Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Profiles in Color

4. Scoby Bill
Scoby Bill was a highliner
of considerable note,
but most noteworthy of all
was the name of his boat.

She was a sleek, fast-looking craft
that would never be mistaken for a trawler,
painted bright yellow from stem to stern,
she was named "THE MARIJUANA HAULER".

This was about 30 years ago, and Bill
must have been feeling pretty feisty.
If he was trying to get the Coast Guard's attention,
he succeeded precisely.

The expression "Drill Baby, Drill",
did not originate with the oil companies,
It started, instead, with the Coast Guard,
when they boarded Bill far at sea.

It wasn't long before "THE MARIJUANA HAULER"
started looking like Swiss cheese.
They drilled out so much wood
that she gained 2 knots of speed.

Eventually Bill got tired of
being boarded day after day,
but instead of changing the name,
he painted her battleship gray.

Many years later Captain Bill
was running the Scoby 2,
the Marine Patrol had boarded and said,
the fishbox needed going through.

The officer asked Bill if he had a shovel?
Bill said "right here", and promptly heaved it far out to sea.
The officer said "you can't do that".
Bill replied "why not? The damn thing belongs to me".

Bill thought he had won that round,
but the Law denied him victory.
They wrote him a citation
for discharging plastic into the sea.

Bill had to delay his next trip
while he searched everywhere that he could,
but he finally found just what he was looking for,
a shovel carved out of wood.
,

No comments:

Post a Comment