Free Oars
Well OK, I have these two oars I’d like to get rid of.   There’s nothing wrong with them, although I can’t claim that I’d actually know a good oar from a bad oar.   I just don’t need them.   They’re six and a half feet long (is that long or short for an oar?) and they have clamp-on metal oarlocks.   I vaguely remember from my Boy Scout days that oarlocks were secured to the oar with a hole in the oar, but these aren’t attached that way.   They clamp on.   It seems like a hole in the oar would just weaken the oar, doesn’t it?    So again, I don’t know if these oarlocks are cheesy or average.   Let me do a quick web search.   OK, I found a site that says, “Oarlocks have been around for thousands of years. The earlier versions consisted of holes or notches in the sheer strake or combinations of wooden thole pins and leather or rope retaining loops.”   There, that clears that up.   So maybe I don’t just have oars and oarlocks here.   Apparently I’m giving away perfectly good tholes and sheer strakes too.   Now here’s the best part.    These oars are brand new.    They’ve never been in the water.   I swear.   The closest these babies have been to water is when a sock got caught in my sink drain in the basement when I was doing the laundry and the sink overflowed.   But even THEN, the oars didn’t get wet because they were suspended from the ceiling. I’ve had these oars for at least ten or fifteen years.   It’s sort of a long story as to why I got them and never used them, so if you’re not interested and you want them, you can skip to the bottom for my email address.   Oh, and I need to make a few things clear.    I don’t want to ship them.   I don’t want to deliver them.   If you want them, you need to come on over, look ‘em over, and I’ll hand ‘em over.   (I paused here to see if I could get the word “over” in that sentence a few more times, but upon reflection decided three was enough.)   No, I don’t want to sell them on ebay.   No, I don’t want to put little 3 by 5 cards up on the bulletin board at the grocery store.   I figure I’ll put up a web site that makes it clear the oars are absolutely free, and if folks who live nearby happen upon the site and want them …. bingo, a deal is made.    And if nobody wants them, heck, I’ll just cut them up and toss them.   Or maybe give the pieces to my neighbor Ed to burn in his stove.   Better yet, I could give them to Goodwill, couldn’t I?   I figure I’ll wait a year or two after putting the web site up though before I do anything rash. Now then, back to the story of whence they came.   It all started because I bought a rowboat for my exwife.   (Although at the time there wasn’t any “ex” about it.)   As a little girl she had vacationed every year at Lake Monroe in New York state.   Or was it Monroe Lake?   I can’t remember.   But to hear her describe it, it was paradise.   I heard her say literally dozens of times (if not hundreds or possibly even thousands) how wonderful this lake was.   The water was clear, the sky was blue, the fish were fat, the cabins were marvelous, etc. etc.   (As it happens, one time during a family vacation of our own we were traveling within a few miles of this little piece of heaven, and so we decided to swing a little bit out of our way so that she could show us the place.   When we pulled up, I stared out over the scene and pretty much couldn’t believe what I was seeing.   But that’s another story for another time.)   The important thing to understand here is that my ex developed, during her vacations there, a love for rowboats and fishing.   (It seems sort of crass to say “ex”, doesn’t it?    It’s so dismissive and impersonal.   At the same time, I don’t really want to divulge any private information here so let me just assign a cheery name for use in this web site …. how about .… Betty Sue?)   So that’s why, decades later, Betty Sue began mentioning that it would be nice to have a rowboat so that she could again engage in what she remembered to be her favorite pastimes, rowing and fishing.   Of course, I asked her if maybe our canoe might suffice.   Well no, “a canoe isn’t stable enough.”    And that’s how I began to get the idea of buying a rowboat for her for Christmas.
Now I know that there’s a fairly lengthy list of things that you never EVER buy your wife for Christmas and rowboats are usually on that list (along with vacuum cleaners, shotguns, pots and pans, hydraulic jacks, power washers, a Ronco Vegematic, log splitters, and a host of other things that you might suppose anybody would want.)   But in this case, I felt I was on pretty solid ground, because after all, this wasn’t just a rowboat …. it was the fulfillment of a childhood dream.   So I started looking around and I found a boat dealer nearby who sold a number of models.    Since Betty Sue had stressed stability, I picked out a small light-weight john boat (they have a square bow instead of a pointy one), lashed it to the top of my station wagon (along with two brand new oars), and brought it home.   My neighbor Ed (the one with the stove) had agreed to let me put it in his basement so that I could surprise Betty Sue on Christmas day.    (My neighbor’s a great guy and his generosity on that occasion is just one example.) Just in case it’s not clear just yet what we’re talking about here, here’s a picture of a john boat that I found on the web.   It looks just like the one I bought except it’s a little bigger, and mine didn’t have a motor.   By the way, while searching for a picture, I found that some people spell it “johnboat”, all one word, but I’m sticking with my spelling.   I also found out that there are a lot of people named John who get their picture taken next to a boat, many of whom have some pretty bad sunburns, some of whom are holding a dead or dying fish, and most of whom are wearing mismatched clothes.
