We were riding a boat down on the River....

 NOW if you want to tell a Tall Tale down in my parts.  The line..."We were on a pontoon boat down on the Tennessee River," let's everyone know a really Big Tall Tale with adventure is about to begin.  Everyone in the room laughs, and grins and leaning forward in anticipation....waiting as the accent becomes thicker (for dramatic inflection of course) and the gestures become wider.  You know the person telling it is sharing something common and collective we all can relate too.  We all know someone that has a pontoon boat, probably grew up with a pontoon boat somewhere in our family...and we all have the experience of realizing that while it states clearly for everyone to see NO DRINKING AND DRIVING A BOAT everywhere on the river; that most of the funniest stories come from relatives, or you, or friends, or some dumb redneck abusing this law.

A pontoon boat is a small shell that really floats most of the time, it has an engine you use to get it from A to B and to move it faster and is usually used to fish on.  However, down south I have seen it used to pull people on inter tubes and knee boards and to even pull families of children(including second or third cousins) behind it.  We Southerners are known for inventive things like this that you know is going to end up on the Televisions of America under the File America's Funniest Home Videos; or on YouTube with a million hits.

Last night we all sat around on New Years eve sharing these stories about people getting so drunk they parked way up on the banks, or lost cell phones, or how our Uncles or Fathers made sure to be home by 4pm because they had to "make martini time".  You can look at this judgmentally or you can see it as it is which is a commentary on how common it is in the South (I cannot speak for every other region) to drink and drive and how for some reason we associate fishing with that sport of drinking with a huge cooler and it does not matter if you catch a fish but if you have a real good time.  People seem divided on this issue; but now that I am older and mellower I can just look at it and laugh and shake my head surprised we all lived through this time in our lives when we were being pulled on inter tubes by uncles that were cussing, raising hell, and drinking like fishes while whirligigging us down the river.

I realized today how apt the analogy is for our lives to some extent.  We are all on boats down the river.  Some of us are riding on intertubes with other people driving it.  Some of us are driving pontoons, some canoes, some house boats, some sail boats, some yachts, some barges, or paddle boats...but we are all on that river.  I have had people tell me," you just try to hard to paddle" or "you steer the boat too much"  you should just "go where the river takes you"....they might be right.  However, I tend to think that if you don't paddle or steer you might get stuck or beeched somewhere and that I would like to drive my own damn boat (thank you very much) and not get pulled around on a knee board for the rest of my life.  You can call that controlling or very astute depends on whether you are a glass "half full/half empty" kind of person.

So here we are all on boats, driving down or up a river all headed toward somewhere we either have plotted on a map or :just sense" in our gut.  You can always stop at a clearing and set up camp for a spell but at some point you do have to get back on that boat and travel the river because it does flow on, and you cannot remain stagnant.

 

 This year, I am acknowledging that I am on a big boat with my Co-founders in life and that my job might just be to read the map and point out that we "might want to take a right at the fork".  This year I am going to let the "pirates" who want to take my boat over know very clearly that it is not an option that they can have unless they are going to fight me for it because I do not lie down or cry surrender when it comes to my life.  This year I will not have people "looting me" or "pilfering through my stuff" or "borrowing" parts of my gear and identity...because they all have their own boat and have been given their own map if only they choose to use it and read it.  BUT IF you want to follow our boat, if you want to travel the same seas with us (because rivers lead to bigger bodies of water), if you want to come experience this wonderful adventure called life with me and know I am not going to "stop to shore for martini time" then you are more than welcome.  I am pleased to have the company.

Something to think about....What kind of boat are you riding down the river of life on?  Do you even have a boat or are you letting someone pull you through?  Are you the captain or co-captain that shares with your family members your boat?  What map are you reading?  Did you even know you had one?  What rules are you going to maintain this year on your boat and for your life?

Have a wonderful NEW YEAR this year!  THANK YOU once again for the Gift of your time! Please share in the comments below some answers to these questions if you do not mind....