Cowboy wasn't too bright

. He was very possibly a young man that had been born with a touch of Down's or something. He was a real pleasant person, not a mean bone in his body but simply had little in the brain department.

There was no doubt whatsoever that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was going to come loooking for him to solve their problems. 

He eventually screwed up and got himself killed and had his remains eaten by a bear but that is another story.

He lived in his boat in Dog Bay in Kodiak the same winter I spent on board my sailboat. In his spare time he would visit other boats and either help out or watch someone do something.

My favorite Cowboy story was the time he was watching a fisherman install a day tank for a stove in his boat. It was about a 20 gallon tank that was to provide stove oil to his stove for both heat and cooking.

The fisherman was a man that had sort of dropped out and changed careers following a messy divorce and previously had been some sort of an engineer before he dropped out to fish.

The fisherman spent the morning installing the tank and running the necessary piping and then spent the rest of the afternoon rewiring the boat to get the electricity to run the pump. 

Adjusting the pump to the proper pressure to get it to supply the stove without either starving it for fuel or overpressuring the stove carburator finished out the day.

It was a pretty good piece of craftsmanship when I think back on it. The man obviously knew how to do quality work.

It was about this time I wandered on by to see what was going on as I had heard he was installing a stove fuel system.

I quietly boarded and looked in the galley and heard the final discussion as the fisherman patiently explained everything to Cowboy.

"Gee!" said Cowboy. "I wish I could do that kind of stuff. I would have had to mount the tank on the coachroof and let gravity feed my stove!"

It was then that I ever so quietly beat a hasty retreat.

It's not nice watching someone regarded as the village idiot humble someone like that.


To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html