	Well anyway, Christmas day arrived and my neighbor and I lugged that john boat into my back yard so I could spring the big surprise.   Naturally I put a big bow on it but decided to forego the wrapping paper.   I have to tell you …. if ever I was confident that I had bought the right gift at the right time, this was one such occasion.   So it was with complete confidence that I led her out to the yard … she came around the corner and saw it and … uh oh … I could see it in her eyes.   I’d blown it again.    I mean …. Betty Sue was nice enough about it and all that, but she was clearly disappointed.   Since it was bitterly cold at that time of year there wasn’t any opportunity to put the new boat in the water for a few months and during the first couple of weeks of that time period, I learned where I’d gone wrong.    Back at Lake Mud-row, the boats had all been of the pointy prow variety.   A john boat just wasn’t going to cut it, stable or not.   Plus, the one I had bought was too small.   The boats at Lake Monroe had been massive things that could hold a whole bunch of people.   (In my mind’s eye, I picture that painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware.) So I figured …. OK … I’ll just exchange it.    Silly me.   I’ll spare you the description of the hassle that ensued.   I’ll summarize by saying that apparently boat dealers don’t want to ever again see the boat you bought from them unless you’re prepared to sell it back to them for a fraction of what you paid.    But eventually I got that all sorted out.   (Always buy with a credit card.   Boat dealers perk right up when you say you cancelled the sale while you still have possession of the boat.)   I ended up with the right boat. Well, spring time came (don’t you love it when the flowers start to come up and you realize one day that you don’t need a coat to go outside?) and it was time to try out that new boat.   But the problem with owning a row boat that’s so large that it could have been used in the invasion of Normandy is that it’s heavy.    So whereas I had envisioned (in my naiveté) transporting the boat on top of the car to and from the lake, it was too heavy for Betty Sue to lift it that high.    And since she wanted to use it some days while I was at work, I wouldn’t be there to help lift it.    There was only one solution.   It would have to be kept at lakeside. Fortunately, there’s a nice big reservoir nearby that’s well managed and that sells annual permits to leave your boat at the water’s edge.   The lake management has sunk a number of steel rings into concrete to which one can chain their boat, unlocking it and dragging it to the water when the urge strikes to play Commodore Perry.   So we bought a permit.     I had a length of chain that had come off the tailgate of a dump truck and I bought a big lock and we chained the boat to our steel ring.   The chain turned out to be too short to loop around one of the seats, so I passed it through both of the big handles on the transom.   It was getting dark when we left the boat there so we didn’t get a chance to put it in the water that night, but Betty Sue made plans to use it the next day. Well, as I left for work, Betty Sue took off for the lake.   It wasn’t long before I got a phone call.   The boat was gone.   Huh?   Gone?    How can that be?    It was chained down.     Well, as it turned out, somebody had smashed the handles on the transom that I had looped the chain through.   (I guess that’s ending a sentence with a preposition, isn’t it?   But does it really sound better to write “ …. handles on the transom through which I had looped the chain”?    My vote in this case is for the vernacular.)   When I went to the lake that evening, there was my chain, still looped through the lakeside ring.   I picked up some broken pieces of the boat handles.    Sheesh … they were cast aluminum and had broken like glass.  Why hadn’t I gotten a longer chain that could reach the seat? So what did we learn here?   First of all, I learned that not everybody who goes to the lake is there to feed the ducks, ogle the girls, and/or commune with nature.   Some of those folks are looking to upgrade their boats and certainly appreciate it when you lay yours out on display.   Second, I learned that you should scuff up your boat a bit before dropping it off at the lake.   It wouldn’t hurt to put a couple of dents in it too.   Maybe even spray paint it here and there with random blotches.   If it’s the smoothest shiniest boat there, you can kiss it goodbye.   Last, don’t bother getting a chain that’s stronger than the thing you’re trying to protect. All I had to show for the whole experience were two oars.   Two shiny unused oars.   Which, if you’re interested, you can have if you just come by to claim them.    Write to danch@erols.com    And you can pick your oars up in Laurel, Maryland.