JUNE 24, 2008 ODOM POINTS NITE

As days go, there are good ones and there are bad ones. In the general scheme of things, some are the absolute pits and others outstanding. As those days work themselves out you wonder why in the world they are going in the direction that they are. There are some days when it seems, sometimes, that the day is just "going off the rails." Of course, as the poem states…"God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform, one foot upon the ocean and the other on the storm…" or something to that effect. June 24, 2008 was one of those days. It had the good AND the bad. More on this later.

I picked up Howard Rasmussen about 4:45PM Tuesday evening. As predicted, the day was beautiful. There were clear skies, with the occasional fluffy cumulus, the temp was in the mid 70s and the breezes were moderate. I was anticipating good sailing and was not disappointed. Howard did not bring his ODOM this time because knees have been bothering him.

When we arrived at the lake we were greeted with breezes blowing from the North at about 5-8mph with gusts to 15mph and the marks were gaily bobbing on the lake. Harry Lange, Enumclaw and Jerry Muridge, Tacoma and put out the marks. Thanx, guys. "Chappy" Chapman, Tacoma, was also there and eager to get on with the sailing. He didn’t want to waste all of those good breezes.

The starting gun went off at about 6:15PM. Most of the heats were sailed generally N/S and were mostly windward/leeward. Sailing was great until the 4^th heat when Murphy suddenly reared his ugly head. We were preparing to sail the 4^th heat. While doing our jockeying around for a good starting position Chappy and I got hooked up at the jib and at the sail head. Fortunately we were very close to the dock so we were able to retrieve the boats. I untangled the boats, Chappy sailed away as the starting tape played. However, my boat was only going in circles and I could see the rudder turned at a hard angle. Not the usual position for my rudder for either a port or starboard turn. When I put my boat on the stand I found, much to my amazement, that the aft bulkhead holding my rudder servo and sail winch had pulled loose from the keel block. There must have been a lot of force to tear the bulkhead off in that manner. This ended my sailing for the day.

No one seemed to want to stop sailing as it got nearer to 8:30PM. Finally with the great breezes the skippers sailed the final 15^th heat. Harry L and Jerry M rounded up the marks and put the boat away.

We then went to the restaurant for a bite to eat and figure out the scores.

We were seated in the restaurant and had received our orders. We were sitting at a 5’-6’ round table. Howard R was seated to my left, Jerry M to my right, Harry L directly across from me and next to him was Chappy C. Howard was actually between me and Chappy C.

Howard was eating a salad with Romaine lettuce. Howard leaned over to his left and started to cough. He has these coughing jags at times and I thought nothing of it. Then he sits up and turns to me and says, "I’m not kidding, hit me on the back!" While he is saying this Harry jumps up from his chair. He recognized that something was amiss with Howard. From this point on it seemed to me that everything is going in slow motion: Harry runs behind me and slaps Howard on the back and then a piece of Romaine lettuce stalk pops out of his mouth! Howard was choking on the lettuce! Thanks to the Harry’s take charge action, he most probably prevented a tragedy. Nice going, Harry. Howard "owes you one." Now Howard can go on to another day and more sailing.

We all headed for home at about 9:45PM. So, June 24, 2008 came to an end for us. It was good and bad but definitely mostly good.

Joe Brohan