I’m going to rant a little so bear with me or move on……..
I like to go to gatherings where folks display a variety of stuff like cars, boats, guns, motorcycles etc and I’m sure many of you do as well. Like me many of you have had questions or are curious about what the person has done, why they did it or how they did it.
Quite often you will see the owner or exhibitor of the above items gathered in small groups or huddles of people slightly away from the general traffic flow. They are almost within earshot but still a little far away for polite conversation without shouting to get their attention. On the off chance you can get their attention you are often rebuffed with a curt answer or a sigh or even just a vacant stare…...I am not saying this ALWAYS happens but it has happened to me more than once and I live in the land of “Wintertime is the show off your stuff season” please come and look at it.
Last year at the Mt. Dora wood boat show I was looking at an antique Chris Craft that was propped up on a stand like a porcelain Jesus surrounded by signs and trophies and even a velvet rope like at the movies. Boat cost more than my first two homes put together and was indeed a real beauty! I was intrigued with the shifting mechanism and for the life of me could not figure out how it actually worked so I went around to the director's chair at the stern and attempted to ask the man wearing the captains hat how it functioned…….Guy looks at me as if I was wearing a coat made from dead kittens…..He replies “ Well I guess you are not acquainted with a vessel of this quality are you ?” For those who know me, you can only imagine the laundry list of replies I had ready at the tip of my tongue….. I just dropped it and turned and walked on to look at something else.
Why am I boring you with my story…..To make a point that sometimes here on the VDH Forum we come across like Captain stick in the ass in the paragraph above. As I said a few months ago getting into any new hobby or source of income depletion for recreation can and is intimidating…….To everyone and especially the veterans of the forum I ask simply that you take time to welcome new members, help them get acquainted, give advice and share experiences pertinent to the conversation.
If someone takes time to post a good article, idea or question take a moment if you can to reply...even if it’s just to say thanks for sharing. No need to come across as the village idiot or like a unicorn farting glitter and rainbows in your replies nor like Higgens boring Magnum to tears with another irrelevant story of Burma that had nothing to do with the subject he was asking about...
Rant over