"GOOD ENTERTAINMENT"
OFFSHORE NEWS LETTER
Season of "88"



The continuing short story (serial) about the observations and adventures of a mans private passion with his ocean racer.  He was raised by the water, got bigger, but somehow never grew up.

Very early this morning I was having a magnificent time sunning myself on the padded engine hatches.  The condensation from my glass of wine was dripping as profusely as the perspiration from my brow.  The odor of teak oil, nose kote, and #30 sun block was in the air.  The warm sun on my back had the semblance of thousands of tiny little soldiers marching up and down my backbone, and I was in such a state of total relaxation I couldn't have moved, even if the boat would have been sinking.  Just about then I was rudely awakened by the sound of snow shovels outside my window removing a freshly fallen snow.
My bubble bursts and the reality that boating season is really over just seems to begin to sink in.  It's that solemn time of year again when I must symbolically take off the strap on my sunglasses, which keeps them from blowing off into the water at high speeds.   Indeed......a sad moment. 

No more mental meltdowns staring mindlessly into the sunset as I listen to time crawl.  No more cruising in the lobotomy mode or floating alone for my daily dose of motion.  No more gorgeous young things flitting around Oak Street Beach in a ballet of confusion.  No more sensational sunny Sunday afternoons of brimming boats on big seas jammed with pleasure crafts in a cyclone of chaos.  No more high speed bladder splatter days of alcohol poisoning now until next spring.

Why is winter so long but the boating season so short?  I must be in a time warp.  I've had a love affair with the water ever since I was a little boy, but I've never been into celebrating the seasons like I do now.  You might call me a season freak with each season having it's own wardrobe and highlights.  This season it's the little white Christmas lights along Michigan Avenue twinkling like the sparkle of Chicago looking out from a 747 at 30,000 feet.
On Halloween I saw the snow fences magically appear along Monroe Harbor and Buckingham Fountain had already been off for a month.  The clincher is that evening on N.O.A. (the 24 hour weather channel) the marine forecast was given and then the announcer sadly informs everyone listening that "today will be the last near shore marine forecast for the 1988 recreational boating season!". 
It's hard to put to rest the nightly ritual of listening.  During the season it's the last thing that I do every night and the first thing that I do every morning.  But now it's time to remove the radio batteries.  I begin facing the reality of it all as my subliminal mental flag is lowered to half-staff.
In a way I enjoy the Chicago winters because it motivates me.   You can't sit back and relax--or you'll actually freeze!  Besides, the horrible Chicago winters keep the riff-raff out.  For some reason I enjoy the urgency of it all.  It's as if the weather were on Loran Auto Pilot. It comes on strong whether you are ready or not.
ALIVE & WELL & RAISING HELL
If I mailed you a newsletter last year an you found it entertaining, here we go again.  If those weren't your thoughts, then get out your Dramamine and smelling salts because from the pages to follow, it looks like we're really in for it. 
There are more than 7,000 boaters on Southern Lake Michigan and they all have stories to tell.  This is just one of them.  It's about what the combination of white wine and sun can do.  (Doesn't this sound like the voice over on the old TV series "San Francisco Beat?")  Too many days at sea can make one a little dingy.  While on a boating binge one day, I decided that technically I'm not crazy, and it's all right to think out loud when you're alone, as long as you don't keep  interrupting yourself!



How could it be the holidays already?  Well it is, so consider this newsletter in lieu of a card.  At the Christmas dinner table I always put out one stainless steel cleaver propeller.  It's all shined up and rebalanced like brand new in the middle of the Lazy Susan.  Inevitability at some point in the dinner conversation, boating always seems to come up.
Before I go to my boat I always check the weather.  I started listening to the N.O.A. weather station early this season.  Very early.  In fact it was in January of this year.  It was, however, for very different weather information regarding the movement of my boat.  I wanted to know if it was going to snow before I took my boat out.  You see, I began towing it around for the second version of the new engines in January.  The boat and my truck combine to make a wild looking 50 foot rig going down the road.  I didn't want to be dragging 4 tons of fiberglass and gasoline around on too much snow and ice.

