Yonder.

 

I once worked on a bunker barge bunkering ships and had to deal with a pretty ignorant tug skipper.  Everywhere to him was either ‘yonder’ or ‘down yonder’.

“Catch me a line over yonder,” he’d say.

Of course, yonder was where ever he wanted it to be and it was always confusing to say the least. I think he was some kind of flatbilly. (This is a hillbilly without the hills)

 Finally I decided I’d had enough. I made a stencil and labeled the midship cleats ‘yonder’ and went aboard the tug and explained to him that yonder was the midship cleat and when he said ‘yonder’ that’s where I would go.

Of course he would say something like, “Catch a line yonder!” and I would head straight to the midship cleat. He’d get frustrated until he finally figured it out. He started saying things like “Two cleats aft yonder.”

That I could work with. I knew where yonder was and I could count two cleats aft. Yonder now had a fixed value and from then on things went pretty smoothly.

Sometimes all it takes is assigning a fixed value to something and working off of it.

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 NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY