Bill's New Dock

 

 

I had long thought that having a dock on my pond would be a nice addition to my landscaping. Besides, my granddaughters would surely enjoy using it as they frolicked in the pond using the plastic raft that I inflated and floated in the center of the pond each summer. Unfortunately, it seemed as though I misplaced my round tu it: the dock became one of those things that I never quite got around to doing. That was the case until this summer when I saw an ad in our newspaper for an $89 dock, a ten-footer, completely assembled and made of pressure-treated lumber, a humdinger if I ever saw one. All I had to do was install it. I began to see myself enjoying an adult beverage in the shade while the granddaughters played in the pond enjoying my new dock. I got a sudden boost to my resolve about the dock idea and shortly thereafter, I found my round tu it. 

I went to the lumberyard to talk with the man about the $89 dock and ask his advice since I had never installed anything in a pond beyond a blow-up toy. I learned there was more to the dock business than meets the eye. First, the durn thing was heavier than a team of horses, and second, it needed a system of supports to keep it upright. “And I have just the thing,” the friendly salesman said, pointing to a collection of pipes, collars, pinions, crossbeams, and assorted fasteners. When I asked why I needed such extensive support for a ten-foot dock, he explained about winter’s ice causing lifting and damage and what kind of bottom did I have by the way? I thought he was getting a little too personal until I understood he meant the bottom of my pond. When we finally sorted out what he and I guessed that I needed, the $89 dock had become a $300 dock.

Two men from the lumberyard loaded my new dock and the assorted pipes in the back of my truck. While I drove home I planned my strategy for a one-man installation of the heavy and cumbersome dock with the care and precision usually reserved for brain surgery. I would wear my shoulder-high waders and auger the pipes into the bottom soil of the pond until positioning the supports above the high-water mark. I would carefully make the dock level to the water by positioning a 12-foot board extending from the high water mark at the shore. Once the pipes were set, I would fasten the crossbeams and then slowly slide the dock in place avoiding any lateral force that might move the supports. It would be a carefully planned and executed bit of construction, fitting to my engineering background.

The big day for dock installation arrived. I decided on a preliminary investigation of the site I had chosen. I waded out in the pond measuring ten feet from the high water mark on the shore. The bottom was steeper than I expected: the water came perilously close to the top of my waders as I reached the ten foot mark. Too deep for my safety, it seemed to me. I decided to creep back to shore. Suddenly, I was struck by the fact my feet wouldn’t move. I had sunk into the muck and I was stuck. Furthermore, the effort required to free my foot was causing me to lose my balance and cold water was seeping over the top of my waders. In my mind, I pictured a cold, lifeless body firmly planted in the mud, weaving back and forth in the wind like a giant cattail. After a moment of panic, I remembered the shovel in my left hand that I had carried in the unrealistic expectation of digging a hole for the support pipes. I used the shovel for leverage to free my foot and keep my balance. I managed to waddle toward the shore.

Once on shore, it took me a split second to decide that the brain surgery idea was a loser. I settled on the approximation approach for locating the pipes --not at the end of the dock, but somewhere closer to the eight-foot mark where the water was a bit shallower and the muck a little less like quicksand.

I spent the rest of the afternoon measuring, augering, fastening and tugging the damnably heavy, stupid dock so it would rest on the support system. The approximation method seemed to work and the assembly went tolerably well as it was interrupted only once when I dropped a nut into the water and had to drive to the hardware store for a replacement. The clerk didn’t seem too surprised to see a man searching for a nut wearing shoulder-high waders. As he took my money, he affirmed my choice of pants for shopping, “Installing a new dock? he asked.” I nodded, unwilling to look him in the eye.

I finished the job after a long day. I peeled off my waders and called my lovely wife Marjorie to see the results of my labor. “Here it is,” I said, “a perfectly serviceable dock just a few feet from our patio extending ten feet into the pond. Our granddaughters will love it.”

Her response was unexpected. “Why are you all wet? Do the waders leak?”

I was too tired to explain. “I’m sure our granddaughters will love it. I expect they’ll laughing up a storm as they jump off the end of the dock and swim to the raft.”

“What about the ladder?” she asked. “They will need a ladder on the dock to climb out. Surely you don’t expect them to wade through the weeds to get to the shore.”

I didn’t tell her that was exactly what I expected. “Oh no, of course not. I just thought that …well, I’ll get a ladder tomorrow.”

Did you know that the only place you can buy a ladder of the type I needed is at a marina? The marina people seem to think that if you need a ladder with an extension at the top for climbing out of a pond, then you can afford a ladder that is three or four times more expensive than one from the hardware store that doesn’t have a top part. I purchased a small ladder at the marina, spending $129. As soon as I got it home, it was apparent it was too small – an unexpected but gross failure of the approximation system. My lovely bride returned to the marina for the next larger ladder while I tried to dry the insides of my waders with an air hose.

It turns out that marina ladders come in $50 increments. My dock was becoming as expensive as a used car. The new, longer ladder was also too short to reach the bottom that I couldn’t see because of the muck. I decided that enough was enough and I could put some concrete blocks on the bottom and let the too-short ladder rest on it instead of buying a longer ladder that would have made a $500 dock seem cheap. I put on the still-wet waders and slowly waded to the end of the dock balancing a concrete block in one hand. Using the approximation system, I dropped the dock to the bottom of the pond at the location where I believed the ladder would rest. Since the turgid water prevented seeing the bottom, after dropping the block, I gingerly felt for it with my toes while I held onto the dock for support. The concrete block was nowhere to be felt. It had completely disappeared. I puzzled over the disappearing block until it hit me – the muck had adsorbed the block. “Aha,” I said aloud. “all I need is another block to rest on the first.” I slogged my way back to the shore, slurp, slurp, slurp, as the muck gave up on keeping me in place. I then slushed to the back of my lawn where I store assorted concrete blocks and other material for emergency use in cases like the too-costly dock ladder. I decided on an assortment of block sizes to reach the end of the ladder from the bottom and I slogged in the water again. No longer trusting the approximation system, I went underwater to place the new blocks and position the ladder. I felt like an underwater construction-man as I finished attaching the ladder to the dock. Finally, I was finished. Although the dock project had cost more than anticipated and the work was harder than I had imagined, I was pleased with the outcome. And besides, the granddaughters were coming to visit.

They arrived the following weekend. It was a perfect day for swimming and our blue plastic raft beckoned while the dock seemed to invite us to splash our way into the water. Only one of the two girls put her swimsuit on and my urging to the absent eight-year-old about her swimming and using the new dock seemed to be having no affect.

“So Shana, why won’t you come for swimming with Grandma and me?” I asked.

She looked at me as if it were unpleasant necessity to explain things to an older person. “Do you expect me to swim in a pond filled with frog poop?”

My breathing became audible like air escaping from a giant balloon. I decided to start drinking early that day.