This morning I slept in a little bit. That would not have mattered at all if the trash man was not coming at an ungodly hour and I had done my chores and taken the recycle bin out the night before. But as it happens, I did not do my chores so my mother came in my sleeping chamber and asks if there was a good reason why the recycle bin was still in the kitchen. Of course I was not going to say that I forgot to take it out because I was playing video games because if I did I would not be writing this. So all I said was “I’m sorry.” sitting up in the tent over my bed (my brother and I share a room and are currently engaged in mortal dart combat).

After I got out of bed I slipped on my sneakers, grabbed the recycle bin and walked to the end of our 300ft drive way and just got there in time to hand it to the garbage man then I took up the recycle bin and the trash can and walked back and took a shower.

Shortly after I got out of the shower before I could get my cloths when my sister came in and said “Nana needs your help or a log or a dog is going to float away”. It took me a moment to understand what she had just told me. After a couple of seconds it hit me some thing was about to float away down the river and it was either a dog or a log.

Well if it was a dog it was not ours’ and Nana would not get so worked up over someone else’s dog, so it must be hers. Ff so, that was just fine with me. I don’t like her dogs and they don’t like me. But if it was a log, which is actually worth something, it might get away I would be blamed, and I would never hear the end of it.

After I got my chest waders on and grabbed a coat I started down to the river. On my way I met Sam M and he was in a hurry. That’s all well and good he liked Nanas dogs more than I did so that may be it. But when I got down to the river and saw what really happened I had to stop and re-think every thing I had been told about the situation. There was no dog floating in the swell, or log just stuck on the beach. What had happened was one of the cables on our dock had broken. Even though only one of the cables broke, from the folk’s house it looked as if both had broken which would have resulted in the dock being swept down the river, and so a state of emergency was declared.

Once we had gathered ourselves we made a plan. The plan was simple, a lot like my little brother, but unlike my little brother the plan just might work. Grandpa and I climbed out on the dock. Then with a big stick and did like those guys in Venice. Standing up in the back of their boats useing a pole to move the boat. In that manner we got the dock back to the shore and tied it to an anchor. The anchor was way too small and kept getting pulled over into the river.

This sort of thing had happened before so we know what to done. Plus we had a simple plan. Having some excess cable, we unwound the same amount lost so the dock would stay in the same place. The reason for this is that we had already found the best spot for the dock to be anchored so that it could move without running aground or getting hit by floating logs.

Now that we had gotten the right amount of cable, Nana and Grandpa and I held an election. They voted for the only person wearing chest waders to go reattach the cable to the dock. I say they because I was the only one wearing chest waders and did not want to get in that river that was mostly frigid mountain runoff.

Forced onto service under threat of no dinner I waded out to the dock and reattached the cable to the dock. I had long since left my jacket on a grader blade that was stuck in the ground and had rolled up my shirt sleeves. It did not surprise me that the grommet I had to thread the cable through was under water, so I had to plunge my hands up to my elbows in the icy cold water for twenty seconds at a time until I got it right. After a few minuets I was able to re-hook the cable. That’s when they said, “Ok boy, climb onto the dock and maneuver it out into position with this big stick.” Since I really wanted dinner, I did what I was told. As it turns out Grandpa had not thought of how I was to get back on dryer land once I had gotten the dock where it belongs. They did not tell me that until after had thrown back the big stick I had used to get out there.

Well, there I was. Standing on that dock my hands almost numb, but not quite, and all Grandpa had to say was, “You should not have thrown that stick back.” I did not say anything, but I thought “I should not have gotten on this dock.”

The only thing I could do without my waders filling up was wait for the dock to float back in. So that’s what I did for about five minutes. I sat on the dock and waited for the current to push it close enough to the shore that I could touch bottom.

After I got back on dryer land I just took the wrenches up to the garage and put them away. Then I went up to the house to warm up and see if my legs were really there.


I would like to dedicate this blog post to…………… me for Writing more than one page of blog posts so you can actually click on that button that says “view all entries”. Thank you my readers. Tear rolls down the writer’s cheek.