The thing about September is that it can rain a lot. When it rains in September that’s not welcome, no matter who you are. Had I planted those new trees in my back yard I’d be happy for the rain. But I didn’t plant those new trees because I am waiting for October, for the month when the weather should be changing and with the change, rain. The farmers are happy for rain in June even when the lakeside revelers are unhappy with it. The corn needs rain, beans, too, and so the farmers wish for and the revelers wish against. In September, the farmers crave dry weather so their crops can be harvested, and the revelers crave those last few dry days of summer so that they might swim once more. Today it’s raining and yesterday it rained and this weekend it might rain. No matter, it’s boat show weekend and shows, as we know, must go on.
Here’s the thing about the Geneva Lakes Antique and Classic Boat Show: It’s something you should do, but it’s not something you’ll necessarily love doing. It’s a cool show because it’s here and we’re here and you’ll like the boats and the scene is fun, but it really is a show about old wood boats. I love old wood boats. I always have and I always will. But old wood boats are sort of like shoes. It’s neat to have a few pairs, but if you have 200 pairs and you look at them all at once they just start to look like a bunch of shoes. There are newer shoes that look like old shoes, and there are old shoes, and there will be some shoes that you’ve never seen before. But at the end of that day, and at the end of this weekend, these shoes are our boats, and our boats are your shoes.
That’s not to say this isn’t a good weekend to be at the lake, because every weekend is a good weekend to be at the lake, but it is to say I don’t want you coming to the boat show and expecting to be remarkably entertained. There will be some music, some food, lots of boats, and trinkets of boat-related interest offered for sale. Some old guy will sit by his boat, the one that you don’t care much for, and you’ll feel somewhat obliged to walk down his small pier wing and take a look at his boat. By then you’ll have already seen a hundred or so boats, but you won’t be able to ignore this man’s boat because you know he entered the boat in the show because he loves his boat. You feel like you should too, so walk down the pier and look at his boat and nod like you appreciate what it is that he has there. This is proper boat show etiquette.
I always feel sad for certain boats in the show, those boats that travel from Minnesota or Michigan or Iowa or Ohio to be here. Those boats spend their lives toiling in some dirty-water-lake in some other state and for just one weekend a year they get to ply our waters. They get to see how the other half lives, and for these boats this weekend is everything. They’ll arrive today and some tomorrow and they’ll push into our water and they’ll frolic for a few days. They’ll float and their hull will soak in the goodness that is Geneva Lake and then, without much ado, they’ll be dragged from the lake, kicking and screaming, snorting and huffing, and they’ll be towed, against their will, back to the lake from whence they came. It’s a good weekend for us, but a sad weekend for these out of state boats.
Come up this weekend, indulge the boats and the scene. If the weather cooperates it will be a perfect lakeside weekend. If the weather doesn’t cooperate, as the forecast threatens, it’ll still be a nice weekend. What would you be doing instead, hanging out at a mall or standing in line for brunch? Hopefully I’ll see you at the lake this weekend.