JULY 3, 2021 – My 05/15/21 post was entitled, “The Happiest Day in (This) Guy’s Life”—the day our new boat lift was relocated so that our new boat would float on and off the bunks.
Now let me tell you about the saddest day in (this) guy’s life: the day before the biggest weekend of the summer, when he discovers the new boat lift is malfunctioning . . .
Late Thursday afternoon, while my brother-in-law Chuck and I were discussing another project for the cabin, my sister Elsa announced she was heading down to the dock to read for a bit. I suggested she lower the pontoon and luxuriate. She reacted positively to this prospect but was hesitant about operating the lift herself. I volunteered.
Down to the dock we went—or “don gock,” as our oldest niece would say during her cabin stays way back when. I inserted the key in the switchbox on the lift and pressed the button. Nothing! . . . except for an unnatural sound from the solar-powered motor that powers the cable-spoolers.
“Not good,” I said.
“Hmmm,” said Elsa.
I tried again. No go. With my hand on the switchbox, I called the marina from whom I’d purchased the lift. The owner answered—with 15 minutes before closing. I explained my predicament, whereupon she said, “Check the fork on the side. Sometimes it gets flipped accidently, and you have to flip it back.” She was describing a governor that fits over the cable. This device, however, is on the far side of the lift and there’s no way in our galaxy that the “fork” could be “accidently flipped.”
“I’ll send someone out first thing in the morning,” she said.
At 9:15 Friday, my brother-in-law called to inform me that “the someone” had arrived. I raced down the path from the Red Cabin to the dock and lift at Björnholm. Aboard the raised pontoon and hunched under broad cover of the lift, was a 50-something guy wearing a green T-shirt advertising “Stewart Island / New Zealand.” His name was “Tom.”
After greeting him, I said excitedly, “You’ve been to Stewart Island?!”
The question launched a rich conversation about a place on the other side of the world that’s out of this world. Tom had traveled to NZ “12 or 13 times,” and many of his sojourns had been for two or three months. He knew the country as well as any “non-Kiwi” I’ve ever met.
After a quick process of elimination, Tom discovered the lift problem: a defective circuit board—a closed box of circuitry like the one that governs your furnace. In his bag of tricks—tools, gauges, cables, switch boxes—was . . . voila! a replacement circuit board. Plug and play; saddest to happiest day (again).
Tom assured me that despite having the replacement on hand, the odds of needing one were one in million—our lift being that one.
Smart, efficient, affable, well-traveled, and fond of nature, Tom, my new buddy, answered the call.
It takes a village . . .
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
