Bring your Boat- Down to Alabama!

***Bring your boat- down to Alabama!***
(#StorytellingSalemStory #999,991 out of 1mil:)

🎶So I’ve been travelling across the country—
town to town/city to city/State to State;
sitting down in random locations—
across this Nation— with a whiteboard in my haaand;
I’ve been asking pplllll:
“What’s Yor Story?”🎶

And when I was in Eufaula, Alabama, a man with a faded baseball cap and hands stained with grease looked and read what was written upon my whiteboard. He looked behind him to see if his elderly bloodhound dog was still following; and found her walking waaaay the far back behind him. Slowly catching up, by smelling every flower and scent along the way.
The Alabama-man- turned back to me & started to share:

⸻

“I fix boat engines. That’s what I do. Been doing it since I was sixteen—before I even had a license, I could rebuild a Yamaha blindfolded. Some people talk about meditation, about silence and breathing and all that—I get that from tuning a carburetor just right. Listening to the sound it makes; and knowing how to fix it- from that alone.

I live by the water. You kind of have to, out here. Everyone’s got a boat, or wants one, or’s tryin’ to get the one they have to run just one more season. And I help ‘em do that.

But a few years back, I got into the habit of not charging certain folks. Veterans. Single parents who go out on the water with their children. Old timers who only fish to feed themselves. (My buddy called it bad business. Said ‘I was gonna run myself dry; that those folks would be willing to pay with money they don’t even have. & that I could get more out of them in the back-end.’)

But here’s the thing: the boats come back. Sometimes the same ones. Sometimes different. I’ve had engines show up with casseroles in the front seat, or notes taped to the steering wheel that say, “Pay you next spring/ Pay you next harvest.”

And they do. Not always in cash. But in favors, in firewood, in stories. A kid brought me deer jerky last fall with a thank-you note written in crayon.

My old man used to say: ‘if you help a boat float, it’ll find its way back to you.’ I didn’t understand it then. I do now.

I’m not rich. My shop leaks when it rains. My dog thinks she runs the place. But I got folks who trust me, and boats that keep limping back to life. And that’s enough to get up every morning and grease my hands again- till I make it to another night.”

⸻

And then he tipped his hat in a ‘thank ye for listening’ type o’ way. Looked up to see where his dog went; found her way up ahead on the path he was initially walking. Started following her as he started to say: “It’s her time for a nap. Whether I’m ready or not; she’s headed home to crash. Later now.”

🎶And I?
I stayed by the Alabama Port; watching ship builders all day working on their boats; holding a whiteboard asking:
“What’s Yor Story?”
waiting for the next person to walk my waaaay~🎶

(#StorytellingSalemStory #999,991)