(Now comes the slow fade from the classic movie "DR. ZHIVAGO", when the snow flake melts into a colorful spring day)

If you're hungry for power, there's a hot, steamy feast of energy under the padded motor hatches.  The new engines are super and their mission is to move fast through the whitecaps.  You get the feeling that the boat could run over any kind of water and not complain.  The sound of the massive monsters are sweet when they're perfectly synchronized--harmony screaming out in unison.  I never imagined that four tons of fiberglass and steel could move so fast.
Hit a wave and feel the exhilaration of flight.  When you land, stab the throttle to the bottle and marvel at the instantaneous response.  Now that's what true offshore boating is all about.   Enough to keep even the most finicky high-performance fiend satisfied.  The beast will now do a respectable 73+ MPH.
I enjoy the challenge of the unknown.  Just the idea that no two waves are exactly alike is exciting to me.  The randomness of it all!   Sometimes I'm willing to bet my life on the skill involved to keep the shinny side up.  It's fun being an extremist.  I figure if you've got a good thing, why not overdo it!!!!!!!!
Off shore accidents give a whole new meaning to the phrase "bottoms up".   I guess that it wouldn't be the most unenviable of fates to end up a disabled boater.   Some must die, so that others may live.  One wonders how we survive youth at all.
Now we're flying with true authority and pizzazz.  It's amazing to me that the motors don't just become un-glued and scatter in every direction.  In fact, just keeping all the screws in the boat from the vibration is a full time challenge.  Good Entertainment and I play this little game that--I can spot, stop, and put back the rail screws walking out before they reach the bottom of Lake Michigan.  The boat usually wins, and I even cheat by keeping a huge supply of extra stainless screws.  All it takes is one bad slam on a wave and another screw is on its way down to being committed to the deep.
TECHNICAL STUFF
I decided to get an education about my engines since I had two helpings of new motors last season, so I went to the KROCHS & BRENTANOS School Of The Self-Taught.  The geometric stresses are unbelievable.  At a given moment in the cylinder, the explosive force on each piston is almost four tons.  When the engine is running at only 4500 RPM, each piston moves up and down 150 times a second.  Think about that.
At the end of the 1987 season I replaced the motors with ten and a half to one compression.  This proved to be too hot for marine use and I detonated two pistons.  In November of 1987  I removed the brand new engines again to go back to the stock eight to one compression, except I graduated from Holly 650 single pump carburetors to Holly 850 double pumpers. 
Now I am able to break my old record of one and a half gallons per minute of fuel consumption!  In fact, it's even more frugal than I had anticipated.  The new ones don't burn over two gallons per minute, (unless you really slam the pedal to the metal).  At that point I think its safe to say that the beast drops out of the economical pleasure boat category, especially by adding eight cans of octane boost per tankfull which is 150 gallons.  But from the moment you gas her up, the ever lightening boat will run faster and faster.  The speed shop and I got everything tuned in real nice, including putting both engines on a "dynamometer".
The dyno checks everything going on in the motors before they even go back into the boat.  It's a bargain at $500 per engine.  That simple test would have told me that the carbs were running too lean before I went to all the trouble of removing them the first time.  I guess the sayings correct, "a boat is just a hole in the water that you keep throwing money into." 
It's nice to know that if an engine is singing a little out of tune and sounds a bit off song, the speed shop can pull it out in a couple of hours.  Last year they were true professionals in everything, including kindly relieving me of my cash!
Actually, even with all of the aggravation it's still worth it.  Boating is the perfect hobby because there's never a time when something  doesn't need attention.  It's Murphy's law that when something goes wrong, it's just normal.  To tell the truth, at no one time has absolutely everything on the boat worked exactly the way it should.  Repair is inevitable.  Boating has taught me probably the most important single lesson in life.  How to deal with disappointment!   And  it only stands to reason that the only repair you can't quite figure out yourself, always happens on the first day of a 3 day weekend when you can't get any help.
Luckily, all of us have disappointments which hopefully teaches us to truly manage our emotions, with a few rare exceptions like the criminal twins Ferdinand & Imelda Marcos.
             THE LIVIN' IS USUALLY EASY
One lazy Sunday afternoon on June 5 while idling through Monroe Harbor, we spotted a swimmer that seemed to be struggling.  His buddy however, apparently thought he was clowning around and laughed.  After several minutes without seeing the swimmer surface I knew he was in trouble.  Very calmly but without wasting a precious second, I radioed a "Mayday" to the Coast Guard and Chicago Police.  I tried to stop traffic over the swimmer, who was completely hidden under the dark water.  Help  arrived in less than ten minutes with the entire diving team.  Within a total of no more than 20 minutes they had found the body and began C.P.R.  The boy apparently survived, recovered, and is doing well.  Medicine has sure come a long way!
WHAT A SUMMER
It was an unusual season with record breaking roller coaster weather almost every month up to100 degrees plus in June, and down to 25 degrees on Oct 12.  It was certainly the misfortune of others, but a plus to boaters in a couple of ways.  First, the lack of moisture for the first half of the season produced no mosquito population at all.  Second, the very hot air temperatures made the contrast of the very cool water seem fantastic.  Crawling in and out of the water every ten minutes to lower your body temperature, while watching the bumper to bumper traffic well inland was certainly not the worst hard luck story that I've ever heard in Chicago.
The windy city is decorated with ribbons of roads.  It doesn't matter if it's the Kennedy, the Dan Ryan, or if your on  L.S.D., the best place to spend the rush hour is definitely 10 miles off shore looking back at the Chicago skyline with the wind whistling through the vast canyons between the high rises.                                                                           JUNE
The last week of June was so cold and wavy, it was almost impossible to go out.   Each day when I went to the boat (just to sit and read in the sunshine), the spiders had symbolically woven webs attaching the boat to the dock as if to make a point.  One morning when I woke up I had a flash that I was a boyunt Rip Van Winkle.  Sleeping on the boat is like sleeping on a water bed that floats.  A weird reoccurring boat dream I have is one where I keep picturing myself as some sort of swimming star like Ester Williams in a swimming movie.  The title is something like..."Sabu, the water boy". (Remember Sabu from the Tarzan movies?)
Then conversely the next week was record breaking days around 100 degrees.  The only way to beat the heat is to GO FAST.
SIZZLING AUGUST
August was also a scorching record breaker.  One of the only disadvantages of the intense heat for me was that my 200 watt stereo system would have thermal shutdowns from time to time.  Sad, isn't it?  (That's almost as sad as the huge four level yacht out of Burnham Harbor named "Empty Pockets".) Did you know that you can get windburn from going fast, which is almost identical to sunburn? I do now.
The triple digit temperatures made each day of the summer a "three bagger."  No no, not the ugly date kind of three bagger.  What I mean is that there is a cooler built into the console of the passenger side holds one bag of ice adequately.  I usually pick up one bag for the entire afternoon, and there's usually a little left for morning.  Last summer was so hot I would get three bags, and there was usually none left in the morning for iced tea when I woke up.  But still, ala my bumper sticker, "Even a bad day on the boat beats a good day at work".


