Gratuitous Llama Pre-Vacation Posting

Three days to go before we head for Maine, but who's counting?

One of the things I'm looking forward to this year is that a friend of Mom's has offered to take me out in his sailboat while we're there. It's just a small boat (I don't know what type) in which he duffs about the bay, but it should be fun.

In fact, I was chatting with Mom this weekend. She was sitting out on her deck and watching her friend work his way out of Lowell's Cove, hooting with laughter as he repeatedly missed stays while trying to tack. I reminded her of the old joke about the retired Admiral, which it seems appropriate to retell here. (I know I've done so before, but it's been a while.)

It seems there was an Admiral in the Royal Navy who, during his career, built a fearsome reputation as a critic of his subordinates' nautical skills. Upon retiring, he moved to a house built on a bluff overlooking the channel into Malta, there to spend his autumn years watching HM ships move in and out of the port through his large telescope. Malta has a tricky channel, and the Admiral also had a flagpole planted next to the cottage, via which he would offer scathing commentary on his brother naval officers' attempts to deal with it.

One day, a young Lieutenant was making a sad cock of his first attempt at navigating the channel. He knew perfectly well that the Admiral was watching through his telescope and kept glancing nervously up at the flagpole for any sign of the Admiral's opinion.

At about his sixth glance, the Lieutenant saw a flag racing up the flagpole. As the flag bellied out in the wind, he recognized the signal "GOOD". However, before he had an opportunity to take this in, a second signal ran up the flagpost. It read: "ADD TO MY FIRST - GOD."

"Good add to my first," has become a family expression.