It just takes time

Yesterday my nephew Mitch said something to me, like we were on the same wave length when he said " why can't time just slow down" ?  Well it seems to me that if anything it actually speeds up as we travel along this program . I just received my 7th five years of Coast Guard Merchant Mariner endorsement which will keep me guiding until I'm sixty five years old. Wow. Here's a couple pics of my first brochure, it's a long way from a professionally maintained web site. It was printed on an old type setter print machine at the Cheechakoe News run by my old friend Loren Stewart....who misspelled rainbow trout.

Then in the mid 80's I got in cahoots with a guy named Carl Butcher. Carl was an event. Anywhere you went with Carl something was sure to happen, and not necessarily something good.  Carl was a business guy and always scheming on how to turn the dollar...I learned a lot from Carl, what to do and what not to do. 30 years later it occurs to me that a big reason for our 'partnership' was to help defray the cost of  10,000 of these brochures. It was me, Carl and the Riverside House Hotel, and we did some huge business for sure and you know we had a ton of fun doing it.

Then in that time frame where I saw the Internet would be the future but we weren't there yet I still needed to have something visual to send out to people so I came up with this little collage. They cost me a buck a piece and I'd include a form letter that I would personalize for each inquiry that had specific questions. This collage has all my favorite characters from the 80's and early 90's.....Johnny Burnett, Jacques Lizin, Bill and Sally Brook, Pop Reeves, Marty Holleran , Geno and Mrs Robert Mundy in the lower left who caught that 74 pounder on the same day her husband caught a 76 pounder....I love ya all....

Here's a pic of us hard at it on a typical day in the early 90's...putting the plan to motion. Having been selected to represent Honda Marine was one of the highlights of my carreer, so far.  For 15 years I had the best equipment money could buy and took pride in keeping it clean and professional. I'd help Honda at Boat shows, I'd help fisherman with propping issues, I helped write press releases and in turn was given product to showcase....ahhhhhh.....America, what a great place.

Young wonderful people, my relatives, people I love the most in this world have been dealt a crappy hand. It's tough news that we all got this weekend. I thought I'd sing them this song that I just worked up like I'd do if we were there with them.  It's going to be alright you guys, we love you....it just takes  time.