SERIOUS PARTY TIME
WITH ROCK & ROLL & FIREWORKS


My band had a great time playing on the pier at the Jackson Inner Harbor Yacht Club during the 4th of July weekend.  I was on top of the world singing to a full house, basking under the stage lights with my Scarab tied up just a few feet from the bandstand.

GOOD THINGS TAKE TIME
Last season after 5 years on the waiting list, I finally got transferred to Burnham Harbor.  However, the park district forgot to tell me until a couple weeks ago.  So next year I will be moored at star dock N-5 in Burnham.  Just look for the slanted high-preformance dock box.
Jackson Harbor is a great harbor with no shortage of snagger fisherman.  I got a kick out of a polite, older uneducated gentleman who I saw fishing daily.  One day he noticed the abbreviation on the back of my dingy (GOOD ENT.) and as I was rowing out he yelled,"say man, is da name of yuh boat "GOOD INTENTION"?  I smiled and just said "yes."
While harbored in Jackson last year I moved mooring locations from the D star dock over to F (as in love), which  reminds me of when the Coast Guard stopped my boat and asked for me to show a P.F.D., ("personnel floatation devise").  Luckily, they were amused when I held up an inflatable doll.  With a policeman's smirk they informed me that to qualify for an official P.F.D. it has to be attached to the swimmer.  You can imagine where that conversation went.  I guess staying afloat on my P.F.D. would be a little like money in the bank--there is substantial penalty for early withdrawal.  I decided to put her away because I didn't want some inflatable guy out there looking for me.
The Chicago Police and Coast Guard really do have a good sense of humor and do a great job.  It's difficult, however to tolerate the new "Zero Tolerance Law".  I'm certainly not opposed to locking up big time drug lords.  But with this brilliant new law, if a guest borrows your car or boards your boat with any amount of any illegal substance, (even a teenager--even without your knowledge), the government can confiscate your car or boat and auction it off at a public sale!  The potential for abuse is frightening.  Now, after the law has been in force for a full year, C.N.N. 24 hour news network officially reports that it has had "little or no effect on drug trafficking".

