What a beautiful day, sunny and warm and winds between 10 and 15 mph. The whole crew was sorely tempted to abandon the dock and go sailing. We got started about 9 AM and knocked off about 2:30, with a break for lunch. There were five of us working – – Dick Mueller, Mike Bragg, Ronnie Hartley, Jack Sterrett, and me. We finished the main dock and one finger pier. That’s three finger piers down and five to go. We worked on the main dock first and after we finished it, before lunch, we had to decide which finger pier to do next. We eliminated the piers on the left next to Mike Bragg’s and Ronnie Youngs’s boats because the piers are crooked and will require a little more engineering. That left the ones on the right. The next one in line going away from shore is the one next to Howard’s boat. I suggested that since Howard was not present and we would need to move his boat that maybe we should do the pier next to my boat since I could easily move it out of the way. Dick said that since his boat was on the opposite side of the pier next to Howard’s and that he had purposefully left his out of the water so we could do his next and anyway we could just work from his side of the pier and wouldn’t have to move Howard’s boat. I pointed out how particular Howard was about keeping his boat just perfect and that I was just looking out after his interests. Out of respect for the immediate past commodore’s distinguished service I yielded and we started to work on the pier between his empty boat slip and Howard’s boat. Dick and Mike boarded the jon boat with crow bars in hand and started ripping away. At first everything went fine, but then the jon boat tilted and shifted and one dropped his crow bar in the jon boat and both started flapping their arms and hands like they wanted to fly, trying to regain some equilibrium. I mentioned that only one dropped his crow bar. Well, the other just did his flapping with the crow bar in hand. Two men trying to regain balance in an aluminum boat sure does make a lot of noise. It reminded me of some sort of mating dance you might see on the nature channel. After about 10 seconds or less, it seemed longer, they regained control of the jon boat and settled down. We did an inventory of tools and apparently all were either in hand or in the bottom of the boat and the dropped crow bar did not puncture the jon boat. Everything seemed to be fine, except for the little dark spot on the side of Howard’s boat that was similar in shape to the end of a crow bar. Did that happen during the dance? Weren’t sure, but it was only a small hole and it was above the water line. A little Marine-Tex and it will be fine. Just kidding, Howard. Your boat is fine and some of the above is fiction. You now have a nice new finger pier that extends three feet past the outermost pole, just like you ordered. Don’t forget; there is a race this weekend. Jimmy Harrell