Reflections Inside and Out

Last night after a small party on the dock, after some wine, an old neighbor who walks with a cane and lives alone on a very rickety houseboat with narrow precarious planks for a gangway, fell in the water trying to board his boat. Two passersby saw him and pulled him out. He was calmly sinking, more worried about his hat floating away than drowning. Earlier in the evening at the party, another neighbor was talking about a similar incident with a different, older neighbor last winter. She said if she hadn't looked over her left shoulder at just that moment he would have died probably of hypothermia. Only his fingers gripping the dock and the top of his head had been visible. She got him out, got him back to his boat, into dry clothes. We hear of older people falling and breaking hips. Here on the docks there are different consequences to consider. Thank goodness for neighbors and quick acting visitors who respond with kindness, resolve, and care.