Long ago, in a land sorta far from The Planet Ann Arbor, I was a small child who slept in a wee bunk bed with my brother in a small rustic cabin. We switched off between top and bottom and I don’t remember any sibling fights about that. We must have had them but there were perks about sleeping in both places, so I think we mostly enjoyed switching it up when The Commander changed the sheets, which was weekly, like I do every place I have ever lived. Thank you Moom.

Back in those days, we knew which freighters were going up or coming down by using binoculars. I should say, My Old Coot would use binoculars. We were not permitted to touch his binoculars.

At some point in time, My Old Coot bought a scanner. He listened to the Sault Ste. Marie police stuff but he also listened to which freighters were coming up or going down. The boats would call in at various points (Light 26 or Gros Cap of Point Louise or whatever). I loved when various beach folk would be sitting on the beach and even before we could see a boat show itself over the horizon, My Old Coot would walk down to the top of the bank and announce the name. He had been listening to the scanner.

We still used binoculars in those days. I finally bought my own pair because I got taaaarrred of my dad and brother harassing me about not getting sand in their binoculars. Um, I am an adult? I make mistakes but I can be careful with expensive stuff. And I was. And I still have those binoculars but I don’t take them north any more because…

In the middle of all that, Light 26 got built. My Beach Urchins were babies and toddlers and preschoolers then and when Radical Betty referred to the new structure as the Fickle Finger of Fate, Lizard Breath dubbed it the Pickle Finger. Which of course resulted in gales of laughter from all of the grand-folk in the room.

Nowadays the Old Coot is gone and I miss him. It’s sad that he didn’t live long enough for the iPhone and the Marine Traffic app because that’s what we use nowadays to figure out which boat is out in the channel.

My Mouse bought us cases for our new iPhone X phones. She gave me a bunch of choices but this one spoke to me. It is light 26 aka the Pickle Finger. The GG and Mouse had the Motor Bote out by the Pickle Finger and she got the loverly pic that ended up being my new iPhone case. I love it and you may not want to know the pic that the GG sent to Mouse to put on his case.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 5th, 2018 at 7:31 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.