LOWRIDERS OF THE SEA


The offshore ocean racer. Folklore has it that this is the boat which is always the criminal carrier of contraband.  At least that's the way it is on Miami Vice.
But there are so many different factions of boaters out there.  The warm Sundays are for all the family folks with barges of pabulum puking pontoon parties.   Conversely are the sportboaters with scantily clothed ladies.  It's nautical but nice! 
Of course there are the fishermen sometimes described as a jerk on one end waiting for a jerk on the other end.  Then there are some guys just cruising hoping for a smooch from a pooch.  Imagine, the chance to meet the wrong woman with the right lawyers.  That faction might be a politician on a boat ride to Bimini with a bimbo.  Gary Hart thought he was getting lucky when he met a buxom little brazen blond with a bad attitude.  Being at the wrong place at the right time is a little like digging for gold in a silver mine.  I guess you could say that she was bucking  for the Marilyn Monore position in the Hart Presidency.
One of the highlights of the season was the traditional cookouts which occur on the first Tuesday of every month at Jackson Harbor Yacht Club.  This is a treat for me because I only make two things for dinner during the season.  One is reservations at the steak fry and the other isn't.
The offshores often make the run together down the lake front in the sunset during the late afternoon to tie up "rafting" to one another in the Jackson Inner Harbor.  (Rafting is the tying up of each boat side by side in a long single line).  After an evening of all you can eat and drink for $18, everyone is in good form to make the run back North to return to their harbors.  Of course I believe in minimal moderation, but the general idea is to get just as loaded as you can  and then go just as fast as you can  in the pitch black dark.  That usually works out fine unless there's a unexpected U.F.O. (Unidentified Floating Object) like a picnic table floating out in the obscure darkness.
  The noise from the dry exhausts in the procession leaving the harbor is reminiscent of perhaps the classic movie "The Wild One" with Marlin Brando.  The atmosphere however is quite different, being much friendlier as the Police boats wave back after you wave to them with a beer in your hand.
On Aug 13 was the traditional Off Shore Powerboat Races in Grand Haven.  There were 6 foot breakers so nobody from Chicago could fly their boat over.  Instead, a few finicky fanatics trailered their offshores over and launched in Grand Haven to observe the race.  Apparently they stayed at the Loud Maid Motel.  Even Chuck Norris and Don Johnson raced on the circuit this year. Boat racing is like a high speed chess game.  The way I look at it is that because of all the mechanical complexities, racing is all luck.
Venetion night in Chicago was also Aug 13, as it was in most harbors around Lake Michigan.    
THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MEN AND BOYS......
............................IS THE PRICE OF THEIR TOYS.
   In the toy department I thought about getting a micro-wave, self-complaining oven because at home I have a micro-wave fireplace.  Now I can spend a whole evening in front of the fireplace in 8 minutes.  I took out the table in the cabin and replaced it with a decaffeinated coffee table. I have now installed electric engine hatches, Kekoffer trim indicators, a brand new rub rail, and a tinted windshield.  The pitch of the props was also increased to 25 inches.  I can't wait for the road test.
THE POLITICS OF BOATING
Politically speaking, last season the city lost over 900 boaters because of the 50% mooring tax.  I think that it's great to show the city who is really in control, except if people keep leaving the Chicago harbors there won't be any harbors left to maintain.  The mooring tax (for the moment) has seemed to have blown away in a blizzard of litigation.
ROCK & ROLL REMINISCENT OF                                     " THE SUMMER OF 88"
"Valley Road"-Bruce Hornsby/The "Let It Roll Album"-Little Feat/"Fine Line"-Stevie Winwood/"Shakedown"-Bob Seger/The end of the season would have to be "The Thrill is Gone"-B.B. King
RED SKY AT NIGHT--SAILORS DELIGHT
The forest fires in Yellow Stone National Park during the entire month of August was bad luck for the poor folks out there.  We however, again benefited by having beautiful red sunrises and sunsets for weeks.  I guess it's all part of the grand scheme of things.
Then came the burly, baton down the hatches tropical storm called "GILBERT" which came in off of the Gulf of Mexico.  If you're not careful about weather fronts, you may have to send a rescue party out to rescue the rescuers.  That's the easy way to get on the news where all the doom groupies can watch.  I would rather go off and safely float alone.
On the other hand, when one feels the urge to merge there is always the popular venture of rafting.   This summer we had up to ten boats tied together in the traditional floating party.  Inevitably, everybody always seems to end up on the smallest boat.  I could imagine trying to explain to the insurance adjuster why the boat sank because there were 25 people dancing on the stern.
I had a great idea and suggested that we go through the locks still tied together 10 abreast.  Technically, we would be tied up, which is really the only thing required while going through the locks.   It would be an interesting dilemma from a physics standpoint.   All of the combined buoyancy of boats, while clutching the river walls as the gate opened with torrential current, would barely be a match for the state of mind we were in.
We finally decided we were just a little too fortified with antifreeze in our blood to pull it off smoothly.  The authorities would probably end up putting us in some sort of State Police patty wagon boat.  The contrived charge would have to be something like loitering in the play pen  or maybe suspicion of vagrancy.  We decided to stay right there on Paradise Island where it was safe.
