COMMON SENSE - OR LACK THEREOF

"Dispatch, 4407 Bravo - a nasty storm with lightning is approaching the headwaters of the dam and I'll be 10-7, off the water Douglas Lake."


"10-4  4407 Bravo."


I had been watching the sky for the entire time I had been on the water as storms were predicted for evening.  At about 5:30PM the sun disappeared and was replaced with sudden darkness.  It grew darker by the minute.  I noticed there were no boats on the lake and decided to turn this boat around and blast for the boat ramp.

The wave action increased as the wind changed from a gentle breeze to actual wind.

I pulled up to the dock at the boat ramp and sent the message you read at the start of this entry. As I secured the boat to the trailer in the parking lot, I saw a truck pull in with a jet ski on a trailer  and back up toward the top of the boat ramp.  A lady of about 60 years jumped out of the truck on the passenger side and waved at me.  I noticed two kids about 18 years of age sitting in the truck.  As I walked around the rear of my boat trailer I addressed the lady.


"Are you going out on the lake mam?"


She replied they were.


I said, "you may want to look down the lake at the storm that's coming on fast."


She said that they were used to storms and really needed to get some water time.




I advised her to think twice about launching, at least until the strength of the storm is known.

They ignored my recommendation to wait and backed down the ramp and, I guess, launched. I was on my way out of the parking lot when I lost sight of them on the slope of the boat ramp.


There is a quality that most humans have, or used to have, called common sense. It is encountered less and less in people in these hurried times. Maybe its been bred out of the current generation of homo sapiens. I don't think common sense can be learned. I think its something we're born with. It helps us judge situations and make "logical" decisions about those situations. These people all lacked this quality. The younger guys still in the truck may still be developing common sense. The lady should have acquired this all important attribute many years ago. These are the same type of people who constantly get themselves in trouble by making bad decisions whether trying to pass a line of cars on the road or parking a car at the grocery store. Running a yellow light at an intersection is a great example of the lack of common sense. Out here, on the lake, a bad decision can kill. The water has no empathy for anyone. Lackadaisical attitudes toward the dangers on the water will bring nothing but grief. So, there they go, on a jet ski with their enormous, red inner- tube in tow, ignoring the warning I gave them, out on the water with a storm at their backs. Idiots! These are the dunces that get into life threatening situations on the water and someone else has to put their lives in danger to go out and get their sorry, ignorant asses. The human gene "pool" is getting more shallow every year.