This story about four people in Florida who were found fishing off their sinking pontoon boat while awaiting rescue, reminds me of my father when I was a teenager.

For reasons I don’t recall (other than perhaps that I was a teenage boy) one day up at the lake, my father mother and younger sister went out fishing, leaving me at the cottage. While a good 20 minutes away from the dock, his engine died. No danger of sinking mind you, just stranded. A young man happened along in another boat and offered to bring my sister back to get me so I could tow him in.

As the boat pulled away, leaving my mom and dad bobbing in the waves, it was not the fact that my dad had just sent my 13-year old sister off in a boat with a strange man that sent Mom over the edge. It was the fact that my dad knew he had a good hour to kill, so he got out his fishing pole. Apparently, he lacked the good sense to panic.

In the end, it was all fine. My sister was not kidnapped. (This was the 70’s and 24-hour cable news hadn’t been invented yet, so stuff like that only happened to other people.) And I was able to go tow him in. The only lasting scar is that Mom is subjected to periodic ribbing about this, apparently even still.