LETTERS FROM STEVO: Operation... Owen's Boat

Happy Father's Day to all you father's out there and to all you mother's who wear the pants in your family! You know who you are! Fatherhood is a mother's revenge, and it's a dish best served cold and bitter...just ask Ma Busch. Studies have shown that men's testosterone levels decrease at the birth of their children. This is nature's way of telling the human male, "Do not eat the child!" "Do not kill the child!" It is not edible and it is not competing for scare resources...do not terminate it. In fact, you have to "take care" of it by feeding it and allowing it to grow...UUUHHHH??? Me understand!

Let's segue into the main topic. I have an uncle. Owen. He is the older brother of Ol'Ern, by 15 years! For our family, Owen is THAT uncle...you know what I mean? Ol'Ern always looked out for him and was a great brother to him. One day, Owen came over to our house to show off a new toy he had purchased. It was an old, worn out motor boat, probably built in the 60's or early 70's. The upholstery was torn, the paint worn off and it looked like it hadn't been used in a few centuries. No reasonable person would actually pay money for this thing. But he was proud of it and wanted to take it out to Morgan Lake to see how smooth she rides! Big Dave and I were in our pre-teens and were coerced by Ol'Ern into joining in this bundle of fun. Needless to say the boat didn't run, I seem to remember we discovered it couldn't even float and that was the end of that. Owen kept the boat in his possession and even talked Ol'Ern into docking it in our extended backyard. The extended backyard was a no-man's land of gargantuan weeds that were capable of consuming human flesh. And so Owen's boat sat in this wasteland for years and years and years.

Following Ol'Ern's passing, Ma Busch sold the homestead and bought a new house in Farmtown. As preparations were made to move Ma Busch out of the house, Big Dave and I remembered something...that P.O.S. boat is still sitting out there in the backyard! Everyone had forgotten about it! Something had to be done. The boat had to go. The new home owners weren't going to want this garbage in their "beautiful" new backyard! We devised a plan.

We understood two things. 1) The gargantuan weeds needed to be cleared. 2) Owen's boat needed to disappear. These weeds weren't the kind that you could just pull out of the ground, or even dig up from under the ground with a shovel. So we did the logical thing...rented a bobcat! If you ever have a reason to rent a bobcat...you absolutely need to take advantage! Just adjust the speed from "turtle" to "rabbit" and ram those weeds going full blast! It was awesome! Our next step was to hook up the boat to Ma Busch's truck and personally deliver it to Owen. Fortunately, the boat sat on a trailer, but the tires were flat and barely hanging on to the wheels. Big deal! We hooked it up anyway and drug it to Owen's house with the metal of the wheels screeching against the pavement. We pull up to Owen's house, him and aunt Laurel come out with a look of absolute shock! "what the...?" We pull up, "Hey guys! I believe this belongs to you!" He asks what he's supposed to do with it, to which we respond that's really not our concern...take it to Lake Powell and see if it will float! That was one of the sweetest moments of my life...I hated that boat, never understood why we had it in the first place and felt a sense of justice in hand delivering it back to its rightful owner...Owen...