Kaimusailing

I began asking around, making phone calls, visiting websites, looking for a way to dispose of my 20 gallons or so of 3 year old gasoline that I pumped out of the fuel tank. By chance I met an old fellow who was looking at a skiff-like boat for sale on a trailer in the marina. We chatted and the subject of old gas came up and he said he had disposed of 200 gallons of old fuel from a houseboat. The marina, which is run by the Dept. of Natural Resources helped him find a service to remove the fuel.
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I tried calling DNR and the lady who answered disconnected the call when she tried to transfer me. This happened again and again. Finally I was able to speak to someone and they said they do not do anything with old fuel. I called the contact person of Somerset County recycling and he affirmed Somerset has no Hazardous Household Waste program, which would include old gasoline. He did know of a company that removes fuel tanks from gas stations when they have to replace their tanks and he provided a name and a number. I called them, West Fuel Services, and found they would take my old fuel for a reasonable fee or they could come and get it with their big truck for a rather larger fee. I contacted Eve, the artist, about hiring her to transport my old fuel to West’s business up near Salisbury, up near Tall Tales, our favorite bistro up that way.
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Eve was staining her back steps when I arrived by bicycle. Although we had mostly blue sky above, rain started falling. Eve put her stuff away and said she couldn’t paint in the rain. We rode to the marina where I had stashed 20 one gallon jugs of old fuel at the head of K dock. We loaded the fuel into her huge SUV and took off for the fuel disposal company. When I called them I was told the fuel recovery truck was up in Ocean City, could I do it some other day? After some pleading I would be allowed to drop off the jugs of gasoline at the business site and it would be disposed some time later. The address was in a town called Snow Hill, it was not in Salisbury, and it was quite a ways away.
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Snow Hill is a very pretty town with some nice restaurants. It is adjacent to Pocomoke River State Park. Beautiful country up there. After dropping off the fuel we decided to cross the peninsula to Salisbury and have lunch at Tall Tales. I was going to reimburse Eve for her fuel and her time, but she said the lunch was enough. We returned to Crisfield and took a back road. A jeep vehicle was following us and Eve said I wonder if that is Diana. Yes it was. We were now headed to the Legion.
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Diana had been away for about a week and the time was right to commiserate at the Legion over a glass of wine or two. Cuddily showed up with Teri a short time later. It was the Bad Crowd back together. I had ridden over on my bike so that I could return directly to the marina. Back on board I slept without the smell of stale gasoline. My allergic congestion that had been persistent was now gone.
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I had the new fuel gauge sender delivered on CM’s porch. Eve texted me about her old computer. It was all on Cove St., her back steps were newly painted. I called her from the backyard, yes, I could come in. We went upstairs to the room where the computer was, would it respond. It slowly booted up. I attached old style keyboard and mouse to the pink and purple ports on the back of the computer.. It booted up after a while.
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She was interested in saving a bunch of old pictures. We got into her previous life, llamas, a farm in upstate New York. Fingerlakes, snow, Amish houses, farms, some vistas that were not breathtaking, but soul taking. We ended up copying the whole pictures folder to a thumb drive. We had about 45 minutes, acording to Windows, and had to go to the wine store for some bottles of wine, or a box, or two. We returned and went upstairs to see if the computer was done copying, it was. I powered it down, removed the sides of the case and removed the hard drive. The computer was ready to be donated.
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Karen arrived and we went to an open house event, a motel near the marina was reopening with a new name. There were speeches and a ton of food and drink. It was a beautiful day, a crowd of people, a superspreader event.
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When I returned to the marina it was dark and a beautiful crab boat was lit up with blue interior lights. The image is of that boat.