My last musing of this nature was back last summer as I “sat and starred at the calm green water” with my faithful companion, Captain Mud. Not the case these days as I am huddled around my trusty Fisher wood stove.
Speaking of firewood, In November I thought I had achieved a plenty in my firewood gathering duties, but alas Old Man Winter has proven me wrong again. Maybe next year!
Well, the good ship Aquascape Environmental has been fortunate to reach another milestone as we celebrate 25 years of sailing the seas of enterprise. I have a list a mile long of people who helped us to make this journey but the most important are my family and spouse. Without their support, the good ship Aquascape would probably be laying on the bottom of the sea.
Through my 25 years of “Aquascaping”, I have countless good and bad stories. In fact, my theory on prospering these 25 years is that the good stories have outnumbered the bad ones.
One of the more memorable stories of my early days relates to one of my first employees that I hired to help me during the summer. His name was Clyde and he taught me an important lesson. Clyde was a fairly big fellow and had a distinctive slow, southern drawl. Clyde was college-bound and our road conversations always seemed to gravitate toward his outside recreational activities like rock climbing or other adventurous type activities.
Because Clyde was a new employee, I worked on developing his job skills in various facets of the duties required. Unfortunately, one of the necessities of working with lakes is dealing with floating trash. Not the most exciting aspects of the business but as they say, “It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it”. In order to facilitate the trash cleanup operation, a small kayak works quite nicely. Now back to my story. On one particular day, I felt Clyde was ready to advance his skills and I asked him if he wanted to try out paddling around the lake in the kayak to pick up trash. His eyes widened in anticipation. Well, as I watched Clyde climb into the kayak, the kayak seemed to strain somewhat due to his size. Based on the kayak’s strain, I felt compelled that a very important question should be asked: “Clyde, can you swim?” There was a pause for a moment but then he finally responded in his slow southern drawl – “Not very well”. My proper judgment prevailed and I suggested to Clyde that it was probably best if he left the kayaking duties to me. I don’t exactly remember how long Clyde worked that summer, but I believe it was somewhat short-lived. However, Clyde, even with his short tenure at AE, was able make a major contribution to our operations to this day. From hence forward a critical element was added to our Job Application: “Can you swim?”
Well, if one looks to the skies these days, the Sandhill Cranes can be seen, and sometimes heard, as they make their way north from their winter confines of the black-water spaces of the Okefenokee Swamp. Their trek seems to be a little earlier than normal this year – which I hope has meaning. Although, our recent rash of snow and ice has me wondering about their meteorological skills. I will confess that I love wintertime, but the Old Man’s grip this year has pushed me to my limit and I relish the warm days of spring ahead.
All the best,
Jim
