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Boats: An interesting subject. They come in all sizes from tiny rubber rafts to huge Cruise giants that accommodate 8500 passengers and crew. Those floating hotels are just like a small city in itself with all the amenities, pleasures and toys. Starting at the bottom of this list, my first boat was a small toy about a foot long that I played with in the lake. That later blossomed into my Grandfathers fishing boat from where we fished for years. My gramp loved to fish and that was usually preceded by visiting a local farm where we dug in the manure pile for grub worms, the best bait for sunfish. That was fun. Then when my grandfather purchased a new small outboard motor we not only eliminated the oars, but we could travel further to fish and at that time I wanted to go faster so I built a small narrow boat out of plywood that I could stand on and steer by leaning one way or the other. That little 5 HP Johnson pushed me around pretty good and I travelled around Scandi umpteen times a day enjoying the ride. Well that blossomed into a light weight fishing boat that I could carry on the roof of my car, which I also built myself in the basement of our house using glue and screws. We travelled to Canada and Northern Minnesota for years with that boat where we found giant Northern Pike and filled our stomachs with Walleyes. Upgrading our boats continued for years, with larger boats, larger motors and more creature comforts, but in the meantime our kids were growing and their many friends were spending more time with us at the lake, which meant swimming, playing in the water and waterskiing. I then purchased an older Chris Craft boat, very luxurious, which pulled skiers, sometimes four or five at a time mostly on Sundays until they were tired. That boat was powerful. It pulled like a tractor. My friend Ole says that being ¾ of the earth is covered by water And only ¼ by land, it’s clear that the good Lord intended that man spend ¾ of his time fishing, and only ¼ of his time plowing his farm. Ole says fishing is a sport where there’s a jerk at one end of the line waiting for a jerk at the other end. As the kids grew older and bigger, and tired of swimming, we decided that we could spend more time fishing locally which we did. The solution, because there was no longer a need for speed was a Pontoon boat was just about perfect where we could float around the lake or park out on the middle of the lake for happy hour. Just about perfect. What could be better than that? I’ll tell you it’s the friendship and the comradery that happens out there on the lake during those beautiful afternoons. Now that is really something. In the meantime, we have Lincoln’s Birthday, one of the most important and loved of all Presidents, and also we must not forget Valentine’s Day, because if you forget that you will be in serious trouble. My friend Ole tells us that “Flowers are nice and Candy is dandy but Liquor is quicker”. Oh come on Ole. Well anyway, you know how we feel about you our customers. We are relaxed and comfortable when you come in so we can talk about banking problems and how to solve them, and we do that all the time. We want you to be happy and successful, and we want to be part of your success story, and we can help you buy a boat, and don’t forget about that convertible for your loved one. Right Dave?
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