NOAH IS MY NEIGHBOR AND HE IS BUILDING A PARTY ARK

I left the house, headed down AA to go over and hit Highway 12 West - on my way to check up on my friend Doug Cox, now on his second day out of heart surgery. More about that later.

On the way down the road I passed my neighbor's huge house boat that had been sitting up on blocks in his yard since spring. It had always puzzled me tht he hadn't put her in the Mississippi long ago.
This time the boat really caught my eye as she is getting a face lift. There are several skilled craftsmen working on her, giving her this new facade which can only be described as Margaritaville meets A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. On the one hand we have two shelves with potted palms, hinting of the tropics, the huge symbolic sun, similar to my tatoo, and on the other hand, we have the staid columns and a balcony complete with a row of lamps.
Since I had stopped uninvited, i didn't want to pry but I did speak with the gentleman pictured working on the roof. He told me he has a slip over near Stillwater, Minnesota and that this is his fishing boat.

I don't know about you, but it looks like a party boat to me.

You can see that in size relation to the automobiles and house, this sucker is HUGE! I asked him if he was going to o"follow the sun" but he didn't seem to have that in mind.

It has long been my pipe dream to sell our compound and get a really nice house boat, launch near Wabasha and follow the sun south for the winter and north for the summers.

I have visions of ting up at the local piers of river towns all up and down the Big Muddy and finding cozy little beer joints armed with my guitar and a hat to pass for food and fuel for my "dream boat".

Pretty cool notion!

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As I mentioned, I did stop to see Doug this morning, but he was somewhat indisposed. being poked and prodded by a physician while wearing an oxygen mask. From under his mask he muttered that he wouldn't be good company this morning as his nurse was a "terror".

Having gone through the same surgery, I think he is going through the second day "down and got the blues" syndrome that comes with the 48 hours after a major surgery.

I stayed only long enough to leave him a gift and head out.

I was double parked in the hospital parking lot anyway. I will give it a shot again tonight.

Yesterday douglas got off a funny. His nurse said, in passing: "well, that depends -

Doug jumped that in a hurry with: "Don't say 'Depends' to an old person."

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