9x12
Oil on Linen Board
Plein Air
I'm not sure where the Saugeen Witch is from, but when she was blocked up at Mackey's Marina for repair, she clocked in on Mackey's time - which I learned a long time ago is just a little bit slower than other places. Several years ago when I returned to Eastern North Carolina after a few years of living in West Virginia, I decided to have the old family seventeen foot Boston Whaler restored. I had named the boat the 50/50 a while back because whenever you took her out, you had a 50/50 chance of getting back in without a mechanical breakdown. Someone said to take the boat to Mackey's and see what they could do with it.
Buddy, the Chief Operating Officer of Mackey's at the time, gave the 50/50 a look and said that he could have her looking like new in no time and could make some repairs to the engine to up my return percentages. A few weeks passed, and I returned to Mackey's excited to see a freshly refurbished whaler with a good working engine sitting in the water waiting for me to take her out in the sound for a test ride. The 50/50 was still sitting in the yard exactly where I had left her - just like the Saugeen Witch that has been sitting where she is for quite sometime now.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Almost a month had passed, and the boat hadn't been touched! I walked over to Buddy's office which was an old guard shed with an industrial sized air conditioner hanging out of a rotten window and powered by an orange drop chord that snaked back to the repair shop several yards towards the docks. When I walked in I saw icicles hanging from the conditioner vents, and Buddy was laid back snoring in a fully extended lazy boy recliner with a Louis L'amour novel resting over his face.
It took several "throat clearings" to wake him up before I said, "Buddy, I thought you said that you were going to get right on the boat and have her looking like new in no time. I don't mean to be rude, but I was expecting this thing to be ready and I came here ready to write a check and pay you."
Buddy lifted the western book off of his face and only moved it down to his chest so that he could look at me without having to fold the chair in the upright position. He rubbed his eyes, yawned and calmly said, " Fen, Maybe I should have been a little more up front with you when you came the first time, so I'll shoot you straight now. I'll get to it when I get to it."
Fresh from management training with Coca-Cola and green as grass, I returned, "Buddy, that is unacceptable. You are running a business here. You can't make money with that kind of customer service acumen."
Buddy picked up the book and executed a full body stretch without getting out of the chair and this time yawned a yawn twice as long as the one before. When his body returned to its relaxed position within the confines of the recliner and 'ol Louis L'amour was balanced back on his nose, Buddy politely replied. " I have two ex-wives that I have to pay alimony to. I don't give a damn if I make five dollars, five hundred dollars, or five thousand dollars 'cause I ain't goona see a dime of it."
There is no response to a statement like that other than a delayed and stunned sheepish reply, "Ah, Ah, Ah....Ok. Well thanks, Buddy. Just let me know when its ready..See you later."
Livin' on Mackey's Time.
