[Rhodes22-list] Second installment on Rhodes 22 for sale

[Bill Johnston]

   I need to add an addendum to my "boat for sale" announcement.
   Unfortunately the list was totally foreign to me, and I never received
   a rule book about how this list serve is understood.
   I guess that I can also blame the fact that I am 70, and that along
   with listing the notice I was  officiating at a big formal wedding on
   Saturday and getting a sermon ready to preach on Sunday morning. After
   45 years as a minister, I will be retiring for the second time within
   a few weeks. Also I don't know what you call a friend who will take
   calls on your "boat for sale" ads but who does not charge for that
   service. Agent was the only term that I knew.  If I can sell it
   through the list then the 5% fee will go to Stan.

   After having sailboats for years, I had an unexpeted {of course, it is
   the unexpected that gives life to sailing, isn't it?} event about a
   year ago. My 1979 Erickson 25 was tied to my dock one afternoon during
   a terrible thunder storm. There was also a long extention cord on the
   dock for another reason. I had just come in from the hour commute to
   the church where I am an interim pastor when I looked out and realized
   that the boat had taken a lightning strike that had ignited the fuel
   in the galley, and the cabin was burning. I called 911, and grabbed a
   garden hose on the way to the dock. I slid the hatch open to use the
   fire extinguisher and to try to let the driving rain help diminish the
   intensity of the blaze, but the extinguisher, the garden hose and the
   rain didn't help much. I was using an outboard on the boat, and the
   fire was almost to engulf the portable gas tank, so I took the
   tank loose, picked it up and jumped onto the dock just before the fire
   got into that compartment. I thought that this would prevent an
   explosion. I continued to use the garden hose, but it took the firemen
   to finally put out the blaze. Of course they followed their training
   and broke out all of the ports in the boat.

   My wife had come in from her commute from the college where she
   teaches [the commutes are the price that we pay to live on the lake],
   and saw my gas tank leap. After 42 years of marriage I thought that
   she would say something like "my hero", but rather it came out more
   like "stupid", and boats can be replaced, but old husbands need to
   learn to be smart. So when I preach on hell, which as a Presbyterian
   I don't do very often, I have a vivid image to communicate. Yes, I
   know that I got long winded with this narrative, but I also seem to do
   this in the pulpit.

   The Rhodes 22 was a sight unseen boat off of ebay, and it doen't fit
   our useage of a sailboat. My next "good old boat" has been purchased,
   and I just need to sell a smaller, "good old boat".

   May God bless you.

   Bill Johnston