Then as fast as the party formed, lady nightfall appeared over the lake as if from Walt Disney’s "Fantasia" and darkness brings desolation on the empty horizon with the afternoons fun and laughter only a memory in a newsletter.
LAST CHANCE
Finally came the last big boating holiday, the Labor Day weekend.  But it ended up being a total washout.  Waves up to 15 feet and temperatures down to the 40's were a brutal reminder of how short the season really is.  It was as if the man upstairs with the faucet was demonstrating to me that I'm not the only one capable of being an extremist!
It was indeed an eerie sensation to be in the chilling wind, feeling the warm sun on my cold white goose bumps, projected 3-dimensionally which contrasted with a dark suntan.
Ultimately the inevitable arrived, those five dirty words.  "The end of the season."  Procrastinating until the last possible moment trying to enjoy the sun with each increasingly shorter day.  Sometimes the boat stays in the water until November 15th, the last legal day even with a "late levers permit".  I break waves up and down the lakefront not seeing any other boats.  In fact, during the last final days it's only me and the kayaks out there!  At that time I officially become the fastest boat on the lake for the rest of the entire season.  Yes, here he comes full throttle--KING KAYAK!
The temperature goes down and down and down and still it's good to the last degree.  The wet exhausts steam more and more with the ever-decreasing water temperature.  Soon it even becomes difficult to read the frosted up gauges on the dash.  The magic fades little by little, while I still refuse to accept the obvious.  I then wear a winter hat and gloves while ducking under the windshield in a futile attempt to keep the wind chill off.
But in the end my white flag goes up, ever so slowly, and I surrender to all of the elements and call it a "season."  Again I put my faithful beast of burden to sleep for the winter hibernation by murdering it systematically.  First it is by lethal injection of anti-freeze, thereby taking away the vital life giving fluids of pure lake water.  Then ghoulishly mixing the gas with foreign chemicals (Store and Start).  I continue by removing all of the cooling life giving waters, replacing all oils and grease because of possible contamination with water, and to make sure it will feel no pain for the winter, I put formaldehyde pellets in her heart, way down in the cabin to kill mildew and rot wood.  That's when my guilt feelings begin.
It's as if a vision from the great nautical doctor in the sky emerges, comfortingly puts his arm around me and says,” the prognosis looks good and she'll probably pull through when we try to bring her back to life.  I've documented all her chief complaints and we'll try to get them fixed.  It's best that you just go home and try to forget about her for a while.  Let's let her rest all winter.  Just wait and hope for the best.  There's nothing more that we can do now. 
P.S.--try to get some therapy for your MARINE HYPOCHONDRIAC DISORDER!  There's nothing wrong with the boat.  The magnificent beast is fine.  It's you that won't accept this natural chain of events.  Get it together slim!'                                                           THE HAUNTING MEMORY
Late one night last week while driving North up Lake Shore Drive at 3 AM on the way home from playing music, the lure of the water was calling me and I just had to stop.  In the bitter cold and darkness I walked out onto the bleak and frigid sand of the Oak Street Beach.  It was indeed an eerie feeling not to see one single anchor light as far as the eye could see on the dismal, dreary, cold water.  The blowing breakers were punctuated with white caps. 
Not even the Police or Coast Guard would be venturing out into the arctic night.  The only light visible was the desolate water pumping stations 4 miles off shore.  How can standing on the same spot which baked thousands of gorgeous, tan bathing beauties only a few months earlier be so uninhabitable?  These geological extremes just amaze me.  From sun tan season to hot tub season.
I was quickly brought to reality from my mindless daydreaming by the fact that even just standing on the frozen beach, this weather is survivable for only a few short minutes.  Now for those who love the water--it will just have to be the hot tub. 
So being into hi-performance anything, I acquired a Sears Turbo Spa.  This interesting little gadget creates a whirlpool spa out of any ordinary bath.  You just strap it on the side of the tub like an outboard motor.  It's just like being dragged behind a jet boat.  "Turbo Spa-ing" even includes all of the marine elements.  There's turbulence, power, sound, motion, heat, spray, and even "cavitation" when the impeller "slips" on air bubbles that somehow come from the bottom of the tub.  Speaking of gas, it's really a gas.
If I'm not careful I'm going to blow the transmission up and the whole unit might scatter.  I wonder if I would then be documented as "another water fatality" on the news.  It's all a little weird.  Even as the tub drains it feels wrong, sort of like a reverse kind of sinking.
GOOD ENTERTAINMENT---THE FINAL CHAPTER
Yes, Good Entertainment will be retired into the hall of fame of great names.  I'm committed to the steadfast belief that a hi-performance sport boat should have some sort of fast name.  I thought about: SPEED & SPRAY; BREAKIN' WAVES; FAST LANE; AIRBORNE; RED ROCKET (maybe after red paint); ROCKET MAN; FULL THROTTLE; THROTTLE MAN; BULLET;  and so on.  It's difficult committing yourself to a name that you can live with because I see it everyday and so does everyone else, but because I'm so into video toys I decided to just push a button and.......................>>
FAST FORWARD>>
            TO  NEXT SEASON


