Two Guys Get on the Ferry . . .

Last week, some of the B.C. ferry runs were extremely problematic: it was Canadian Thanksgiving weekend and one of its biggest ferries, The Spirit of Something, had a fire which put it entirely out of commission for a week or so, beginning Friday morning.  This is a Tsawwassen-Vancouver Island ferry which even on quiet days is a heavily trafficked route.  Just one more thing to drive a commuter crazy.

We travel on the Horshoe Bay to Langdale route, which gets smaller ferries but more and more traffic all the time.  Today, however, the Saturday of a rainy, rainy weekend and the week after Canadian Thanksgiving, people must have just decided to stay home.  The 5:30 pm ferry had fewer cars/passengers than I have seen in a long time.  The festivals really are over.  Until they start again next tourist season,of course.

I was sitting by the window when two guys sat themselves in the seat in front of me.  We were pretty much the only people in about 8 rows of seats.  They, like me, were people of a certain age, an age that starts around 65, of course, when one, long ago caught, is now released and is required to find a new life strategy.  They were not travelling together on the ferry but had apparently run into one another on their travel up from the lower decks where their cars were parked.  Because they had voices that carried well, I was privy to their conversation, although they were largely unaware of me since I was sitting behind them.  Indeed, I would have to have done something radical not to have heard it.  I’m used to other peoples’ conversations of course since we have been blessed with cell phones, but there you get to hear only the one side. 

‘What,’ I asked myself, ‘do such guys talk about when they are (more or less) alone?’  The answer to that question is this:

A. ‘Yeh, I sold my condo, and then I bought another one.  It’s okay.  I like not having to do the yard work.’
B. ‘We’re going to Thailand for the winter and then will come back to the Sunshine Coast in March.’
A. ‘We’re having our first grandchild.  It’ll be born in March.’
B. ‘We don’t have any grandchildren.  Our kids don’t want kids.’
A. ‘Well, yeah; it’s a scarey world.’
A.  ‘We’re going to Florida for the winter, but we'll be back in March, too.  For the grandchild.’
B. ‘My bicycle got stolen.  I don’t like the new ones, I don’t like the aluminum.  I’m getting old and want more of an upright ride.  I found a new 1991 model in Vancouver.  I’m on my way to pick it up now.  I like bicycle riding.’
A. ‘I’ve given up ballroom dancing, but I’m still teaching Tai Chi.’
B. ‘In Thailand, we live like kings.’

A offers a long monologue on bicycle gears.
A and B offer one another a long discussion of stocks: which ones they made money on, particularly.  A is currently in high-yield bond funds, and B in stocks still paying dividends.  A sold his stocks before the crash pretty much; B bought and held on.  They agree that it’s a problem, knowing what to do now.
A. ‘Still got your boat?’
B. ‘Yeah, although I don’t go out much on it.’  This is followed by a long listing of people whom they know who own boats and what those boats are like.
A.  ‘Doing any consulting?’
B. ‘A little.’  This is followed by a long listing by both of all the guys they know who are doing consulting/contracting work.  (The two apparently both previously worked at the Howe Sound pulp mill operation.)

The ferry sound system announces that it is time for us to go back to our cars.  And we do.  And that’s what men talk about (to misquote Raymond Carver) when they talk about retirement.