liking

On our way home, three days later, we returned to a small decrepit marina we investigated on the first leg of our trip. We purchased and hooked up to a trailer with a another free boat sitting on it. It is also a pre-1973 model and identical to two others just like it, that I already own. This one is my final piece of the puzzle boat I’m assembling.

If you know what a trimaran is, then you already can generally visualize what I am building. Three hulls wide. The center and starboard hulls are double ended. Sharp on both ends is double ended. The ends are identical because two identical bows are bolted together, cut at their widest part amidships, only facing opposite directions.

Be not confused. The main and larger center hull, looks different from the outer wing hulls. It is made from a different model of boats than the wing hulls are made from. Looking from the front, the two wing hulls look the same simply because three identical model and aged boats are their construction components.

Everything is bolted to a large cockpit structure amidships, constructed from two sterns of the two large model boats. This structure crosses at right angles to all the other hull components. One component is glaringly missing. The aft component on the port wing hull.

This empty space is reserved for “Stir Stick”, the Cris Craft office boat to raft up in.

After towing all my empty boat trailers to and storing them in an RV park, along with the SUV, I hire a taxi to return me to the marina. After settling my bill, “Stir Stick” and I depart this area permanently. Nobody wished us farewell or waved goodbye. It’s reasonable to suspect the recent passengers I rebuked and abandoned, promptly called their marina mates to bitch about me. I smile at the thought. If their intention was to damage my reputation, they actually had the opposite effect.

A reputation for being easily put upon or a reputation for being ruthless, tough, and hard as nails, which is more valuable? Which do you think I prefer?

Look at my ensign flying from the flagstaff of “Stir Stick” as I motor away. Not the Stars and Stripes. I fly the revolutionary war Gadsden flag. Ocher yellow with a coiled rattlesnake ready to strike, and the printed legend.

“Don’t Tread On Me.”

The Continental Marines were the first to use it. Today, it’s an emblem of patriotic liberty, individual rights including gun rights, and the rejection of the usurpation of our rights by a massive oppressive unconstitutional federal government involved in things it has no Constitutional authority to do. The states are following along close behind. Can anybody show in the Constitution any government authority to shutter businesses for any excuse whatsoever? No, you can’t, such authority doesn’t exist. Not in the USA, it doesn’t.

Speaking of guns. Let’s not.

How many I own and where I keep them is my private business and none of yours. Let me offer this cautionary advice to the overly curious. Beware of the man with a single shot rifle. He probably is an expert in it’s effective use. Nuff said. Look at my flag.

After some days travel, we arrive at our new garden spot. Oh? Did I mention we left a vegetable garden behind at our previous location? The vegetables growing there are all heritage strains. That means, their seeds are viable and reproduce exactly the parent plants. The wildlife in the preserve will enjoy them, I’m sure.

It’s my intention to start vegetable gardens in every public land along the three hundred and ten mile length of this entire river. Hopefully, eventually, these river banks will be completely covered in edibles. Help yourselves. Don’t be bashful. Public park land belongs to the citizens. Not the government or special interest groups. Don’t allow yourself to be bullied. Bully them back.

Anyway, I’m working for the park service for the next two months. Twenty hours a week. In exchange, I get a free slip at the park marina, water, electricity, and wifi.

The timing is right for mischief. Elections. If politicians can acceptably lie, then I can slander them with impunity too. Except, I won’t be lying. They really are hairballs, each and every one.