The paint job is all finished and the letters have been airbrushed from a dark blue on the bottom to a light blue on top.  Now the large graphics on both sides say "FAST FORWARD>>", just like your video remote control.   Since I've had my remote control I haven't watched an entire episode of anything.  I just sit home all winter and "do laps" (going around and around the TV dial looking for offshore races).  Now I can enjoy the idea of having a boat name that is on every tape machine in the world!   The small stencil for accessory identification has been cut and I'm going nuts by spraying everything in sight.  Even the sidewalk in front of my place has FAST FORWARD>> stenciled on it.  Those damn kids!
Well now that I'm almost ready to accept the fact that the season's over, I can finally get some work done to help pay for this frivolity.  But still, sometimes I find it hard to sleep because even though the season may be over I know deep down inside that....................................... LAKE MICHIGAN NEVER CLOSES!!

                    The Wetter, The Better:

BILL

"I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea.  I think it's because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, life changes, and ships change--it's because we all came from the sea. All of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean. `Therefore, we have salt in our sweat and tears, so we are tied to the ocean.  When we go back to the sea, weather it is to sail or just to watch it, we are going back from hence we came....


                          JOHN F. KENNEDY




Disclaimer
   (After all, it's almost 1990 and my lawyer insists that you must make yourself perfectly clear these days!)
   This lighthearted letter is written in the spirit of Christmas, solely for the sake of entertainment and should be perceived as fictional.  It is not intended to offend any person or any group of people in any way.  If this polite bit of marine comedy is not in line with your particular beliefs or standards, please accept my sincere apologizes and upon request I will immediately discontinue any further mailings and your money will be cheerfully refunded.
  The statements and opinions in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect my own personal views.  Any reference to dates, times,  people, places, or any other information of any kind in this writing is not deemed or guaranteed to be accurate or factual.  At any and all times the vessel is used within the perimeters of its design and operated, safely, responsibly, and within the law. 
  I  respect the water, takes boating very seriously, and graduated the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary "Boating Skills & Seamanship Course" in the top 10% passing all electives on May 9, 1984 under the supervision of flotilla commander John J. Olivet.  I support and promote boating safety and at no time mean to express or imply anything to the contrary.
  This document may not be reproduced in any way without prior written permission.